Daily Archives
31 posts · Thursday
Just dropped · Trial Balloon · Ep. 188
Nothing to See Here
Former FBI Director James Comey told senators in a closed hearing this afternoon that Attorney General Jeff Sessions may have had a third interaction with Russia’s ambassador to the United States, CNN reports.
Jared Kushner is expected to meet with Senate Intelligence Committee staff mid-June, two people familiar with the matter told NBC News.
“Kushner’s meeting would be the first step in an agreement he made with the committee. He’s expected to provide documents and ultimately take questions from the committee’s senators.”
A new Landmark Communications Poll in Georgia’s 6ht congressional district finds Jon Ossoff (D) narrowly leads Karen Handel (R), 50% to 47%.
“The U.K. risks plunging into fresh political turmoil after exit polls signaled that the governing Conservative Party failed to achieve an overall majority in Thursday’s election, an unexpected result that raises profound questions about the country’s looming departure from the European Union,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“In a potentially fatal blow to the premiership of Theresa May, the polls suggested her governing Conservative Party looks set to have fallen short of the 326 seats needed to win a majority in Britain’s 650-seat Parliament. The poll suggested that her party would win 314 seats and the main opposition Labour Party 266 seats.”
Jack Goldsmith: “Trump does not remotely understand his role, status, and duties as President and Chief Executive, and this failure infects or undermines just about everything he does. It is an amazing state of affairs: A President of the United States who does not at all grasp the Office he occupies, and who thus entirely lacks the proper situation sense, or contextual knowledge, in which a President should exercise judgment or act. Let that sink in, and then imagine all of the decisions a President must make, all that he is responsible for.”
Evan Osnos: “By any normal accounting, the chance of a Presidency ending ahead of schedule is remote. In two hundred and twenty-eight years, only one President has resigned; two have been impeached, though neither was ultimately removed from office; eight have died. But nothing about Trump is normal. Although some of my sources maintained that laws and politics protect the President to a degree that his critics underestimate, others argued that he has already set in motion a process of his undoing. All agree that Trump is unlike his predecessors in ways that intensify his political, legal, and personal risks. He is the first President with no prior experience in government or the military, the first to retain ownership of a business empire, and the oldest person ever to assume the Presidency.”
A secret recording shows Rep. Martha McSally (R-AZ) has some concerns about reelection, the Tuscon Weekly reports.
“Team McSally has been poo-pooing recent polls showing that more than half of the voters in her district disapprove of her job performance, while her approval has fallen down to the mid-30s, percentage-wise, and that she was losing to a generic Democrat by 7 percentage points. But last week, in a private talk to the Arizona Bankers Association, McSally conceded that in the current political environment, she has some real challenges in next year’s election.”
McSally complained that President Trump and his tweets were creating troubling distractions: “It’s basically being taken out on me. Any Republican member of Congress, you are going down with the ship. And we’re going to hand the gavel to Pelosi in 2018, they only need 28 seats and the path to that gavel being handed over is through my seat. And right now, it doesn’t matter that it’s me, it doesn’t matter what I’ve done. I have an ‘R’ next to my name and right now, this environment would have me not prevail.”
Aides to President Trump are urging him not to fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions despite rifts between the two men, Reuters reports.
“Political and legal advisers inside the White House have told Trump over the past month that firing Sessions would create another political fire storm and make it more difficult to fill key jobs inside his administration, the sources said on the condition of anonymity.”
Said one: “That’s the advice he’s been given. But he might not listen to that advice.”
Rick Klein: “He accused the president and his top aides of lying. He suggested that the president wanted special treatment in exchange for loyalty. He said he thinks he lost his job because of how he handled the Russia investigation.”
“James Comey served notice that if President Donald Trump operates like a bully, there are powerful people who know how to punch back. The ex-FBI director’s powerful, riveting testimony — delivered under oath before the Senate Intelligence Committee — overflowed with headlines and revelations that will resonate for months or longer.”
“Among the big takeaways: In Comey, Trump has made an enemy who knows the levers of Washington power and has already put in motion forces that are beyond the president’s ability to control.”
“Lordy, I hope there are tapes.”
— Former FBI Director James Comey, quoted by the New York Times, referring to President Trump’s suggestion that he may have recorded their conversations.
Former FBI director James Comey “essentially laid out an obstruction of justice case against President Trump and suggested senior leaders in the bureau might have actually contemplated the matter before Trump removed him as director,” the Washington Post reports.
“Comey did not explicitly draw any legal conclusions. Whether justice was obstructed, he said, was a question for recently appointed special counsel Robert Mueller. But he said Trump’s request to terminate the FBI’s investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn left him ‘stunned,’ and senior FBI officials considered it to be of ‘investigative interest.'”
Jeffrey Toobin: “President Trump appears to be guilty of obstruction of justice. That’s the only rational conclusion to be reached if James Comey’s opening statement for his planned testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, on Thursday, is to be believed. The lurch of the Trump Presidency from one crisis to the next scandal produces a kind of bombshell-induced numbness, but that should not prevent us from appreciating the magnitude of Comey’s statement.”
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R), who has championed some of the strictest voting laws in the nation, announced a campaign for governor, the Kansas City Star reports.
“Kobach, the architect of controversial election and immigration laws, advised President Donald Trump on immigration policy throughout the 2016 campaign and was appointed to serve as vice chairman of a new federal commission that will investigate the prevalence of voter fraud.”
Jennifer Palmieri: “I know from experience that it’s even more disorienting than it appears. No one in a position of authority at the White House tells you what is happening. No one knows. Your closest colleague could be under investigation and you would not know. You could be under investigation and not know. It can be impossible to stay focused on your job.”
“There will be other collateral damage. In the Clinton White House, we tried hard to isolate the team of lawyers working on impeachment so President Clinton and his staff could continue advancing their policy goals. Yet Congress was consumed with impeachment for months, and it was nearly impossible to get anything done.”
Doug Sosnik: “My lesson from those days: Trump and his advisers are in way over their heads and unprepared for what awaits them.”
Former FBI Director James Comey “said he shared copies of his memos documenting his meetings with President Trump with a friend — an unnamed professor at Columbia Law School — so this person could share the information with a reporter,” the Washington Post reports.
New York Times: “He said he did so with the explicit hope of triggering the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Russian election interference.”
“I was honestly concerned that he might lie.”
— Former FBI Director James Comey, quoted by the AP, testifying on why he created a memo on his January meeting with President Trump.
Former FBI Director James Comey is testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee on President Trump’s potential interference in his investigation into the Trump campaign’s possible collusion with Russia.
Politico: “White House aides are trying to keep Trump busy Thursday morning with meetings so he won’t watch TV and tweet during the hearing.”
However, you can watch a live feed on C-SPAN.
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.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.