The Commentariat -- May 2, 2019

Afternoon Update:

Paul Schwarzman & Peter Hermann of the Washington Post: Baltimore “Mayor Catherine E. Pugh, who is under state and federal investigation over lucrative sales of her self-published children's books, resigned Thursday, plunging this already rattled city into another political crisis. Pugh (D), a former state lawmaker, has been under public scrutiny since at least March, following news reports about the book deals with companies that do business with the city and state. Her attorney, Steven D. Silverman, announced her resignation at his downtown law office..., reading a statement from Pugh, who was believed to be at her home elsewhere in the city."

They Really Don't Care, Do They? Jacob Soboroff of NBC News: "On the same day the Trump administration said it would reunite thousands of migrant families it had separated at the border with the help of a 'central database,' an official was admitting privately the government only had enough information to reconnect 60 parents with their kids, according to emails obtained by NBC News. '[I]n short, no, we do not have any linkages from parents to [children], save for a handful,' a Health and Human Services official told a top official at Immigration and Customs Enforcement on June 23, 2018. 'We have a list of parent alien numbers but no way to link them to children.'... The gaps in the system for tracking separations would result in a months-long effort to reunite nearly 3,000 families separated under the administration's 'zero tolerance' policy. Officials had to review all the relevant records manually, a process that continues."

A Very Sudden Decision to Withdraw. Jordan Fabian of the Hill: "President Trump said Thursday that conservative commentator Stephen Moore has decided to withdraw from consideration for the Federal Reserve Board amid staunch opposition from Senate Republicans. 'Steve Moore, a great pro-growth economist and a truly fine person, has decided to withdraw from the Fed process,' Trump tweeted.... The announcement came just hours after Moore said the White House was still 'all in' on his potential nomination."

Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "House Democrats, decrying what they called an erosion of American democracy, threatened on Thursday to hold Attorney General William P. Barr in contempt of Congress after he failed to appear at a hearing of the Judiciary Committee and ignored a subpoena deadline to hand over Robert S. Mueller III's full report and evidence.... 'What is deadly serious about it is the attorney general of the United States of America was not telling the truth to the Congress of the United States,' Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters on Thursday, referring to a House hearing in which he said he was unaware that the special counsel had protested his portrayal of his conclusions. 'That's a crime.'" See Jerry Nadler's speech, video embedded below.

Pamela Brown & Marshall Cohen of CNN: "The White House has accused special counsel Robert Mueller's team of playing politics with the investigation and wildly straying from their mission in a letter sent to Attorney General William Barr last month and released Thursday afternoon. In the five-page letter, a top White House lawyer, Emmet Flood, raised several concerns with the substance and format of Mueller's report, which did not establish a criminal conspiracy between Trump's campaign and the Russians but did unearth substantial evidence of obstruction by Trump, but without saying if the President should be prosecuted. Flood slammed Mueller's approach to the obstruction investigation. Even though current Justice Department guidelines say a sitting president cannot be charged, Flood wrote that Mueller needed to 'either ask the grand jury to return an indictment or decline to charge the case.... The (special counsel) instead produced a prosecutorial curiosity -- part "truth commission" report and part law school exam paper,' Flood wrote.... The letter is dated April 19, one day after the Justice Department released the redacted report to the public." The same day, Trump published one of his "No Collusion - No Obstruction!" tweets.

President* Free to Shoot Someone on Fifth Avenue. Tom Sullivan of Hullabaloo: "Stunning among other stunning statements Attorney General William Barr made Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee was his blithe declaration that the president is above the law. Responding to questioning by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Barr claimed repeatedly Donald Trump had been 'falsely accused' of coordinating with Russia. Deploying the 'no underlying crime' red herring, Barr asserted that the president as head of government and the Department of Justice was entitled to close down an investigation into himself if he felt it was off the rails: 'The president does not have to sit there, constitutionally, and allow [an investigation] to run its course,' Barr said. 'That's important because most of the obstruction claims that are being made here ... do involve the exercise of the president's constitutional authority, and we now know that he was being falsely accused.'... Bill Barr declared Trump king."

