President Trump and first lady Melania Trump on Tuesday will offer their condolences to the “wonderful” Bush family during a private visit to the Blair House on Tuesday, the president announced by tweet.
U.K. Can Still Unilaterally End Brexit
“The U.K. should be allowed to reverse Brexit, according to an advisory opinion from the European Union’s top court that will fuel the campaign to thwart the divorce,” Bloomberg reports.
“The opinion, which isn’t binding, comes at a crucial moment for Prime Minister Theresa May who’s trying to convince Parliament to back the deal she brought back from Brussels but faces opposition on all sides.”
“The advice will embolden those who are fighting to reverse Brexit — a campaign that’s gathering momentum. But May could also use it to her advantage as the country heads into uncharted Brexit territory. The possibility that the U.K. can go back on its decision will be alarming to Brexit hardliners and could encourage them to grudgingly support May’s much-maligned roadmap for how the country should quit the bloc.”
Voting Access Is Focus of Today’s Georgia Runoff
“As a battle over the fairness of Georgia’s recent election for governor moves from the political arena to the courtroom, two men are locked in a runoff race, with far less fanfare, to oversee the future of the state’s election apparatus,” the AP reports.
“Republican state Rep. Brad Raffensperger faces former Democratic congressman John Barrow in a Dec. 4 runoff for Georgia secretary of state after neither garnered the more than 50% of votes required to win outright on Nov. 6.”
Quote of the Day
“I am a gaffe machine, but my God what a wonderful thing compared to a guy who can’t tell the truth.”
— Joe Biden, quoted by CNN.
Think Trump Seems Rattled Now?
“If President Trump appears to be rattled by special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation now — and his extraordinary tweets on the subject suggest that he is — just wait,” NBC News reports.
“Over the next few weeks, a series of court filings are due that may shed substantial light on what Mueller has learned from people who once sat in Trump’s inner circle.”
Biden Says He’s Most Qualified to Be President
Joe Biden said that he considers himself “the most qualified person in the country” to be president and that he would make a decision about moving forward with a 2020 bid in the next two months, the Washington Post reports.
Said Biden: “I’ll be as straight with you as I can. I think I’m the most qualified person in the country to be president. The issues that we face as a country today are the issues that have been in my wheelhouse, that I’ve worked on my whole life.”
Alienation of Young Voters Threatens GOP
Ron Browstein: “The sharp turn against the Republican Party by young people in the 2018 election may be only the overture to an even greater political risk for the GOP in 2020.”
“Both historical voting patterns and underlying demographic trends suggest that the biggest difference in the electorate between this election and the next one is that relatively younger voters will cast a greater share of the votes in the presidential year — perhaps a much larger share. Even with much higher than usual turnout among young voters this year, voters 45 and below are likely to increase their proportion of the total vote from just under three-in-ten this year to something closer to four-in-ten by 2020, historical trends suggest.”
Wisconsin Republicans Will Vote to Weaken Governor
“Wisconsin lawmakers are set to take up plans Tuesday to diminish the powers of the incoming Democratic governor and attorney general that brought opponents to the state Capitol this week to protest on its steps and pound on hearing room doors,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.
“To Democrats, the plan is a repudiation of the Nov. 6 election that felled Gov. Scott Walker (R) and swept Democrats into state offices. To Republicans, it’s the only way to ensure major changes enacted over the past eight years won’t evaporate overnight.”
“Walker signaled Monday he largely supports it and would be willing to sign it before he leaves office Jan. 7. But there are a few GOP senators who aren’t talking, making the legislation’s fate unclear. Republicans control the Senate 18-15 and cannot afford more than one defection.”
Mueller Will Detail Flynn’s Cooperation
Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office “will make a sentencing recommendation for former national security adviser Michael Flynn on Tuesday, in a court filing that is expected to shed light on the extent of Flynn’s cooperation in the Russia probe,” Reuters reports.
“Flynn’s crime of lying to the FBI carries a statutory maximum sentence of five years in prison. However his plea agreement states he is eligible for a sentence of zero to six months and can ask the court not to impose a fine.”
CNN: “Similar filings before other Mueller defendants’ sentencings — former Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, Dutch lawyer Alex Van der Zwaan and internet salesman Richard Pinedo — contained revelations about what each person did and knew in regard to Russians and members of the campaign. But none of those defendants cut a deal to cooperate with Mueller like Flynn did.”
Duncan Hunter’s Trial Set for Next Fall
The trial for Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) and his wife and former campaign manager, Margaret, was set during a hearing on Monday for Sept. 10, the San Diego Union Tribune reports.
“The two face 60 counts of crimes including conspiracy wire fraud and making false reports to the Federal Election Commission.”
