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Trump’s Lawyers Want Him to Refuse Mueller Interview

February 5, 2018 at 8:21 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Lawyers for President Trump have advised him against sitting down for a wide-ranging interview with the special counsel, Robert Mueller, according to four people briefed on the matter, raising the specter of a monthslong court battle over whether the president must answer questions under oath,” the New York Times reports.

“His lawyers are concerned that the president, who has a history of making false statements and contradicting himself, could be charged with lying to investigators. Their stance puts them at odds with Mr. Trump, who has said publicly and privately that he is eager to speak with Mr. Mueller as part of the investigation into possible ties between his associates and Russia’s election interference, and whether he obstructed justice.”

Mueller’s Investigation Is Bigger Than You Think

February 5, 2018 at 8:20 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Garrett Graff: “We speak about the ‘Mueller probe’ as a single entity, but it’s important to understand that there are no fewer than five (known) separate investigations under the broad umbrella of the special counsel’s office—some threads of these investigations may overlap or intersect, some may be completely free-standing, and some potential targets may be part of multiple threads. But it’s important to understand the different ‘buckets’ of Mueller’s probe.”

“Right now, we know it involves at least five separate investigative angles.”

Top White House Aide Once Called Trump a ‘Deplorable’

February 5, 2018 at 8:13 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Before joining the Trump administration, the White House principal deputy press secretary, Raj Shah, called President Donald Trump ‘a deplorable’ and referred to the release of the Access Hollywood tape as ‘some justice.'” according to private messages independently obtained and verified by New York magazine.

“Shah, who worked at the Republican National Committee during the 2016 election, also asked an RNC colleague to dig up an old video clip of Trump that shortly afterward showed up in a Jeb Bush commercial.”

Report Calls for Surveillance of Muslim Immigrants

February 5, 2018 at 6:37 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

A Department of Homeland Security draft report calls on authorities to continuously vet Sunni Muslim immigrants deemed to have “at-risk” demographic profiles, Foreign Policy reports.

The report looks at 25 terrorist attacks in the United States between October 2001 and December 2017, concluding there would be “great value for the United States Government in dedicating resources to continuously evaluate persons of interest” and suggesting that immigrants to the United States be tracked on a “long-term basis.”

House Intelligence Votes to Release Rebuttal Memo

February 5, 2018 at 6:22 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“The House Intelligence Committee voted to make public a classified Democratic memorandum rebutting Republican claims that the F.B.I. and the Justice Department had abused their powers to wiretap a former Trump campaign official, setting up a possible clash with President Trump,” the New York Times reports.

“The vote gives Mr. Trump five days to review the Democratic memo and determine whether he will try to block its release. A decision to stop it could lead to an ugly standoff between the president, his top law enforcement and intelligence advisers and Democrats on Capitol Hill.”

Republicans Concede FBI Footnote Undermines Memo

February 5, 2018 at 6:16 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Republican leaders are acknowledging that the FBI disclosed the political origins of a private dossier the bureau cited in an application to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, undermining a controversial GOP memo released Friday and fueling Democratic demands to declassify more information about the bureau’s actions,” Politico reports.

Trump Lawyers Want a Second Special Counsel

February 5, 2018 at 4:41 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

The White House said that President Trump’s attorneys “have already approved the idea of appointing a second special counsel to investigate the FBI and Justice Department’s actions during the 2016 presidential campaign,” according to Axios.

Bachmann Says God Didn’t Want Her to Run

February 5, 2018 at 4:30 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Former Rep. Michele Bachmannn (R-MN) told a radio host show that after much prayer, she has decided that God does not, in fact, want her to make a bid for U.S. Senate.

Said Bachmann: “I considered it for quite a long time. From the very first day when Al Franken had announced his resignation from the U.S. Senate, I went before the Lord and it became very clear to me that I wasn’t hearing any call from God to do this.”

Quote of the Day

February 5, 2018 at 3:52 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“Shall we call that treason? Why not? I mean they certainly didn’t seem to love our country very much.”

— President Trump, at a speech in Ohio, calling out Democrats who did not applaud at this State of the Union.

Court Asked to Unseal Carter Page Surveillance

February 5, 2018 at 2:51 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“The New York Times notified the Justice Department on Monday that it is asking the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to unseal secret documents related to the wiretapping of Carter Page, the onetime Trump campaign adviser at the center of a disputed memo written by Republican staffers on the House Intelligence Committee,” the New York Times reports.

“The motion is unusual. No such wiretapping application materials apparently have become public since Congress first enacted the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978.”

“But President Trump lowered the shield of secrecy surrounding such materials on Friday by declassifying the Republican memo about Mr. Page, after finding that the public interest in disclosing its contents outweighed any need to protect the information. Because Mr. Trump did so, the Times argues, there is no longer a justification ‘for the Page warrant orders and application materials to be withheld in their entirety,’ and ‘disclosure would serve the public interest.'”