Benjamin Wittes of Lawfare in the Atlantic, Is So Disillusioned: "Not in my memory has a sitting attorney general more diminished the credibility of his department on any subject.... Barr has consistently sought to spin his department's work in a highly political fashion, and he has done so to cast the president's conduct in the most favorable possible light.... Barr's public statements [about the Mueller report] are simply indefensible." Wittes catalogues all the ways Barr has misrepresented Mueller's findings.

Michael Tomasky of the Daily Beast: "Trump is a uniquely diseased man, it's true. But what kind of political party nominates, celebrates, venerates, and takes political bullets for a uniquely diseased man? So after today, if we didn't before, we see now with a new and oddly liberating clarity where this is headed. It's 18 months until Election Day. They may well be the most consequential and frightening stretch in the history of the country, or at least since Reconstruction. This racket known as a political party will try to pervert the law in ways we've never seen. Reverse the meaning of every word we know. Trump is screaming that he's the victim of a 'coup.' What he is doing, of course, is perpetrating a coup, against the Constitution, with the eage help of Barr and Graham and all the rest of them."

Julia Harte of Reuters: "The U.S. State Department allowed at least seven foreign governments to rent luxury condominiums in New York's Trump World Tower in 2017 without approval from Congress, according to documents and people familiar with the leases, a potential violation of the U.S. Constitution's emoluments clause.... Such transactions must pass muster with federal lawmakers, some legal experts say.... Elijah Cummings, chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, said his committee has been 'stonewalled' in its efforts to obtain detailed information about foreign government payments to Trump's businesses. 'This new information raises serious questions about the President and his businesses' potential receipt of payments from foreign governments,' Cummings said in a statement...."

Russian Spy Whale Defects to Norway. Rick Noack of the Washington Post: "An alleged Russian spy whale is refusing to leave a Norwegian port city, in what appears to be a high-profile defection after a week of global attention on the unnamed beluga. Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries official Jorgen Ree Wiig told The Washington Post that the beluga 'was the first thing I saw outside of the window' of his patrolling ship in the morning. Speaking from the city of Hammerfest, he said the whale had moved only about 25 nautical miles within the last week and appeared to enjoy the proximity to humans, which he noted was 'strange' for a beluga. Contrary to the species'; normal behavior, the beluga had allowed residents to pet its nose over the last few days."

~~~~~~~~~~

Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: I know you have a real life & you're busy, but it's worth carving out some time to try to get a handle on what's happening in Washington, D.C. these days. Of course every moment is "a moment in history," but this one seems to be more significant than many. To learn nothing of it except the evening news gloss is like driving to a national park & refusing to leave the parking lot.

The Trump Scandals, Ctd. -- Low Barr Edition

Alicia Cohn of the Hill: "An empty chair for Attorney General William Barr sits in a committee room on Capitol Hill on Thursday. Barr had informed the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that he would not testify.... Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) also brought Kentucky Fried Chicken, as well as a fake chicken, into the hearing room...." ...

Rachel Bade, et al., of the Washington Post: "Attorney General William P. Barr told a House panel on Wednesday that he will not testify about special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's report, raising the prospect that Democrats will hold the nation's top law enforcement official in contempt of Congress. Barr, who also missed a deadline for subpoenaed information on Wednesday, had been scheduled to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday about his handling of Mueller's report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. But Barr balked at the committee's plan to have a committee counsel question him alongside lawmakers, a snub that angered Democrats.... [Chairman Jerry] Nadler [D-NY] said that he would give Barr a 'day or two' to turn over the full, unredacted Mueller report in accordance with the committee's subpoena, information that was due Wednesday morning. But the chairman warned that 'if good faith negotiations don't result in a pledge of compliance ... the next step is seeking a contempt citation against the attorney general.'"

** Katie Benner & Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "Attorney General William P. Barr on Wednesday answered questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee on Robert S. Mueller III's report, appearing on Capitol Hill for the first time since he made the report public.... Here are the highlights of his testimony." ...

     ... The New York Times liveblog of the hearing is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ...

