Month: May 2019

Coupla Senators sitting around talking

by digby

Your moment of zen

by digby

Or something …

The KISS Army will be deployed to Iran. https://t.co/4fS8Jde6t2— Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) May 16, 2019

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We already knew that the FBI worried about Trump thinking they were blackmailing him

by digby

The wingnuts are having quite the little hissy fit about this:

Here’s what the article actually says:

Senior FBI officials were concerned then director James Comey would appear to be blackmailing then President-elect Trump – using tactics notoriously associated with J.Edgar Hoover – when he attended a fateful Jan. 6, 2017, meeting at which he informed the real estate magnate about allegations he had consorted with prostitutes in Moscow, according to Jim Baker, the bureau’s chief counsel at the time.

“We were quite worried about the Hoover analogies, and we were determined not to have such a disaster happen on our watch,” said Jim Baker, then the FBI’s top lawyer in an interview with the Yahoo News podcast Skullduggery. But he and Comey determined the bureau had an obligation to tell Trump of the uncorroborated allegations because “the press has it; it’s about to come out. You should be alerted to that fact.”
[…]
“It was pretty alarming,” Baker said about intelligence the bureau had about possible links between the Trump campaign and various Russian actors. “The thought that somehow somebody in either one of the campaigns might have had some connection to that or some awareness of it that they didn’t inform the FBI about was … quite concerning and disorienting.”

The issue was so sensitive that when Comey was preparing to brief Trump after the election, Baker and the director were directly at odds about how to handle the matter. The meeting was crucial: It was the moment that the U.S. intelligence chief — including Comey — were to brief Trump, then the president-elect, about their findings about the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the election that Trump had just won.

Baker strongly urged Comey not to go through with his plans to reassure Trump by telling him he was not under investigation by the FBI. “I didn’t think it was accurate to say that he wasn’t under investigation,” said Baker.

As Baker saw it, Trump was clearly a “subject” of the investigation because, as head of his own campaign, he was among those whose activities were being examined by the FBI.

But Comey thought explaining that distinction to the president-elect would have been “too confusing.” It would have been “hard to understand, be misinterpreted and he just didn’t think it was the right thing to do,” Baker said about Comey’s view about what to say.

In the end, Comey told Trump he was not under investigation—a comment that came back to haunt Comey when he later refused to say the same thing publicly, a key factor that led to Trump’s decision to fire him.

This is anything but “big news” (admittedly, drawn off of the clickbait Yahoo headline to some extent) Comey himself said this many months ago in public testimony before the whole world and explained why he didn’t tell him he was under investigation:

COMEY: I didn’t use the term counterintelligence. I was briefing him about salacious and unverified material. It was in a context of that that he had a strong and defensive reaction about that not being true. My reading of it was it was important for me to assure him we were not person investigating him.

So the context then was actually narrower, focused on what I just talked to him about. It was very important because it was, first, true, and second, I was worried very much about being in kind of a J. Edgar Hoover-type situation.

I didn’t want him thinking I was briefing him on this to sort of hang it over him in some way. I was briefing him on it because, because we had been told by the media it was about to launch. We didn’t want to be keeping that from him.

He needed to know this was being said. I was very keen not to leave him with an impression that the bureau was trying to do something to him. So that’s the context in which I said, sir, we’re not personally investigating you.

I have to assume that Isikoff, who wrote the Yahoo story, knows that. But now the right wing is recycling it like it’s a big discovery.

This is how the right builds its narratives. Nobody should be falling for it.

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So many Trump strongman bromances with competing agendas

by digby

I had to turn off Hewitt because his voice triggers me but I’m sorry I missed this:

MSNBC's Ali Velshi cuts off Hugh Hewitt: "Hugh, just stop, for heaven's sake!" pic.twitter.com/DtHheSyVJC— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) May 16, 2019

TPM:

MSNBC host Ali Velshi tussled with conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt Thursday afternoon over escalating tensions between the Trump administration and Iran.

“I believe the most important aspect of this confrontation is that the nature of the Iranian regime has not changed since 1979,” Hewitt said. “It’s not about John Bolton. It’s not about Mike Pompeo. It’s not about President Trump. It’s about the fact that we have a theocracy run by a dictator,” Hewitt said.

