POLITIKS OF GRAFFITI 127: IMMIGRANTS HELP MAKE AMERICA GREAT

Published on April 13, 2019April 13, 2019 by jacquelinemhadelLeave a comment

APRIL 13, 2019

Week 126

Experts in authoritarianism advise to keep a list of things
subtly changing around you, so you’ll remember. FROM AMY SISKIND’S WEEKLY LIST: https://theweeklylist.org/weekly-list/week-126/

Since immigration was such a big story yet again this week, here is a photo I took of a wheatpaste in Miami, Florida in December 2018. Artist: Marisa Velázquez-Rivas https://www.instagram.com/marisa.vr/

This is a mural I photographed in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York, in February 2018. “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.” Unfortunately, some people have apparently forgotten…

This week, Trump’s frustration with migrants coming to the southern border boiled over, as he purged the Department of Homeland Security, and empowered immigrant hardliner Stephen Miller to be in charge of the regime’s immigration policy. As the week ended, 12 of the 30 senior roles at DHS were either vacant or filled with “acting” leaders. Departures of senior officials at the cabinet level and below are at record levels. Meanwhile, Trump continues to consolidate power, act unilaterally, and welcome the “flexibility” of using “acting” directors whom he can hire and fire at will — without needing the oversight of the Senate to confirm them.

D3rkmD0UUAEjpa1.jpg-large — **“If Kirstjen only had a heart, she wouldn’t have been hired in the first place.” A quote from Jim Carrey, to go along with his depiction of the OUSTED TIN WOMAN this week.**

Troubling reporting this week indicated Trump instructed his incoming Secretary of DHS to break the law, assuring him he would be pardoned. Reporting also indicated Trump and Miller had contemplated releasing migrant detainees into sanctuary cities as a means to punish political enemies. When confronted with the story, the White House pushed back, only to have Trump say indeed that was his plan. Trump also looked for ways to increasingly use military troops at the border, including in ways that violate the law.

Attorney General William Barr delivered concerning Congressional testimony, refusing to answer if he has briefed the White House on the Mueller probe, and said he believed “spying” by the FBI on the Trump campaign did occur. Trump seized on Barr’s words to claim he was a victim of an “attempted coup,” and continued this week to discredit Mueller and his team. Three weeks after Mueller delivered his report to Barr, it has yet to be released to Congress or the American people.

D3_FoJCUYAA-j9f.jpg-large — Jim Carrey’s latest depiction of the most dangerous, unlawful man in the country. And that says a lot, considering who the president is. But, I dare to say that 45 is stupid, can barely read, and has never known the law. Barr, however, does know the law, he just chooses to BREAK IT. That is what makes him the MOST DANGEROUS.

