The Commentariat -- January 27, 2018

It's kind of amazing that, with the plethora of news items on offer here in RC World, there are relatively few comments. I look forward every day to the ideas you all put forward. -- Akhilleus, at the end of yesterday's thread.

Ditto. Commenting on Reality Chex couldn't be easier. You can assume almost any pseudonym you like. I do suggest you keep a copy of your comment until it is published. To assure your comment has been published, just refresh the page; the comment should come up right away. The only rules are that (1) you don't attack other commenters -- disagree with their ideas, not with their characters or intelligence -- (2) you don't advocate ideas that shock the conscience, and (3) (which seems to be a difficult one) your comments stick to political matters. -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie

Murray Waas of Foreign Policy, via Digby: "... Donald Trump pressed senior aides last June to devise and carry out a campaign to discredit senior FBI officials after learning that those specific employees were likely to be witnesses against him as part of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, according to two people directly familiar with the matter. In testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee on June 8, recently fired FBI Director James Comey disclosed that he spoke contemporaneously with other senior bureau officials about potentially improper efforts by the president to curtail the FBI's investigation.... Not long after Comey's Senate testimony, Trump hired John Dowd, a veteran criminal defense attorney, to represent him in matters related to Mueller's investigation. Dowd warned Trump that the potential corroborative testimony of the senior FBI officials in Comey's account would likely play a central role in the special counsel's final conclusion, according to people familiar with the matter. In discussions with at least two senior White House officials, Trump repeated what Dowd had told him to emphasize why he and his supporters had to 'fight back harder,' in the words of one of these officials.... Dowd denied the accounts of administration officials contained in this story.... Since Dowd gave him that information, Trump -- as well as his aides, surrogates, and some Republican members of Congress -- has engaged in an unprecedented campaign to discredit specific senior bureau officials and the FBI as an institution." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: digby has a link to the original FP story, but unless you already have a subscription or wish to purchase one, trying to get thru FP's firewall probably is not worth the trouble, IMO. digby has a bit more than I've excerpted. ...

... Kevin Drum: "It's a little unclear [from Waas's report] precisely what Dowd told Trump, or precisely what orders Trump gave to others. Those details are going to make the difference between whether this is a 3 or a 7 on the obstruction-of-justice Richter scale." ...

... Michael Shear & Eileen Sullivan of the New York Times: "Senate Democrats said on Friday that they would seek to ensure that continuing budget negotiations included legislation to protect Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel in the Russia investigation, from being fired by President Trump. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the top Democrat in the Senate, said an article in The New York Times detailing an effort by Mr. Trump to fire Mr. Mueller in June demonstrated the urgency for Congress to act.... The move by the Democratic leadership escalates previous efforts by lawmakers in both parties to stave off a possible constitutional crisis should Mr. Trump try to shut down the Russia investigation by getting rid of Mr. Mueller.... The legislation went nowhere as the president, his lawyers and his top aides insisted that he was not -- and never had been -- considering firing Mr. Mueller." ...

... Karen Freifeld of Reuters: "White House Counsel Donald McGahn threatened to quit last June because he was 'fed up' after ... Donald Trump insisted he take steps to remove the special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters.... The person told Reuters on Friday that Trump asked McGahn to raise what he said were Mueller's conflicts with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.... McGahn ... did not discuss the issue with Rosenstein and threatened to quit when Trump continued to insist that he do so, the person said. The lawyer did not issue an ultimatum directly to the president but told then White House chief of staff Reince Priebus and then chief strategist Steve Bannon he wanted to quit because he was 'fed up with the president,' the person said." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I'm guessing Bannon was one of the NYT's sources. ...

... White House Switches to Non-Denial Denials. Oliver Willis of Shareblue: "Appearing at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Trump was asked about the latest revelation that Trump had plotted to fire [Robert] Mueller almost immediately after his appointment.... 'Did you seek to fire Mueller?' a reporter asked. 'Fake news, folks, fake news,' he responded. 'Typical New York Times, fake story.' But in the past when reporting indicated that Trump has sought to remove Mueller, the denial was far more detailed than his go-to rhetoric attacking the free press. There are at least eight instances of the Trump and his team denying plans to go after Mueller.... Now there has been a dramatic shift in tone, from unequivocal denials to now simply attacking a news outlet." ...

... Dan Friedman of Mother Jones: "No, Trump Did Not 'Deny' Reports That He Tried to Fire Mueller.... his promiscuous use of the phrase ['fake news'] leaves it with no real meaning. As Steve Coll wrote last month in the New Yorker, Trump's 'definition of "fake news" is credible reporting that he doesn't like.'... Trump may [have] avoided a direct denial of the story because an overt lie about an effort to fire the head of an investigation into him could be used by Mueller to demonstrate that Trump had intent to obstruct justice. Lying about the attempt could show that Trump was aware his actions were improper.... By labeling the [NYT] scoop 'fake news,' Trump obfuscated while giving his supporters something to rally behind. When publications describe Trump's non-denial as a denial, they are unwittingly assisting him in this effort." ...

... Jeff Toobin of the New Yorker: "The issue of whether President Trump obstructed justice centers on his decision to fire James Comey ... last May. This is a classic intent case. The President clearly had the right to fire Comey, but he did not have the right to do so with improper intent.... It is this question of corrupt intent that makes the Times's recent blockbuster scoop so important. According to the article, the President tried to fire Robert Mueller ... last June, but he stopped when Don McGahn, the White House counsel, threatened to resign if Trump insisted on the dismissal. Trump apparently offered three [pretextual] justifications to fire Mueller.... McGahn recognized ... that Trump wanted to fire Mueller ... because his investigation was threatening to him. This, of course, also illuminates the reasons behind Trump's firing of Comey.... On perhaps the most important question of all -- whether the President of the United States committed the crime of obstruction of justice -- the answer now seems clear."

... Timothy O'Brien of Bloomberg: "As the White House gets rattled further, Trump will test how deeply Congress believes in and respects the rule of law.... Republicans and Democrats in Congress should remind themselves of that and prepare for the very real possibility that the president will try to fire the special counsel again -- especially if Mueller's probe ensnares any of the Trumps, including the paterfamilias." ...

... Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "... it is increasingly clear that [White House counsel Don] McGahn has been at the center of nearly everything [Robert] Mueller's obstruction investigation is scrutinizing. Mr. McGahn was the first White House official to hear the Justice Department's concerns that Michael T. Flynn ... was vulnerable to blackmail by Russia. On Mr. Trump's orders, he tried to persuade Attorney General Jeff Sessions not to recuse himself from the Russia investigation. He also took part in Mr. Trump's dismissal of the F.B.I. director James B. Comey. As a participant to those events, Mr. McGahn has been interviewed at length by Mr. Mueller's team as it has sought to understand the president's motivations and thinking. The investigators have also obtained memos, notes and emails about how Mr. McGahn tried to carry out Mr. Trump's decisions in legally appropriate ways.... Mr. McGahn's threat to resign is an example of how he has tried to both help and constrain an idiosyncratic client who hates to be managed and defies the norms of the presidency.... He has had a major effect on public policy through his support of efforts to dismantle regulations and his role in the administration's aggressive attempt to fill vacancies in the upper reaches of the federal judiciary with deeply conservative judges." ...

... Lloyd Grove of the Daily Beast: "Newsmax chief executive Chris Ruddy, a longtime friend of Donald Trump's, was roundly discredited by the White House communications shop last June when he went on television to warn that the president was seriously considering the politically damaging step of firing special counsel Robert Mueller. On Friday ... Ruddy was taking a victory lap of sorts. 'I don't want to get into a pissing match with the White House press shop, but I stand by the comments I made in June that the president was considering firing Robert Mueller,' Ruddy told The Daily Beast. '... I had been told by very high-ranking senior White House officials that he was seriously moving in that direction....'" ...

... Sara Murray, et al., of CNN: "Months after his reported effort to fire special counsel Robert Mueller..., Donald Trump is still fuming over the Russia investigation and has Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in his crosshairs. The President has been venting about Rosenstein -- who oversees [Robert] Mueller and the special counsel investigation -- in recent weeks, according to four sources familiar with the situation. At times, Trump even gripes about wanting Rosenstein removed, two of those sources said. One source said the President makes comments like 'let's fire him, let's get rid of him' before his advisers convince him it's an ill-fated idea.... Trump has come to view Rosenstein as one-in-the-same as Mueller -- another government official who is out to get the President, one source said." ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: A couple of days ago contributor Fleeting Expletive asked, Michael "Wolff spent a year in the WH -- did his book (haven't read more than excerpts) allude to T's attempt to fire Mueller back on June 12,2017? Did he not hear about it at the time, or was he just that discreet in not revealing it? Sounded like the WH was in screaming-fits mode as that was going on: If he was there how did he miss it?" I haven't read the book either (though a friend is sending me her used copy (at my request, in a plain brown wrapper!). Here's the answer, more or less:

... Noor Al-Sibai of the Raw Story: "... Donald Trump's lawyers are reportedly researching a 1997 federal court case whose ruling found that presidents and their advisors are protected from disclosing information about their decisions. As the Wall Street Journal reported Friday evening, the 1997 case involved then-Agriculture Secretary Michael Espy, who was indicted for taking improper gifts in his official capacity but later acquitted in appeals court. In the case, an independent counsel subpoenaed the White House for records regarding Epsy." Mrs. McC: I heard several lawyers on the teevee saying that the opinion in the Espy case specifically states that the decision does not apply to a president or his top aides. ...

