June 16, 2017

President Trump “retains control of assets that as of April 15 were worth at least $1.4 billion and had generated nearly $600 million in gross revenues in the previous 15½ months,” the Washington Post reports.

“The report, which the president voluntarily filed with the Office of Government Ethics, underscores the unprecedented financial interests Trump has brought with him to the Oval Office, an arrangement that has generated sharp criticism and spurred legal challenges.”

Politico: “It’s impossible to give an upper bound to Trump’s income, assets or debt because the highest brackets for reporting those figures do not include an upper bound.”

President Trump has added another high-profile lawyer to his personal legal team as the special counsel investigation heats up, Politico reports.

“John Dowd, who investigated Pete Rose for Major League Baseball and represented John McCain during the Keating Five Scandal, among other high-profile clients, has joined the president’s legal team.”

David Remnick: “Trump’s egotism, his demand for one-way loyalty, and his incapacity to assume responsibility for his own untruths and mistakes were, his biographers make plain, his pattern in business and have proved to be his pattern as President.”

“Veteran Washington reporters tell me that they have never observed this kind of anxiety, regret, and sense of imminent personal doom among White House staffers—not to this degree, anyway. These troubled aides seem to think that they can help their own standing by turning on those around them—and that by retailing information anonymously they will be able to live with themselves after serving a President who has proved so disconnected from the truth and reality.”

James Hohmann: “A person who spoke with Trump on Tuesday told the New York Times that the president was pleased by the intentional ambiguity of his position on firing Robert S. Mueller as special counsel, ‘and thinks the possibility of being fired will focus the veteran prosecutor on delivering what the president desires most: a blanket public exoneration.'”

“If the president truly believes this, he fundamentally misunderstands what motivates the former FBI director – who has stood up to previous administrations and never swayed under political pressure.”

“Just as almost every previous effort at damage control has made Trump’s Russia-related headaches worse, keeping the door open to firing Mueller earlier this week has now backfired. Key figures on Capitol Hill and in the conservative legal firmament have now gone on the record to warn that ousting the special counsel would trigger a constitutional crisis. That would make it much harder for Trump to go that route down the road.”

“I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt.”

— President Trump, quoted by Twitter.