On Sunday, Trump renewed his attacks on Mueller, tweeting: “Looks like Bob Mueller’s team of 13 Trump Haters & Angry Democrats” are illegally leaking information to the press.
Trump also tweeted that the “Fake News Media” makes up stories, adding, “sources no longer matter to our corrupt & dishonest Mainstream Media,” and, “they are a Joke!”
On Sunday, Rudy Giuliani also attacked Mueller’s team, telling the AP “You’re darn right I’m going after them again,” adding, “they were forced to admit they couldn’t find anything on him. They sure tried.”
On Monday, Trump quoted Charles Hurt, an opinion writer at the Washington Times, tweeting: “The reason the whole process seems so politicized is that Democrats made up this complete lie about Collusion.”
Trump also quoted Katie Pavlich, editor of Townhall.com, tweeting: “Jerry Nadler is not entitled to this information. He is doing this to get it to the Democrat 2020 nominee.”
Trump later tweeted: “The Democrats will never be satisfied, no matter what they get, how much they get, or how many pages they get,” adding, “It will never end, but that’s the way life goes!”
On Sunday, Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, told “Fox New Sunday” that House Democrats will “never” see Trump’s tax returns, saying, “That’s an issue that was already litigated during the election.”
Axios reported former White House counsel Don McGahn told a group of senior Republican Senate aidesTrump uses a “hub and spokes model” — with no staff member empowered and Trump making all the decisions.
On Sunday, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen resigned, bowing to pressure from Trump over his frustration over the failure to stop the flow of immigrants crossing the southern border.
Trump tweeted about her resignation, with her formal letter following shortly after. Tension between the two was exacerbated by Trump withdrawing Ronald Vitiello’s nomination to be the director of ICE without consulting Nielsen last week.
Fox News’ anchors had repeatedly called for Nielsen’s resignation in recent weeks. DHS is the subject of numerous House subpoenas and more than 20 investigations by the agency’s inspector general.
Nielsen’s resignation marked the 15th Trump cabinet member to depart — a faster turnover pace than Obama, W. Bush, or Clinton, as nearly 50 senior officials have departed since Trump took office.
Nielsen was also the third woman to resign from Trump’s cabinet, leaving just three women out of 24 positions — the least diverse cabinet by gender since President Reagan.
On Monday, NBC News reported Trump’s renewed support for months of reinstating large-scale separation of migrant families crossing the border put him at odds with Nielsen and was part of what led to her resignation.
Nielsen told Trump federal court orders prohibited DHS from reinstating the policy. Kevin McAleenan, the head of Customs and Border Protection whom Trump is likely to name secretary, has not ruled out family separation.
On Monday, Randolph “Tex” Alles was removed as U.S. Secret Service Director. After his departure, Alles sent a message to the Secret Service saying he had not been fired by Trump. Alles reported to Nielsen.
Alles was a retired Marine Corps general and former acting deputy commissioner of CBP — the first Secret Service Director not to come up the agency ranks in at least 100 years, and the latest general to depart.
On Monday, Sen. Chuck Grassley warned Trump to stop ousting top immigration officials, saying he was “very, very concerned” Lee Francis Cissna, director of Citizenship and Immigration Services, could be next.
Reports indicated Cissna and DHS’s general counsel, John Mitnick, could be the next to go in Trump’s purge of DHS leaders. Grassley told WAPO he planned to go on Fox News to make his case for keeping Cissna.
On Monday, WSJ reported Trump has been pushing to reinstate the family separation policy since the day it stopped. Recently, Trump reportedly told Stephen Miller: “You’re in charge” of the regime’s immigration policy.
CNN reported in an Oval Office meeting three weeks ago, Trump, while “ranting and raving” ordered Nielsen and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to shut down the port of El Paso the next day. Mulvaney talked him out of it.
Also, last Friday during his visit to Calexico, Trump reportedly told border agents to not let migrants in. When Trump left, their leaders said if they did so, they would take on personal liability, and to instead follow the law.
On Monday, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking a Trump regime experimental policy requiring asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while their cases made their way through immigration courts.
Under the policy known as Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), several hundred migrants had been returned to Mexico. The judge’s ruling took away one of the regime’s remaining tools to stem the flow of migrants.
On Monday, Florida Congresswomen Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, and Donna Shalala vowed to take legal action against the regime after they were denied entry to the Homestead facility in Miami.
An estimated one-in-six migrant children will be housed at for-profit Homestead. The Congresswomen cited a new law which affirms members of Congress “must be given access to conduct oversight.”
On Tuesday, Trump told reporter he was continuing an Obama policy, saying “Obama had child separation,” adding, “Obama had the law. We changed the law.” The claim that Obama separated families is false.
Trump claimed because he changed Obama’s policy, “once you don’t have it, that’s why you have many more people coming,” adding, “They’re coming like it’s a picnic, like ‘let’s go to Disneyland.’”
Trump also denied he planned to reinstate family separation, and told reporters, “I never said I was cleaning house.”
On Tuesday, Fox News host Tucker Carlson called for militarization of the southern border, saying “we need martial law on the border,” and claiming large-scale migration “is how countries collapse.”