As Hewitt continued to make his case about the threat from Iran, Velshi interjected.

“I could say all of this stuff about the Saudis, right? The Saudis are bombing the Yemenis. The Saudis have forces — they had them in Syria, the had them in Iraq. What changed? … And the Saudis are run by a dictator too.”

“I don’t think you can say that they act like the Iranian regime,” Hewitt said. The Iranian regime exports chaos, they are a terrorist organization. And they announced last year —.”

“Hugh, just stop, Hugh, for heaven’s sake. The Saudis don’t export terror? The Saudis don’t have expansionist tendencies? I’m not defending — don’t put me in a position to defend the Iranians because I’m not interested at all. But you’re inventing this situation that Iran is some kind of danger…”

The Saudi point is an important one. Trump is pushing the idea that he’s a dove on this Iran stuff, but it looks like more schoolyard nonsense like his beautiful relationship with Kim Jong Un. He probably thinks he can sit down with the Ayatollahs and chat about real estate prices and everything will be hunky dory. But he’s got some serious pressure from his other bffs MBS and Bibi to contend with. Of course, there’s also Iran’s ally Vlad.

So many bromances, so many conflicts.

Trump can easily be steamrolled on this one. All it would take is Fox News to press it as something the base wants.

Update

Tom Cotton on CNN just now about a dozen times: “Multiple, credible, serious threats…”

He also kept saying that he hoped they didn’t provoke an incident. Gulf of Tonkin anyone? They wouldn’t even have to tell Trump they did it …

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Trump’s new plan requires immigrants to pass a civics test

by digby

Do you think this guy could pass it?

Trump characterizes the word "progressives" as "a new word that's come about." pic.twitter.com/5EEXwAUE0V— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 16, 2019

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The pardon signal

by digby

Trump is issuing pardons to his pals. He’s also sending a message: “kiss my feet, be my sycophant, and you too could be the recipient of a presidential pardon.” Are you listening Paulie?

President Trump’s pardons were self-serving before, and they became even more so Wednesday night, after he pardoned two prominent conservatives who had already completed their sentences.

Trump pardoned billionaire Conrad Black, who a year ago published a book called “Donald J. Trump: A president like no other.” The book is more hagiography than biography. It defends Trump against charges that he is a racist, stating flatly that he is not. It hails his “very successful” foreign policy ventures. It credits his “unquenchable energy,” “sheer entertainment talent” and “raw toughness.” It misleadingly hails his 2016 election win by saying he won “more votes than any previous Republican candidate for president,” without noting that this was mostly a function of population growth and that Trump lost the popular vote. He called Trump’s win a “stunning rebuff” of the media.

The second pardon went to Patrick J. Nolan, the former Republican leader of the California state assembly. This one is less obviously self-serving, but it is. Nolan has been a prominent conservative voice for criminal justice reform since finishing his sentence and has served in prison ministry. But he, like Black, is close to the Trump family. Appearing at a White House ceremony celebrating the passage of criminal justice reform legislation, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner called Nolan “my friend,” and Nolan called Kushner “just a superstar. I’m impressed with him so much.” Last year, Nolan criticized special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation. He said it was symptomatic of how law enforcement personnel “decide who they’re going to prosecute and then hunt for a crime.”

That these pardons went to two Trump allies who said things he likes, and whose pardons could send signals to other Trump allies, doesn’t seem like a coincidence. Trump has now pardoned 10 people in his two-plus years in office. Of the nine living ones, eight are either conservatives or further Trump’s political narrative in some way.

To recap:

Dinesh D’Souza is a close analog to Black, publishing books attacking Democrats including Hillary Clinton and former president Barack Obama.

Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio is an immigration hard-liner who supported Trump in 2016.
The two Hammond brothers’ case launched a standoff with the federal government that briefly became a cause celebre among some conservatives. As with D’Souza and Arpaio, the pardons could be understood as reaching out to an extreme group that could support Trump down the road.

Kristian Saucier was the Navy sailor who argued that his sentence was too harsh by citing Hillary Clinton — a comparison Trump often repeated on the campaign trail.