** Marcy Wheeler: “Among the opinions the Attorney General espoused [at Wednesday's hearing] are that: You only need to call the FBI when being offered campaign assistance by a foreign intelligence service, not a foreigner[.] It's okay to lie about the many dangles hostile foreign countries make to a political campaign, including if you accepted those dangles[.] Because Trump was being falsely accused (it's not clear of what...), it's okay that he sought to undermine it through illegal means[.] It's okay for the President to order the White House Counsel to lie, even about an ongoing investigation[.] It's okay to fire the FBI Director for refusing to confirm or deny an ongoing investigation, which is DOJ policy not to do[.] It's okay for the Attorney General to call lawfully predicated DOJ investigative techniques 'spying' because Fox News does[.] Public statements -- including threatening someone's family -- cannot be subornation of perjury[.]... The most amazing thing is that, when Cory Booker asked Barr if he thought it was right to share polling data with Russians ... Barr appeared to have no clue that Paul Manafort had done so.... That's remarkable, because he basically agreed with Ben Sasse [R-Neb.] that [Oleg] Deripaska -- with whom Manafort was sharing this campaign data -- was a 'bottom-feeding scum-sucker.' So the Attorney General absolved the President of obstruction without having the faintest clue what actions the investigation of which Trump successfully obstructed by floating a pardon to Manafort.... He also admitted that he and Rod Rosenstein started making the decision on obstruction before they read the report. Indeed, several times during the hearing, it seemed he still has not read the report, as he was unfamiliar with allegations in it."

... Kyle Cheney & Andrew Desiderio of Politico: "Attorney General William Barr on Wednesday offered pointed critiques of Robert Mueller's investigation..., suggesting he wasn't sure why the special counsel investigated numerous instances of potential obstruction of justice if he decided he couldn't charge ... Donald Trump with a crime under Justice Department restrictions. At times, Barr contradicted the language and legal framework outlined in Mueller's report, and engaged in hair-splitting arguments with Democrats who accused him of 'purposefully misleading' Congress in previous testimony. 'The other thing that was confusing to me was that the investigation carried on for a while as additional episodes [of obstruction] were looked into,' Barr said. 'The question is, or was, why were those investigated at the end of the day if you weren't going to reach a decision?'... Barr's answers directly contradict the rationale Mueller laid out in his report. Mueller indicated in a legal analysis of obstruction of justice that 'fairness' dictated he not reach a formal judgment on whether the president obstructed justice -- regardless of the evidence." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Rachel Maddow had a good rundown, but I can't get a video of it. For now, you can view her opening segment (and others) on the show's main page here.

... Mrs. McCrabbie: I found the most remarkable opinion Barr shared to be this: that it's legal for a president to end an investigation of his own conduct if he feels the matter under investigation is not true. Update: Hillary Clinton agrees: on Rachel Maddow's show, Clinton called Barr's position on this "the road to tyranny."

Washington Post Editors: "... Mr. Barr has lit his reputation on fire, and he just added more fuel during his Wednesday testimony before a Senate panel. Much of the hearing centered on the attorney general's decision to release a highly misleading representation of the findings of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's Russia investigation.... It is long past time the public stopped hearing Mr. Barr's views on how Mr. Mueller feels, and heard from the special counsel himself. The Justice Department should enable Mr. Mueller to speak publicly and under oath at the earliest opportunity. The special counsel should address not only his substantive findings on the president's misbehavior but also the attorney general's manipulation of his work. Not just Mr. Trump should be held accountable for his actions. So should his attorney general."

Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "Barr has stepped forward as the seemingly objective face of the case Trump has been making since May 2017: that Trump did nothing wrong. But Barr's ability to play that role effectively has eroded over time, both with the revelation that Mueller took issue with his March 24 letter and, Wednesday, under questioning about the report by Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Over the course of that questioning, Barr admitted he hadn't reviewed the evidence underlying Mueller's findings on obstruction, he hadn't looked at the evidence undergirding the origination of the probe into possible coordination and, at one point even made a comment raising questions about his familiarity with one of the key issues at the heart of the probe. It was Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.) who drew the most significant blood.... A short while later, that lack of familiarity with the underlying evidence became important during questioning by Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.)." When Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) questioned Barr, Barr seemed to have no knowledge whatsoever about Paul Manafort's turning over proprietary polling data to Russian operative Konstantin Kilimnik, what a prosecutor had characterized in court as "very much to the heart of what the special counsel's office is investigating."

