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“Michael Cohen is having reservations about his highly anticipated public appearance before Congress next month, fearing that President Trump’s frequent diatribes against him could put his family in danger,” ABC News reports.
“While his testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform appears to be on track to occur as scheduled on Feb. 7, it is now less certain than it initially appeared that Cohen – Trump’s former attorney and fixer – will sit before lawmakers.”
Garrett Graff: “The pattern of his pro-Putin, pro-Russia, anti-FBI, anti-intelligence community actions are so one-sided, and the lies and obfuscation surrounding every single Russian meeting and conversation so consistent that if this president isn’t actually hiding a massive conspiracy, it means the alternative is worse: America elected a chief executive so oblivious to geopolitics, so self-centered and personally insecure, so naturally predisposed to undermine democratic institutions and coddle authoritarians, and so terrible a manager and leader that he cluelessly surrounded himself with crooks, grifters, and agents of foreign powers that he’s compromised the national security of the US government and undermined 75 years of critical foreign alliances, just to satiate his own ego.”
“In short, we’ve reached a point in the Mueller probe where there are only two scenarios left: Either the president is compromised by the Russian government and has been working covertly to cooperate with Vladimir Putin after Russia helped win him the 2016 election—or Trump will go down in history as the world’s most famous ‘useful idiot,’ as communists used to call those who could be co-opted to the cause without realizing it.”
“At least the former scenario—that the president of the United States is actively working to advance the interests of our country’s foremost, long-standing, traditional foreign adversary—would make him seem smarter and wilier. The latter scenario is simply a tragedy, or maybe a farce for everyone involved.”
“The GSA disregarded concerns that President Trump’s lease of a government-owned building — the one that houses his Trump International Hotel in Washington — might violate the Constitution when it allowed Trump to keep that lease after he took office, according to a report from the agency’s inspector general,” the Washington Post reports.
“Beto O’Rourke has left Texas, decamping for a highly anticipated road trip, but his former advisers are quietly sketching the outline of a potential presidential run that would replicate — and on a national scale — the grassroots-driven organizing model O’Rourke employed in his Texas Senate campaign,” Politico reports.
“The effort is preliminary, and the imprimatur of O’Rourke was implied — not stated… Unlike many candidates-in-waiting, who have PACs or other organizations to assemble staff, O’Rourke is not yet assembling a campaign team.”
Jeff Greenfield: “The Constitution does require the president to report ‘Information of the State of the Union’ to Congress, but there’s no requirement that it be a speech — it was delivered in writing until Woodrow Wilson showed up in person in 1913 — and we’ve long passed the time when it contained any useful ‘information’ at all.”
“So maybe Pelosi has done all of us—including the president—a favor by postponing (if not canceling) an address that this year promises to be even more of a sham than usual. And maybe, given the dreary ritual that such speeches offer, Trump might want to take the unsolicited advice I offered a year ago: Return to the tradition established by Thomas Jefferson, have everyone stay home, and just deliver the thing in writing.”
Senate Republicans “narrowly staved off an effort by Democrats to deal the Trump administration’s Russia sanctions policy an embarrassing rebuke,” the New York Times reports.
“Eleven Republicans joined Democrats in a vote to enforce sanctions against the corporate empire of an influential ally of President Vladimir Putin of Russia, but the effort fell three votes short of the 60-vote threshold required to advance the measure. The vote was 57-42, with one Democratic senator not voting.”
“Rick Gates, the former campaign aide to Donald Trump, is cooperating with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into whether individuals from the Middle East worked with the Trump campaign to influence the election,” the Daily Beast reports.
“Gates has answered questions specifically about Psy Group, an Israeli firm that ex-employees say drew up social media manipulation plans to help the Trump campaign… Mueller’s team also asked Gates about interactions with Psy Group’s owner, Joel Zamel, and Lebanese-American businessman George Nader, who worked as an emissary for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.”
British Prime Minister Theresa May narrowly won a confidence vote, 325 to 306, after yesterday’s humiliating defeat of her Brexit plan.
New York Times: “Ordinarily, a prime minister would be expected to resign after suffering a big defeat on a signature bill, but Brexit has rewritten the rules of British politics. And once again, Mrs. May, who has defied many predictions of her political demise, lived to fight another day.”
Washington Post: “Brexit is tearing British society and its political classes apart, as the sides devolve into warring tribes of Leavers and Remainers, neither with enough power to best the other.”