Lewis “Scooter” Libby was a White House official in the Bush administration whose case bore some striking similarities to Trump’s own legal issues — and whose pardon was pushed for by lawyers Trump briefly hired.

The other two pardons went to the late boxer Jack Johnson and, earlier this month, Michael Behenna, a former Army first lieutenant convicted of murder while serving in Iraq. Trump has also commuted the sentence of two others, including Alice Marie Johnson, whose clemency was pushed for by Kim Kardashian, who is married to Trump ally Kanye West.

The point isn’t that presidents don’t pardon their allies; they have. Bill Clinton’s pardon of Marc Rich, who had given large sums to both the Democratic Party and the Clintons, was a massive controversy.

But they often do it sparingly, late in their terms (the Rich pardon came on Clinton’s last day in office), and they mix it in with many other pardons that don’t so clearly and obviously benefit themselves. The scale and audacity with Trump is on another level completely. Trump seems to have very little regard for the perception this creates. Perhaps that’s because he likes the signal it sends to his allies that they too could one day benefit from his broad executive power — even if in ways far shy of a something as big as a pardon. Trump’s dangling of pardons for some of his top aides convicted of crimes drives that home.

The Black pardon, in particular, really tests the limits of what is appropriate. But as with many other norms, Trump is happy to bulldoze it.

Of course he is. He knows that he can shoot someone on 5th avenue and nobody will stop him. If he can steal the next election, he’ll have even more pardons to hand out if anyone gets caught doing it.

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A green light for GOP corruption and betrayal

by digby

Greg Sargent with the bad news:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has succeeded in stifling impeachment talk. The Post reports that the speaker privately told Democrats to stick to policy and forget about an impeachment inquiry, and not a single Democrat uttered a word in protest.

This is meant to illustrate the iron grip that Pelosi often successfully maintains on her caucus. But, whether you support an impeachment inquiry right now, there’s no way to describe the broader strategy that Democrats have adopted on the impeachment question as a success. It’s been a muddled mess.

Unless you think that impotent handwringing is an effective strategy, I’d say that’s true so far.

But, as Greg points out, this seems to have been the strategy. The House leadership believes it is completely powerless to do anything about Trump so they stalled (“waiting for Mueller) hoping he would completely clear Trump so they didn’t have to do anything (or perhaps produce a report so clear cut that Trump would have to resign?) Anyway, it’s clear that they didn’t have much of a plan in place to do anything but clutch their pearls and “decry” Trump’s behavior at worst and clearly they were kind of hoping that the last two years would have them partnering with Trump to “get things done.”

Anyway:

If it was sincere — i.e., Democrats really wanted Mueller’s findings before making the call — then they were not prepared for the possibility that those revelations would be severe enough to overwhelmingly warrant an inquiry, setting them up to look feckless and weak at a moment of extraordinary challenge to the country.

Whichever it was, the result has been that Democrats have been forced by the seriousness of the revelations not to close the door on impeachment, but rather to again defer the decision, by claiming that they must first do more fact-finding.

This, Democrats said, will happen via more investigations, getting the unredacted Mueller report, and hearing from key players — including former White House counsel Donald McGahn, who witnessed extensive obstruction of justice, and Mueller, who may clarify that he declined to exonerate Trump because he saw criminality.

In some ways, this is defensible. One can envision Democrats using multiple committee hearings to develop a fuller picture of Mueller’s findings (along with other aspects of Trump’s corruption and misconduct), before launching an inquiry.

But if this posture is underpinned by a secret intention to never pull that trigger, that creates yet another problem.

Pat Cipollone, Trump’s White House counsel, just announced that he will stiff-arm House oversight requests across the board, in effect declaring any further fleshing out of Mueller’s findings to be illegitimate. The administration is also unlawfully refusing to release the president’s tax returns, and will fight “all” subpoenas, a sweeping effort to place Trump beyond accountability entirely.

This means Democrats may be hamstrung from doing the very fact-finding they say is necessary to decide whether to launch an impeachment inquiry. Even if Democrats can fight in court, the battles could last months, and if Democrats lose on many fronts, and then see the looming election as a reason not to act, they will have been effectively neutered.

