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.
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Bachmann Says God Didn’t Want Her to Run
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
“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
“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
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
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’
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
“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
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
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
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
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.”
Priebus Disputes Trump Tried to Fire Mueller
Former Trump White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus disputed reports that Trump sought to fire special counsel Robert Mueller, NBC News reports.
Said Priebus: “Of all the things that we went through in the West Wing, I never felt that the president was going to fire the special counsel.”
First Read: “But note how Priebus repeatedly used the word ‘felt’ in the interview. As Hugh Hewitt described it on Meet the Press after the Priebus interview, ‘You can’t perjure yourself if you feel something. If you don’t remember something you can’t perjure yourself. So he’s been lawyered up. He’s obviously feeling like he’s not a target and he’s in the clear.'”
Trump Rips Adam Schiff for Leaking
President Trump blasted Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) in a tweet, calling him “one of the biggest liars” in Washington:
Little Adam Schiff, who is desperate to run for higher office, is one of the biggest liars and leakers in Washington, right up there with Comey, Warner, Brennan and Clapper! Adam leaves closed committee hearings to illegally leak confidential information. Must be stopped!
Why the GOP Won’t Pass a Budget
Stan Collender: “The White House and congressional GOP insisted the big tax cut bill would pay for itself so there would be no negative impact on the federal deficit or national debt. They also said the Trump/GOP economic plans would result in a balanced budget within 10 years. The fiscal 2019 budget resolution — the one Congress is supposed to debate and adopt this year — would be the first one considered since the tax bill was enacted and, therefore, the first with projections that should validate and confirm those promises.”
“That means House and Senate Republicans should be rushing to get it done, take another victory lap and prove themselves to be budget seers, sages, oracles and truth tellers. But the GOP is doing the exact opposite.”
“So why isn’t the GOP going to do a budget? Because the vote on the 2019 budget — the last one Congress will consider before the 2018 midterm elections — will reveal that all the Republican promises on the deficit and debt, including its blind belief on dynamic scoring, were completely bogus.”
Trump Has Transformed the Republican Party
Jonathan Swan: “Rarely has a president changed his party as fast and profoundly as Donald J. Trump. Love him or hate him, you can no longer argue his ability to bend an entire party to his will.”
“In the two and a half years since he announced his candidacy, he has moved the party away from decades of orthodoxy on trade, Russia, deficits and more — and has helped make the law-and-order party skeptical of FBI leadership.”
“Perhaps the most profound thing Trump has done is show how many movement leaders and Republicans in Congress are out of touch with Republican voters.”
Democratic Challengers Outraising GOP Incumbents
Politico: “More than 40 House Republican incumbents were outraised in the final quarter of 2017 by one — or several — of their Democratic opponents, according to the latest round of fundraising numbers. And of that group, more than a dozen had less cash on hand than their Democratic challengers.”
New Ad Causes Uproar In Illinois
Politico: “But Republican state Rep. Jeanne Ives, whose campaign produced the ad in her primary election challenge to Gov. Bruce Rauner, is refusing to pull the spot, saying it exposes Rauner’s ‘betrayal’ of GOP voters. The new ad mockingly thanks the governor for clearing a path in support of a series of social issues. Then it taps just about every conservative bogeyman in Illinois politics, and every lightning-rod cultural issue.”
