Oversight?

Constitution, What Constitution?  Trump is officially at war with Democrats in an effort to put a halt to or at the very least stymie Congressional oversight.  His decision to impede investigations goes beyond his attempts to squash the details of the Russia investigation, under his direction his administration has been ignoring requests for documents and banning or limiting the availability of administrative officials called in to testify on a variety of subjects: want to learn more about the granting of security clearances, forget about asking about Ivanka’s or Jared’s; Trump’s tax returns, no way; former White House Counsel Don McGahn’s notes, dream on; hear from Bob Mueller, not as long as he’s still on the government payroll.  The “no go” list goes on and on. We shouldn’t be all that surprised that Trump has decided to ignore the Constitution and that whole three equal branches of government thing, after all he’s already gone after the courts, specifically the judges who have put the brakes on some of his more heinous policies and he’s doing his best to stack the courts with those who’ll let him get away with anything he wants. While other presidents have fought with Congress and at various times failed to respond to document requests, mostly they’ve worked with legislators to find a “middle ground” or at the very least have limited their disputes to specific issues. Over the past few days, it’s been pointed out that Eric Holder, one of  Obama’s Attorneys General, was held in contempt by Congress when he refused to release documents related to the fast and furious gunwalking scandal, however Holder, and by extension Obama’s failure to release documents was limited, not part of a general strategy. Yesterday, before the House Judiciary Committee voted to recommend that the House hold Attorney General Barr in contempt for failing to share the full Mueller report, or most of the report as Nadler did agree that keeping the Grand Jury info under wraps was okay for now, the White House retroactively asserted executive privilege over the report even though most of it has already been shared with the public. That knock at your door, it could be the Trump thought police coming to get the copy you bought from Amazon or Barnes & Noble back.  Even John Yoo, the Berkeley Law professor who worked in the George W Bush administration and is known for both his expansive view of presidential power and for signing off on waterboarding, says that Trump’s approach is “novel and dangerous.”   He points out that the “blanket refusal” to share any documents with Congress is unprecedented, adding that Trump’s “treating Congress like they’re the Chinese or a local labor union working on a Trump building.  Even some Republicans are pushing back at the Trump strategy.  Despite all the pushback, yesterday the Republican led Senate Intelligence Committee subpoenaed Don Trump Jr to answer questions about his previous testimony before Senate investigators in relation to the Russia investigation; apparently the younger Donald’s earlier testimony about his knowledge and involvement in the Trump Tower Moscow project and the infamous Trump tower meeting with Natalia Veselnitskaya differs from what was included in the Mueller report. In response, Don Jr, who refused to show for an interview with Mueller’s team is already squawking about the subpoena and a number of Donald Sr’s surrogates are attacking Senator Richard Burr, the Republican chair of the committee for being a turncoat, even suggesting that he’s nothing more than Democrat in drag. He’s no Democrat, but clearly he didn’t get or chose to ignore Senate Majority Leader McConnell’s message that the Russian investigation thing was so yesterday.   Though this fight could get ugly, unlike his sister Ivanka, Don Jr is not employed by the White House so Trump can’t invoke executive privilege to protect him.  If and when Don Jr shows up to testify, it’s quite possible that he will invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination because that’s the kind of thing that Trump’s do. Also, some cooperation seems to have broken out in of all places the House Intelligence Committee.  Though their motives differ, Chairman Adam Schiff and Ranking Member Devon Nunes both want their committee to see the full unredacted Mueller report, they say that since their broad mandate includes counter intelligence oversight they have to see the whole report and all related counter intelligence material to fulfill their mission so they too have issued a subpoena for the full unredacted report.  As to testimony, the unpredictable Judge Napolitano, Fox News’ senior judicial analyst, also missed the Trump/McConnell message, yesterday he said that he believes that when the dust settles, Mueller and McGahn will testify before Congress because there is “substantial public interest.”  He can kiss his invitation to any of those White House cold “hamberders” luncheons good bye.

Other Shenanigans:  Trump headed down to the Florida Panhandle to do a little campaigning.  He attacked four of the Democratic presidential wannabees including Sleepy Joe, Mayor Pete, Beto and Bernie.  The other 18 or so challengers are probably pretty bummed that they aren’t front and center on his list, they could use the free press.  Before leaving Washington Trump did manage to express somewhat belated condolences to the victims of the most recent school shooting in Colorado but that didn’t stop him for laughing when one of his Florida MAGA fans suggested that shooting a few of the migrants at the Mexico border would be a fun thing to do.  Trump loves press, but only good press so his Press office has quietly changed its rules of engagement with the media.  Apparently, they’ve begun enforcing new rules that severely limit the number of journalists given press passes that afford them easier access to the White House. Dana Milbank, a well- known columnist at the Washington Post who has held a White House press pass for 21 years, wrote Wednesday that his has been revoked as part of a “mass purge” among the greater press corps.   The point of the new policy is to make it easier for the White House to keep “problem” reporters off the premises because who wants to answer any of those really challenging questions anyway?  On the international front, it’s reported that Trump is starting to question his national security advisor John Bolton’s hawkish tendencies, or at the very least he’s annoyed with him for underestimating Venezuela leader Maduro’s staying power.  Also, Trump’s good buddy Kim Jong un launched some more unidentified “projectiles” overnight and for what it’s worth Europeans leaders have told Iran that they are rejecting the country’s ultimatum that it will restart its enrichment program unless sanctions are lifted.