Steyer’s ad gets at this, noting that when Trump “blocked the release of his tax returns, nothing happened,” adding:

Now you tell us to wait for the next election? Really? Really? Really? This is why we volunteered. Raised money. Went door to door. And voted in the last election. Our founding fathers expected you — Congress — to hold a lawless president accountable. And you’re doing nothing. Nothing. Nothing. He broke his oath of office. He’s defying you. Laughing at you. And he’s getting away with it.

Of course, Democrats aren’t doing “nothing.” But there is the risk that if their oversight is neutered and they don’t act, this picture of fecklessness will be the reigning one.

Is there a better way to handle this? Perhaps not. Because, at bottom, the core question is whether it is acceptable for Democrats to refrain from an impeachment inquiry in the face of corruption and misconduct they plainly believe merits one.

In a media environment rendered deeply unbalanced by one side’s full-saturation propaganda about “total exoneration,” refraining from impeachment risks misleading the country into believing that Mueller’s findings aren’t as damning as they really are.

What’s more, as Brian Beutler and Quinta Jurecic argue, refraining inescapably validates Trump’s corruption as a kind of new normal. With Trump urging his attorney general to investigate the investigators, it incentivizes the president to expand his lawlessness, since he can do so with impunity.

The better arguments against acting are that the Senate won’t convict, so full accountability is impossible anyway, or that impeachment is a political decision, so Congress isn’t obliged to do it. Or maybe it really would help Trump get reelected (though that idea is baseless).

But none of those arguments reckons seriously with the downside of not acting, which are considerable. And none takes seriously what it would mean if Democratic oversight is neutered and it’s too late to act. Or, even worse, what it would mean if Trump won reelection after all that happened.

If Democrats do believe an impeachment inquiry is merited, it’s not clear there’s any magic key to credibly arguing their way out of not launching one. Perhaps there is a way, but they certainly haven’t hit on it yet.

If you take the pressure off, I would suggest that Trump will take this as far as he needs to. And that could easily include some election shenanigans that make 2016 look like child’s play.

But waddaya gonna do?

The aide said that guys like me were ‘in what we call the reality-based community,’ which he defined as people who ‘believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.’ […] ‘That’s not the way the world really works anymore,’ he continued. ‘We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do‘

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War of the worth
by Tom Sullivan

A month ago, I pondered how — beside an election loss in 2020 or conviction in the Senate — the Trump presidency might end more quickly:

Is there any way to leverage him out? Pressure him to resign? A way to make staying worse than leaving? Make him a deal? (He understands deals.)

In considering ways to get Donald Trump simply to go away, his greed seemed his weakest point. The stonewalling on producing his taxes may be intended not only to conceal financial crimes, but to keep from exploding the myth of fabulous wealth he created for himself to inhabit.

If Trump succeeds in walling off his presidency from congressional oversight, either through bald-faced criminality the system is not designed to repel or through Democrats’ inability to stop him from creating an imperial presidency, that’s the republic. “Hasta la vista, baby.”

Right now, there seems no stopping him. Then again. A report by David Fahrenthold and Jonathan O’Connell suggests greed may yet be the point to target. Revenues at the Doral resort, one of Trump’s premiere golf clubs, are in steep decline. Net operating income is down by 69 percent:

“They are severely underperforming” other resorts in the area, tax consultant Jessica Vachiratevanurak told a Miami-Dade County official in a bid to lower the property’s tax bill. The reason, she said: “There is some negative connotation that is associated with the brand.”

The Trump Organization tells the Post fears of the Zika virus and hurricanes have kept visitors away. Those alleged fears have not depressed the business of nearby resorts. Only Trump’s.

Although, his emolument-subsidized Washington, D.C. hotel seems to be doing well, Doral is not the only property where the Trump name is an albatross around his company’s neck. Occupancy at Trump’s namesake Manhattan tower has plummeted, Bloomberg reports. Vacancy rates are twice the city’s average. The property’s net income is 26 percent below bank expectations, propped up by Trump’s 2020 campaign spending $890,000 to rent space over the last two years. Trump Tower is now one of the least desirable properties in New York City. Prices are “listed as negotiable.”

“No one wants in that building,” former resident Michael Sklar told Bloomberg. Living there amidst additional security is a hassle, Sklar explains. Plus, “the name on the building became a problem.”