On Tuesday, NYT reported the Trump Organization has begun to quietly take steps to eliminate any remaining undocumented workers from its workforce at its properties in South Florida, facing charges of hypocrisy.
Seven veteran maintenance workers at Trump National Jupiter were told they had to show proof of legal residency to keep their jobs. Only one was legal — and six were from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico.
On Tuesday, Claire Grady, the acting number two at DHS, resigned in the evening. Grady had 28 years of experience at the Departments of Homeland Security and Defense. Nielsen tweeted out Grady’s resignation.
TIME reported Grady, who was next in line to become acting secretary, was forced to resign as Trump chose Kevin McAleenan to take the role.
On Wednesday, Ronald Vitiello, who was acting director of ICE since June 2018, and had his nomination to head ICE suddenly withdrawn by Trump last week, told staffers his last day of work will be on Friday.
Described as a “purge” of DHS leadership, roles of Secretary, Deputy Secretary, Under Secretary for Management, CBP Commissioner, ICE Director, Secret Service Director, and FEMA Administrator were vacant.
Overall within DHS, 12 of the 30 leadership positions on the department’s organization chart are “vacant” or filled by an “acting” leader.
Several Senate Republicans publicly expressed concern about the purge at DHS, and the growing leadership void. Several, including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell praised Nielsen on her way out.
WAPO reported Trump’s agencies have spent much more time being led by acting directors than any in history — and with Nielsen’s departure, he has the second most acting agency heads in modern history.
Acting roles included: DHS, Interior Secretary, Budget Director, Chief of Staff, U.N. Ambassador, FEMA Administrator, ICE Director, administrator of the Small Business Administration, and CBP Commissioner.
Trump has said he likes to have acting directors, saying in January: “It gives me more flexibility. Do you understand that? I like acting.” Acting directors have become a feature of the Trump regime.
On Wednesday, at a roundtable in Texas, Trump lamented troops cannot get “rough” at the border, saying “our military…can’t act…like they would normally act…or like…another military from another country would act.”
On Thursday, a former Trump campaign chairman told Politico if Trump wins in 2020, the country is going to get “pure Trump off the chain,” and the second term will be “four years of Donald Trump in payback mode.”
On Thursday, Trump named acting deputy director Matthew Albence, an immigration hardliner who has compared migrant detention centers to “summer camps,” to become the director of ICE.
On Thursday, WAPO reported White House officials pressured U.S. immigration authorities to release detainees onto the streets of “sanctuary cities” to retaliate against Trump’s political adversaries.
According to DHS officials and emails reviewed, the Trump regime has proposed doing this at least two times: in November with “caravans” approaching and in February during his standoff with Democrats.
The Trump regime considered targeting Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s district and other Democratic strongholds, and told ICE the plan was meant to alleviate a shortage of detention space and to send a message to Democrats.
A whistleblower told the Post the Trump regime believed it could punish Speaker Pelosi and Democrats by busing detainees into their districts before their release. Stephen Miller discussed the proposal with ICE.
Asked for comment, the White House and a DHS spokesperson sent similar messages to the Post, saying, “This was just a suggestion that was floated and rejected, which ended any further discussion.”
A spokesperson for Speaker Pelosi accused the regime of “cruelty,” adding, “Using human beings — including little children — as pawns in their warped game to perpetuate fear and demonize immigrants is despicable.”
Later that evening, a White House official characterized the idea of steering migrants to sanctuary cities as being “informally asked,” adding, “The idea was briefly and informally raised and quickly rejected.”
On Friday, Speaker Pelosi told reporters the idea was “just another notion” showing Trump is “unworthy of the presidency of the United States and disrespectful of the challenges we face.”
On Friday, Trump contradicted statements by the White House and DHS, tweeting that the regime is “indeed, as reported, giving strong considerations to placing Illegal Immigrants in Sanctuary Cities only”
Trump tweeted he is considering this plan “due to the fact that Democrats are unwilling to change our very dangerous immigration laws,” adding, “The Radical Left always seems to have an Open Borders…so this should make them very happy!
New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen continued to warn the media, “there is no White House. Not as conventionally defined. Now it’s just Trump… and people who work in the building.”
On Friday, NBC News reported that at a Tuesday meeting of Trump’s top national security advisers at the White House, advisers discussed increasingly military involvement at the border.
Advisers discussed using the military to build tent city detention camps for migrants, and also whether the military could run the camps. U.S. law prohibits the military from directly interacting with migrants.
The military may also be used to assess land before the construction of new tent cities in Texas. A new processing center is also being built similar to the one in McAllen, where children were kept in cage-like areas.
The new tent cities will hold the overflow, while ICE detention facilities are at capacity. An official said using the military allows for faster construction than private contractors, who can protest decisions.
On Friday, NYT reported that Trump privately urged Kevin McAleenan, during his visit to Calexico last week, to close the southwestern border to migrants, despite Trump saying last week he would delay for a year.
Trump also reportedly told McAleenan he would pardon him if he encountered legal challenges for closing the border. Federal judges have blocked the regime’s efforts to limit asylum as unlawful.