... Richard Painter & Norman Eisen, in a New York Times op-ed: "Reports that President Trump ordered the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, to bring about the firing of the special counsel Robert Mueller last June are deeply troubling -- not only as evidence of what the president has already done, but what he may yet do to obstruct justice and undermine the rule of law.... [The order to fire Mueller] is yet more evidence that the president is determined to block the investigation at all costs.... The argument that President Trump has the absolute right to fire Mr. Mueller is just plain wrong.... Mr. McGahn's forbearance in this instance offers only limited comfort to lawmakers and the public." The writers remind us of a number of times McGahn has reportedly acted unethically. ...

... Oh, for Pete's Sake. Sadie Gurman of the AP: "Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Friday his own Justice Department may be fair game for criticism amid Republican complaints of anti-Trump bias in the FBI. Sessions, speaking to law enforcement officials in Norfolk, Virginia, said the department's mission is to identify and correct 'mistakes of the past' and eliminate political bias 'in either direction' from its investigations and prosecutions, a suggestion that that has not always been the case." ...

... Issie Lapowsky of Wired: "The Department of Justice's special counsel Robert Mueller and his office have interviewed at least one member of Facebook's team that was associated with President Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, according to a person familiar with the matter. The interview was part of Mueller's probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election and what role, if any, the Trump campaign played in that interference. Facebook and other social platforms have emerged as a key part of that investigation, not only because the company embedded staff with the San Antonio -- based digital team working on Trump's campaign but also because it sold more than 3,000 Facebook and Instagram ads to fake accounts linked to the Russian propaganda group Internet Research Agency. All in, content shared by those accounts reached 126 million Facebook users, including more than 62,000 of whom signed up to attend events organized by those fake accounts."

Trump Makes Nice to Global Fat Cats. Peter Baker of the New York Times: "President Trump reassured the world's political and financial leaders on Friday that his 'America First' agenda was not a rejection of international cooperation, but he insisted that cross-border trade had to be made fairer and vowed to take action against predatory practices." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Tom Embury-Dennis of the (U.K.) Independent: "Donald Trump has been booed at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos after launching an attack on what he described as the 'nasty, mean and fake' press. 'It wasn't until I became a politician, that I realised how nasty, how mean, how vicious and how fake the press can be,' Mr Trump said. Pointing into the crowd, he added: '... as the cameras start going off in the back.' The comment was met by a mixture of boos and laughter from the audience." Mrs. McC: If only the U.S. press weren't so "impartial" & polite. AND of course this is ludicrous coming from someone who denied President Obama was even an American, constantly called his opponent "crooked," slammed the press to its face, & so forth. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Trump Threatens Young People. Addy Baird of Think Progress: "The New York Times reported Thursday that White House officials ... 'warned that if no deal is reached [on immigration reform], DACA recipients will face deportation when the program fully expires on March 5.' One unnamed senior official said the young immigrants would not be specifically targeted, but rather they would be treated as 'illegal immigrants' who would be processed for deportation if they came into contact with immigration officers.... The government has a vast amount of personal information on each Dreamer that they were required to turn over to apply for the program -- without the DACA program, its recipients will lose their work permits." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Peter Overby & Emily Sullivan of WAMU Radio (Washington, D.C. & Baltimore): "Barely a month ago, a federal judge in New York dismissed an anti-corruption lawsuit against President Trump. But on Thursday, another federal judge, in a different courtroom, gave the same basic argument a much friendlier response. Judge Peter Messitte, of federal district court in Greenbelt, Md., seemed sympathetic to the assertion that the Trump profits from the nexus of his hotels and the presidency.... Judge Messitte seemed to urge the plaintiffs to amend the suit in ways that might make it more likely to succeed.... The Justice Department is defending the president." Thanks to NJC for the link. As NJC notes, contrary to the DOJ's position, "The problem is that Congress IS a potted plant." ...

... Melanie Schmitz of ThinkProgress: "The Kuwaiti embassy is set to host its annual independence day celebration at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., according to a source who provided ThinkProgress with a copy of the invitation. It's the second year in a row the embassy has chosen the venue for its national day party." --safari

Your Tax Dollars at Work: Trump Gets Two $12MM Refrigerators. Zachary Cohen & Ryan Browne of CNN: "Air Force One is primed to receive an upgrade that will include new refrigerators expected to cost American taxpayers nearly $24 million. The US Air Force awarded Boeing a $23.6 million contract in December to replace two of the five 'cold chiller units' aboard the aircraft.... The $24 million contract will cover the costs of engineering support services for the new chillers -- including prototype design, manufacturing and installation, according to the DOD contract." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: That's funny, because I remember way back when Trump promised to cut better deals with Boeing. Apparently that does not apply to AF1. Are these fridges solid gold, like that toilet Trump didn't want to borrow?

Chris D'Angelo of Mother Jones: "President Donald Trump and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke have repeatedly said they oppose selling off federal lands.... It was over this very issue that Zinke ... resigned as a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 2016. And in a speech one day after arriving at his new post, Zinke promised Interior staffers: 'You can hear it from my lips. We will not sell or transfer public land.' But a leaked White House infrastructure plan has many conservation groups concerned that Trump and Zinke could soon be singing a different tune: that of the Republican Party, whose platform calls for transferring control of federal lands to states." --safari

Kyla Mendel of ThinkProgress: "Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah, powerful conservative donors with close ties to the Trump administration, donated millions of dollars to climate science denial groups, newly released 2016 tax filing details show. According to the tax filings ... nearly a quarter (23 percent) of the total $19 million donated to nonprofits by the Mercer Family Foundation in 2016 went to groups working, at least partially, on spreading misinformation around climate change and pushing to repeal environmental protections." --safari

Cristiano Lima of Politico writes a Page Six-style piece on rumors about Melania & Donald Trump, etc. Mrs. McCrabbie: Being a person of probity & discernment, I read almost every word. ...

Steve Wynn. A picture is worth 1,000 words.Adam Raymond of New York: "Billionaire Steve Wynn, the flamboyant casino mogul and finance chair for the Republican National Committee, has engaged in a 'decades-long pattern of sexual misconduct,' The Wall Street Journal reported Friday. In interviews with dozens of people who worked at Wynn's casinos over the years, the Journal learned that the 75-year-old has a well-known reputation for making sexual advances on salon and spa employees from whom he received massages and manicures.... The most 'striking' story the Journal heard was about a manicurist who said Wynn forced her to have sex with him. Wynn later paid her a $7.5 million settlement.... The allegations against Wynn come less than a week after he and Ronna [Romney!] McDaniel, the chairwoman of the RNC, threw a $100,000-a-head bash at Mar-a-Lago to celebrate the first anniversary of President Trump's inauguration. Wynn became the RNC's finance chair last January at Trump's request, despite their history of feuding." ...

... German Lopez of Vox: The Journal "heard back from dozens of people that Wynn repeatedly sexually harassed employees and pressured them to perform sex acts.... [Wynn's victims] were also physically intimidated in some cases, such as when Wynn would make the requests in a small office space with one or more of his German shepherds present.... Wynn blamed the allegations on his ex-wife Elaine Wynn, 'with whom I am involved in a terrible and nasty lawsuit in which she is seeking a revised divorce settlement.' The Wall Street Journal said it reached out to employees on its own and did not speak to Wynn's ex-wife.... Wynn has given millions to Republicans and their dark money groups...."

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Bad news for GOP members of Congress: they need Wynn's $$$. ...

... BUT the RNC Isn't Talking. Lachlan Markay & Asawin Suebsaeng of the Daily Beast: "Just months after the Republican Party worked to tie Democrats to alleged serial sexual abuser Harvey Weinstein, the GOP's chief fundraiser has been accused of pressuring multiple women, over the course of decades, into performing sex acts.... The [WSJ] report ... puts the [Republican National Committee] in a bind after it made a show of demanding that Democrats return money that Weinstein donated to their campaigns over his years of activity in party fundraising circles. Numerous Democrats ended up giving their Weinstein donations to either charities or, in some cases, political groups who work to elect progressive female lawmakers. Officials at the RNC and those close to it deemed such giving insufficient.... The RNC, which last year chose not to distance itself from another official credibly accused of sexual harassment -- Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore -- did not respond to a request for comment as to whether they would now do the same." ...

... Allan Smith of Business Insider lists some of the politicians & political groups to whom Steve Wynn has contributed. ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: See also Schlub's comment in today's thread. Apparently sexual abuse is rampant in Las Vegas & is scarcely limited to Wynn & Co.