John Cassidy of the New Yorker hits more lowlights. "Before the hearing wrapped up, the Attorney General again portrayed Trump as a wronged man. 'How did we get to the point here, where the evidence is now that the President was falsely accused of colluding with the Russians, accused of being treasonous, accused of being a Russian agent?' he said to the Republican senator Marsha Blackburn. 'Two years of his Administration have been dominated by allegations that have now been proven false. To listen to some of the rhetoric, you would think that the Mueller report had found the opposite.'" Mrs. McC: The "rhetoric" is of course correct. Barr can be forgiven, I suppose, for not grasping that, inasmuch as he has not read Mueller's report.

Stephen Colbert enjoyed Barr's performance, too:

** Here's Mueller's full letter to Barr of March 27, & it's even more shocking than the WashPo story linked below lets on. At the top, Mueller writes that he has previously (March 25) sent Barr the introductions & executive summaries for both section of his report, which were marked for redactions of material to be withheld from public view. Mueller's purpose was to provide these sections to the public. Also, twice before Barr released his summary that wasn't a summary, Mueller touted his own summaries to Barr. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... As Michael Schmidt & Mark Mazzetti of the New York Times lay out, "The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, twice pushed Attorney General William P. Barr to release more of his team's investigative findings in late March, citing a gap between Mr. Barr's interpretation of them and their full report.... Mr. Mueller and his investigators also pressed the Justice Department to include summaries of their work in the hours before Mr. Barr released a four-page letter of his own on March 24, the new document showed." Barr should be tarred & feathered. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) The story has been substantially revised & extended. ...

     ... New Lede: "When Attorney General William P. Barr summarized the special counsel's conclusions in a March letter, prompting President Trump to crow that he had been exonerated, the special counsel's prosecutors knew immediately what the public would learn weeks later: The letter was a sparse and occasionally misleading representation of their exhaustive findings. What followed was a dayslong, behind-the-scenes tussle over the first public presentation of one of the most consequential government investigations in American history." ...

... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: “... it should come as no surprise that [Barr] misled about and spun Mueller's letter, too. The difference this time was that he accidentally gave away his game. From the start of the hearing, Barr emphasized two talking points about the letter: 1. That Mueller later told him nothing was inaccurate in Barr's summary of the Mueller report's principal conclusions[.] 2. That Mueller was concerned about news coverage[.]... But Mueller's letter paints a very different picture. It places the onus for misperceptions of his report squarely on Barr.... It took awhile, but Barr eventually seemed to acknowledge that Mueller had, in fact, rebuked him.... He said he told Mueller: 'Bob, what's with the letter? Why don't you just pick up the phone and call me if there's an issue?' Barr then added: 'The letter's a bit snitty, and I think it was written by one of his staff people.'" ...

... New York Times Editors: "For an institutionalist like Mr. Mueller, who never once spoke up to defend himself or his work from relentless attacks from the president and his Republican allies, the letter [to William Barr] is an unusual (and welcome) breach of protocol. It is rare for a senior Department of Justice official to so sharply criticize the attorney general in a written communication that would soon be made public. Clearly, Mr. Mueller deemed it necessary."

** Comey Says Barr & Rosenstein, et al., Are Soulless Wimps. James Comey in a New York Times op-ed: "Amoral leaders have a way of revealing the character of those around them.... Accomplished people lacking inner strength [like William Barr & Rod Rosenstein] can't resist the compromises necessary to survive Mr. Trump and that adds up to something they will never recover from. It takes character like [former Defense Secretary Jim] Mattis's to avoid the damage, because Mr. Trump eats your soul in small bites." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Jack Crosbie of Splinter Is Not Convinced: "The whole thing reads like the manifesto of a 58-year-old high school history teacher who has a shrine to Alan Alda's noble Republican West Wing character in his basement, but Comey does eventually come to a point: It was TRUMP who turned these otherwise respectable white lawyer dudes into unethical liars.... The whole op-ed is reminiscent of Comey buddy Ben Wittes' weird denouncement of Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings, where one Good Ol' Boy Who Respects the Law expressed shock and horror that one of his peers turned out to be a piece of shit. This is far from new information to anyone who's been following along, and the last thing we needed was another self-righteous op-ed from a guy who didn't even have the guts to leave the administration on his own terms." ...