Nielsen had refused to carry out Trump’s order to close the border, saying it was not illegal. Trump told McAleenan to disregard Nielsen’s concern. Two days later she resigned. Trump has been eager to stop immigration.
A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security told the Times, “At no time has the president indicated, asked, directed or pressured the acting secretary to do anything illegal,” adding nor would they.
On Tuesday, Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee released a 152-page transcript of former FBI general counsel James Baker, as part of entering testimony from last year’s investigation into the congressional record.
Baker also told lawmakers there was widespread concern inside the FBI that Trump had attempted to obstruct the investigation into his campaign’s links to Russians when he fired former FBI director James Comey.
Baker testified he was told by former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe that Rod Rosenstein told McCabe two members of Trump’s cabinet had endorsed the notion of invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office.
Baker also said last October that he not did think deputy attorney general Rosenstein was joking about wearing a wire or invoking the 25th Amendment — but that he did not connect the two discussions.
On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin mocked the Mueller probe at a forum in St. Petersburg, saying, “It was clear for us from the start that it would end like this,” adding, “a mountain gave birth to a mouse.”
Putin also said, “Trump knows better than us what a ‘witch hunt’ is. We know that this is a black page in American history,” adding, “I don’t want [this page] to ever be repeated.”
On Tuesday, Barr testified before the House Appropriations Committee for 2 1/2 hours. Barr said the Justice Department will release the Mueller report “within a week,” reiterating his promise of a mid-April release.
Barr admitted Mueller’s team may have preferred for him to release more information up front, and they “did not play a role in drafting” his letter. Mueller was offered to review the letter, but declined.
Barr said he would redact grand-jury material, information on intelligence sources and methods on ongoing investigations, and details that would affect the privacy of people “peripheral” to Mueller’s investigation.
Notably, Barr refused to answer whether whether he has briefed the White House on the report. He said he would color-code redactions, so the reason would be more clear.
Barr said Congress will not receive the unredacted report, and that he will not ask the judge for an exception in order to release secret grand-jury information to Congress.
Barr also asked the committee for an additional $72.1 million to fund 100 new immigration judges, but claimed he was “not familiar with” discussions of Trump’s renewed push to separate families at the border.
On Tuesday, Bloomberg reported Barr has assembled a team to review counterintelligence decisions made by DOJ and FBI officials, including actions taken related to the Trump campaign in the summer of 2016.
On Monday, the White House threatened that Trump would veto the Democrats’ bill to reinstate net neutrality rules, claiming it would “return to the heavy-handed regulatory approach of the previous administration.”
On Monday, Guardian reported the Trump regime has quietly withdrawn federal funding for Landscape Conservation Cooperatives, a large conservation program, putting years of scientific study at risk.
On Tuesday, Trump threatened to put $11 billion of tariffs on the E.U. over subsidies given to Boeing’s European rival Airbus, tweeting: “The EU has taken advantage of the U.S. on trade for many years. It will soon stop!”
On Tuesday, Twitter disabled a video tweeted by Trump featuring “The Dark Knight” music, after Warner Bros. said it would be filing a copyright infringement complaint.
On Tuesday, Fox News reported Rep. Devin Nunes filed a $150 million lawsuit against The McClatchy Company, alleging it conspired to derail his oversight of the Clinton campaign and Russian election interference.
On Tuesday, in House appropriations subcommittee testimony, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin revealed lawyers from his agency consulted with the White House general counsel’s office about Trump’s tax returns.
Conversations took place before the House Democrats made their request for Trump’s returns. Mnuchin said he personally did not participate in the conversations and was not briefed on the discussions.
On Tuesday, Mnuchin squabbled with House Financial Services Committee Chair Maxine Waters at a hearing,saying she should dismiss the meeting, “take the gavel and bang it,” since he had a “very important meeting.”
Rep. Waters responded, “Please do not instruct me as to how I am to conduct this committee.” Mnuchin also said, “I will cancel my meeting and I will not be back here.”
On Tuesday, YouTube disabled comments on a livestream of a House Judiciary Committee hearing on hate crimes and white nationalism on social media, after being flooded with racist and anti-Semitic comments.
What was meant to be a serious inquiry by the committee devolved into a circus type atmosphere when Republicans invited Candace Owens, a 29-year-old African American provocateur to testify.
Owens was named as “the person who has influenced me above all” in the manifesto of the New Zealand killer, and said in December, “if Hitler just wanted to make Germany great and have things run well, okay, fine.”
On Tuesday, more than 80 House Democrats unveiled a resolution condemning white supremacy at a news conference. Although the sponsors did not name Trump, they referenced the impact of his rhetoric.
On Tuesday, the Charlotte Observer reported Brandon Lecroy, a 26 year-old white man, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for trying to hire a hitman from the South Carolina Klu Klux Klan to kill a black neighbor.
On Tuesday, the president of the NAACP called a series of four suspicious blazes at historically black churches in Louisiana in a 10-day span an act of “domestic terrorism” emboldened by racial rhetoric across the country.