Stock Market Plunges Again

February 5, 2018 at 2:47 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

As President Trump traveled to Ohio to tout the benefits of the new tax law, the Dow had dropped more than 500 points.

The Dow was down more than 1,100 points for the day and down more than 1,600 points over the last two trading days.

Trump Accuser Runs for Office

February 5, 2018 at 1:57 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Rachel Crooks (D), who accused President Trump during the 2016 presidential election of forcibly kissing her, is running for the Ohio state legislature, Cosmopolitan reports.

Said Crooks: “I think my voice should have been heard then, and I’ll still fight for it to be heard now.”

Pruitt Once Called Trump an ‘Empty Vessel’

February 5, 2018 at 1:53 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

EPA administrator Scott Pruitt called Donald Trump an “empty vessel” on the Constitution and rule of law in a February 2016 interview with a local Oklahoma radio show, CNN reports.

Said Pruitt: “I think he’s an empty vessel when it comes to things like the Constitution and rule of law. I’m very concerned that perhaps if he’s in the White House, that there may be a very blunt instrument as the voice of the Constitution.”

Supreme Court Won’t Block Pennsylvania Order

February 5, 2018 at 1:35 pm EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

“The Supreme Court denied a request from Pennsylvania Republicans to delay redrawing congressional lines, meaning the 2018 elections in the state probably will be held in districts far more favorable to Democrats,” the Washington Post reports.

Boycott the Republican Party

February 5, 2018 at 11:14 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Jonathan Rauch and Benjamin Wittes: “We have both spent our professional careers strenuously avoiding partisanship in our writing and thinking. We have both done work that is, in different ways, ideologically eclectic, and that has—over a long period of time—cast us as not merely nonpartisans but antipartisans. Temperamentally, we agree with the late Christopher Hitchens: Partisanship makes you stupid. We are the kind of voters who political scientists say barely exist—true independents who scour candidates’ records in order to base our votes on individual merit, not party brand.”

“This, then, is the article we thought we would never write: a frank statement that a certain form of partisanship is now a moral necessity. The Republican Party, as an institution, has become a danger to the rule of law and the integrity of our democracy. The problem is not just Donald Trump; it’s the larger political apparatus that made a conscious decision to enable him. In a two-party system, nonpartisanship works only if both parties are consistent democratic actors. If one of them is not predictably so, the space for nonpartisans evaporates.”

“We’re thus driven to believe that the best hope of defending the country from Trump’s Republican enablers, and of saving the Republican Party from itself, is to do as Toren Beasley did: vote mindlessly and mechanically against Republicans at every opportunity, until the party either rights itself or implodes (very preferably the former).”

Senators Say Trump Lacks Authority to Attack North Korea

February 5, 2018 at 9:58 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

A group of 18 Democratic senators is warning President Trump that he lacks the “legal authority” to carry out a preemptive strike on North Korea, amid questions over whether the White House is considering a risky “bloody nose” attack, the Washington Post reports.

Constitutional Crisis in Slow Motion

February 5, 2018 at 9:49 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

Charles Blow: “Donald Trump will destroy this entire country — its institutions and its safeguards, the rule of law and the customs of civility, the concept of truth and the inviolable nature of valor — to protect his own skin.”

“We are not dealing with a normal person here, let alone a normal president.”

“This is a damaged man, a man who has always lived in his own reality and played by his own rules. When the truth didn’t suit him, he simply, with a devilish ease, invented an alternate reality. There were no hard and fast absolutes in his realm of rubber. Everything was malleable, and he had an abundance of gall and a deficit of integrity to push everything until it bent.”

Emails Show Very Different Reaction to Comey Firing

February 5, 2018 at 9:12 am EST By Taegan Goddard Leave a Comment

After President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey he described the former director a “a showboat” and “a grandstander” and claimed that the FBI “has been in turmoil.” However, Lawfare got more than 100 pages of leadership communications to staff dealing with the firing which tell a very different story.

“This material tells a dramatic story about the FBI’s reaction to the Comey firing—but it is neither a story of gratitude to the president nor a story of an organization in turmoil relieved by a much-needed leadership transition… the amount of warmth in the emails, both about Comey and for their people, is atypical of all-staff communications. These leaders operate at the highest level of the FBI; in a chain-of-command organization, they aren’t particularly accessible figures. But these emails, which were sent to entire divisions or field offices, are personal and intimate. Without overstating the matter or getting maudlin about it, it’s safe to say that these messages show leaders who are shaken and concerned. There is emotion in their voices and a deep concern for their people.”