... Eliana Johnson of Politico claims that what eventually brought Barr, against his own better judgment, into the Trump administration was that he & his GOP lawyer chums "are united by a firm belief in a theory of robust presidential power dusted off by Reagan Attorney General Edwin Meese. Known among legal scholars as the theory of the 'unitary executive,' they argue that the Constitution grants presidents broad control of the executive branch, including -- to take a salient Trump-era example -- the power to fire an FBI director for any reason at all." ...

... BUT Martin Longman, in the Washington Monthly, has a more prosaic explanation: "... he's just another example of an American whose brain has been rotted by consuming too much right-wing media. He's defending Trump for the same reason that Fox News says he should be defended. Trump is a victim of a witch hunt -- a plot to destroy him hatched by liberals and Obama holdovers in the FBI and Justice Department. I think he actually believes this, which would explain his behavior better than the theory that Trump corrupted his morals or that he's just putting up with Trump in order to defend the power of the presidency.... He sat in his living room watching Sean Hannity and it destroyed his brain, his moral compass, and his potential worth as a public servant." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: There's something to this. I recall hearing Antonin Scalia, who was supposed to have had a brilliant legal mind, parroting some dumb arguments popularized on Fox "News." Scalia himself admitted that he didn't read MSM & usually followed only right-wing media outlets. Fox & Friends made hash of the brilliant legal mind. Barr's responses to Democrats' questions in yesterday's hearing looked exactly like what you would expect from a guy who, after months or years of reading & watching winger media, was suddenly & brutally plopped down in the middle of reality.

Schlemiel's Remorse. Burgess Everett of Politico: "Three Senate Democrats voted for William Barr to be attorney general. And now at least two of them say they might have made a mistake.... Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.), who is the most vulnerable Democratic senator up for reelection next year, said he is 'greatly, greatly disappointed in what I am seeing in the attorney general.'... 'I also thought he would bring this institutional stability to the Department of Justice. And not be the president's personal lawyer...,' Jones said in an interview.... Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) ... said if Mueller's issues with Barr 'proves out, absolutely I have buyer's remorse. I would have made a big mistake.'... The third Senate Democrat who supported Barr, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, has requested a meeting with Barr about the discrepancies between his view of the special counsel's report and Mueller's, an aide said."

Andrew Cohen in Rolling Stone: "Lapdog Lindsey ... made it clear through the course of the day, as did virtually every other Republican member, that the Judiciary Committee doesn't want to look further into the evidence Mueller compiled of Trump's misconduct.... Instead, the same folks who gave us Kenneth Starr and endless Benghazi hearings now say they will spend their time trying to dig up more dirt about Hillary Clinton and trying to bash the FBI. Great news for the Russians."

Tom Hamburger & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "The White House said Wednesday that it will not authorize any executive branch officials to disclose to Congress information about individual security clearances, a move that House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) called 'the latest example of the president's widespread and growing obstruction of Congress.' The Oversight panel has been examining the administration's handling of security clearances and allegations that officials, including presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner, were granted access to sensitive information over the objections of career staff.... The back-and-forth came as former White House personnel security director Carl Kline was set to testify in a closed-door deposition Wednesday morning." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Ariane de Vogue of CNN: "The Trump administration offered its first full argument Wednesday for its reversal on the Affordable Care Act, arguing in new court filings that the entire law 'should not be allowed to remain in effect.' The government argues in the filings that the so-called 'individual mandate' requiring Americans to have coverage is unconstitutional and that the rest of the law should therefore also be struck down, even if the government 'might support some individual provisions as a policy matter.'" Mrs. McC: Normally, the government argues in support of U.S. laws. A notable exception was when "President Obama, in a striking legal and political shift..., determined that the Defense of Marriage Act -- the 1996 law that bars federal recognition of same-sex marriages -- is unconstitutional, and ... directed the Justice Department to stop defending the law in court.... Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced the decision in a letter to members of Congress. In it, he said the administration was taking the extraordinary step of refusing to defend the law, despite having done so during Mr. Obama's first two years in the White House."

Sarah Ferris & Caitlin Emma of Politico: "... Donald Trump on Wednesday asked Congress for $4.5 billion in emergency aid to address the surge of Central American immigrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. The funding request is the first major move by the White House to respond to what it calls a' humanitarian crisis' at the Southern border and intensifies an ongoing funding battle over border security, just four months after the issue led to a paralyzing 35-day government shutdown." (Also linked yesterday.)

