Back to the Future

Déjà vu:  The big news yesterday was going to be that Hope Hicks has agreed to testify in front of a closed door meeting of the House Judiciary Committee, that Don Jr finally testified in front of a closed session of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and that Attorney General Barr and former White House Counsel McGahn had been held in civil contempt for refusing to provide documents and in McGahn’s case for refusing to show up and testify but then Trump did what Trump does, he sucked the oxygen out of the universe by saying that there was nothing wrong with getting “opposition research” from foreign adversaries because everyone in Congress does it (they don’t) and that he’d be open to doing it again.  He said that during an Oval Office interview with ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos where he again denied that Don Jr had told him about the infamous Trump Tower meeting with Russian lawyer Veselnitskaya in advance even though little Donnie doesn’t go to the bathroom without first getting permission from his dad, going on to say that it didn’t matter anyway because who wouldn’t have taken a meeting with Russians offering dirt on their political opponents.  Then when asked whether his campaign would accept such information from foreigners such as China or Russia or hand it over to the FBI, Trump said  "I think maybe you do both," though it was fairly clear that he didn’t think that keeping the FBI in the loop would be a priority.  Trump elaborated by saying that if a country like Norway called with dirt, of course he’d take the call and the dirt and of course by Norway he didn’t mean Norway.  He emphatically disputed the idea that a foreign government providing information on a political opponent would be considered interference in the election process, a defense of his son’s Trump Tower meeting conveniently timed to coincide with the lies that his son probably told the Senate Intelligence Committee, a warning to the rest of us that he’s open for more help from overseas and an invitation to Russia, China, North Korea and every other country and WikiLeaks like organization with a nefarious motive that he’s open to a repeat of 2016 because if that’s what it takes for him to win reelection, particularly in light of his campaign committee’s bad internal polling results that he says are really the best polling results they’ve ever had, blaming bad news about them as nothing more than fake news ginned up by the “corrupt media,” so be it.  As to FBI  involvement, Trump said that he’d only call those deep state agents if he thought there “was something wrong,” a statement that clearly contradicted FBI Director Christopher Wray’s earlier remarks that politicians receiving offers of dirt from foreign players should call his agency pronto.  When Stephanopoulos pointed out Wray’s position, Trump said “Give me a break, life doesn’t work that way” adding “the FBI Director is wrong.”  It’s fair to assume that the “corrupt media” will be staking out Wray’s office seeking comments on Trump’s remarks today.  Sadly it’s not all that clear how Wray will respond because if he really had any integrity he’d have resigned by now.  As to Republican leadership, or for that matter any Republicans, with the exception of outlier Congressman Justin Amash, who was the only Republican to vote with the Democrats to hold Barr and McGahn in civil contempt, so far its crickets from them.  And just to further drive the Orwellian state of the country home, John Durham, the US Attorney assigned by Attorney General Barr to look into how the investigation into the Trump campaign’s Russian “meddling” originated is planning to interview two CIA agents to find out what they know under the theory that the investigation into Trump and Russia, not the attempts at collusion and sharing of DNC emails, was the real problem.

2020:  The Democrats first debate list isn’t finalized yet but it looks like we’ll be hearing from one former VP,  a mix of Senators and Congresspeople, and at least one spiritualist.  The “in” list includes Joe Biden, Corey Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Julian Castro, Tulsi Gabbard, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Jay Inslee, Amy Klobuchar,  Beto O’Rourke , Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Marianne Williamson, Andrew Yang, Michael Bennet, Bill de Blasio, John Delaney, John Hickenlooper, Tim Ryan, and Eric Swalwell.  The “out list” includes Steve Bullock, Seth Moulton and Mike Gravel, the 89 year old who makes Biden and Sanders look like young whippersnappers.  Don’t lose sleep if you don’t know who some of these people are, many won’t go the distance, although a number of the underqualified will be around for a while longer.  As to the cutoff, Montana Senator Bullock is already calling foul, questioning the exclusion of one poll that would have tied him with Congressman Swalwell for the twentieth slot, saying that he’s suffering an unfair penalty for delaying the announcement of his candidacy in order to first get the Obamacare Medicaid expansion passed in his “red” state, an accomplishment that in and of itself should have qualified him for the stage.  He does have a point, it’s kind of hard to understand why we will be better off hearing from spiritual psychotherapist/author/friend of Oprah Marianne Williamson, friend of Bashir Assad Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard and NY Mayor de Blasio but so it goes.  On the Republican front, it should surprise no one to learn that Trump is going after  Congressman Justin Amash, the one Republican who is calling for his impeachment because he, unlike most of the other Republicans has actually read and understood the Mueller Report.  Amash has also been forced out of the influential House Freedom Caucus and Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy won’t even speak his name.  Lastly, on the independent/third party front, citing extreme back pain and three recent back surgeries, not to mention his weak polling, Mr. Starbucks AKA Howard Schultz has suspended his campaign for now.   

Other Obstruction:  After AG Barr advised him to do so, Trump  invoked executive privilege to block the House Oversight Committee from obtaining documents and testimony concerning the efforts to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census which is pretty much an admission that the rationale for adding the question has nothing to do with promoting voting rights but  is part of a Republican effort to disenfranchise Democratic voting minorities and short change states with larger immigrant populations. Shortly after Trump went the executive privilege route, the Oversight Committee voted to hold AG Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt for ignoring its subpoenas for that information. Separately the ACLU, which has challenged the question in court, is now asking that if the Supreme Court doesn’t rule to block the citizenship query from being added to the census, that the justices allow a district court to examine the new evidence before making a final ruling.  Getting back to that executive privilege thing, though its good that Hopey Hicks has agreed to testify, it’s not good that her appearance will be in a closed session since it would be much better to see her talk about all of those “white lies” she’s previously admitted to in a public setting and because she’ll be accompanied by a White House lawyer who is expected to invoke executive privilege whenever she’s asked a probing question, even though much of the time that executive privilege assertion will be just another deflection/stalling tactic.