Maggie Haberman & Amy Chozick of the New York Times: "A senior adviser to Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign who was accused of repeatedly sexually harassing a young subordinate was kept on the campaign at Mrs. Clinton's request according to four people familiar with what took place. Mrs. Clinton's campaign manager at the time recommended that she fire the adviser, Burns Strider. But Mrs. Clinton did not. Instead, Mr. Strider was docked several weeks of pay and ordered to undergo counseling, and the young woman was moved to a new job.... Mr. Strider, who was Mrs. Clinton's faith adviser, was a founder of the American Values Network..., was hired five years later to lead an independent group that supported Mrs. Clinton's 2016 candidacy, Correct the Record, which was created by a close Clinton ally, David Brock. He as fired after several months for workplace issues, including allegations that he harassed a young female aide, according to three people close to Correct the Record's management." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

Matt Stevens of the New York Times: "Bowing to the demands of the United States Olympic Committee, U.S.A. Gymnastics confirmed Friday night that all the remaining members of its board of directors would resign -- the latest fallout from a widespread sexual abuse scandal involving the federation's longtime national team doctor, Lawrence G. Nassar. The announcement came one day after the head of the Olympic committee threatened in an email to decertify U.S.A. Gymnastics -- the sport's national governing body — if its entire board of more than 20 people did not resign by next Wednesday. Several board members, including the chairman, Paul Parilla, had already resigned by the time the email was sent." ...

... Paula Lavigne & Nicole Noren of ESPN: "Michigan State University administrators have long claimed, to the federal government and public, that they have handled sexual assault, violence, and gender discrimination complaints properly. But an Outside the Lines investigation has found a pattern of widespread denial, inaction and information suppression of such allegations by officials ranging from campus police to the Spartan athletic department, whose top leader, Mark Hollis, announced his retirement on Friday. The actions go well beyond the highly publicized case of former MSU athletic physician Larry Nassar. ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: I'd be surprised if the only schools to suppress multiple allegations of sexual abuse by coaches & players were Michigan State & Penn State.

... Marc Tracy of the New York Times: "Michigan State University was pushed further into disarray on Friday when the university's athletic director, Mark Hollis, announced his resignation just two days after the university presient resigned amid widespread outrage over Lawrence G. Nassar, who is accused of serially abusing more than 150 young women while he was a doctor at Michigan State and for the national women's gymnastics team." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Way Beyond the Beltway

Ben Hubbard of the New York Times: "Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, Saudi Arabia's most prominent and flamboyant investor, has been released from detention in the Ritz-Carlton in the capital [Ridyah, Saudi Arabia] after he was arrested amid a sweeping crackdown on corruption, two close associates of his family said on Saturday. The billionaire prince was arrested in November and detained in Riyadh, along with 10 other princes and hundreds of other members of the Saudi elite, as part of what the government called a mass crackdown on corruption. But the arrests were also seen as the latest moves by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to consolidate power."

The Commentariat -- January 26, 2018

Afternoon Update:

Trump Makes Nice to Global Fat Cats. Peter Baker of the New York Times: "President Trump reassured the world's political and financial leaders on Friday that his 'America First' agenda was not a rejection of international cooperation, but he insisted that cross-border trade had to be made fairer and vowed to take action against predatory practices." ...

... Tom Embury-Dennis of the (U.K.) Independent: "Donald Trump has been booed at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos after launching an attack on what he described as the 'nasty, mean and fake' press. 'It wasn't until I became a politician, that I realised how nasty, how mean, how vicious and how fake the press can be,' Mr Trump said. Pointing into the crowd, he added: '... as the cameras start going off in the back.' The comment was met by a mixture of boos and laughter from the audience." Mrs. McC: If only the U.S. press weren't so "impartial" & polite. This is ludicrous coming from someone who denied President Obama was an American, constantly called his opponent "crooked," slammed the press to its face, & so forth.

Trump Threatens Young People. Addy Baird of Think Progress: "The New York Times reported Thursday that White House officials ... 'warned that if no deal is reached [on immigration reform], DACA recipients will face deportation when the program fully expires on March 5.' One unnamed senior official said the young immigrants would not be specifically targeted, but rather they would be treated as 'illegal immigrants' who would be processed for deportation if they came into contact with immigration officers.... The government has a vast amount of personal information on each Dreamer that they were required to turn over to apply for the program -- without the DACA program, its recipients will lose their work permits."

Maggie Haberman & Amy Chozick of the New York Times: "A senior adviser to Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign who was accused of repeatedly sexually harassing a young subordinate was kept on the campaign at Mrs. Clinton's request, according to four people familiar with what took place. Mrs. Clinton's campaign manager at the time recommended that she fire the adviser, Burns Strider. But Mrs. Clinton did not. Instead, Mr. Strider was docked several weeks of pay and ordered to undergo counseling, and the young woman was moved to a new job."

Marc Tracy of the New York Times: "Michigan State University was pushed further into disarray on Friday when the university's athletic director, Mark Hollis, announced his resignation just two days after the university president resigned amid widespread outrage over Lawrence G. Nassar, who is accused of serially abusing more than 150 young women while he was a doctor at Michigan State and for the national women's gymnastics team."

*****

Wow! Michael Schmidt & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "President Trump ordered the firing last June of Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel overseeing the Russia investigation, according to four people told of the matter, but ultimately backed down after the White House counsel threatened to resign rather than carry out the directive.... Mr. Mueller learned about the episode in recent months as his investigators interviewed current and former senior White House officials.... After receiving the president's order to fire Mr. Mueller, the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, refused to ask the Justice Department to dismiss the special counsel, saying he would quit instead, the people said.... Another option that Mr. Trump considered in discussions with his advisers was dismissing the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, and elevating the department's No. 3 official, Rachel Brand, to oversee Mr. Mueller. Mr. Rosenstein has overseen the investigation since March, when Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself." ...

... Derek Hawkins of the Washington Post: "In August of last year, shortly after FBI agents raided the home of President Trump's former campaign chairman, Trump was asked in a news conference whether he had considered firing Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel leading the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign. 'I haven't given it any thought,' Trump said. 'Well, I've been reading about it from you people. You say, "Oh, I'm going to dismiss him." No, I'm not dismissing anybody.' A report from the New York Times Thursday says otherwise: Trump not only considered ousting Mueller, he actually tried to do it." ...

     ... Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: I caught a clip this morning of Trump's being asked by a reporter, on the fly, to respond to the NYT story. "Fake news," he said. And that's all he said. Most of time time when the news about Trump is fake, it's because the media are reporting what Trump (or Mrs. Huckleberry, etc.) said. ...

... Callum Borchers of the Washington Post: "According to the Times, press coverage played a role in triggering Trump's attempt to" fire Mueller. Borchers suggests the reports that led Trump to the decision were those that revealed Mueller was looking at obstruction-of-justice charges. "One is probably The Washington Post's June 14 report that Trump's firing of FBI Director James B. Comey one month earlier had prompted Mueller to begin probing the question of obstruction of justice." ...

... David Graham of the Atlantic: "The Times reports that in addition to telling McGahn to fire Mueller, Trump weighed removing Rosenstein. If either man had gone, it could have set off a replay of the Saturday Night Massacre.... None of [Trump's cooked-up] arguments represents a compelling conflict of interest..., and none of them falls afoul of the Justice Department's strict guidelines for avoiding conflicts. Trump surrogates like Chris Ruddy were out making similar arguments at the time, but ... Sarah Sanders insisted that while Trump could fire Mueller, he did not intend to. Congressional Republicans dismissed the idea as too far-fetched to be true.... It is up to Mueller to decide whether Trump's actions constitute a crime of obstruction of justice, but for Congress and the public, the central question remains what it is that has made Trump so anxious to suffocate the probes examining his campaign, presidency, and finances." ...

... Kaili Joy Gray of Shareblue: "... Trump's White House is not denying it. 'We decline to comment out of respect for the Office of the Special Counsel and its process,' said Ty Cobb, one of Trump's lawyers, in a statement to the Times. For a White House that smears any allegation, regardless of the amount of evidence supporting it, as 'fake news,' that statement speaks volumes about the story, which is based on conversations with multiple sources.... The bombshell report confirms what many Democrats were warning when Trump first started smearing Mueller.... The GOP-led smear campaign against Mueller also kicked into gear at the same time Trump was looking for a way to fire him. When Mueller was first appointed in May, Republicans had nothing but good things to say about the Purple Heart veteran and former FBI director. But a month later, their tone had shifted considerably. Suddenly, the investigation was a 'witch hunt' and Mueller went from having integrity to having 'conflicts of interest.'" ...

... Jeremy Stahl of Slate suggests a number of theories -- some his -- as to why & who leaked this story now. Most theorists seem to think Don McGahn was behind the leaks & had a CYA motive. Others suggest Steve Bannon, for the same reason.