What’s more, a commercial real estate broker’s surveys show “prospective tenants won’t consider a Trump building until he’s out of office.”

Perhaps instead of asking Trump policy questions or about his battles with Congress, would-be intrepid reporters should hound Trump about his failing businesses. Badger him about his declining net worth, his billion-dollar losses, about his tumble down the Forbes 400 last fall. (He’s up again, but only because others’ wealth shrank.)

Trump has green-and-gold visions of being king and owning it all. Of joining Vlad and Viktor, Rodrigo and Recep in the He-Man Autocrats Club. But his wealth is his blue blanket. Threaten that and might he crack? He does not fear jail. Pardons will shield him, plus institutional reluctance to jail a former president. But if sufficient financial or psychological pressure were brought to bear, either by disgust among the elite or a nagging press or by New York’s attorney general, might Trump be brought down by his own greed and need to save his fortune?

The situation recalls the fate of H.G. Wells’ Martians. After Earth’s armies whither in the face of their heat ray and noxious vapors, the Martians succumb to earthly pathogens, slain “by the humblest things that God, in his wisdom, has put upon this earth.” Not microbes and viruses in Trump’s case, but by greed.

It is a reach, of course.

This is not your grandfather’s (or your father’s) impeachment


by digby

Every member of the Democratic leadership should be forced to read this from Sidney Blumenthal at Just Security to remind themselves what really happened in the past and compare it to what is happening now:

Some commentators and politicians have suggested that any movement that leads to President Donald Trump’s impeachment will necessarily follow the straight and narrow political path of the Clinton impeachment in which the president’s popularity inexorably rose. President Bill Clinton’s case is widely assumed to set the terms for understanding Trump’s. But the facts and history instead indicate that the Clinton case bears little if any relevance to the Trump one, while the Nixon case shows similarity to Trump’s, including how President Richard Nixon, a far more popular president than the abysmally rated Trump, collapsed in public opinion as the drive to his impeachment unfolded.

In 1973 and 1974, the Democrats attacked a once-mighty but now badly weakened president with a strong case for impeachment. Nixon resigned.

In 1998 and 1999, the Republicans attacked a mightily popular president on a political upswing in his second term with a politically contrived and feeble case for impeachment. Republicans lost.

In 2019, the Democrats confront the weakest president in modern history with a stronger case for impeachment than the one against Nixon.

Since the release of the redacted version of the Mueller Report, support for impeachment of Trump has already risen to a near majority, 45 percent, with 42 percent opposed, according to the latest Ipsos-Reuters poll. That phenomenon never occurred during the Clinton impeachment, not once. On the contrary, in the Clinton case there was never any increase at any point in support for impeachment, which remained opposed by a large and solid majority of about two-thirds or more. Clinton began the impeachment process at 66 percent approval and ended the impeachment process at 66 percent approval.

By contrast, Nixon began 1973 as a president reelected with an overwhelming majority and winning 49 states. He stood at 68 percent approval. Two weeks before his second inauguration, Watergate burglars pled guilty to conspiracy and other crimes, which soon triggered congressional inquiries into Watergate. By May, when the Senate Watergate hearings began, Nixon’s standing in public opinion began to erode, a decline accelerated at each stage by his stonewalling of Congress and the courts. Public support for impeachment of Nixon, however, did not reach the level at which it already stands for Trump until near May 1974, a full year after the Senate Watergate hearings. In short, Trump now stands in public opinion where Nixon did after Senate hearings, after John Dean and others testified, after the Nixon tapes were exposed.

Trump’s popularity is the worst and weakest of any president ever recorded since the beginning of polls charting presidential approval ratings. He is the most consistently unpopular president in modern recorded history. Trump is the only president never to hit 50 percent approval. Recent events involving Attorney General William Barr and Trump’s stonewalling of Congress’ constitutional mandate for executive oversight, paralleling the Nixon dynamic, are damaging the president further, driving his numbers deeper into his base, like Nixon under siege. There is, however, no meaningful comparison whatsoever to the Clinton case.

In Nixon’s case the charges of impeachment described the most serious to that point in American history ever brought against a president: subversion of democracy, bribery, and obstruction of justice. Forty administration officials, campaign advisers and close associates of Nixon involved in Watergate were indicted or convicted.