“Fake editions of the Washington Post circulated across Washington on Wednesday, falsely claiming that President Trump had stepped down,” Politico reports.
“The impostor publication, dated May 1, 2019, featured an extra large headline: ‘UNPRESIDENTED,’ and went on to state, ‘Trump hastily departs White House, ending crisis.'”
Matt Welch: “So it’s easy to see the benefits from Kasich’s point of view—regular opportunities to self-promote and criticize the political competition in the run-up to a possible campaign announcement, and you get paid? Sign me up! But the real head-scratcher here is the behavior of CNN.”
“The first cable news network is also frequently the most sanctimonious defender of journalistic nobility, and loudest critic of the way President Trump degrades the norms of America’s political and media culture. And yet here those same people are, paying a newsmaker for exclusivity, and creating a norm that was unthinkable even four years ago.”
Playbook on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s letter to President Trump “suggesting” he postpone his State of the Union address:
“The move is also a gentle reminder just how much power Pelosi has under the dome. The delay also comes with the additional political benefit of taking away away a made-for-TV moment: Trump’s ability to use the speech as a platform to lambast lawmakers over border security as they sit in the audience. Republicans had hoped the president would be able to make his case about his border policies during the speech.”
“Pelosi is basically uninviting him, but doing so gently. The House and Senate must jointly adopt a resolution to schedule the State of the Union. So without that, he can’t come. Neither chamber has adopted the resolution yet.
The Kremlin ridiculed as “nonsense” claims that President Trump has been working on Russia’s behalf, Bloomberg reports.
Said Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov: “That’s stupid. How can the president of the United States be an agent of another country? Just think about that.”
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also dismissed “accusations that President Trump is effectively a Russian agent” by attacking Congress and the American media for undermining the U.S. leader.
Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) will travel to New Hampshire in two weeks, the Boston Globe reports.
“The trip to the first-in-the-nation presidential primary state will likely restart buzz that he is exploring a run for president.”
New York Times: “Mr. Trump has adamantly insisted there was ‘no collusion’ with Russia during his 2016 presidential campaign. But each of the five times he has met with Mr. Putin since taking office, he has fueled suspicions about their relationship. The unusually secretive way he has handled these meetings has left many in his own administration guessing what happened and piqued the interest of investigators.”
“The mystery surrounding the meetings seems to have drawn attention from the special counsel, Robert Mueller, who is examining ties between the president and Russia. And it has generated a furor in Congress, where Democrats are pushing to subpoena the notes of the president’s interpreters or perhaps the interpreters themselves.”
“Veterans of past administrations could not recall a precedent for a president meeting alone with an adversary and keeping so many of his own advisers from being briefed on what was said.”
“The Islamic State asserted responsibility Wednesday for a suicide blast in the U.S.-patrolled city of Manbij in Syria, the first such attack since President Trump said American forces would withdraw from the country because the militant group has been largely defeated,” the Washington Post reports.
“In a message posted to Twitter, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition battling the Islamic State said that U.S. service members were killed while conducting a routine patrol in the city but did not say how many died or provide further details.”
“A model whose alleged affair with a Russian oligarch made her an unexpected player in probes into Moscow’s influence, pleaded guilty Tuesday in Thailand to charges linked to a ‘sex training’ seminar, setting the stage for her deportation,” the Washington Post reports.
“The model and self-described sex expert from Belarus, Anastasia Vashukevich, claimed that she recorded meetings between Russian metals magnate Oleg Deripaska and unspecified Americans in 2016 to discuss Russian interference in the U.S. election.”
“Vashukevich and seven Russians pleaded guilty to conspiracy and soliciting prostitution, clearing the way for them to be released after nine months in a Thai jail.”
Bloomberg: “Iowa’s well-established political infrastructure is at least partly frozen in place, awaiting clearer signals from a group one party veteran calls the ‘triumvirate’ — former Vice President Joe Biden, Senator Bernie Sanders and former Representative Beto O’Rourke, who gained a national attention with his ultimately unsuccessful bid last year to unseat Senator Ted Cruz of Texas.”
The Washington Post has a letter to President Trump from Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA):
“Sadly, given the security concerns and unless government re-opens this week, I suggest that we work together to determine another suitable date after government has reopened for this address or for you to consider delivering your State of the Union address in writing to the Congress on January 29th.”
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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