Lawmaker’s Aide Found Guilty in Campaign Finance Case
“A federal jury Monday found Rep. Bob Brady’s (D-PA) top political strategist, Ken Smukler, guilty of nine of 11 counts of repeatedly flouting campaign finance laws in a case that once threatened to ensnare the congressman himself,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
“Smukler, 58, who has helped dozens of Democrats win public officeover the last 30 years, was convicted of coordinating multiple unlawful contributions and falsifying finance reports for candidates in back-to-back congressional races.”
Trump Handles Bush’s Death with Abnormal Normality
“For President Donald Trump, there was once no worse insult than being ‘a Bushie.’… If Trump has been thinking such thoughts since the death of former president George H.W. Bush on Saturday, he hasn’t been sharing them. Bush’s death has at least temporarily displaced Trump’s public disdain for the Bush family and, for the moment, he is even borrowing from his late predecessor’s celebrated sense of etiquette,” Politico reports.
“On Monday night, Trump visited Capitol Hill to pay personal respectsto the 41st president, whose casket arrived earlier in the day and is lying in state in the Capitol Rotunda. The display of respect even extended to the late president’s son, former President George W. Bush, whom Trump has derided as ‘the worst president ever.’ Trump offered Bush the use of his official guest residence, Blair House, while the younger Bush is in Washington for the events surrounding his father’s funeral.”
“In short, the president is behaving normally — a jarring rarity for a man who casually shatters sacred political norms.”
Nielsen Back In Favor with Trump
“Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who was recently on the brink of losing her job, is now expected to survive the Cabinet shake-up President Donald Trump has spent weeks teasing — and she may have the caravan to thank,” Politico reports.
“On the verge of firing by a president who has said she isn’t a strong enough defender of the U.S.-Mexico border, Nielsen has adopted — and made sure to publicize — a tough stance in response to the caravan of Central American migrants headed towards the U.S. that Trump turned into a major midterm campaign issue.”
“She has visited the southern border three times since October, and recently hailed Trump himself as a forceful ‘leader.’ The firm posture seems to have impressed her most important audience: the president. Five sources inside and close to the administration describe a clear shift in the president’s feelings toward his DHS chief, about whom he has repeatedly complained over the past year.”
2020 Democrats Can’t Find Enough Minority Staffers
“Potential 2020 Democratic presidential candidates in the early stages of assembling campaign staffs are running into an uncomfortable truth: Among the already small pool of capable operatives, there’s an even smaller pool of nonwhite campaign managers and senior advisers,” Politico reports.
“The emerging campaigns of some would-be candidates have tried to get a jump on the problem, compiling spreadsheets of potential minority staffers and holding discussions with the candidates about the need to assemble diverse teams. Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown and Kirsten Gillibrand have had African-Americans in senior-level positions in their past campaigns, putting them in position to reactivate them if they run for president.”
Why Michael Cohen Confessed It All
New York Times: “He did all this without first obtaining a traditional, ironclad deal under which the government would commit to seeking leniency on Mr. Cohen’s behalf when he is sentenced on Dec. 12.”
“Mr. Cohen has concluded that his life has been utterly destroyed by his relationship with Mr. Trump and his own actions, and to begin anew he needed to speed up the legal process by quickly confessing his crimes and serving any sentence he receives, according to his friends and associates, and analysis of documents in the case.”
“He has told friends that he is mystified that he is taking the fall for actions he carried out on behalf of Mr. Trump, who remains unscathed. Still, he is resigned to accepting responsibility.”
Manafort Tried to Broker Deal to Hand Assange to U.S.
“In mid-May 2017, Paul Manafort, facing intensifying pressure to settle debts and pay mounting legal bills, flew to Ecuador to offer his services to a potentially lucrative new client — the country’s incoming president, Lenín Moreno,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Manafort made the trip mainly to see if he could broker a deal under which China would invest in Ecuador’s power system, possibly yielding a fat commission for Mr. Manafort.”
“But the talks turned to a diplomatic sticking point between the United States and Ecuador: the fate of the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.”
Mourning the Presidency Too
Patti Davis, daughter of President Ronald Reagan, remembers President George H.W. Bush in the Washington Post:
“America will lay to rest a man who served his country. We will pause, and mourn, and reflect. We might also want to mourn the loss of dignity that we have long associated with the office of the president and that is no longer there. No matter what you thought of George H.W. Bush’s time in office, he never attacked or abused people or institutions. He was never crude or dismissive of people who were hurting. And he had reverence for the Constitution and the pillars of democracy that built this nation — the pillars that are now being chipped away, crudely and casually.”
Similarities Discovered Between Absentee Ballots
WSOC-TV found what “appears to be a targeted effort to illegally pick up ballots” in North Carolina’s 9th congressional district, “in which even the person picking them up had no idea whether those ballots were even delivered to the elections board.”
Consistently, the station “found the same people signing as witnesses for the people voting, which is very rare.”