In Clinton’s case the charges of impeachment were transparently partisan in origin, twisted and insubstantial, and consistently rejected by the vast majority of the public. Not a single White House official or close associate involved in these events was indicted—not one.

In Trump’s case over 800 former federal prosecutors stated that if he were not a sitting president he would be indicted for obstruction of justice on multiple felony charges. Already seven Trump White House officials, campaign advisers and close associates have been indicted or convicted. His personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who has been leading the public defense of the president, is directly implicated by name in the Mueller Report for potential involvement in witness tampering.

Timeline: Clinton Impeachment

October 30, 1998: Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich launches a multimillion-dollar advertising blitz less than a week before the midterm elections targeting President Clinton.

November 3, 1998: Democrats win five House seats in the midterm elections, the first time the incumbent presidential party in its president’s second term midterm made gains since 1934.

December 8, 1998: Opening of House Judiciary Committee impeachment hearings.

December 19, 1998: House votes to impeach President Clinton.

February 12, 1999: Senate acquits President Clinton.

Clinton’s approval numbers throughout impeachment, according to the Gallup Poll:

At the time of the Gingrich negative advertising attack, Clinton was at 66 approval, 30 disapproval.

Just after the House Judiciary Committee opened its hearings, Clinton was at 64 approval, 34 disapproval.

When the House impeached Clinton, his approval rose to 73 and disapproval fell to 25.

When the Senate acquitted Clinton, his approval was 68, disapproval 30.

One week after the impeachment acquittal, Clinton stood at 66 approval, 30 disapproval, exactly where he was at the beginning of the process. His numbers ranged within the margin of error except for the jump to 73 when he was impeached.

Number of White House officials and Clinton associates indicted by Special Counsel Kenneth W. Starr for misconduct or wrongdoing in office: 0

Timeline: Nixon, Watergate, and Impeachment

January 8, 1972: Watergate burglars plead guilty.

January 20, 1973: Nixon inaugurated for a second term.

April 6, 1973: White House counsel John Dean begins cooperating with Watergate prosecutors.

April 30, 1973: Senior White House aides H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman resign; Attorney General Richard Kleindienst resigns.

May 17, 1973: Televised Senate Watergate hearings begin.

October 20, 1973: Saturday Night Massacre; Nixon orders firing of special prosecutor, Attorney General Eliot Richardson and his deputy William Ruckelshaus resign.

November 1, 1973: Leon Jaworski appointed new special prosecutor.

January 28, 1974: Nixon campaign aide Herbert Porter pleads guilty to perjury.

February 25, 1974: Nixon personal counsel Herbert Kalmbach pleads guilty to two charges of illegal campaign activities.

March 1, 1974: In an indictment against seven former presidential aides, delivered to Judge Sirica together with a sealed briefcase intended for the House Committee on the Judiciary, Nixon is named as an unindicted co-conspirator.

March 4, 1974: The “Watergate Seven” (Mitchell, Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Colson, Gordon C. Strachan, Robert Mardian, and Kenneth Parkinson) are formally indicted.

March 18, 1974: Judge Sirica orders the grand jury’s sealed report to be sent to the House Committee on the Judiciary.

April 5, 1974: Dwight Chapin convicted of lying to a grand jury.

April 7, 1974: Ed Reinecke, Republican lieutenant governor of California, indicted on three charges of perjury before the Senate committee.

April 16, 1974: Special Prosecutor Jaworski issues a subpoena for 64 White House tapes.

April 30, 1974: White House releases edited transcripts of the Nixon tapes, but the House Judiciary Committee insists the actual tapes must be turned over.

May 9, 1974: Impeachment hearings begin before the House Judiciary Committee.

July 24, 1974: United States v. Nixon decided: Nixon is ordered to give up tapes to investigators.

Congress moves to impeach Nixon.

● July 27 to July 30, 1974: House Judiciary Committee passes Articles of Impeachment.
● Early August 1974: A previously unknown tape from June 23, 1972 (recorded a few days after the break-in) documenting Nixon and Haldeman’s formulating a plan to block investigations is released. This recording later became known as the “Smoking Gun.”
● Key Republican Senators tell Nixon that enough votes exist to convict him.

