Cognitive Test?

The Supremes:  The Supreme Court finally issued its much awaited rulings on two cases involving Trump’s financial information.  The first case tested whether Congress can obtain Trump’s financial records from accounting firm Mazars USA, Deutsche Bank and Capital One and the other whether Trump as president is immune from state criminal investigation while in office.  The NY case involves a subpoena from Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. on possible tax violations related to those hush money payments to Stormy Daniels as well as Michael Cohen’s assertion that Trump overstated the value of his assets for bank loans while understating income for tax purposes.  By a vote of 7 to 2, with both of Trump’s appointees joining with the majority, the Court effectively held that presidents are not above the law, dealing a blow to Trump’s delusions of absolute power. That’s the good news, the not so good news is that both cases were sent back to the lower courts for additional review making it unlikely, especially in the case of the requests from Congress, that any of Trump’s financial information will be turned over before the November election.  That’s the view of most of the pundits that weighed in yesterday, however Neal Katyal, Obama’s former Solicitor General, is more optimistic about the NY Case.  He believes that if the courts were able to issue an opinion in the 2008 Bush v Gore case in 36 days and decide the Nixon Watergate tapes case in under four months from start to finish that it should be easy for them to resolve the remaining issues in the NY case, particularly since the Supreme Court ruling there left Trump little wiggle room. The bottom line is that it’s highly likely that some, if not all, of the requested information is going to make it into the hands of NY and some, likely not all, will ultimately make it to Congress but not as soon as any of us want.  Although the delays clearly pleased Trump, the master of delaying legal consequences,  the realization that he’s not a monarch and that he will eventually have to fork over his financial records appears to be freaking him out.  Yesterday he tweeted about presidential harassment, political prosecution, NY corruption and witch hunts.  Of course by the end of the day the Trump machine spun the Court’s decision as a big win, with Trump saying it was a major victory and Press Secretary McEnany saying his was very gratified, particularly in the case related to the Congressional subpoenas as the Court specified some challenging hurdles that Congress will have to meet before they get hold of Trump’s information.  The Court also issued another interesting ruling yesterday, deciding by a vote of 5 to 4, with Justice Gorsuch joining the liberal wing, that most of Eastern Oklahoma is an Indian reservation exempt from Oklahoma law. That’s interesting on two fronts, first because the ruling could have an impact in other parts of the country and secondly because it shows that even reliably conservative court appointees can unpredictably waiver from the party line.  It appears that Justice Gorsuch, who wrote the majority opinion, has a surprising sweet spot when it comes to honoring Native American rights.

More Injustice: Getting back to Michael Cohen, though it’s not entirely clear why, he’s back in jail either because he was seen eating out with friends, a violation of his virus related home custody, or because he refused to agree to some of the terms of his home custody, most notably a ban on writing a tell all book.  There’s special irony in that given that Trump appears to be itching to finally issue that anticipated pardon to Roger Stone who is due to begin serving his sentence next week.  One more thing on the Justice front, in testimony before the House Judiciary committee ousted SDNY US Attorney Geoffrey Berman confirmed that he’d been forced out by Attorney General Barr.  He said that Barr repeatedly attempted to “coax” him into resigning by suggesting he consider other positions in government, including the chairmanship of the Securities and Exchange Commission or a “do nothing job” as the head of the Justice Department's Civil Division, one that Barr tried to make sound more alluring by saying that it wouldn’t require much work but would be a resume enhancer as opposed to being publicly fired which Barr asserted would be a career killer.  Berman said that when he refused to step down or accept one of those other positions, he was summarily fired by press release. So much for Barr’s assertion that Berman decided to leave of his own volition. Then again by now we all know that Barr is hardly a truth teller. Not surprisingly, Berman wouldn’t discuss any of the cases being pursued by the SDNY but said that he had loved the job and was determined that his departure not do anything to disrupt ongoing prosecutions.  To that end, after his conversation with Barr but before he was officially terminated, he had engaged his own lawyers to make sure that he got to dictate the terms of his departure, those are the terms that “convinced” Barr to replace him with his trusted deputy Audrey Strauss rather than Barr’s first choice the US Attorney for NJ.  Assuming he doesn’t cancel Barr is due to be grilled by Congress at the end of the month.      

Viral Musings:  The coronavirus is surging through large parts of country.  VP Pence, the head of the coronavirus task force, continues to falsely assert that statistics indicate that there’s nothing to worry about because infection and positivity rates are plateauing and coming under control in Arizona, Florida and everywhere else where they’re actually rising.  Press Secretary McEnany says that hospital occupancies are up but that’s only because of all those people taking up beds for facelifts and other non-essential procedures. Trump still wants all children back in school to “save” his economy, safety be damned.  Despite Pence’s assertion that the CDC is going to issue new more “reasonable” school opening guidelines, CDC head Redfield now says that he’s not, that he’s only going to amend them to include some back-up information.  And in the understatement of the year virus guru Fauci said that “I Don’t Think You Can Say We’re Doing Great. I Mean, We’re Just Not.” McEnany’s response to that was to refuse to confirm that Trump still has confidence in Fauci. 

Curious and Curiouser:  Last night in a broadcasted phone call with his good buddy Sean Hannity Trump said that he recently aced a cognitive test that he took at Walter Reed Hospital, “in front of doctors” and that they were “very surprised.” So Trump may have just admitted that he had a stroke of some kind and that was the reason that he was rushed to the hospital earlier this year!

Have a nice weekend.  Stay safe and wherever appropriate #WearAMask.