KVUE ABC News reported a principal in Austin, Texas was removed after allegations she discriminated against immigrant parents and joked in a newsletter about Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan.
On Wednesday, WAPO reported the Texas House heard debate on a bill that could impose the death penalty for women who get abortions. A similar measure was not brought up for debate in 2017.
WAPO reported students at George Mason University, including sexual assault survivors, have petitioned school leadership to remove Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh from teaching and issue an apology.
On Thursday, Forbes reported a new policy proposal being considered by the Trump regime would monitor the social media profiles of disabled people and flag content that shows them doing physical activities to root out false claims.
On Wednesday, a man wearing a Trump t-shirt yelled disparaging words at members of a Muslim communitygathering at one of the mosques targeted in the Christchurch terror attack in New Zealand.
On Monday, Rep. Ilhan Omar tweeted, “Stephen Miller is a white nationalist. The fact that he still has influence on policy and political appointments is an outrage.”
On Tuesday, Trump responded, tweeting a quote from Fox Business show “Varney & Co.”: “What’s completely unacceptable is for Congresswoman Omar to target Jews, in this case Stephen Miller.”
On Wednesday, “Fox & Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade slammed Rep. Omar over her 9/11 comments at a Council on American-Islamic Relations banquet, saying “You have to wonder if she is an American first.”
On Thursday, the New York Post cover featured a take-off of a partial quote by Rep. Omar — “some people did something” — writing “Here’s your something,” with a photo of the Twin Towers after the planes hit.
On Friday, Trump tweeted an edited video showing Rep. Omar’s speech to the CAIR interspersed with video of the 9/11 attacks, and Trump added the words: “WE WILL NEVER FORGET!”
Shortly after, Sen. Elizabeth Warren tweeted Trump “is inciting violence against a sitting Congresswoman– and an entire group of Americans based on their religion,” and called on other elected officials to condemn it.
On Saturday, other Democrats came to Rep. Omar’s defense, saying Trump’s tweet was endangering her life. Trump pinned the tweet to his profile to highlight it.
On Friday, the Houston Chronicle reported Laura Maradiaga, 11, who was apprehended in October 2018 along with her mother and sister, could be deported back to El Salvador without her family because of a clerical error.
On Tuesday, Democratic chairs of five House committees sent a letter to the White House, DOJ, and top regime health officials seeking information on the shift in the DOJ’s legal strategy on the Affordable Care Act.
The letter noted the DOJ seeking the elimination of the ACA constituted a “sudden and significant reversal” that violated the federal government’s long standing precedent of defending its own laws.
On Wednesday, Rep. Matt Gaetz introduced the “PENCIL” resolution, after Trump referred to Rep. Adam Schiff as a “pencil neck,” calling for Schiff to be ousted as committee chair and have his security clearance revoked.
On Wednesday, House Oversight Committee Chair Elijah Cummings threatened in a letter to Barr to hold John Gore, a principal deputy assistant attorney general, in contempt of Congress.
Rep. Cummings said in his letter that Barr appears “to be instructing” Gore “to defy a duly authorized congressional subpoena” requesting his testimony about a citizenship question added to the 2020 census.
On Wednesday, at a Senate Appropriations Committee subcommittee budget hearing, Barr seemed to embrace talking points used by Trump’s Republican allies casting doubt on the origins of the Mueller probe.
When asked about his investigation into officials who investigated Trump, Barr parroted a right-wing conspiracy theory about the FBI, saying, “I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal,” and, “I think spying did occur.”
When pressed, Barr said, “I have no specific evidence that I would cite right now,” saying he was not launching an investigation of the FBI, but “there was probably a failure among a group of leaders” at the upper echelon.
When asked specifically whether the Mueller investigation was a witch hunt, Barr responded, “it depends on where you sit,” adding people who were “falsely accused” could see it that way.
Barr later walked back claims of spying on the Trump campaign, saying at the end of the hearing, “I am not saying that improper surveillance occurred. I am saying that I am concerned about it and I’m looking into it.”
At the same time, Trump spoke to reporters on the White House South Lawn, saying the investigation into Russian election interference and obstruction of justice was “an attempted coup” against his presidency.
Trump claimed the Mueller probe was “started illegally” and “every single thing about it” was “crooked,” adding, “we fight back” because we know “how illegal this whole thing was, it was a scam.”
Trump also said it “all started, because this was an illegal witch hunt,” adding, “there were dirty cops, these were bad people,” naming former FBI officials Comey, McCabe, Peter Strzok, and Lisa Page.
On Wednesday, Speaker Pelosi said in an interview with the AP that she was “very concerned” about Barr’shandling of Mueller’s report, saying “I don’t trust Barr, I trust Mueller.”
Pelosi also said of Barr’s testimony that he will pursue Trump’s claims about “spying” during his 2016 campaign, “He is not the attorney general of Donald Trump. He is the attorney general of the United States.”
Later, at a news conference, Pelosi told reporters, regarding Barr, that she found it “very, very dismaying and disappointing that the chief law enforcement officer of our country is going off the rails, yesterday and today.”
On Wednesday, including Speaker Pelosi, all four Democratic members of the Gang of Eight condemned Barr’s comments about intelligence officials “spying.” The four Republicans did not comment publicly.