August 9, 1974: Nixon resigns from office.

Number of Nixon administration officials indicted or imprisoned in Watergate related crimes: 40

Nixon’s Poll Ratings Through Watergate

The Pew Research Center states:

“Nixon had won reelection in 1972 by a landslide and began his second term with a lofty 68% Gallup Poll approval rating in January 1973. But the Watergate scandal — which started with an effort to bug the Democratic National Committee office at the Watergate Hotel and subsequent efforts to cover it up — quickly took a heavy toll on those ratings, especially when coupled with a ramp-up in public concerns about inflation. By April, a resounding 83% of the American public had heard or read about Watergate, as the president accepted the resignations of his top aides John Ehrlichman and H.R. Haldeman. And in turn, Nixon’s approval ratings fell to 48%.”

Timeline: Trump, Indictments, Convictions, Barr, and Mueller Report

October 5, 2017: Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos pleads guilty to lying to the FBI about his communications with Russian agent Joseph Mifsud.

December 1, 2017: Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn pleads guilty to lying to the FBI about his contact with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

February 16, 2018: Thirteen Russian nationals and three Russian organizations, including the Internet Research Agency, a de facto organ of Russian military intelligence, indicted for conspiracy to steal American citizens’ identities, create and promote false social media and subvert the 2016 federal election to benefit Trump.

February 16, 2018: Lawyer Alex van der Zwaan pleads guilty to lying to the FBI about his contact with Trump deputy campaign manager Rick Gates and other crimes.

February 22, 2018: Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort indicted on 32 counts of money laundering and bank fraud.

February 23, 2018: Former Trump deputy campaign manager and Manafort partner, Rick Gates, pleads guilty to conspiracy and lying to investigators. Manafort indicted for secretly retaining a team of foreign agents to lobby in the U.S.

June 8, 2018: Alleged Russian military intelligence agent and Paul Manafort business partner Konstantin Kilimnik indicted, along with Manafort, for conspiracy, obstruction of justice and witness tampering.

July 13, 2018: Twelve Russian intelligence officers indicted for the hacking of the DNC and Clinton campaign to benefit Trump.

August 21, 2018: Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen pleads guilty to tax fraud, bank fraud and campaign finance violations in making illegal payments to silence two women for their affairs with Trump. Trump, named as “Individual 1,” is an unindicted co-conspirator in the crimes for which Cohen will serve a prison term.

August 31, 2018: Lawyer Samuel Patten, a Manafort associate, who funneled foreign money into Trump’s inaugural, pleads guilty to acting as an unregistered foreign agent.

January 25, 2019: Longtime Trump adviser and dirty trickster Roger Stone indicted for lying about his relationship with Wikileaks, which served as the agent for Russian military intelligence in transmitting stolen DNC and Clinton campaign emails to benefit Trump, and for perjury, witness tampering and obstruction.

March 13, 2019: Manafort sentenced to seven and a half years in prison for financial crimes.

March 22, 2019: Attorney General William Barr in a four-page letter to Congress distorts the content and conclusions of the Mueller Report, claiming that Trump is exonerated.

April 18, 2019: Mueller Report in redacted form delivered to the Congress; Barr holds a press conference reiterating his false summary.

April 30, 2018: House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) sends a criminal referral to the Justice Department for informal Trump campaign adviser Erik Prince, who “willfully misled” the committee during 2017 testimony.

May 1, 2019: Barr reiterates his false characterization of the Mueller Report before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

May 8, 2019: The House Judiciary Committee cites Barr for contempt of Congress for refusing to release the redacted portions of the report and underlying documents to the committee.

Number of Trump White House officials and associates indicted or convicted so far (excluding citation of “Individual 1” as an unindicted co-conspirator): 7

Trump’s approval ratings since the first Barr appearance:

March 26-April 1: Trump’s approval was 42, disapproval 53, in the Ipso/Reuters poll.

April 17-23: Trump approval 40, disapproval 53, Ipsos-Reuters.

May 6-7: Trump approval 39, disapproval 55, Ipsos-Reuters.

May 6-7: Approval for impeachment jumps five points since mid-April to 45, with 42 opposed, Ipsos-Reuters.

