“Hillary Clinton slammed President Trump and Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore over their alleged sexual misconduct, criticizing them for not ‘accepting responsibility’ and ‘apologizing’ for their reported transgressions as Sen. Al Franken did,” Politico reports.
“Clinton said that Franken, who was accused this week of groping a female broadcaster in 2006, acted responsibly by owning up to his actions and publicly apologizing for them — a far cry from the response given by Trump and Moore.”
Jack Shafer: “If we’ve learned anything from months of scandal reporting, the Russians set their sights on two types of people wandering the halls of Trump Tower. There were the self-promoters like Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort who they knew would cooperate based on direct or potential payouts. But the Russians also shopped a second group of Tower denizens, the over-their-heads strivers often compared to the hapless Fredo Corleone. These Fredos—George Papadopoulos and Carter Page—attracted Russian agents like magnets, and were easily manipulated by direct appeals to their stooped egos.”
“But of all the Fredos occupying Trump world, perhaps Donald Trump Jr. proved to be the easiest mark for the Russians.”
The White House defended President Trump’s attack on Sen. Al Franken’s sexual misconduct by saying the allegations against Franken were very different from accusations against Trump, USA Today reports.
Said White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders: “Specifically, Sen. Franken has admitted wrongdoing and the president hasn’t. That’s a very clear distinction.”
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Politico: “Controlling potentially damaging tweets was a job left mostly to the legal team in the early days of the administration. Marc Kasowitz, a former Trump attorney, and Jay Sekulow, a current member of the president’s legal team, gave Trump one simple rule to guide his tweeting habit: Don’t comment online about the Russia investigation.”
Said one former aide: “The message was, tweet about policy, tweet about politics, but don’t attack the special counsel.”
“None of the advice seemed to have any lasting effect on a president who views acting on his own impulses as a virtue. And these days, the staff has basically stopped trying: There is no character inhabiting the West Wing who is dispatched to counsel the president when he aims the powerful weapon of his Twitter feed at himself.”
“GOP leadership is confronting mushrooming demands from individual senators with much more power to bollix up the tax plans, thanks to the party’s super-thin majority,” Politico reports.
“Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) has already said he won’t vote for his colleagues’ proposal because of how it treats small businesses… Deficit hawks like Sens. Bob Corker (R-TN) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ) are worried the plan will cost far more than advertised thanks to its liberal use of “temporary” tax provisions that will likely be eventually extended.”
“Moderate Susan Collins (R-ME) has her own concerns, including with plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate to have health insurance as part of tax reform. Others like Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) have been wildcards, avoiding taking a public position on the proposal.”
“A senior Russian official who claimed to be acting at the behest of President Vladimir Putin of Russia tried in May 2016 to arrange a meeting between Mr. Putin and Donald Trump,” the New York Times reports.
“The news of this reached the Trump campaign in a very circuitous way. An advocate for Christian causes emailed campaign aides saying that Alexander Torshin, the deputy governor of the Russian central bank who has been linked both to Russia’s security services and organized crime, had proposed a meeting between Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump. The subject line of the email, turned over to Senate investigators, read, ‘Russian backdoor overture and dinner invite,’ according to one person who has seen the message.”
“White House senior adviser Jared Kushner told congressional Russia investigators that he did not communicate with WikiLeaks and did not recall anyone on the Trump campaign who had,” CNN reports.
“But Kushner did receive and forward an email from Donald Trump Jr. about contact Trump Jr. had with WikiLeaks, according to a new report this week and a letter from the Senate Judiciary Committee.”
John Cassidy: “It is entirely conceivable that, in two weeks’ time, the Republican Party’s leaders will have largely succeeded in railroading through Congress an unpopular, regressive, and damaging tax reform. That was their plan from the beginning, and so far it has worked out much as they intended. On Thursday, the House, spurred on by Paul Ryan, voted to approve its version of the legislation. Now everything depends on what happens in the Senate.”
“To get their tax plan through this final legislative stretch, the Republicans will try to rely on speed, subterfuge, and diversion. McConnell and Ryan have read the opinion polls. They know that there is widespread opposition to their plan’s major elements, such as its big tax cuts for corporations, unincorporated businesses, and rich people (like the President), or its new limits on popular deductions for mortgage interest and state and local taxes.”