... David Choi of Business Insider: Sean Hannity didn't believe the Times' story. "'At this hour, The New York Times is trying to distract you. And our sources, and I've checked in with many of them, they're not confirming that tonight, Hannity [said]. 'And the president's attorney dismissed the story, and says, "Nope, no comment. We're not going there." And how many times has The New York Times and others gotten it wrong.'... Later during the segment, Hannity ... [said,] 'All right, so we have sources tonight just confirming ... that yeah, maybe Donald Trump wanted to fire the special counsel for a conflict,' the Fox News host said. 'Does he not have the right to raise those questions? 'You know, we'll deal with this tomorrow night,' Hannity said, before discussing a high-speed police chase in Arizona." ...

... Trump Lawyer Thinks He's the Decider. Betsy Woodruff of the Daily Beast: "John Dowd, a lawyer for ... Donald Trump, told The Daily Beast on Thursday he will be the one to decide whether Trump sits down for an interview with special counsel Robert Mueller. Dowd also said he hasn't made any decision on whether an interview will happen." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Bad news, Johnny boy. Mueller is the decider. If Trump refuses to sit for an "interview," he can appear before a D.C. grand jury & answer questions under oath. Is Dowd just posturing, or does he really not know how this works? Also, does he think his suggestion that he, & not his client, will go down well with Trump?

... Tim O'Brien of Bloomberg, whom Donald Trump sued in 2006, describes how Trump did when O'Brien's attorneys deposed him. Among other things, "Trump ultimately had to admit 30 times that he had lied over the years about all sorts of stuff...; Trump didn't appear to be well prepared when we deposed him...; Trump also has a well-known inability to stick to the facts and a tendency to dissemble and improvise." Mrs. McC: Trump lost the suit. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Betsy Woodruff of the Daily Beast: "A lawyer close to Mueller's investigation told The Daily Beast that before the release of Michael Wolff's book Fire and Fury, the special counsel's team indicated zero interest in questioning ... [Steve Bannon].... The team hadn't asked to interview him, the source said. Bannon himself told Wolff that he didn't expect to hear from Mueller. 'I know no Russians, I don't know nothin' about nothin,'' he said. 'I'm not being a witness. I'm not hiring a lawyer.' Bannon also told the author that he suspected Donald Trump Jr. introduced Kremlin-linked operatives to his father during their June 2016 Trump Tower meeting. And he said he thought the Mueller investigation was 'all about money-laundering.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: My confidence in the Mueller team just dipped. Bannon was around for a good period of time when Trump & Co., Ltd., were doing their dirty work. Just because the media have reported on A, B & C doesn't mean the Trumpies haven't filled out an alphabet's-worth of as-yet unreported illegal schemes. Why not go on a fishing expedition? Yeah, start asking staff about Russia & Comey or what have you, & go from there. I hope they videotape Mrs. Huckleberry & Madame Alternative Facts. ...

... Elana Schor of Politico: "The Senate Judiciary Committee will soon release the transcript of its interview with Donald Trump Jr. as well as other witness testimony related to a controversial 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with a Kremlin-linked lawyer, Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said Thursday. Grassley's comments Thursday come the day after two Democrats on the committee publicly pressed for the release of the panel's closed-door interview transcripts to special counsel Robert Mueller. Even as partisan disputes roil the House's Russia investigation, Grassley's alignment with Democrats on releasing the transcripts signals that the Senate - for now, at least - remains in a more collaborative mode." (Also linked yesterday.) ...

... Uh, Maybe Not. ...

Grassley Makes Disingenuous Excuse to Shut Down Judiciary Committee Interviews. Rebecca Savransky of the Hill: "Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said he believes the panel's chances of getting a voluntary interview with White House adviser Jared Kushner 'have been shot.' 'I had hoped to speak with all the witnesses surrounding the Trump Tower meeting before releasing any of those transcripts,' Grassley said Thursday, according to NBC News. 'But the ranking member [Dianne Feinstein] unilaterally released the transcript of Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson. That has spooked other potential witnesses." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Uh, Chuck, Feinstein released testimony that the interviewee Simpson begged to be released. You help up that release because it was damaging to your Republican fantasy narrative & after you & Lindsey Graham made a criminal referral -- without consulting Democrats -- to the FBI, fingering Christopher Steele, who compiled the dossier for Simpson's firm.

... Another GOP Conspiracy Theory Bites the Dust. ...

Avery Anapol of the Hill: "Months of missing text messages between two FBI officials have been located, according a letter obtained by The Hill. Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz told Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) in a letter that the messages spanning from December 2016 to May 2017, previously thought missing due to a technological glitch affecting FBI phones, have been found. 'The [Office of the Inspector General] has been investigating this matter, and, this week, succeeded in using forensic tools to recover text messages from FBI devices,' the letter read." ...

... Yet Another GOP Conspiracy Theory Bites the Dust. ...

... Ryan Reilly of the Huffington Post explains the joke behind the FBI's supposed "secret society," then adds, "What's remarkable about the 'secret society' text message is that it has been available to reporters for more than a month, as it was included in a first set of texts that the Justice Department sent to Capitol Hill (and allowed reporters to view) in December. But it wasn't picked up, even by Fox News (which had access to the texts), because it seemed like such an obvious joke. That changed this week, when lawmakers began highlighting the one text on television." ...

... Johnson Backtracks on Conspiracy Theory He Advanced. Max Greenwood of the Hill: "Sen. Ron Johnson> (R-Wis.) on Thursday acknowledged that 'it's a real possibility' that a reference to a 'secret society' in a text message exchange between two FBI officials was made in jest. The Wisconsin Republican told CNN and ABC News that it was possible that there is no 'secret society' and that the FBI official who made the comment in a text message may have been joking." Mrs. McC: Who's the joke? (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Mike Memoli of NBC News: "Johnson backtracked somewhat on Wednesday, saying he had merely 'heard' about the existence of a secret society and did not have direct evidence of such a rump organization within the FBI." Mrs. McC: Say what? Tuesday Johnson said an "informant" had testified before the Homeland Security Committee, which he chairs, about the FBI's "secret society" or "secret cult." You're not a flat-out liar, are you, Ron? (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

... Eric Levitz of New York writes an excellent summary of these conspiracy theories & the debunking thereof. It begins, "Congressional Republicans have uncovered a scandal that's 'worse the Watergate,' a threat to 'rule of law' in the United States, and 'very, very sad for democracy.' It also happens to be an unhinged conspiracy theory that boasts less internal coherence than Alex Jones's reflections on the government's responsibility for the growing prevalence of hermaphroditic, homosexual frogs." ...

... Huib Modderkolk of the Dutch daily de Volkskrant: "Hackers from the Dutch intelligence service AIVD have provided the FBI with crucial information about Russian interference with the American elections. For years, AIVD had access to the infamous Russian hacker group Cozy Bear. That's what de Volkskrant and Nieuwsuur have uncovered in their investigation." The story is written in the present tense (in English, anyway), but it begins in 2014. It's a compelling spy story, & it indicates U.S. intelligence agencies were slow to appreciate the intel the Dutch gave them on Russian hacking into a number of important U.S. sites, including President Obama's e-mail server.

... Craig Timberg & Elizabeth Dwoskin of the Washington Post: "Russian operatives used Facebook to publicize 129 phony event announcements during the 2016 presidential campaign, drawing the attention of nearly 340,000 users -- many of whom said they were planning to attend -- according to a company document released by the Senate Intelligence Committee Thursday.... In some cases, Russians allegedly working in an office building in St. Petersburg motivated at least some people to mobilize behind various causes, a striking accomplishment for a foreign influence campaign."

Michael Shear & Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: "President Trump proposed legislation on Thursday that would provides a path to citizenship for as many as 1.8 million young, undocumented immigrants in exchange for an end to decades of family-based migration policies, a massive border wall and a vast crackdown on other illegal immigrants already living in the country. Describing the plan as 'extremely generous' but a take-it-or-leave-it proposal by the president, White House officials said they hoped it will be embraced by conservatives and centrists in Congress as the first step in an even broader effort to fix the nation's broken immigration system. But the plan -- drafted by Stephen Miller, the president's hard-line domestic policy adviser and John F. Kelly..., -- was immediately rejected by Democrats, pro-immigration activists and some Republicans, with some describing it as nothing but a heartless attempt to rid the country of immigrants and slam shut the nation's borders. Republican and Democratic senators are working on a narrower immigration plan of their own, hoping that if it can pass the Senate with a strong, bipartisan majority, it would be Mr. Trump who would have the take-it-or-leave-it decision." ...

... Rebekah Entralgo of ThinkProgress: "Several DREAMers — people who were brought to the U.S. as children -- and immigrants rights advocacy groups reacted to the White House's proposal almost immediately, calling out the Trump administration for its brazen embrace of a popular white supremacist policy platform. 'Let's call this proposal for what it is: a white supremacist ransom note. Trump and Stephen Miller killed DACA and created the crisis that immigrant youth are facing. They have taken immigrant youth hostage, pitting us against our own parents, Black immigrants and our communities in exchange for our dignity,' immigrant advocacy group United We Dream said in a statement Thursday." ...

