Before the Ides of March

Hamburgers Anyone? On Monday while serving another college football team, this time the division championship winning North Dakota State Bison, some of those fast food “hamberders” that he loves so much, Trump mocked the Green New Deal, saying that if it was ever implemented hamburgers would be permanently banned from the US diet.  He also told the players and the assembled press that he would cooperate with House investigators because he always does.  Of course he also called the investigation out as the biggest witch hunt ever, reminding everyone present that there was NO COLLUSION.  That period of cooperation lasted about as long as a fast food burger stays warm.  Yesterday, White House counsel Pat Cipollone said that though he’d be happy to have the White House Chief Security Officer brief Oversight Committee members on the processes for security clearance reviews as soon as the two of them return from their latest hamburger run, he would not authorize the release of the information that the House Oversight Committee had requested calling those requests “unprecedented and extraordinarily intrusive.”  By that Cipollone probably means that their release, particularly the release of the letters to the files written by former Chief of Staff Kelly and former White House Counsel McGahn, would reveal that the “processes” don’t apply to family.  It turns out that it wasn’t just Jared who got special treatment, Ivanka did too, based on three sources CNN reports that she got her top security clearance over the objections of the FBI and White House advisors because her daddy wanted her to have it.   The White House’s refusal to provide the security clearance information increases the chance that Committee Chair Elijah Cummings will subpoena the documents, setting up what will likely be a protracted battle for the information. As to that report about Ivanka, Press Secretary Sarah Sanders refused to comment because the White House doesn’t comment on anything related to security clearances, especially information provided by anonymous sources, even when those sources are people that she knows (Kellyanne?). Relying on a 1924 law that gives chairmen of House and Senate tax-writing committees broad powers to demand the tax returns of White House officials Congressional Democrats are carefully laying the groundwork to go after ten years of Trump’s tax returns, something that will likely provoke a fight, this time with Treasury Secretary Mnuchin who knows that his days will be numbered if he doesn’t fight back hard. It’s not just Congressional Democratic causing Trump agita right now, New York State regulators are looking into the possibility that the Trump organization marked up the value of its properties in order to obtain favorable terms on insurance policies, a subject broached by Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) during last week’s Michael Cohen testimony and then followed up on by Rachel Maddow on one of her nightly segments.  They have subpoenaed Aon, the London based financial services company, an insurance provider for the Trump organization.  Aon’s officials say that they will cooperate with the New York regulators. AOC’s Green New Deal may have flaws, but whether she wrote them or not, her questions were spot on.  

People:  Michael Bloomberg formally announced that he will not be running for president, instead he plans to spend a couple of $100 million helping Democrats win the presidency and take back the Senate. His efforts and financial largesse will be directed towards candidates who share his views on gun control and protecting the environment.  As to the environment he threw a little shade at the Green New Deal particularly the social policy components of the plan, saying that since there is no chance that the plan would ever pass the Senate in its current form he’ll instead be redoubling his efforts on phasing out coal power plants and mitigating the impacts of climate change because  “Mother Nature does not wait on our political calendar, and neither can we." Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley, who helped bring the plight of the undocumented immigrant children held at detention centers and separated from their parents to the forefront last year also announced that he won’t be running in 2020, instead he plans to focus on getting reelected to the Senate, the threats to economic equality, the climate and the democratic system and fixing the “broken and dysfunctional Senate so it isn’t just a graveyard for good ideas.”  FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, one of the few Trump appointees who seemed to take a regulatory job seriously, announced that that he’ll be leaving within the month because he hates the commute back to his family in Connecticut or for some other reason that he’d rather not share.  His resignation was a surprise to all but probably pleases purveyors of electric cigarettes as he was an outspoken opponent of teen vaping.  Senator Bernie Sanders, who is not a Democrat but does look a lot older than he did in 2016, signed a statement affirming that "I am a member of the Democratic Party. I will run a Democrat, accept the nomination of my party, and I will serve as a Democrat if elected" because if that’s what it takes to get elected, he’s all in. Michael Cohen will be back in front of the House Intelligence Committee today in another one of those closed door sessions and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen will be on the hot seat in front of the House Homeland Security Committee where she is expected to be grilled about the child separation policy, the policy that she earlier testified didn’t exist. Don’t be surprised if Trump digs up his old Schitt nickname for House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff again soon.  Yesterday it was reported that Schiff’s committee has hired Daniel Goldman, a former US Attorney from the Southern District of New York who most recently worked as an NBC legal analyst. While at the SDNY, Goldman specialized in the prosecution of mob families, could a RICO case be in the offing?  As to criminal types, Roger Stone probably had a few sleepless moments last night.  Judge Amy Berman Jackson told him that the recent re-release of his book that calls special counsel Robert Mueller "crooked" isn't in line with her strict gag order on his case, she also can’t be all that pleased with his most recent Instagram posting.  Depending on how upset she really is he could end up in jail before the week is out.  And though he says that he has no inside information, former CIA Director John Brennan says that he thinks that some serious indictments will be handed down on Friday, the usual day for Mueller indictments.  He says that this Friday makes sense because he believes that the final indictments have to come before Mueller releases his report, the report that is expected shortly, and that next Friday is the Ides of March, a date that Mueller would want to avoid.  Sounds silly, but then again he was the chief spy so who knows?

International Front:  After Trump’s first meeting with Kim Jong un the North Korean’s started dissembling portions of an inter-ballistic missile test site.  At the time a number of military analysts said that it would be naïve to believe that the North Koreans were doing anything to the site that couldn’t easily be reversed.  It looks like they were correct.   US Military experts and South Korean intelligence report that the North Koreans are now in the process of putting the test site back together. Apparently, Kim is really pissed that his pen pal Trump walked away from Hanoi without lifting any sanctions.  As to those sanctions, national security advisor John Bolton who never really believed that anything good would come from the Hanoi meeting is now threatening that additional ones will be imposed.