Presidential Race 2020

Emily Tillett of CBS News: "Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet is the latest Democratic contender to enter the packed field of 2020 [presidential] hopefuls, announcing on 'CBS This Morning' on Thursday that he's running for president."

Ken Vogel & Iuliia Mendel of the New York Times write a complicated story about how Rudy Giuliani & Donald Trump are trying to get Ukrainian prosecutors & that nice Bill Barr to investigate the business dealings of Hunter Biden, Joe's son, in an energy company owned by a Ukrainian oligarch. "Mr. Giuliani said he got involved because he was seeking to counter the Mueller investigation with evidence that Democrats conspired with sympathetic Ukrainians to help initiate what became the special counsel's inquiry." Mrs. McC: Right. If Joe Biden is the Democratic presidential nominee, we'll be hearing chants of "Lock Him Up." IMO, all of these "investments" & "interests" in developing countries that the politically-connected undertake are shady sinecures to which an honorable person would say no thanks. As for Barr, who couldn't figure out what the word "suggested" means when Kamala Harris asked him if Trump or any White House staff had suggested lines of criminal inquiries he might initiate, we know the true answer.

Senate Race 2020. Bill Lambrecht of the Houston Chronicle: "U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro has decided not to seek the Democratic nomination to challenge Sen. John Cornyn, choosing instead to continue pursuing a fast-rising career in Congress focusing on security and border issues. Castro's decision could pave the way for a contest in 2020 between Cornyn and Mary Jennings 'MJ' Hegar, an Afghanistan war veteran who ran a strong but losing race for Congress last year and who declared her candidacy last week."

Comments

[safari]

Re: "Nadler [D-NY] said that he would give Barr a 'day or two' to turn over the full, unredacted Mueller report in accordance with the committee’s subpoena"

Hey Jerry, your subpoena had a deadline, did it not? Did you include an asterisk footnote allowing for "a day or two later is fine, I'd hate to inconvenience you"?

Quit pussy-footing around for God's sake! This is exactly why Republicans think they can step all over Democrats, 'cause they're too fucking soft. Barr is the ultimate law enforcement officer in the land. He has to respect a legal document to the law, or suffer immediate consequences. He should be held in contempt of Congress at 12:01 am after the deadline for not providing the subpoenaed materials. That's the fucking law. Remember that pre-Trump adage, "no one is above the law". Then enforce it.

[Marie Burns]

@safari: My solution is for the sergeant-at-arms to grab Barr's fat ass off the street & toss him in the Capitol jail. Put him in an orange jump suit & take a mugshot, then release the photo to the media.

[unwashed]

@ Bea, they also mustn't forget the body cavity search.

p.s. the Maddow links appears to be broken. It only shows 1 second of the clip, going immediately to the end.

[Marie Burns]

@unwashed: Thanks. That's a pirated copy because I couldn't get a good one early this morning, & I was afraid NBC would take it down. I've made dozens of stabs at this, & I'm giving up. I might be able to get it later in the day. It was a pretty good segment so worth the effort.

[PD Pepe]

"IT WAS MY BABY" Barr said yesterday referring to the Mueller report once it was in his hands. Once delivered, he diapered it, wrapped it up in a soft blanket and fed it to the public.

It was an incredible hearing. In its infancy when Diane Feinstein was delivering her run-down of events I thought, oh, my god, the man is about to fall asleep–-eyelids kept closing and when alert he seldom looked at Diane but started shuffling papers around. Message–-"This is so boring, to think I have to endure this crap..."

Some of the Republicans just couldn't contain themselves–-so angry that "their" president was under the gun–-how dare they! Hillary and her emails were once again front and center which was pathetic! That shoe on the other foot thing is always difficult for these fuckers to not only deal with but to participate in.

Lots of bottom lines here but two biggies:

Kamala Harris's reveal that Barr did not read the underlying evidence.

Barr saying under oath on April 10 that he "didn't know" whether Mueller agreed with his summary of what the Mueller report concluded.

