“Oww… Kidney stones. It was a fun night. But it’s better than going to the meeting with Chuck and Nancy at the White House.”
— White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, quoted by the Washington Post, gingerly taking his seat onstage at the Milken conference.
Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (D) will announce his bid for the presidency in two weeks, MTN News has learned — adding to the 20 Democrats already running for the 2020 nomination to challenge President Trump.
“Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are discussing holding Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress,” the Washington Post reports.
“During a pair of closed-door meetings Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning, the committee decided that it would probably make a push for a Barr contempt citation if he skips a scheduled Thursday hearing or ignores their subpoena for the full report by special counsel Robert Mueller.”
James Comey: “Amoral leaders have a way of revealing the character of those around them. Sometimes what they reveal is inspiring. For example, James Mattis, the former secretary of defense, resigned over principle, a concept so alien to Mr. Trump that it took days for the president to realize what had happened, before he could start lying about the man.”
“But more often, proximity to an amoral leader reveals something depressing. I think that’s at least part of what we’ve seen with Bill Barr and Rod Rosenstein. Accomplished people lacking inner strength can’t resist the compromises necessary to survive Mr. Trump and that adds up to something they will never recover from. It takes character like Mr. Mattis’s to avoid the damage, because Mr. Trump eats your soul in small bites.”
The Mueller report identifies at least 77 times in which the Trump’s campaign staff, administration officials, family members and associates lied or made false statements to the public, CNN reports.
The Trump Tower in Moscow was the issue that involved the most false claims made by Trump and his team, with 31 of them recorded in the report. At least 13 false claims were made about the firing of former FBI director James Comey.
“The House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday teed up a clash with the Justice Department that could make Attorney General William Barr a no-show for his hearing before the Democrat-led panel,” Politico reports.
“After a tense, party-line vote, the committee endorsed ground rules for Thursday’s hearing on special counsel Robert Mueller’s report that Barr has already objected to and over which he has threatened to boycott the hearing, according to aides. At issue is a Democratic demand to let committee lawyers question Barr for an hour after lawmakers have their chance to grill the attorney general. Barr said through a spokeswoman earlier this week that it would be inappropriate for staffers to participate in the questioning.”
“By entering these premises you agree not to run for President of the United States in 2020 or in any future presidential race.”
— A flyer posted on the door of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s (D) gym in Brooklyn, quoted by Patch.
“Hunter Biden has split from Hallie Biden — the widow of his late brother, Beau — Page Six has exclusively learned. The breakup comes two years after we first reported that the former in-laws were dating in 2017.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) asked Attorney General William Barr at this morning’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing if he had a problem with how FBI Director James Comey handled the Clinton email case during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Barr responded: “Yes, I said so at the time.”
However, just days before the 2016 presidential election, Barr actually defended Comey in a Washington Post op-ed saying the FBI Director “did the right thing.”
Washington Post: “Barr and Mueller are reported to be friends, but one comment in particular suggested there might be some tension between them. When discussing Mueller’s letter and their conversations, Barr suggested Mueller could have prevented all of this in the first place.”
Said Barr: “I offered Bob Mueller the opportunity to review that letter before it came out and he declined.”
“Barr’s intent might have been more to suggest he did his due diligence in releasing the letter — rather than that Mueller did anything wrong. But it sure sounded like he was saying Mueller could have spoken up sooner.”
“Barr also suggested later that Mueller’s opinions don’t really matter, because he serves in the Department of Justice and reports to the attorney general. He likened Mueller to a U.S. attorney in the DOJ’s pecking order.”
Special counsel Robert Mueller pushed Attorney General William Barr twice to release more of his investigative findings in late March after Barr outlined the inquiry’s main conclusions in a letter to Congress, citing a gap between Barr’s interpretation and Mueller’s report, the New York Times reports.
Attorney General William Barr testifies at 10 a.m. ET before the Senate Judiciary Committee in what is expected to be a very contentious hearing.
Today’s testimony comes just one day after it was reported that special counsel Robert Mueller expressed concerns about Barr’s four-page summary of his report. Meuller’s letter to Barr has now been released to the public.
Watch the hearing on C-SPAN and leave your reactions in the comments.
Rick Wilson: “Barr is not an institutionalist. He is not a constitutionalist. He is a weapon crafted to protect and serve Donald Trump, using the protective coloration of a dull bureaucrat to carry out Dear Leader’s slow-motion subversion of the Republic.”
“Democrats still haven’t figured it out; unlike most of the human refuse Trump rounded up from behind the bus station to serve in his freak show administration, Barr knows the folkways and expected behaviors of Washington. He’s twice lulled Democrats into believing that he’s a down-the-line, rational pre-Trump Republican. If he were as gibberingly stupid and patently venal as the average Trump stooge, they might spot it, but he’s plainly not, and they clearly haven’t.”
“If Democrats lack the insight, courage, and outrage to truly confront Barr, Trump will win a sweeping victory this week. If Chairman Jerry Nadler lets Barr set the conditions under which the House Judiciary Committee can interview him, the game is already lost.”
“Research on Iowa counties that swung from Obama to Trump indicates that GOP success was driven far more by sexism and racism than by economic anxiety,” the Pacific Standard reports.
From the study: “Economic distress is not a significant factor in explaining the shift in Iowa voters from Democrat to Republican between 2008 and 2016. The election outcomes do not signify [a revolt] among working-class voters left behind by globalization.”
Rather, in 2016, “the nativist narrative about ‘taking back America’ and anti-immigrant sentiment became stronger forces than economic issues.”
Matthew Walther: “Attempting to expand a candidate’s electoral map is not a zero-sum game — at least in theory. But what campaign strategy would make it possible for Trump to win over new voters in the Southwest, the Upper Midwest, and the Northeast at the same time all while holding on to Pennsylvania and the Great Lakes? It is easy to imagine the president and his advisers thinking that there are votes to be had in the Southwest by leaning aggressively into his immigration record. Perhaps there are.”
“But this strategy would almost certainly hurt his chances in, say, Minnesota. Using optimistic language about the economy that might appeal to voters in a state like Nevada — or even Colorado — would alienate Midwesterners, toward whom his best pitch in 2020 is to insist that Democrats have prevented him from carrying out his recovery program. Trump can argue that we are still in the middle of ‘American carnage,’ or he can insist that he has already made America great again and deserves to be rewarded for it — not both.”
“Trump’s path to victory was always a narrow one… There is no reason to think that it will be any different four years later — except that this time his opponent might end up being someone like Bernie Sanders or Joe Biden, both of whom would be more appealing to the thousands of voters in a handful of states who made all the difference in 2016.”
For more, click over to our interactive electoral map.
First Read: “If Obama Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s tarmac meeting with Bill Clinton was a 3.0 on the political Richter scale, then special counsel Robert Mueller’s complaint about Trump Attorney General William Barr’s summary of his report on Russian interference is an 8.5. At least.”
“And guess what: Barr testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee at 10:00 am ET.”
“Democrats have a decision to make: Do they focus their fire on Barr, with some Democrats and 2020ers calling for the attorney general’s impeachment? Or do they keep the impeachment focus on Trump? Or all of the above?”
Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro claimed his troops have thwarted a botched attempt to topple him masterminded by Venezuela’s “coup-mongering far right” and Donald Trump’s deranged imperialist “gang,” the Guardian reports.
However, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that U.S. military action in the country was a possibility “if required.”
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.