“I think that our decisions at the end of the Clinton email investigation, particularly the decision to make that announcement in October to Congress about the re-opening of the case as a result of the emails on the Anthony Weiner laptop, I think its undeniable that those actions at an impact on the election.”
— Former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, in an interview on MSNBC.
Daily Beast: “Nearly three years after hacked materials upended the 2016 presidential campaign, each Democratic candidate running for the White House has pledged not to knowingly use such material should they end up being published during the current election cycle.”
“Only one 2020 campaign chose not to respond: President Donald Trump’s.”
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) said that he’s not launching a primary challenge against President Trump unless the president’s political standing within his own party weakens dramatically, the AP reports.
Said Hogan: “My goal is not to just make the incumbent president lose in the general election. I’m not going to do that. If they’re looking for someone just to be a spoiler or to throw myself on a grenade to help someone else, that’s not me. Somebody else might be motivated that way. But I’ve got a state to run.”
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA): “To my Republican colleagues: When the president attacked the independence of the Justice Department by intervening in a case in which he is implicated, you did not speak out. When he attacked the press as the enemy of the people, you again were silent. When he targeted the judiciary, labeling judges and decisions he didn’t like as illegitimate, we heard not a word. And now he comes for Congress, the first branch of government, seeking to strip it of its greatest power, that of the purse.”
“Many of you have acknowledged your deep misgivings about the president in quiet conversations over the past two years. You have bemoaned his lack of decency, character and integrity. You have deplored his fundamental inability to tell the truth. But for reasons that are all too easy to comprehend, you have chosen to keep your misgivings and your rising alarm private.”
“That must end. The time for silent disagreement is over. You must speak out.”
After the North Carolina state board of elections unanimously ordered a new election in the state’s 9th congressional district, the Cook Political Report says the seat remains a Toss Up.
“Meanwhile, Republicans are likely headed for a crowded primary, with or without Mark Harris. And things could get even worse for Republicans: under state law, a runoff will be held if no candidate gets 30 percent of the primary vote, further threatening to drain the party’s time and resources (the legislature lowered the threshold from 40 percent to 30 percent back in fall 2017, marginally reducing the chances this would occur).”
A defiant Rep. Steve King (R-IA) “confirmed that he will run for a 10th term as an Iowa congressman, despite controversies over his history of caustic remarks, including about race and immigration,” the Des Moines Register reports.
Said King: “I have nothing to apologize for.”
“For the second time in four months, the name ‘Trump Place’ will come down from a New York building’s facade after condo owners at 120 Riverside Blvd. voted to have the name removed,” the Washington Post reports.
“The building’s condominium board announced the decision Thursday… The email said that, after a vote of the building’s condo owners, the tally was about 55 percent in favor of removing the large sign over the front door.”
U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson imposed a full gag order after Roger Stone posted photo on Instagram of judge with what appeared to be crosshairs of gun.
Said Jackson: “So no, Mr Stone, I’m not giving you another chance. I have serious doubts about whether you’ve learned any lesson at all.”
She added: “Any violation of this order will be a basis for revoking your bond.”
“An analyst with the Internal Revenue Service was charged with disclosing confidential reports about Michael Cohen’s bank records that revealed the President’s former lawyer sought to profit from his proximity to the White House,” CNN reports.
“I recognize that I let the court down. I let you down. I let myself down. I let my family down. I let my attorneys down. I can only say I’m sorry. it was a momentary lapse in judgment. Perhaps I talk too much… I am kicking myself over my own stupidity.”
— Roger Stone, quoted by Politico, apologizing to U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson for violating her gag order.
A new Public Policy Polling survey in Kentucky finds just 33% of voters approve of the job Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is doing, while 56% disapprove and 11% are unsure.
“A judge ruled Thursday that federal prosecutors — among them, U.S. Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta — broke federal law when they signed a plea agreement with a wealthy, politically connected sex trafficker and concealed it from more than 30 of his underage victims,” the Miami Herald reports.