On Thursday, Trump told reporters he was pleased with Barr’s claim there was spying on his 2016 campaign, saying “Yes, I am,” adding, “I think what he said was absolutely true. There was absolutely spying.”
Trump also said “I’ll go a step further…it was illegal spying and unprecedented spying and something that should never be allowed to happen in our country again.”
Trump said of the Mueller probe, “You’re just lucky I happen to be the President because a lot of other presidents would have reacted very differently than I’ve reacted,” adding, “no collusion no obstruction.”
On Thursday, Trump tweeted a video of Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo saying “Biggest scandal of our time — the coup that failed!”
On Thursday, deputy attorney general Rosenstein defended Barr, telling the WSJ Barr is “being as forthcoming as he can,” and “this notion that he’s trying to mislead people, I think is just completely bizarre.”
On Thursday, Rep. Nunes told Fox News host Sean Hannity that he plans to meet with Barr to send eight “criminal referrals” against individuals involved in the investigation of Trump’s 2016 campaign.
Barr told lawmakers “I haven’t seen the referrals yet” but added “if there’s a predicate for an investigation it’ll be conducted.” Nunes was formerly chair of the House Intelligence Committee (recused then returned).
Democrats on the committee cried foul, with one aide saying we expect the DOJ to follow appropriate protocol, and for Barr to hold “any such meeting only with representatives of the majority and minority present.”
Trump also retweeted a video from Fox Business host Lou Dobbs claiming his approval was up to 55%, tweeting “Great news! #MAGA.” His actual approval was 43% — the 55% was actually Trump’s disapproval number.
On Monday, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he would support a bill that would permit the NY Dept of Taxation and Finance to release any state tax returns requested by leaders of three congressional committees.
On Tuesday, Trump’s IRS commissioner, Charles Rettig, told the House Appropriations Committee during testimony that there are no rules prohibiting taxpayers under audit from releasing their tax information.
On Wednesday, Trump also said he would not release his tax returns on the day of the deadline set by House Democrats, falsely claiming, “I would love to give them, but I’m not going to do it while I’m under audit.”
On Thursday, the Illinois state senate passed a bill requiring presidential candidates to release five years of tax returns in order to get on the ballot in 2020. Similar legislation is in play in 17 other states.
On Wednesday, Mnuchin said in letter to House Ways and Means Committee Chair Richard Neal that the Treasury would miss the deadline for Trump’s tax returns, and would consult with the DOJ on how to proceed.
On Tuesday, the Guardian reported recent filings reveal a new DOJ stance on the emoluments clause, allowing Trump to accept unlimited amounts from foreign governments if it comes through commercial transactions.
The new stance would exempt Trump’s hotels, including Trump Hotel DC. The DOJ shift started in June 2017, and now closely paralleling arguments made in a January 2017 by Trump Organization lawyer Sheri Dillon.
On Tuesday, Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group, sued the Department of Education and Secretary Betsy DeVos, claiming the agency is blocking access to its website, in violation of the First Amendment.
On Monday, Roll Call reported recently posted versions of acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt’s daily schedules contained at least 260 entries differing from his original schedules.
In the newer version, meetings previously described as “external” or “internal” were actually meetings with representatives of the fossil fuel, timber, mining, and other industries.
The new schedule included a keynote address at the Trump Hotel DC for Domestic Energy Producers Alliance, meetings with oil company executives, and a group focused on weakening the Endangered Species Act.
On Thursday, Bernhardt was confirmed by the Senate as Interior Secretary, even as more than a dozen Democrats and government ethics watchdog groups called for formal investigations into his past conduct.
On Thursday, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was arrested after being expelled from the Ecuadoran Embassy on U.S. hacking charges, seven years after his group published classified information on the internet in 2010.
U.S. officials acknowledged they had secretly charged Assange last year with conspiring with Chelsea Manning to illegally obtain secret U.S. military and diplomatic documents, by hacking a government password.
Assange’s lawyer said he will fight extradition to the U.S. She called the action against him “a dangerous precedent for all news media.” Assange was told by the Ecuadoran ambassador his asylum was being revoked.
In Mueller’s indictments of 12 Russian military intelligence officers, he charged they “discussed the release of the stolen documents and the timing of those releases” with WikiLeaks. Assange has not been charged.
The indictment said stolen emails were released “to heighten their impact on the 2016 presidential election.” Wikileaks began releasing emails on the same day in October 2016 the “Access Hollywood” tape surfaced.
On Thursday, when asked about Wikileaks and the arrest of Assange, Trump told reporters, “I know nothing about WikiLeaks. It’s not my thing. I know there is something to do with Julian Assange.”
During the campaign, Trump mentioned WikiLeaks 141 times at 56 events in the final month before the election, saying at events, “WikiLeaks, I love WikiLeaks,” and, “This WikiLeaks is like a treasure trove.”
Trump also said he did not “really have an opinion” about Assange’s arrest by British authorities in response to a U.S. extradition request, adding the matter was being handled “mostly by the attorney general.”
Vice President Mike Pence told CNN on Trump’s past comments on Wikileaks, “I think the president always, as you in the media do, always welcomes information,” adding, “but that was in no way an endorsement.”
