“With her expected campaign launch nearing, Kamala Harris has settled on Baltimore for her team’s HQ, after also considering Atlanta and (briefly) Philadelphia,” according to New York magazine.
“A West Coast campaign base was never really in play for the California senator. Logistics, logistics, logistics.”
Ryan Goodman: “What makes the Cohen lies even worse—and yes, far worse than Watergate—is that it exposed any U.S. officials who were involved in orchestrating his false testimony to blackmail by Russia. As Barbara McQuade, former U.S. Attorney and professor at the University of Michigan Law School, wrote at Just Security, ‘in the context of counterintelligence investigations, lies can also compromise national security… A foreign adversary like Russia can use lies as leverage over government officials to coerce them into complying with its demands or else face exposure of the lies.’ As former acting Attorney General Sally Yates testified in the context of Flynn’s lying about Russian contacts, ‘To state the obvious, you don’t want your national security adviser compromised with the Russians.’”
“If Trump suborned false statements, the President would have exposed not only himself to Kremlin blackmail, but also other members of his team who, according to court documents and reporting, helped orchestrate his personal lawyer’s congressional testimony.”
A new Pew Research survey finds President Trump begins his third year with a 37% job approval rating while 59% disapprove of his performance.
The survey also finds “that a growing share of Americans say they trust what Trump says less than what previous presidents said while they were in office. Nearly six-in-ten (58%) say they trust what Trump says less than previous presidents, up from 54% last June and 51% in February 2017, shortly after he took office.”
“The public also continues to fault the ethical standards of top administration officials. Just 39% rate their ethical standards as excellent or good, while 59% say they are not good or poor.”
For comparison, FiveThirtyEight shows Trump’s approval at 39% to 55%.
Adam Serwer: “While evidence that the Trump campaign sought to assist the Russian effort to interfere in the 2016 election, and that the president then sought to hamper the federal investigation into that effort, has been in public view for some time, evidence that the president directed Cohen to lie to Congress would be something different entirely, a claim that the president conspired to commit a crime in pursuit of personal financial gain. Republicans have tried their best to set expectations so that only the clearest and most shocking of acts would qualify as criminal—and Trump’s reported actions not only meet but exceed them.”
“The report, if verified, provides a potentially simple narrative for a story that has often seemed complicated: Trump sought to profit from a real-estate deal in Moscow, and so defended Russia against accusations of interference, and then directed his personal attorney to commit perjury to cover up what he had done.”
Related for members: When Trump’s Collapse Comes, It Will Be Quick
“A day after President Trump canceled military flights for a planned congressional trip to Afghanistan, Speaker Nancy Pelosi abandoned her plans to travel instead on commercial flights due to security concerns,” the Washington Post reports.
Said Pelsoi spokesman Drew Hammill: “After President Trump revoked the use of military aircraft to travel to Afghanistan, the delegation was prepared to fly commercially to proceed with this vital trip to meet with our commanders and troops on the front lines.”
However, he added that a new State Department threat assessment indicated “that the President announcing this sensitive travel had significantly increased the danger to the delegation and to the troops, security, and other officials supporting the trip. . . . This morning, we learned that the Administration had leaked the commercial travel plans as well.”
Lawfare notes an important item worth watching in the story about President Trump directing Michael Cohen to lie to Congress:
Trump may well have addressed this matter in his written submission to Mueller. In April, the New York Times reported that Mueller asked Trump to answer two questions: “What communication did you have with Michael D. Cohen, Felix Sater and others, including foreign nationals, about Russian real estate developments during the campaign?” and “What discussions did you have during the campaign regarding any meeting with Mr. Putin? Did you discuss it with others?”
Trump has since submitted written answers to at least some of Mueller’s questions. If he, in fact, directed Cohen to lie, as BuzzFeed News reports, did he tell Mueller the truth in this submission?
McKay Coppins: “The basic theory—explained to me between weary sighs and defeated shrugs—goes like this: Washington is at an impasse that looks increasingly unbreakable. President Trump is dug in; so is Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Democrats have public opinion on their side, but the president is focused on his conservative base. For a deal to shake loose in this environment, it may require a failure of government so dramatic, so shocking, as to galvanize public outrage and force the two parties back to the negotiating table.”
“In these interviews, I heard an array of macabre hypotheticals—from airplane crashes to food-safety scares, TSA strikes to terrorist incidents. But the one theme that ran through every conversation was a sense that the current political dynamics won’t change until voters get a lot angrier.”