He lied––under oath–-is that not called perjury?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

With a tone of sheer arrogance William Barr picked up the letter from Mueller, waved it around and then used the word "snitty" to describe it adding "it was probaly written by staff people"

Snitty: Disagreebly ill-tempered.

And safari–- I agree–-pussy footing is for cats not for Democrats who better be as bull doggy as possible.

[PD Pepe]

@Marie: Here's another link to the Maddow/ Clinton interview which might work.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-china-if-youre-listening_n_5cca7b29e4b0913d078c6650

[Akhilleus]

Emptying out the junk drawer of the mind after a day of the further junkification of America by Republicans, their president, and his lackey posing as an Attorney General.

Marie's reminder of the importance of this moment in American history is apt. Many of us out here in RC land lived through Watergate. It was an immensely tense, but ultimately rewarding time. The revelations came on a regular basis, the stunning actions of the dark circle of conspirators surrounding the president outraged most Americans and when Nixon resigned and flew off in Marine One, the country realized that we had survived because the rule of law still stood firm.

No more. Remember, Nixon's decision to resign was prompted, in part, by a visit from a delegation of Republican politicians who went to the White House to tell him "Enough is enough. You're done".

What Nixon did was bad. But at least he wasn't a traitor to his country. He tried to ratfuck the Democrats (and did), but he wasn't doing it with the help of a foreign power that lives to see us dead.

If a delegation of Republicans visits this White House, it will be to kiss the feet of a traitor, not to tell him "Enough is enough". This is a very different moment from Watergate. Who knows what would have happened had the existence of Nixon's tapes been kept quiet? He might have survived, but he was already damaged. In our present situation, we don't need to tapes to recognize that the president is a crook and a traitor. He is. And his party loves him for it. So does half of the media. The other half isn't sure what to do about it. Neither, it appears, are the Democrats. Safari is right. Giving Barr a "couple'a days" to think about it is tantamount to losing a game of chicken. Barr says "Fuck you" and the Democrats say "Can you rephrase that, please?" This is no time to be playing Mr. Politenessman. If Democrats continue to play "Step over this line, I dares ya", Republicans will happily keep stepping over it until the Democrats fall off a cliff. Arrest this asshole now!

The idea that Barr's brain has been washed with the filth of Fox and the right-wing echo chamber probably has some merit, but unless you're a total zombie, one would have to take mountains of that crap with a huge dose of salt. Nonetheless, the media plays, and has played, an enormous role in the structuring and casting of events, and will continue to do so. Barr is already being portrayed as a hero of the resistance. Democrats cast as evil pedants, insisting on digging into something that is already finished. Trump comes across as a demigod to his troops, and to others, as poor Donald, besieged by mean ol' Democrats. Democrats seem unable to grasp the importance of taking charge of the message here.

Because things can change. Some quickly, some over time. Nixon came to be regarded by many as an honored, elder statesman. He opened up China, he did this, he did that. Sure. And he also tried an end run around the Constitution. He firmly believed he was above the law. So does Trump. So does Barr.

Having just finished an excellent book about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the chase for his killer, I was not a bit surprised, living in this age of Fox and Trump, to read of the aftermath. Booth, reviled by many in the days following the murder, became a hero to many in the South. So did Lewis Powell, who savagely attacked Secretary of State Seward and would have killed him if not for the intervention of Seward's daughter and sons, and a Union sergeant stationed in the house.

Booth was eventually considered by many to be a tragic figure who fought for what he believed. He is STILL venerated by many modern Confederates. Just this year, in Taneytown, MD, a Civil War memorial is being planned, proposed by the "commander" of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. The memorial will include sculpted busts of major players in the war. A number of "influential" civilians will be honored as well. Among them, John Wilkes Booth. I am not even kidding. The past never dies. It gets Foxified.

Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, whose reputation after the murder became twisted into that of a vengeful old man, was right to make sure that Booth's initial burial place was kept secret lest it become a shrine or spot of veneration. Nonetheless, rumors about Booth were spread far and wide. He escaped the hated Yankees, moved out west somewhere and is living it up. The man killed at Garrett's farm was someone else. Panoramas of the killing were all the rage in the years after the murder. And the biggest star? John Wilkes Booth.