... Sahil Kapur of Bloomberg: "Senator Ted Cruz blasted the idea of giving young undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship, a day after ... Donald Trump said he was open to the idea as part of immigration legislation being negotiated in Congress. 'I do not believe we should be granting a path to citizenship to anybody here illegally,' the Texas Republican said in the Capitol. 'Doing so is inconsistent with the promises we made to the men and women who elected us.' Cruz didn't mention the president in his remarks, but they resurfaced some of the bitterness still left over from the presidential campaign." Mrs. McC: Cruz also didn't mention that both his parents are legal immigrants. Out of the spotlight, he's still the nasty, selfish SOB we remember.

Lindsey Bever, et al., of the Washington Post: "The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists advanced the symbolic Doomsday Clock a notch closer to the end of humanity Thursday, moving it ahead by 30 seconds after what the organization called a 'grim assessment' of the state of geopolitical affairs. 'As of today,' Bulletin president Rachel Bronson told reporters, 'it is two minutes to midnight' -- as close as the world has ever been to the hour of apocalypse. In moving the clock forward, the group cited 'the failure of President Trump and other world leaders to deal with looming threats of nuclear war and climate change.'... The organization -- which has 15 Nobel Laureates on its board -- now believes 'the world is not only more dangerous now than it was a year ago; it is as threatening as it has been since World War II'...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Peter Baker of the New York Times: "President Trump sought on Thursday to repair a diplomatic rift with Britain, America's closest ally, after several fractious episodes culminated in his decision to cancel a scheduled visit to London, where the mayor and other political leaders declared him unwelcome. Meeting with Prime Minister Theresa May on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum, Mr. Trump insisted that the perception of tension in the historically close British-American relationship was a 'false rumor' and indicated that the two sides were discussing the possibility of a later presidential trip to the island.... Mrs. May was polite but less effusive and offered no personal testimonial to Mr. Trump, keeping her comments focused on their mutual national interests." ...

... "The Least Racist Person" Says He Would Apologize (But hasn't.) ITV: "Donald Trump has told ITV that he would apologise for re-tweeting Britain First - and insisted he is not a racist. The US president told Good Morning Britain presenter Piers Morgan that he knew 'nothing' about the organisation and was driven by his belief in fighting radical Islamic terror.... Mr Trump caused outrage in Britain when he posted the three tweets last November, prompting Prime Minister Theresa May to say he was 'wrong' to have done so. Mr Trump told ITV that he did not mean to endorse 'horrible, racist people' and that the re-tweet had not been a big story in the US. But pressed for an apology by Morgan, he said: 'I don't want to cause any difficulty for your country. If you are telling me they're horrible people, horrible, racist people, I would certainly apologise if you'd like me to do that.' Mr Trump said he was 'often the least racist person that anybody is going to meet' and said he had known nothing about the organisation when he made the social media postings. When Morgan described Britain First as 'racist', the president said: 'Of course I didn't know that. I know nothing about them and I know nothing about them today other than I read a little bit.'"

Kevin Drum: "[Wednesday] at Davos, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin casually suggested that the United States preferred a weak dollar because it makes our exports cheaper. A few hours later, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said no, our strong dollar policy is the same as always. In other words, it was just another day at the office for the Trump administration, which was flying blind because the president hadn't tweeted anything lately about his views on the role of currency flows in international trade equilibria." ...

... Okay, Kevin, Here's Your Trump Pronouncement, Which Differs from the Old Pronouncement. Fred Imbert of CNBC: "... Donald Trump told CNBC on Thursday the dollar will strengthen over time under his leadership and that recent remarks made by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin about the greenback were misinterpreted. 'The dollar is going to get stronger and stronger, and ultimately I want to see a strong dollar,. Trump said in an ... interview from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.... Trump's latest remarks about the dollar diverge from his past comments. Last April, Trump said he was worried the dollar was 'getting too strong.' At the WEF on Wednesday, Mnuchin said he welcomed a weaker U.S. dollar, adding that it would benefit the country's trade. On Thursday, Mnuchin said the comment was not a 'shift in my position on the dollar at all....' Trump said Mnuchin's comments 'were taken out of context.'... Mnuchin's earlier remarks kicked off a 2 percent decline in the dollar index, which tracks the U.S. currency's performance against six other currencies."

John Cassidy of the New Yorker: "... on Thursday night Trump ended up getting upstaged by another elderly Manhattan billionaire: George Soros.... 'Open societies are in crisis, and various forms of dictatorships and mafia states, exemplified by Putin's Russia, are on the rise. In the United States, President Trump would like to establish a mafia state, but he can’t, because the Constitution, other institutions, and a vibrant civil society won't allow it,' [Soros said at Davos.... Later Soros] turned his attention to 'another global problem: the rise and monopolistic behavior of the giant I.T.-platform companies,' such as Facebook and Google. Here was a threat, Soros suggested, that was likely to be more lasting than the Trump Administration."

... Paul Schwartzman of the Washington Post: "The emailed response from the Guggenheim's chief curator to the White House was polite but firm: The museum could not accommodate a request to borrow a painting by Vincent van Gogh for President and Melania Trump's private living quarters. Instead, wrote the curator, Nancy Spector, another piece was available...: an 18-karat, fully functioning, solid gold toilet -- an interactive work titled 'America' that critics have described as pointed satire aimed at the excess of wealth in this country. For a year, the Guggenheim had exhibited 'America' -- the creation of contemporary artist Maurizio Cattelan -- in a public restroom on the museum's fifth floor for visitors to use." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: All the effort we've put into insulting Donald Trump, & Nancy Spector trumps us, so to speak, in one e-mail. Brava!

Paul Krugman on Trump's imposition of tariffs on washing machines & solar panels: "Why do Trump and company love dirty energy? Partly it's about the money: what's good for the Koch brothers ... [is] good for G.O.P. campaign finance. Partly it's about blue-collar voters, who still imagine that Trump can bring back coal jobs.... It's also partly about cultural nostalgia: Trump and others recall the heyday of fossil fuels as a golden age, forgetting how ghastly air and water pollution used to be. But I suspect that it's also about a kind of machismo, a sense that real men don't soak up solar energy; they burn stuff instead.... The administration's first significant trade policy move is stunningly boneheaded. You shouldn't even call it protectionism, since its direct effect will be to destroy far more jobs than it creates. Plus it's bad for the environment. So much winning!"

Emoluments! Michelle Lee of the Washington Post: "A super PAC supporting President Trump spent tens of thousands of dollars on events at the Trump International Hotel in Washington and for consulting work by a handful of former Trump campaign aides, according to a new federal filing.... [For instance,] America First Action last year ... paid $55,000 to former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski's consulting business, $40,000 to former campaign spokeswoman Katrina Pierson's firm, $31,719 to former Milwaukee County sheriff David Clarke's firm, and $137,257 to former campaign digital media director Brad Parscale's business."

Heather Caygle & Seung Min Kim of Politico: "Rep. Joe Kennedy, a rising star in the Democratic Party, will deliver the Democratic response to ... Donald Trump's State of the Union on Tuesday, sources told Politico."

** Dell Cameron of Gizmodo: "Prior to receiving notice from Gizmodo this morning, Kris Kobach's office was leaking sensitive information belonging to thousands of state employees, including himself and nearly every member of the Kansas state legislature. Among a bevy of personal information that, according to a statement on the website, was intended to be public, the Kansas Secretary of State's website was exposing the last four digits of Social Security numbers (known as SSN4) of thousands of current and former candidates for office, as well as thousands, or potentially tens of thousands, of high-ranking state employees at apparently ever[y] Kansas government agency. The combination of a person's name and SSN4 creates what's commonly called 'personally identifiable information,' the unauthorized disclosure of which is unlawful under numerous state and federal laws. Putting these statements of substantial interest online without redacting the SSN4 information is beyond reckless; it's stupid.... Gizmodo notified the Kansas Secretary of State's office of the exposure on Thursday morning, and the site was taken down within roughly an hour. A request for comment was not returned." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Remember that Kobach's federal Voter Suppression Commission had demanded every state hand over "personally identifiable information" of every voter in their states. As the New York Times reported in June, "Besides election information like voters' names and party affiliations, the commission sought personal information including birth dates, felony conviction records, voting histories for the past decade and the last four digits of all voters' Social Security numbers." And ProPublica reported, "The voter-fraud-checking program championed by the head of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity suffers from data security flaws that could imperil the safety of millions of peoples' records, according to experts." Fortunately, most states refused to comply with Kobach's demands, & Trump disbanded the Commission before Kobach could download your personal data onto a public-access Website. In addition, Mother Jones reports today that Kobach's brainchild Crosscheck, "has faced mounting questions in recent weeks over security breaches and privacy concerns... with Crosscheck..., a system that compares voter registration data from more than 30 states."

Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: "Jeffrey Wertkin had a plot to bring in business and impress his new partners after joining one of Washington's most influential law firms. As a former high-stakes corporate-fraud prosecutor with the Department of Justice, he had secretly stockpiled sealed lawsuits brought by whistleblowers. Now, he would sell copies of the suits to the very targets of the pending government investigations — and his services to defend them. Wertkin carried out his plan for months, right up until the day an FBI agent arrested him in a California hotel lobby. The 41-year-old partner at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld in the District was caught wearing a wig and fake mustache trying to peddle a sealed federal lawsuit for $310,000 to a Silicon Valley technology company." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Ken Vogel & Katie Rogers of the New York Times: "Representative Patrick Meehan, Republican of Pennsylvania, facing backlash after revelations that he settled a sexual harassment complaint brought by a former aide, will not seek re-election this year. Mr. Meehan informed Speaker Paul D. Ryan of his decision in a letter sent on Thursday.... The decision is an abrupt reversal for Mr. Meehan, 62, who this week had insisted that he intended to run for re-election to a fifth term representing his suburban Philadelphia district, even as the House Ethics Committee investigated the sexual harassment allegations and his use of taxpayer money to settle them. Mr. Meehan, a father of three, had faced increasing pressure to step down after The New York Times revealed on Saturday that a former aide decades his junior had filed a complaint against him last summer, and that Mr. Meehan had used his congressional office fund to pay her thousands of dollars to settle it."

Presidential Race 2020 (Yeah, We're There)

Oprah Won't Run for President. Niraj Chokshi of the New York Times: "In an interview for the March issue of InStyle..., conducted three weeks before [Oprah Winfrey spoke] at the Golden Globes, the former talk show host was asked how she felt about the prospect of what would have been a historic campaign to put a black woman in the White House.... 'I've always felt very secure and confident with myself in knowing what I could do and what I could not,' she said. 'And so it’s not something that interests me. I don't have the DNA for it.' But that doesn't mean she wasn't toying with the idea. 'I met with someone the other day who said that they would help me with a campaign,' she told the magazine. 'That's not for me.'"

Senate Race 2018

David Edwards of the Raw Story: "Republican U.S. Senate candidate for Missouri Courtland Sykes blasted 'women's rights' this week [in a Facebook post].... 'I want to come home to a home cooked dinner every night at six,' Sykes said, referring to demands he makes of his girlfriend. 'One that she fixes and one that I expect one day to have daughters learn to fix after they become traditional homemakers and family wives.' According to Sykes, feminists push an agenda that they 'made up to suit their own nasty snake-filled heads.' The candidate said that he hoped his daughters do not grow up to be 'career obsessed banshees who forgo home life and children and the happiness of family to become nail-biting manophobic hell-bent feminist she devils who shriek from the top of a thousand tall buildings they are [SIC] think they could have leaped in a single bound — had men not been "suppressing them." It's just nuts.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Sykes should do pretty well against Sen. Claire McCaskill, that nail-biting manophobic hell-bent feminist she-devil. Congratulations, GOP!

Erik Wemple of the Washington Post: "CNN is reinstating Ryan Lizza, the Washington political reporter who was fired from the New Yorker for alleged sexual misconduct. 'Upon learning of The New Yorker's decision to sever ties with Ryan Lizza in December, CNN pulled him from future on-air appearances while the network conducted an extensive investigation into the matter,' reads a statement from a CNN spokeswoman. 'Based on the information provided and the findings of the investigation, CNN has found no reason to continue to keep Mr. Lizza off the air.'"

The Commentariat -- January 25, 2018

Afternoon Update:

Lindsey Bever, et al., of the Washington Post: "The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists advanced the symbolic Doomsday Clock a notch closer to the end of humanity Thursday, moving it ahead by 30 seconds after what the organization called a 'grim assessment' of the state of geopolitical affairs. 'As of today,' Bulletin president Rachel Bronson told reporters, 'it is two minutes to midnight' -- as close as the world has ever been to the hour of apocalypse. In moving the clock forward, the group cited 'the failure of President Trump and other world leaders to deal with looming threats of nuclear war and climate change.'... The organization -- which has 15 Nobel Laureates on its board -- now believes 'the world is not only more dangerous now than it was a year ago; it is as threatening as it has been since World War II'...."

Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: "Jeffrey Wertkin had a plot to bring in business and impress his new partners after joining one of Washington's most influential law firms. As a former high-stakes corporate-fraud prosecutor with the Department of Justice, he had secretly stockpiled sealed lawsuits brought by whistleblowers. Now, he would sell copies of the suits to the very targets of the pending government investigations -- and his services to defend them. Wertkin carried out his plan for months, right up until the day an FBI agent arrested him in a California hotel lobby. The 41-year-old partner at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld in the District was caught wearing a wig and fake mustache trying to peddle a sealed federal lawsuit for $310,000 to a Silicon Valley technology company."

Elana Schor of Politico: "The Senate Judiciary Committee will soon release the transcript of its interview with Donald Trump Jr. as well as other witness testimony related to a controversial 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with a Kremlin-linked lawyer, Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said Thursday. Grassley's comments Thursday come the day after two Democrats on the committee publicly pressed for the release of the panel's closed-door interview transcripts to special counsel Robert Mueller. Even as partisan disputes roil the House's Russia investigation, Grassley's alignment with Democrats on releasing the transcripts signals that the Senate -- for now, at least -- remains in a more collaborative mode." ...

... Uh, Maybe Not. ...

Grassley Makes Disingenuous Excuse to Shut Down Judiciary Committee Interviews. Rebecca Savransky of the Hill: "Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said he believes the panel's chances of getting a voluntary interview with White House adviser Jared Kushner 'have been shot.' 'I had hoped to speak with all the witnesses surrounding the Trump Tower meeting before releasing any of those transcripts,' Grassley said Thursday, according to NBC News. 'But the ranking member [Dianne Feinstein] unilaterally released the transcript of Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson. That has spooked other potential witnesses." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Uh, Chuck, Feinstein released testimony that the interviewee Simpson begged to be released. You help up that release because it was damaging to your Republican fantasy narrative & after you & Lindsey Graham made a criminal referral -- without consulting Democrats -- to the FBI, fingering Christopher Steele, who compiled the dossier for Simpson's firm.

Johnson Backtracks on Conspiracy Theory He Advanced. Max Greenwood of the Hill: "Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) on Thursday acknowledged that 'it's a real possibility' that a reference to a 'secret society' in a text message exchange between two FBI officials was made in jest. The Wisconsin Republican told CNN and ABC News that it was possible that there is no 'secret society' and that the FBI official who made the comment in a text message may have been joking." Mrs. McC: Who's the joke? ...

... Mike Memoli of NBC News: "Johnson backtracked somewhat on Wednesday, saying he had merely 'heard' about the existence of a secret society and did not have direct evidence of such a rump organization within the FBI." Mrs. McC: Say what? Tuesday Johnson said an "informant" had testified before the Homeland Security Committee, which he chairs, about the FBI's "secret society" or "secret cult." You're not a flat-out liar, are you, Ron?

Tim O'Brien of Bloomberg, whom Donald Trump sued in 2006, describes how Trump did when O'Brien's attorneys deposed him. Among other things, "Trump ultimately had to admit 30 times that he had lied over the years about all sorts of stuff...; Trump didn't appear to be well prepared when we deposed him...; Trump also has a well-known inability to stick to the facts and a tendency to dissemble and improvise." Mrs. McC: Trump lost the suit.

*****

Josh Dawsey & David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "President Trump said Wednesday he is 'looking forward' to testifying before special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and that he would speak under oath. 'I would love to do it, and I would like to do it as soon as possible,' Trump said at the White House. 'I would do it under oath, absolutely.' The president suggested he was being investigated for obstruction of justice as part of the Russia investigation because he was 'fighting back' and reiterated there was 'no collusion' between his campaign and Moscow.... Trump also said he didn't recall asking acting FBI director Andrew McCabe whom he voted for in an Oval Office discussion earlier this year, as The Washington Post reported Wednesday night.'" ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: At MSNBC, they're going nuts about this big "breaking news" story. I don't think it means much. Trump repeatedly used the conditional form of the verb "would," and he added he would testify "subject to my lawyers & all of that." This is not, IMO, a commitment at all. Rather, these remarks constitute a PR stunt, not the last position Trump will take on sitting for an interview. The show must go on. ...

... Update. Sure Enough. Maggie Haberman & Julie Davis of the New York Times: "Ty Cobb, the White House lawyer leading the response to the investigation, said Mr. Trump was speaking hurriedly and intended only to say that he was willing to meet. 'He's ready to meet with them, but he'll be guided by the advice of his personal counsel,' Mr. Cobb said. He said the arrangements were being worked out between Mr. Mueller's team and the president's personal lawyers." Mrs. McC: In case you still think this wasn't the PR stunt I suggested, here's how Trump wrapped up his remarks: "I was one of the greatest candidates."