Conclusions

First, the Trump numbers simply do not parallel the pattern of the Clinton numbers. They bear no resemblance. Comparing the two is a fruitless exercise that inevitably leads to faulty conclusions. At no point during the Clinton impeachment did public approval of impeachment ever climb out of the 30s, while disapproval remained unwaveringly constant at about two-thirds opposition, more or less the same level as Clinton’s approval. Clinton remained the most consistently popular president in his second term since President Eisenhower.

Second, the Nixon experience reveals that the combination of concerted congressional inquiry, public hearings, the release of information, and Nixon’s stonewalling steadily drove his numbers down. The more the public knew of Nixon’s crimes through public televised hearings, the more rapidly Nixon’s poll numbers crumbled.

In light of Trump’s historically low standing in the polls and the history of past impeachments, Trump’s putative strengths are greatly overestimated. Trump is the most unpopular president since the Gallup Poll began recording presidential approval levels with Franklin D. Roosevelt. While in some polls during the period since Barr’s first presentation he briefly climbed to the mid-40s, he has descended again. The Ipsos-Reuters poll showing 45 percent support for impeachment, when there is no impeachment committee, and before any congressional hearings of witnesses, shows the start of a trend of declining approval as the Trump crisis deepens, the opposite of the Clinton dynamic. The role of Attorney General Barr, a markedly unattractive figure, emerging as the leader of coverup, and Trump’s steadfast refusal to cooperate with the House, are unique factors for which there are no parallels with the Clinton experience, though there are obvious analogies to Nixon.

In conclusion, the Clinton impeachment and the Trump response to the Mueller Report appear to have little if no correlation. The Clinton example as a predictor should be dispensed with in considering Trump.

The Nixon case, however, offers apt political comparison. Nixon’s collapse was driven by the unwavering insistence of the Congress for information through public hearings and the calling of witnesses before initiating an impeachment; Nixon’s stonewalling strategies and legal resistance; and the disclosure of facts that Nixon was attempting to coverup to the public.

Trump is no less paranoid and vindictive than Nixon. Unlike Nixon, he gains pleasure from his provocations. But his outrageousness should not be mistaken for strength. If he seems to be taunting the Democrats to impeach him it is a desperate act of miscalculation. He has adopted his stonewalling out of sheer necessity in order to maintain his survival. Throughout his career, following the advice of his early attorney Roy Cohn, he has adopted the strategy of resisting court orders and suing everyone to put them on the defensive. He has been playing for time since he first hired Roy Cohn. Now perhaps he imagines an impeachment will suit his tale of himself as the victim and his antagonists as unfair. But that was also the psychology underlying Nixon’s political strategy in Watergate. Trump proceeds from a much weaker position than Nixon. He depends entirely on his stonewalling. He hangs by a thread.

They should not be giving him any thing to grab on to.

But at the moment what I see is a bunch of impotent handwringing and bragging about passing bills that have no chance of passing.  It’s not good.

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William Barr, true-blue snotty wingnut

by digby

Barr trying to be cute is just gross:

Attorney General William Barr joked with Speaker Nancy Pelosi about Democrats’ calls for his arrest, asking the California Democrat whether she brought handcuffs to an event on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday morning.

The exchange — which comes a week after the House Judiciary Committee voted to hold Barr in contempt over subpoenas related to the Mueller report — took place as they were waiting for President Trump, who was running roughly 45 minutes late, to arrive at the 38th Annual National Peace Officers’ Memorial Service.

“As those seated on the platform waited for the president’s arrival in an adjacent tent, Attorney General Barr approached Speaker Pelosi, shook her hand and said loudly, ‘Madam Speaker, did you bring your handcuffs?'” a bystander told The Hill

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Fuck that guy. He’s a snotty asshole. In other words, a true-blue wingnut.

Luckily, Pelosi was quick on her feet:

“The Speaker, not missing a beat, smiled and indicated to the attorney general that the House sergeant-at-arms was present at the ceremony should an arrest be necessary. The attorney general chuckled and walked away,” the bystander added.

As much as she’d like to, she’s the Speaker so she can’t totally disrespect the office of Attorney General. But she doesn’t have to respect the person holding it. This response walks that line well.

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