Michael Flynn, who abruptly fired his legal team last week, “has hired former prosecutor turned defense lawyer—and vocal critic of Robert Mueller’s special counsel team—Sidney Powell to represent him,” the Federalist reports.
“Flynn’s firing of his former attorneys… comes at a strange time, and following several significant developments, raising speculation about Flynn’s intentions.”
David Kurtz: “Looks like Mike Flynn is putting all his marbles on a presidential pardon.”
A new Quinnipiac poll finds Americans think that a sitting president should be subject to criminal charges by a 69% to 24% margin.
The poll finds a majority think President Trump committed crimes before he took office, 57% to 29%, but are divided 45% to 45% on whether he committed crimes while he has been in office.
Washington Post: “It’s a bit painful to watch them confess via Twitter to youthful indiscretions back at England’s elite universities, while trying to turn attention to what they might do about the Value Added Tax, for example. It is also far from clear what the 120,000 or so Conservative Party members — the ‘selectorate’ that will choose between two finalists — think or care about a former government minister smoking a fatty back at Oxford.”
“The whole row began when one top contender, Environment Secretary Michael Gove, admitted to using cocaine ‘on several occasions’ in the past. Several? The British press naturally wanted to know more. There were quickly tabloid stories about a ‘double life’ and a ‘fast crowd’ in Mayfair casinos and Soho clubs, back when Gove was a young journalist.”
Matt Taibbi: “Trump’s thin Electoral College win against Hillary Clinton was a similar story. One of the most amazing stats from Election Day was that around one in six of Trump’s voters in November 2016 actively disapproved of him. This allowed him to enter the White House with a ridiculously low 38 percent approval rating.”
“What predictions can you possibly make in a political environment so saturated with ambivalence and pessimism that a person with a 38 percent approval rating can win the presidency? The answer should be none, or nothing obvious.”
“2016 was an indication that voters had traveled so far off the reservation that any choices they made going forward were likely to be hard to predict.”
Walter Shapiro makes a prediction: “Someone will build a drinking game around how often the candidates use the word ‘existential’ on the Miami debate stage.”
BuzzFeed News: “The controversial half-mile wall constructed along the US–Mexico border near Sunland Park, New Mexico, was erected earlier this month after organizers raised more than $23 million on GoFundMe, the online crowdfunding site.”
“But We Build the Wall organizers failed to obtain the required authorization to build the barrier on federal land, cutting off access to waterways and a public monument.”
Washington Post: “The president’s oldest son is expected to spend about four hours with the committee answering a limited number of questions, according to people familiar with the terms — including queries about a June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer promising incriminating information about Hillary Clinton.”
“Congressional Democrats believe that Trump Jr. may have lied to them during previous testimony about the meeting and whether he told his father about it — suspicions that were heightened after the publication of Robert Mueller’s report.”
David Weigel: “Biden has been at pains to emphasize his devotion to climate action, especially since an aide was quoted as saying Biden would take a ‘middle road’ to fighting climate change — a characterization he strongly disputes.”
“This business that Democrats play by one set of rules and Republicans play by a different set of rules, those days are over when I’m president.”
— Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), in an interview with Vox.
President Trump “asserted executive privilege to shield documents about the administration’s decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, a move meant to try to undercut an expected vote by a House panel to hold his attorney general and commerce secretary in contempt for failing to turn over the materials to lawmakers,” the Washington Post reports.
Axios: “The House Oversight Committee is preparing to vote to hold Attorney General Bill Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross in contempt Wednesday for refusing to turn over subpoenaed materials. The committee is investigating whether the Trump administration’s decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census was politically motivated, a controversy that could have major implications for future federal funding and redistricting.”
Josh Kraushaar: “Trump’s clearest path to victory relies on Democrats making a series of self-destructive decisions. But even if Democrats turn leftward and nominate a weak challenger, they’d still have a credible chance at unseating Trump. The country’s rampant polarization guarantees that anyone—no matter how extreme—would be well-positioned against the president.”
“Just as Trump rallied enough skeptical Republicans to support him against Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders would likely win over reluctant Democrats to his side against Trump.”
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) “says that if she’s elected president, her administration’s Department of Justice would likely pursue criminal obstruction of justice charges against a former President Trump,” NPR reports.
Said Harris: “I believe that they would have no choice and that they should, yes.”
She added: “There has to be accountability. I mean look, people might, you know, question why I became a prosecutor. Well, I’ll tell you one of the reasons — I believe there should be accountability. Everyone should be held accountable, and the president is not above the law.”
President Trump took to Twitter to deny reports of internal polling that show him losing to Joe Biden in key states he needs to win re-election.
Said Trump: “The Fake (Corrupt) News Media said they had a leak into polling done by my campaign which, by the way and despite the phony and never ending Witch Hunt, are the best numbers WE have ever had. They reported Fake numbers that they made up & don’t even exist. WE WILL WIN AGAIN!”
Washington Examiner: “Wealthy Republican donors are preparing a multimillion-dollar effort to register more than 1 million new GOP voters in Texas for 2020 amid anxiety that President Trump could be in more trouble in this reliably red state than some in the party realize.”
“Representatives of at least 22 foreign governments appear to have spent money at Trump Organization properties, an NBC News review has found, hinting at a significant foreign cash flow to the American president that critics say violates the U.S. Constitution.”
“The extent and amount of foreign spending at Trump’s hotels, golf clubs and restaurants is not known, because the Trump Organization is a private company and declines to disclose that information.”
Kevin Drum: “I have no idea what Joe Biden ‘really’ believes about working with Republicans. But I will say this: he’s a politician. There’s zero reason to think he truly believes what he’s saying here. There’s also zero reason to think he doesn’t believe it. The fact that he said it is simply a null input.”
“At the same time, Biden isn’t an idiot. Of course he knows what the modern Republican Party is like. But like Obama before him, he also knows that lots of people really like to hear paeans to bipartisanship. We political junkies may hate it, but ordinary people who don’t inhale cable news are suckers for the idea that we can all get along if we just give it a try—and there are way more of them than there are of us. Biden knows this, so that’s what he tells people. Whether he really believes it or not matters not a whit.”
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.