“That explains why the Republicans didn’t hold any hearings in the House, and why they are adopting similar blitzkrieg tactics in the Senate. The G.O.P.’s strategy is to rush this thing through before the other side has time to organize a defense.”
“The Roy Moore scandal has unleashed a torrent of online donations to Democrat Doug Jones, who was collecting around $250,000 per day in its immediate aftermath,” NBC News reports.
“Democrats may end up in the unlikely situation of dramatically outspending the GOP in the Senate contest in deep red Alabama now that national Republicans have abandoned Moore. The Republican candidate’s bank account had been depleted by a tough primary battle even before nine women came forward to accuse of him of sexual impropriety.”
Tampa Bay Times: “Stephen Bittel’s rocky tenure as Florida Democratic Party chairman ended in disgrace Friday after he resigned following accusations from women that he leered at them, made suggestive comments and created an unprofessional work environment.”
“Bittel’s position became untenable after all four major Democratic candidates for Florida governor urged his ouster following a Politico Florida report late Thursday in which six women anonymously complained about Bittel’s behavior. They said he was ‘creepy’ and ‘demeaning.’ Bittel apologized, but it was not enough.”
Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg admitted to Politico that he planted a fake story about Gov. Chris Christie (R) “fetching” Donald Trump’s order from McDonald’s in an effort to embarrass the New Jersey governor.
Said Nunberg: “The sad reality is that it was believable.”
“Steve Bannon has vowed to lead a ‘season of war’ on Washington’s Republican establishment. But donors most likely to fund a disruptive campaign may be hard to win over,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Bannon is planning to support primary challengers to GOP senators with a goal of toppling Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell… Turning that into reality likely would require tens of millions of dollars to rally voters and build the name recognition of various candidates facing well-financed, sitting senators. Indeed, outside groups spent nearly $3 million in 2012 helping Richard Mourdock defeat Republican Sen. Dick Lugar in Indiana. Mr. Mourdock went on to lose the general election.”
“In recent weeks, however, two of the biggest GOP donors who have funded disruptive campaigns in the past have distanced themselves from Mr. Bannon. And the turbulent Senate race in Alabama, where Mr. Bannon backs Republican candidate Roy Moore, who is facing sexual assault allegations, has energized Mr. McConnell’s defenders.”
President Trump “has begun paying his own legal bills related to the Russia investigation and will no longer use political donations to his reelection campaign or the Republican Party to cover the costs,” Reuters reports.
His lawyer says the president now wants to make the party “even.”
Eight of Sen. Al Franken’s (D-MN) former female staffers issued a statement to the Minneapolis Star Tribune saying Franken treated them “with the utmost respect” and “was a champion for women both in the legislation he supported and in promoting women to leadership roles in our offices.”
“The Trump administration has plans to stop granting work permits to spouses of H-1B holders, a move that would overturn a 2015 rule and affect thousands of foreigners currently in the United States,” the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
“About 100,000 spouses and children of H-1B visa holders come to the U.S. on H-4 visas each year, a number that has been steadily increasing since 2012.”
Ohio Supreme Court Justices Bill O’Neill (D), who is running for governor, wrote on Facebook about his own sexual past:
Now that the dogs of war are calling for the head of Senator Al Franken I believe it is time to speak up on behalf of all heterosexual males. As a candidate for Governor let me save my opponents some research time. In the last fifty years I was sexually intimate with approximately 50 very attractive females. It ranged from a gorgeous blonde who was my first true love and we made passionate love in the hayloft of her parents barn and ended with a drop dead gorgeous red head from Cleveland.
Now can we get back to discussing legalizing marijuana and opening the state hospital network to combat the opioid crisis. I am sooooo disappointed by this national feeding frenzy about sexual indiscretions decades ago.
Peace.
“Democrats and news outlets have noted, sometimes with scandalous subtext, that Mr. Moore dissented from the Alabama Supreme Court’s majority in several instances to side with a person accused of sexual crimes.”
“A New York Times review of 20 cases focused on sexual crimes or misconduct during Mr. Moore’s tenure on the Alabama Supreme Court found that he sided with the accused 13 times, a higher rate than almost all of his colleagues.”
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.
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