Lawmakers from both parties condemned Assange and called for his immediate extradition for hacking classified information and his role in the 2016 election. He will face extradition hearings on May 2 and June 12.
On Wednesday, CNN reported Jeff Bezos will meet with federal prosecutors in New York, indicating the inquiry into Saudi Arabia’s involvement with the National Enquirer story is moving forward.
On Thursday, Gregory Craig, former Obama White House counsel, was charged with lying to federal prosecutors about legal work for Ukraine he did for Paul Manafort while a partner at law firm Skadden, Arps.
Craig was charged with two felony counts for alleged false statements made to DOJ officials and later Mueller’s prosecutors over whether he should have registered as a foreign agent. The case grew out of the Mueller probe.
Legal experts noted the charges indicate cases farmed out from the Mueller probe could continue to yield newevidence and even more charges for months or even years.
In his testimony to lawmakers, Barr said DOJ lawyers are working with the special counsel’s office to redact information before its release, such that it does not harm “a number of cases that are still being pursued.”
On Monday, prosecutors told the judge that Sam Patten, a lobbyist who steered foreign money to Trump’s inaugural campaign, provided “substantial assistance” to Mueller and other investigators, asking for no jail time.
On Friday, Patten was sentenced to three years of probation with no jail time. Patten pleaded guilty in August, and has cooperated with still unknown investigations which grew out of Mueller’s work.
On Wednesday, a court filing revealed Trump’s older sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, 82, retired as a federal appellate judge after an investigation was opened into whether she violated judicial conduct rules.
The investigation came after four citizens filed complaints arising from a NYT story from October which alleged Trump and his siblings evaded inheritance taxes by participating in fraudulent tax schemes.
In February 2017, Barry told the court that she would stop hearing cases, without specifying the reason why.By retiring, she ends the court inquiry into her role in the tax scheme.
On Wednesday, Benjamin Netanyahu narrowly won re-election for a fifth term as prime minister of Israel, securing 65 of the 120 seats in Parliament. Several world leaders, especially nationalists like Trump, rushed to congratulate Netanyahu.
On Thursday, in an Oval Office meeting with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, Trump told reporters he is considering a third nuclear summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.
Trump also said, “I enjoy the summits, I enjoy being with the chairman,” adding, “I really believe over a period of time, a lot of tremendous things will happen. I think North Korea has a tremendous potential.”
On Friday, Herman Cain withdrew his name from consideration for appointment to the Federal Reserve, after several Republican senators came out against his potential nomination.
On Friday, CNN reported in past speeches, Trump’s other Fed pick, Stephen Moore, has described himself as “radical” and said he is not “a big believer in democracy,” adding, “capitalism is a lot more important.”
Moore said in February Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell was one of Trump’s “worst appointments” and said hundreds of employees at the Fed whom he called “worthless” economists should be fired.
On Friday, WAPO reported federal investigation found rampant sexual harassment and retaliation at AccuWeather under the leadership of Barry Myers, Trump’s nominee to lead the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Trump nominated Myers in 2017, but his nomination stalled in the Senate. Republican leaders had planned to renominate him without a hearing, despite ethics concerns raised when he first went through the process.
On Friday, Democratic Sens. Patty Murray and Tim Kaine demanded in a letter that the DOJ “make public all findings” of an investigation into Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta’s conduct in the Jeffrey Epstein case.
On Friday, in a memo to his committee, Rep. Cummings said he is moving forward on Monday to issue a “friendly” subpoena to accounting firm Mazars USA to obtain 10 years of Trump’s financial records.
On Friday, after a lengthy battle with multiple federal court injunctions, Trump’s controversial transgender military ban took effect. Trump first tweeted about the idea of the ban in July 2017.
The version of the ban that went into effect prohibited new military recruits from transitioning, and also allows the military to discharge troops who do not present as their birth gender.
On Friday, prosecutors indicted Yujing Zhang, who was arrested on the ground of Mar-a-Lago, on charges oflying to a federal officer and entering restricted grounds, but does not include espionage charges.
The Miami Herald reported a source claims Zhang knew before leaving China that the function she claimed she was attending had been canceled. Zhang will likely move to a detention and be scheduled for deportation.
On Saturday, in a letter, House Ways and Means Committee Chair Richard Neal gave the IRS a deadline of April 23 to turn over Trump’s tax returns, threatening otherwise to bring the dispute into federal court.
Rep. Neal argued in his letter to IRS Commissioner Rettig the 1920-era law that says the IRS “shall furnish” any tax return requested by Congress “is unambiguous and raises no complicated legal issues.”
Mnuchin, who oversees the IRS, cited “complicated legal issues” and complained of the “arbitrary deadline” set by House Democrats, but said he would answer in that time frame.
On Saturday, Trump again teased a third summit, tweeting “I agree with Kim Jong Un of North Korea that our personal relationship remains very good, perhaps the term excellent would be even more accurate.”
Trump also blasted Democrats for demanding release of the Mueller report, tweeting: “Why should Radical Left Democrats in Congress have a right to retry and examine the $35,000,000 No Collusion Mueller Report.”