... Here's a portion of the audio, via the Washington Post:

... Pamela Brown & Gloria Borger of CNN: "Special counsel Robert Mueller has provided lawyers for ... Donald Trump with a range of topics he wants to ask about as part of ongoing negotiations regarding an interview with the President, sources familiar with the matter tell CNN.... A source familiar with the matter says the special counsel has obliged by offering a list of topics, including learning more about the President allegedly asking former FBI Director James Comey to drop the investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Mueller also wants to know about Trump's reaction to Comey's May 2017 testimony on Capitol Hill, which reportedly angered the President. Additionally, investigators want to learn more about the President's outreach to intelligence leaders about the Russia investigation." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: As numerous pundits have pointed out, the bad news for Trump is that the Mueller team already knows the answers to the questions they will ask him. I'd guess Trump will make up "alternative" answers that won't fly. ...

... DOJ Smacks Nunes. Betsy Woodruff & Spencer Ackerman of the Daily Beast: "The Justice Department expressed deep concerns Wednesday about Republican efforts to release a controversial memo on alleged FBI surveillance of the Trump campaign that has been authored and peddled by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA). In a letter sent to Nunes on Jan. 24, Stephen Boyd, the Justice Department's top Congressional liaison, wrote that 'it would be extraordinarily reckless for the Committee to disclose such information publicly without giving the Department and the FBI the opportunity to review the memorandum and to advise the HPSCI [the House intelligence committee] of the risk of harm to national security and to ongoing investigations that could come from public release.'" ...

... Charlie Savage, et al., of the New York Times elaborate on the story that led to Boyd's memo: "Republicans and conservative commentators have increasingly argued that the [Trump-Russia] investigation derives from a conspiracy by biased law enforcement officials seeking to sabotage President Trump. Democrats, in turn, have accused Republicans of constructing a false narrative in an attempt to undermine the inquiry on behalf of Mr. Trump.... Democrats announced that they had drafted their own classified memo based on the same underlying materials to rebut [House Intelligence Committee chair Devin] Nunes [R-Calif. Nutz]. Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, called the Republicans' document extraordinarily misleading." ...

... Betsy Woodruff & Spencer Ackerman: "A controversial Republican memo alleging surveillance abuse specifically names FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein along with former FBI Director James Comey. Capitol Hill sources on both sides of the aisle say the memo's release is only a matter of time. And when it comes out, these current and former officials -- all GOP bêtes noires -- are likely to face even more criticism from the right over their involvement in FBI counterintelligence work.... To make the memo public, House Republicans are considering the use of an arcane, little-known process from the House of Representatives' rules of procedure (PDF). Rule X, subsection 11(g), lays out a process for releasing classified material even over objections by the president of the United States." AND here's a rub: "The president, however, can simply decide on his own to declassify anything. And in Trump's case, his spokesperson is on the record supporting declassification. 'We certainly support full transparency. We believe that's at the House intel committee to make that decision at this point,' Sarah Huckabee Sanders ... said Tuesday." Emphasis added. ...

... Donie O'Sullivan of CNN: "The viral hashtag campaign #ReleaseTheMemo appears to have been driven at least in part by a swarm of Twitter accounts set up in the past week, a CNN analysis has found. More than 1,000 accounts that were set up between Thursday -- when the hashtag first appeared -- and Sunday night have tweeted the hashtag. 460 of those were what are known as 'egg accounts,' accounts that don't even have a profile picture. About 200 of the accounts had sent only four or fewer tweets by Sunday night, with at least one of those featuring the #ReleaseTheMemo hashtag." O'Sullivan summarizes what this means & where the debate on the origins of #ReleaseTheMemo accounts stands. ...

... Matt Zapotosky of the Washington Post: "The FBI failed to save text messages sent from thousands of cellphones -- apparently because of the same technical glitch that affected the retention of messages from two senior bureau officials who investigated both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, a Justice Department official said. The missing messages from senior FBI lawyer Lisa Page and senior counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok have sparked a political firestorm in recent days, as GOP lawmakers and the president have questioned how it could be that the bureau did not keep their potentially unflattering and revealing exchanges. That the glitch that affected their messages also impacted other FBI phones might cast doubt on the theory that the two officials' texts were specifically and intentionally withheld." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: Oh, Matt. Not fair to trim the sails of the vast Alex Jones wing of the GOP. 'Fraid we're going to have to install you in the "fake news" club. ...

... Speaking of Which ... Mark Sumner of Daily Kos: "On Tuesday, Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson -- the chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee -- went full black helicopter when he announced that there was a secret cult within the FBI which had been conspiring against Donald Trump." Johnson claimed an "informant" told the committee of the secret FBI anti-Trump cult. ...

... Zack Beauchamp of Vox explains "the growing conservative conspiracy theory about missing FBI texts.... The 'texts,' in this narrative, are the new version of Hillary Clinton's private server emails -- a kind of totem that conservatives can point to in order to prove that their enemies really are nefarious and that proof of their wildest theories is there if only someone could find it. This is typical in conspiracy theories; strange coincidences are strung together in a narrative that looks scary if you squint at it right. The absence of proof is taken as its own kind of proof. What's atypical about this conspiracy is that it's being embraced by much of the conservative movement -- up to and including the president of the United States." ...

... Kevin Drum: "The hell of it is that there was a sort of secret society in the FBI. It was a bunch of agents in the New York office who were obsessed with destroying Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign. And they had enough clout that they were able to effectively blackmail FBI director James Comey into releasing the infamous letter that, in the end, did destroy Hillary Clinton.... [Today] The FBI's leadership knows they can stop the heat they're getting anytime they want. All they have to do is agree to support Trump and smear Democrats whenever they're asked to." ...

... Philip Bump of the Washington Post reviews a host of Confederate conspiracy theories on how all kinds of bad guys are going after Donald Trump: "In recent weeks, we've seen a bumper crop of allegations woven into the Trump defenders' tapestry. They've captured the attention of both conservative media and Republican members of Congress. In light of that, we've assembled an overview of the emergent allegations, including, where appropriate, the reasons that they might be considered with a grain of salt." ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: The best part of the conspiracy claims is, as Bump puts it, "the absence of evidence was itself evidence of malfeasance." That is, a lack of evidence is proof of a well-kept secret plot. Paranoia writ large. ...

... ** David Graham of the Atlantic: "While there is no evidence to suggest inappropriate surveillance [by the FBI or other intelligence agencies] of the Trump campaign..., past abuses suggest that it's hardly inconceivable. The trouble is that no one who has leveled the charge in this case has produced evidence to back it.... Still, the requirement to rely on the say-so of an intelligence community that has abused its powers, obfuscated, and retaliated against political opponents must give pause. There's no comfortable position to be found."

Peter Baker of the New York Times: "... when President Trump arrives in ... [Davos, Switzerland,] where financial titans mingle with heads of state in an annual saturnalia of capitalism, it may feel like a moment of vindication. Never invited when he was merely a businessman, Mr. Trump will arrive on Thursday as leader of the world's last superpower, commanding attention if not admiration.... Not only will he finally crash the party that would not have him, but he will also bring his protectionist, 'America First' message to the ground zero of globalization, addressing the very people he has cast as the villains of his political narrative." ...

... America in the Middle. Ana Swanson & Jim Tankersley of the New York Times write a Eulogy for the former "greatest nation on earth": "The world marked a turning point in global trade on Tuesday, when 11 countries agreed to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership, announcing they had finalized the pact and expected to sign a deal on March 8 in Chile. It was a remarkable moment for a beleaguered agreement that was conceived and constructed by the United States, then abandoned by Washington when Mr. Trump took office last year. As the world's largest economy and architect of many international organizations and treaties, the United States remains an indispensable partner. But as the global economy gains strength, Europe and countries including Japan and China are forging ahead with deals that do not include the United States. Thirty-five new bilateral and regional trade pacts are under consideration around the world, according to the World Trade Organization. The United States is party to just one of them, with the European Union, and that negotiation has gone dormant." ...

... Making Europe Great Again. Peter Goodman of the New York Times: "Collectively, [at Davos, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni] signaled that Europe -- only a year ago dismissed as a crippled economic realm fraught with political recrimination -- has regained force. Europe's leaders left no doubt that they aim to channel their newfound economic strength toward advancing the project of European integration first launched in the middle of the last century, seen as an antidote to the brutalities of two world wars. President Trump was not in the room (he is not due to speak here until Friday). But the shadow of his America First policies hung heavily. The three speeches [by the European leaders] resonated as a broad rebuttal of the doctrine that Mr. Trump has made his own." ...

... Erica Werner, et al., of the Washington Post: "Prominent Republicans warned President Trump on Wednesday against taking further trade actions that could harm American workers, even as top administration officials meeting in Davos, Switzerland, rose to the defense of the president's 'America First' rhetoric on the eve of his arrival. The blowback came as Trump moved this week to impose tariffs on imported solar panels and washing machines, incurring fierce criticism in the United States, where experts said such a move would cost jobs, and abroad, where at least one major maker of washing machines notified U.S. retailers that it would raise prices. In Washington, at least half a dozen Republican senators condemned Trump's decision -- his first tariff action — exposing GOP divisions over international trade that threaten the uneasy alliance between the president and lawmakers of his own party." ...