“U.S. District Judge Kenneth A. Marra, in a 33-page opinion, said that the evidence he reviewed showed that Jeffrey Epstein had been operating an international sex operation in which he and others recruited underage girls — not only in Florida — but from overseas, in violation of federal law.”
“Instead of prosecuting Epstein under federal sex trafficking laws, Acosta, then the U.S. attorney in Miami, helped negotiate a non-prosecution agreement that gave Epstein and his co-conspirators immunity from federal prosecution.”
Mark Harris (R) called for a new election in North Carolina’s disputed 9th congressional district race, the Washington Post reports.
The North Carolina State Board of Elections is hearing evidence this week to decide whether a suspected ballot-tampering scheme tainted the outcome where Harris leads Dan McCready (D) by 905 votes in unofficial returns.
Nate Silver: “So as Sanders launches his 2020 campaign as a candidate with both formidable strengths and serious challenges, his biggest problem might seem to be that there’s more competition for his base this time around, with Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and others also competing for the leftmost part of the Democratic electorate. An equally big problem for Sanders, however, is that voters this time around have more alternatives to Hillary Clinton — left, right and center — to choose from.”
“Roughly one-quarter of Sanders’s support in Democratic primaries and caucuses in 2016 came from #NeverHillary voters: people who didn’t vote for Clinton in the 2016 general election and who had no intention of doing so.”
Politico: “Of course, every state is in better economic shape than it was during the Great Recession, but California has enjoyed its renaissance while pursuing policies Republicans associate with economic ruin. It has an $11-an-hour minimum wage, scheduled to rise to $15 by 2023. Its unusually aggressive implementation of Obamacare since 2013 has reduced its uninsured rate from 17 percent to just 7 percent.”
“Its ambitious clean energy and climate policies in many ways inspired the Green New Deal; the state is committed to generating 50 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030 and 100 percent by 2045, and its stringent fuel-efficiency standards help explain why it’s home to half the nation’s electric vehicles. In general, California is flourishing while pursuing the exact opposite of the policies Trump is pursuing in Washington.”
Axios: “Like McConnell, Craft is from Kentucky, where she and her husband, billionaire coal CEO Joe Craft, rank among the state’s highest-profile Republican donors. Last month, she was being eyed as a potential candidate for lieutenant governor by Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin in his re-election race later this year.”
Ron Brownstein: “Bernie Sanders’s entry into the 2020 race amounts to a big stone in a lake: It will generate ripples that touch every other candidate. But his own path to the nomination remains rocky unless he can attract a broader coalition than he did in 2016.”
“Whether or not Sanders claims the nomination himself, his bid could have a big impact on which candidate eventually does. Sanders will hurt contenders whose support overlaps with his, reducing the pool of voters available for those who are targeting the same groups most drawn to him, particularly young people, the most liberal activists, and independents who participate in Democratic primaries. That dynamic would most obviously affect Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, but could also potentially weaken former Texas Representative Beto O’Rourke, who’s mulling a bid. Yet it could simultaneously benefit the candidates with the least demographic and ideological convergence, a list that ranges from African American Senators Kamala Harris and Cory Booker to such relative centrists as Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar and former Vice President Joe Biden, if he joins the field.”
“Sanders’s entry could also influence his competitors’ assessment of the earliest primary states, by causing other candidates to view the New Hampshire contest as a regional showdown between him and Warren.”
Neil Katyal: “The report is unlikely to be a dictionary-thick tome, which will disappoint some observers. But such brevity is not necessarily good news for the president. In fact, quite the opposite.”
“For months, the president’s lawyers have tried to discredit Mr. Mueller and this report, but their efforts may have backfired. A concise Mueller report might act as a ‘road map’ to investigation for the Democratic House of Representatives — and it might also lead to further criminal investigation by other prosecutors. A short Mueller report would mark the end of the beginning, not the beginning of the end.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
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