Egg Roll Please......

It's Mueller Time:  The redacted Mueller Report will be released today sometime after 11 AM but not before Attorney General Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein hold a 9:30 AM press conference during which Barr is expected to once again provide his personal, very Trump friendly, overview of the report’s contents. Notably neither Special Counsel Mueller nor any members of his team are expected to attend the conference, an indication that they are keeping their distance from Barr, possibly because they aren’t all that happy about his efforts to spin their work product into something that that it isn’t, an exoneration of Trump.  It’s extremely unusual that the press conference is taking place before the report’s release and even odder that Trump, the subject of much of the report was the one to reveal that there would even be a press conference.  His reveal came during a radio interview where he said that “You'll see a lot of very strong things come out tomorrow,” whatever that means.   Trump also indicated that depending on his mood, he might follow the Barr presentation with a press conference of his own giving him another opportunity to scream NO COLLUSION, TOTAL VINDICATION before everyone leaves town for the combined Easter/Passover holiday weekend.  That’s not the only peculiar thing about this process; last night the NY Times revealed that Barr has thoroughly briefed the White House lawyers about the contents of the report which explains why he refused to respond to any questions on that subject during his recent Senate testimony, instead mumbling something nonsensical about everyone just having to wait for that plane to land.  It also explains Rudy Giuliani’s assertion that he and the other White House lawyers, including the very faithful Jay Sekulow, have already prepared a rebuttal to the report.  Among other things that rebuttal is expected to attack the origins, or as Trump has been known to say, the oranges, of the investigation and the credibility of the individuals who conducted it.   As to Barr, Just Security, the online national law security forum based at NYU, reports that he has a history of obscuring inconvenient documents.  In 1989 when he was the Assistant Attorney General for the George HW Bush Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel he misleadingly summarized an OLC opinion, one that concluded that the FBI could forcibly abduct people in other countries without the consent of the foreign state, an opinion that paved the way for the abduction of Panama’s leader Manuel Noriega.  He did a pretty good job, the true contents of that opinion remained hidden for years.  Getting back to the Mueller report, the Washington Post reports that it will be only “lightly redacted,” that it will “offer a detailed blow-by-blow of Trump’s alleged conduct, analyzing tweets, private threats and other episodes at the center of Mueller’s inquiry” while explaining that Mueller found that he couldn’t conclude that Trump was guilty of obstruction because he hadn’t been able to get to Trump’s intent.  The Democratic Chairs of the House Committees, most notably Judiciary Chair Nadler, are fairly furious that the press conference is taking place before any of them get to see the report, they’ve called for it to be cancelled but like a lot of things they call for, that’s not going to happen.  However, as a result of a motion filed by Trump’s long term buddy Roger Stone’s lawyers, Judge Amy Jackson Berman has order that they and select members of the House, a group that will probably include Nadler and Intel Chair Schiff should get another less redacted version of the report, one that reveals more information about what led to Stone’s indictment.

Barring:  AG Barr has been a busy bunny.  In addition to prepping the Trump White House and preparing another summary of the Mueller report he’s also doing his best to cut back on the rights of some of those migrants crossing over from Mexico.  On Tuesday he  unilaterally revoked the right of asylum seekers who enter the US illegally to ask an immigration judge for release on bond.  If Barr’s ruling is allowed to go into effect, the only way for an asylum seeker to be released from detention during the weeks or months it takes for his or her case to be heard by a judge would be for ICE to allow him/her to be released on parole. Not surprisingly, the ACLU plans to sue to block the ruling.  The ruling which is not scheduled to go into effect for 90 days does not apply to migrants with children or to those entering through any of the  “legal” crossing points, the ones that are backed-up because of the government’s current policy to “meter” the number of people who are allowed to seek asylum at any given time.  As to those immigrants that Trump, Barr and little Stevie Miller are trying so hard to stop at the border, this morning’s Wall Street Journal reports that the country has become increasingly dependent on them “to fill jobs and fund programs like Social Security and Medicare” and that their inflow is contributing to, rather than diminishing economic growth.

Human Resources: During an interview conducted while she was in Africa on her women empowerment tour, first daughter Ivanka confirmed that her father really did offer her the World Bank president job but that she turned him down because she really likes what she’s doing whatever that is.  She also revealed that he has offered her a few other jobs, probably the Ambassador to the UN slot, she refused to go into any specifics but confirmed that she had turned down those offers too. She also insisted that she had been telling the truth when she’d earlier told ABC’s Abby Huntsman that she had gotten her security clearance the “regular way,” saying that all those reports that her father had weighed in on her behalf were just more FAKE NEWS.  It’s hard to tell if she was serious as her face was so expressionless and frozen, an indication that she may have inherited that “lying with ease” gene or the result of too much Botox or most likely as the result of both. On the Federal Reserve front, although Trump has hinted that its time for him to withdraw his nomination, one time presidential candidate and pizza purveyor, Herman Cain insists that he’s not going anywhere even though he knows that he doesn’t have enough Senate votes to be confirmed.  Lastly, Politico Reports that Energy Secretary Rick Perry who has managed to keep a low profile for the past two years wants out of the administration and is already prepping his deputy to step into his position.  There had been rumors that Perry was under consideration to replace Nielsen as the Homeland Security Secretary, but Perry, who was relatively friendly to immigrants during his years as Texas Governor wasn’t all that interested.   

Happy Passover and Easter. Chocolate Eggs and Matza for all!