... Life's Good -- Till Your Clothes Get Dirty. Aaron Gregg of the Washington Post: "President Trump's decision on Tuesday to impose steep new tariffs on washing machines and solar gear is already rippling through the U.S. retail market, with at least one importer saying it will hike prices in response. South Korean electronics giant LG [Life's Good] has told U.S. retailers it plans to increase the price of washing machines in response to new import duties that will range from 20 percent to 50 percent, according to a company document reviewed by The Washington Post."

Trump Shows His Support for Dreamers. Louis Nelson of Politico: "... Donald Trump reiterated late Tuesday night that funding for his promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border remains a requirement for any deal to shield undocumented immigrants brought here as children from deportation, a declaration that came hours after Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said he would take wall funding off the table in upcoming negotiations. 'Cryin' Chuck Schumer fully understands, especially after his humiliating defeat, that if there is no Wall, there is no DACA,' Trump wrote on Twitter. 'We must have safety and security, together with a strong Military, for our great people!'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...

     ... Mrs. McCrabbie: So the Rule remains. Innocent young people must pay for Trump's fake campaign promise. The lowest of the low. ...

... Update. Trump Takes Yet Another Position on Dreamers. David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "President Trump said for the first time Wednesday that he is open to a path to citizenship for some younger undocumented immigrants known as 'dreamers' in an immigration deal being negotiated by Congress, a potential breakthrough in the stalled talks. In an impromptu discussion with reporters, Trump emphasized that his support of a citizenship path for about 690,000 immigrants would be contingent on security $25 billion for a wall on the southwest border with Mexico and another $5 billion for additional border security upgrades." Mrs. McC: Pay this no mind, altho I suppose it's worth noting that the cost of the Wall he wants the Dreamers to build for him has risen to $25BB (although he assures us he can build it for less). ...

... Maggie Haberman, et al., of the New York Times: "Mr. Trump once again seemed to undercut his administration's message, telling reporters at the White House that he would allow the young immigrants, known as Dreamers, to 'morph into' citizens over a period of time.... 'Over a period of 10 to 12 years,' Mr. Trump said, 'somebody does a great job, they work hard -- that gives incentive to do a great job. Whatever they're doing, if they do a great job, I think it's a nice thing to have the incentive of, after a period of years, being able to become a citizen.'... His remarks sent the White House staff scrambling in what one official called a 'fire drill.' After delaying the briefing for nearly an hour, Mr. Trump's aides decided to postpone it until Thursday as they tried to reconcile their plans with the president's words." ...

... Richard Wolf of USA Today: "The Supreme Court is racing Congress to decide the future of the Dreamers. The justices agreed Tuesday to decide quickly whether to hear the Trump administration's appeal of a federal district court's order to restart the DACA program without waiting for an appeals court ruling. By setting up a fast track for both sides to submit court papers, the high court likely will consider the Justice Department's request at its Feb. 16 conference. If it decides to take the case, it could hear arguments in the spring."

Sarah Lynch of Reuters: "... Donald Trump's administration on Wednesday escalated it battle with so-called sanctuary cities that protect illegal immigrants from deportation, demanding documents on whether local law enforcement agencies are illegally withholding information from U.S. immigration authorities. The Justice Department said it was seeking records from 23 jurisdictions -- including America's three largest cities, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, as well as three states, California, Illinois and Oregon -- and will issue subpoenas if they do not comply fully and promptly." ...

... Mrs. McCrabbie: Excellent timing, gentlemen. Because ...

... John Verhovek of ABC News: "Mayors of the three largest U.S. cities skipped a previously scheduled meeting at the White House Wednesday after the Department of Justice sent a letter threatening to subpoena jurisdictions across the country for failing to share information with federal authorities related to undocumented immigrants. The mayors of New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago, all cities on the DOJ's list of jurisdictions, not only snubbed the meeting but blasted ... Donald Trump as well.... At the White House meeting..., Trump ... [said,] 'The mayors who choose to boycott this event have put the needs of criminal illegal immigrants over law-abiding Americans,' Trump said. 'But let me tell you, the vast majority of people showed up ... because the vast majority believe in safety for your city.' New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, the president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, also skipped the meeting, saying that while the entire conference of mayors is usually invited every year, that was not the case this year, and he could not attend the meeting 'in good conscience' after the DOJ letter was sent."

The NSA's Homage to Trump. Jean Manach of the Intercept: "The National Security Agency maintains a page on its website that outlines its mission statement. But earlier this month, the agency made a discreet change: It removed 'honesty' as its top priority. Since at least May 2016, the surveillance agency had featured honesty as the first of four 'core values' listed on NSA.gov, alongside 'respect for the law,' 'integrity,' and 'transparency.' The agency vowed on the site to 'be truthful with each other.' On January 12, however, the NSA removed the mission statement page – which can still be viewed through the Internet Archive -- and replaced it with a new version. Now, the parts about honesty and the pledge to be truthful have been deleted.... In its old core values, the NSA explained that it would strive to be deserving of the 'great trust' placed in it by national leaders and American citizens. It said that it would 'honor the public's need for openness.' But those phrases are now gone; all references to 'trust,' 'honor,' and 'openness' have disappeared." An NSA spokesperson said, "It's nothing more than a Website update." Uh-huh.

Amy Goldstein of the Washington Post: "The Senate voted Wednesday to confirm Alex Azar, a former drug industry executive with pristine conservative credentials, as the next secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. The 55 to 43 vote for Azar ushers in his return to the government's largest domestic agency, where he held senior roles during the tenure of the last Republican president. He will become the Trump administration's second HHS leader in 11 months; his predecessor, Tom Price, resigned in the fall amid an investigation of his use of expensive private planes for official business." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Another of the Best People Resigns. Robert O'Harrow of the Washington Post: "A 24-year-old former Trump campaign worker who rose rapidly to a senior post in the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy will step down by the end of the month because of controversy surrounding his appointment, the White House said late Wednesday. Taylor Weyeneth, who graduated from college in May 2016, was named a White House liaison to the drug office the following March and then promoted to deputy chief of staff in July, at age 23. His only professional experience after college and before becoming a political appointee was working on the Trump presidential campaign."

Alan Blinder & Daniel Victor of the New York Times: "Gunfire ringing out in American schools used to be rare, and shocking. Now it seems to happen all the time. The scene in Benton, Ky., on Tuesday was the worst so far in 2018: Two 15-year-old students were killed and 18 more people were injured. But it was one of at least 11 shootings on school property recorded since Jan. 1, and roughly the 50th of the academic year. Researchers and gun control advocates say that since 2013, they have logged school shootings at a rate of about one a week." ...

... Gail Collins: "'It is unbelievable that this would happen in a small, close-knit community like Marshall County,' said the governor [of Kentucky], Matt Bevin. Actually, that part is completely believable. Given that another school shooting this week was in Italy, Tex., population under 2,000. And that two months ago, 25 people were shot to death while attending church in Sutherland Springs, Tex., population 362. It's about guns, not population density.... Donald Trump -- who yelled about 'carnage' in big cities during his inauguration speech -- has said not a word about the Kentucky shooting except to tweet his 'thoughts and prayers.'... We are resigned to the fact that there is nothing, no matter how horrific, that will convince any politician in the thrall of the National Rifle Association to consider even the most modest gun-safety legislation."

Josh Gerstein of Politico: "A spokesman for Rick Gates, the former Trump campaign official indicted in the Russia investigation, was killed over the weekend in Afghanistan during the bombing and siege of a hotel that catered to foreigners. Glenn Selig, 49, was in Kabul on business related to his Florida public relations firm when he became one of at least 22 people killed during a 14-hour attack that began Saturday night and stretched into Sunday, a colleague said."

David Jesse of the Detroit Free Press: "Michigan State University President Lou Anna Simon will step down as leader of MSU, the school announced late Wednesday. 'As tragedies are politicized, blame is inevitable,' she said in statement. 'As president, it is only natural that I am the focus of this anger. I understand, and that is why I have limited my personal statements...."... She said in her resignation statement there was no cover-up at MSU." ...

... Tracy Connor of NBC News: "After a remarkable hearing that featured gut-wrenching statements from 156 of his accusers and an apology that the judge said rang hollow, former Olympic gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar was sentenced Wednesday to 40 to 175 years in prison for molesting young girls under the guise of treatment.... Nassar, 54, agreed to a minimum 40-year sentence when he pleaded guilty last year to seven counts of first-degree criminal sexual misconduct in Ingham County. He still faces sentencing in Eaton County for three more counts, and he's already been sentenced to 60 years in federal prison for possession of child pornography. The judge could have given Nassar a stiffer sentence than the one he agreed to, but that would have given him the option of withdrawing his plea and asking for a trial." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Ruby Cramer & Ema O'Connor of BuzzFeed: "Planned Parenthood's Cecile Richards is planning to step down from her role as president after more than a decade at the helm, according to two sources familiar with the matter. She has served as the president of the women's health and reproductive rights organization since 2006. Richards, 60, has informed at least some members of the organization's board of directors...."