Even now, the images of Barr and Trump are being dry cleaned by winger media. They are being held up as heroes of the New Confederacy, bringing to bear "justice" to brown and black people who think they're equal to real Americans, and fighting against the evil "socialist" Democrat Party.

In so many ways, the juncture we find ourselves at today is far more dangerous than Watergate. It behooves everyone to pay close attention to what happens next. If Democrats falter, there will be no one to pick up the mantle of support for the United States of America. I don't think it's hysterical or hyperbolic to suggest that if Barr and Trump succeed in telling Congress that they are above the law, and get away with it, we'll be seeing the end of the country as we know it, and the beginning of all out authoritarianism. And after Trump, maybe we get someone who is just as evil, but nowhere near as stupid or incompetent.

Republicans are whining that Democrats need to forget about Trump and Mueller and get back to "policy" and "legislation". But forgetting about Trump and what he and his army are trying to do to the country will be turning our backs on the nation. We need to fumigate the White House, first, and the Congress next, or we may not have a country in which to discuss policy, legislation, or fuck all.

And in the future, there'll be some memorial to Great Americans with sculpted busts of Trump and Barr, Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort.

[Akhilleus]

Okay, and now a short one...

So Barr, like so many other confederates, is a huge fan of the concept of the unitary executive (good thing he's not interested in the sanitary executive, he'd be looking for a long time). But that's not the way his statements go. What he's most interested in, with Trump, is the unitary monarch.

[Akhilleus]

Oh, and by the way, when will Democrats learn that in confirmation hearings, these fucking guys will lie about everything. Kavanaugh did it, Barr did it, every single one of Trump's brigade of bandits did it. And yet some Democrats still think we're living in an age where these people will behave responsibly and honestly. When will they learn? Republicans must laugh out loud after these hearings at the bullshit they get away with, even as they get down to the business of carving off their slice of the country.

[Akhilleus]

What, again?

Is the New York Times REALLY going to help Trump and the crazy, lying wingers AGAIN??????

This weird-ass story about Joe Biden's kid and something, something, Ukraine? Trump and Giuliani are already on it like hungry dogs on a bone. Look for the revenge tour to pick up steam any day now. Now that Trump and Barr and congressional Republicans have dispensed with the rule of law, they will make sure to find the tiniest codicil of the most obscure laws with which to torture Democratic candidates, insisting that they beat Caesar's wife in a purity contest while they support, defend, and protect a shit-covered viper in the White House and his anti-Constitutional, anti-American dreams of tyrannical authoritarian control.

And they'll all laugh all the way to the bank while Democrats (once again) pee themselves trying to protest their innocence.

But hey, thanks for all the help, Times. Maybe you can drum up a few new stories about Clinton emails and Benghazi while you're at it.

[RAS]

Joe Manchin can go screw himself. He is just like Comey in that he is too stupid and pathetic to ever learn or show any kind of personal growth. The quote about "buyer's remorse" could be applied to nearly every Trump nominee. Just a week or two ago Joe voted for the new Interior Secretary who was promptly recommended for an ethics review. Any buyer's remorse there, Joe? What about voting the beer lover onto the Supreme Court. I will bet that the next unqualified Trump appointee will also get Manchin's vote no matter how much baggage he comes with. I wouldn't be surprised if Manchin would have voted for Stephen Moore for a Fed seat. Or maybe enough Republicans opposed Moore to give Manchin cover to vote with the Democrats. Joe, the problem is that Barr was corrupt from the start. People, including some conservatives like Safire, knew this twenty years ago based on his actions. Though I am sure that Barr mainlining Fox and other right wing media for decades did not help. It would be nice if some of these people actually took their job seriously.

[RAS]

If I was in DC I would volunteer for the Citizen's Arrest Brigade to help the Democrats enforce those subpoenas.

[Akhilleus]

Sexual assault in the Trump military rises by 38-44% (depending on which story you read). Trump furious that he didn’t get his shots in. “The Pentagon must let the Commander in Chief know when there are that many easy targets” sed President pussy grabber. “Why should some potato peeling privates get theirs when I, the lord god almighty, get stuck with blabbing porn stars?”

Contrite Pentagon officials promise to do better.