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Give Me an I:  Former White House Counsel Don McGahn was due to testify in front of the House Judiciary Committee today, however those plans are now off, or at least off for now.  Yesterday the White House went ahead and did what everyone paying attention pretty much expected they would do, they effectively blocked McGahn from showing up for his scheduled testimony.  First current White House Counsel Pat Cipollone wrote Chairman Nadler that the Justice Department had advised him that McGahn is “absolutely immune from compelled congressional testimony with respect to matters occurring during his service as a senior advisor” to Trump, a view that is not widely held except by people like Attorney General Barr who believe in the all-powerful unitary presidency and in in any case makes little sense since, with White House permission, McGahn already cooperated with Special Counsel Mueller and his hours of interviews served as the basis for all those examples of Trump’s obstructive actions included in the publicly released redacted Mueller report.  Driving home Cipollone’s message, Press Secretary Sarah Sanders released a statement repeating that McGahn “cannot be forced” to testify and that he had been “directed to act accordingly,” adding we shouldn’t think that the Justice Department has taken that position just to protect Trump because it’s a position that will  “ensure that future presidents can effectively execute the responsibilities of the office” and Trump really cares about future presidents and wouldn’t want any of them to have to worry about having their efforts at obstruction aired in public.  Later in the day McGahn’s lawyer, because in Trumpland all lawyers need and have their own lawyers,  advised Nadler that McGahn wouldn’t be appearing today because as with the subpoena for his notes  he “again finds himself facing contradictory instructions from two co-equal branches of government, and "under these circumstances, and also conscious of the duties he, as an attorney, owes to his former client, Mr. McGahn must decline to appear at the hearing." To be clear McGahn could show up and testify if he wanted to but he’d rather maintain all those important relationships he has with Republican party bigwigs so cooperating with a bunch of Democrats just isn’t something he wants to do.   A less than pleased Nadler then sent a letter of his own to McGahn, warning him that the Judiciary Committee would use "all enforcement mechanisms at its disposal" to compel his testimony. It’s reported that behind the scenes Democrats had some very heated discussions last night about initiating impeachment proceedings.  Speaker Pelosi is still pushing back but it’s highly likely that the “I” is coming.

M is for Mazars:  The Democrats did move a few steps closer to getting a peek at some of Trump’s financial information yesterday.  Circuit Court Judge Amit Mehta told Trump’s accounting firm Mazars to turn over the Trump and Trump Inc financial records that had been subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee.  The judge rejected Trump’s lawyers’ attempts to block the subpoena saying that "It is simply not fathomable that a Constitution that grants Congress the power to remove a president for reasons including criminal behavior would deny Congress the power to investigate him for unlawful conduct -- past or present -- even without formally opening an impeachment inquiry." Pleased as punch with Mehta’s view and impressed by his lengthy and thorough analysis House Democrats moved quickly to bring the ruling to the attention of the judge in New York who is considering challenges to House subpoenas to Deutsche Bank and Capitol One for more Trump records.  Trump’s legal team plans to appeal Mehta’s decision, but will have to act fast because though the Judge gave the Mazars firm seven days to provide the requested information to Congress, confident that his decision will be upheld, he refused to issue a stay saying instead that "The court is well aware that this case involves records concerning the private and business affairs of the President of the United States. But on the question of whether to grant a stay pending appeal, the President is subject to the same legal standard as any other litigant that does not prevail."  The Trump appeal will be heard by the Washington DC Court of Appeals, which is the headed by Merrick Garland, the judge who was screwed out of becoming a Supreme Court Justice when Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell sat on his nomination. Karma? On a separate front, New York State lawmakers struck a final deal on legislation that will allow Congressional Democrats to get their hands on Trump's state tax returns. A final vote on that legislation is expected to take place tomorrow, Governor Cuomo has already said that he will sign it into law as soon as it makes it to his desk.   

P is for Prisoner:  Yesterday, the House Intelligence Committee released transcripts of its February and March interviews with former Trump lawyer/fixer, current jailbird Michael Cohen.  The transcripts reveal that Cohen told the committee that Trump attorney Jay Sekulow encouraged him to testify falsely to Congress in 2017 about the duration of discussions around the Trump Tower Moscow project. Specifically Cohen said that Sekulow advised him to make it clear that the negotiations about the tower had ended before the Iowa caucuses took place because Trump didn’t want anyone to know that he’d been negotiating with Russians while running for president, especially since he had assured all of his voters that he had no current or past business in Russia, a very Trumpian lie but then again that’s what Trump does, a lot.  Cohen also revealed that Abbe Lowell, Ivanka and Jared’s lawyer had him whitewash his testimony to make it appear that Ivanka had been out of the Moscow Tower loop even though she remained involved and up to speed on the project during the entire time that it was alive.  In a carefully worded statement that doesn’t explicitly contradict Cohen, Sekulow’s lawyers said that it “defies logic” that any congressional committee would rely on Cohen’s statements “for any purpose” because you know he’s a convicted liar and a jailbird. Likewise, Giuliani weighed in pointing out that Cohen, unlike Trump, isn’t trustworthy.  

E, A, and You Get the Drift:  In order to make it appear that coal doesn’t really pollute as much as it does the EPA  plans to adopt a new method for projecting the future health risks of air pollution because if you want to keep polluting and causing asthma and early deaths it’s so much easier to just manipulate the statistics than to stop polluting.  On the Iran front, Secretary of State Pompeo and national advisor Bolton are working behind the scenes to lay the groundwork for squeezing the justification of a war with Iran into the AUMF (the authorization for the use of military force) that was passed right after the 9.11 attacks to justify the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in order to avoid having to seek permission from Congress.  The key elements of their strategy involve drawing links between al Qaeda and Iran and casting Iran as a terrorist threat to the US, which is “exactly what administration officials have been doing in recent weeks.”  It’s looking more and more likely that Trump is getting ready to pardon some servicemen who have either been accused of or have been found guilty of committing some really heinous atrocities while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan because what’s a war crime or two among friends?  Lastly, and maybe my favorite news item, Trump is mad at Fox for giving Democratic presidential candidates so much air time.  In particular he’s annoyed that Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who he has started calling Alfred E Neuman (think Mad Magazine)  got so much applause during a recent Fox Townhall.