Jonathan Chait: “By telling this lie, Trump opened himself up to blackmail by Putin. Trump was publicly denying the contours of a business deal to which Russian intelligence was privy. Trump consistently takes enormous risks to protect his dealings with Russia from public exposure.”
“Building a tower in Moscow is not illegal. He could have admitted the project’s existence during the campaign. Or, having lied about it, he could have let Cohen admit it later. Trump has told so many lies, the news media has had to create new categories to describe their vastness.”
“So how harmful could it have been for Cohen to add one more admitted lie to a pile of lies so infinite it beggars the imagination? The lie would have been forgotten immediately. Maybe Trump decided to direct Cohen to lie for no good reason. But it may well be the case that he had to lie because confessing to the Trump Tower project would open up other questions about his dealings with Russia during the campaign. Needless to say, there is a lot there.”
Chris Cillizza: “Why, if there was nothing worrisome or untoward about Trump’s dealings with Russia, would he instruct Cohen to lie to about the depth and breadth of the conversations between the Trumps and the Russians regarding a potential construction project in Moscow? You don’t have to lie or cover up things that are no big deal, right?”
Brett McGurk, who recently resigned as special envoy to the Global Coalition to Counter ISIS, writes in the Washington Post that President Trump’s decision to pull troops from Syria “was made without deliberation, consultation with allies or Congress, assessment of risk, or appreciation of facts.”
“The irony is that defeating the Islamic State is what the president said from the beginning was his goal. In 2016, he vowed to ‘knock the hell out of ISIS.’ His recent choices, unfortunately, are already giving the Islamic State — and other American adversaries — new life.”
Earlier this week, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) questioned Attorney General-designate William Barr at his confirmation hearing:
KLOBUCHAR: “In your memo… you wrote on Page 1 that a president persuading a person to commit perjury would be obstruction. Is that right?
BARR: Yes… Any person who persuades another…
“The Justice Department placed an online job posting for a pair of attorneys to tackle border wall litigation in South Texas — a sign of coming property seizures and other legal controversies that President Trump anticipates if he plows ahead with his signature project,” Politico reports.
The Cook Political Report says Rep. Tom Marino’s (R-PA) decision to resign likely won’t effect the Republican party’s control of the seat.
“Democrats have pulled off upsets in recent specials, but this district is likely a bridge too far. In March 2018, under the best of circumstances for his party, Democrat Conor Lamb captured a southwestern Pennsylvania district that had voted for Trump by 20 points by just 755 votes. But PA-12 voted for Trump by 36 points. It has a Cook PVI score of R+17 and no current House Democrat represents a seat nearly as Republican.”
John Dowd, who previously led President Trump’s personal legal team, told Fox News that he is still actively advising the president’s lawyers as they grapple with the Mueller probe, adding that he speaks with Trump “every week or so.”
Dowd declined to tell the Daily Beast more about his interactions with Trump and his lawyers. But Rudy Giuliani, now a member of the team, said Dowd privately consults with Trump himself and his lawyers.
Axios has an excerpt from Team of Vipers by Cliff Sims:
“Give me their names,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “I want these people out of here. I’m going to take care of this. We’re going to get rid of all the snakes, even the bottom-feeders.”
Only in retrospect did I see how remarkable this was. I was sitting there with the President of the United States basically compiling an enemies list — but these enemies were within his own administration. If it had been a horror movie, this would have been the moment when everyone suddenly realizes the call is coming from inside the house.
The President proceeded to name White House staffer after White House staffer. Almost no one was deemed beyond reproach—not his chief of staff, not senior aides, almost no one other than those with whom he shared a last name. He wanted me to help him judge their loyalty. How, I wondered, had it come to this?
“While Republicans and Democrats are condemning or calling for Rep. Steve King’s resignation after his comments on white nationalism and white supremacy, the congressman is using the backlash to raise money for his campaign,” the Des Moines Register reports.
Writes King in a fundraising email: “The unhinged left has teamed up with Republican ‘NeverTrumpers’ and is pulling out all the stops to destroy me.”
“Democratic leaders reacted with fury and demanded an investigation late Thursday following a new report that President Trump personally directed his former attorney, Michael Cohen, to lie to Congress about the president’s push for a lucrative condo project in Moscow in the lead-up to the 2016 election,” the Washington Post reports.
“Democrats said that if the report is accurate, Trump must quickly be held to account for his role in the perjury, with some raising the specter of impeachment.”
Playbook: “Since the president canceled the Democratic trip to Afghanistan, all top key Democrats — people like Rep. Adam Schiff and Speaker Nancy Pelosi — are probably around to comment about this story.”
Cohen is slated to testify before the House Oversight Committee on February 7.
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.