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U.S. soldiers install barb wire by the US–Mexico border fence reading ‘Because in such way God has loved the world he has given his son’ in El Paso, Texas state, US, as seen from Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua state, Mexico.

D3_HJw5WkAISvkF.jpg-large — And the scariest moment, in my opinion, of this entire regime, was yesterday’s video from 45 basically rallying his base to direct their ire towards this great American Muslim woman, Ilhan Omar. And we’ve seen what his base is capable of doing, with their vans and their guns and their red hats…ALL THE WHILE, the sickest video emerged of 45 himself bragging that his building was “now the tallest in NYC,” as the towers recently burned to the ground…He does not care about America, people. If you are with him, you are VOTING AGAINST YOUR BEST INTERESTS.

POLITIKS OF GRAFFITI 126: IF YOU’RE WONDERING WHAT FASCISM LEADS TO…

Published on April 6, 2019 by jacquelinemhadel2 Comments

APRIL 06, 2019

Week 125

Experts in authoritarianism advise to keep a list of things
subtly changing around you, so you’ll remember. https://theweeklylist.org/weekly-list/week-125/

Miami, FL. November 2018.

not my pic. Clearly, disdain for this guy is felt all around the world…

This week, two weeks after Mueller had sent his final report to Attorney General William Barr, members of the special counsel anonymously broke their silence, indicating to the Times and the Post that their findings were more troubling than Barr’s letter had indicated. Meanwhile Trump changed his position on public release of the report, as he and his surrogates went into attack mode against the Democrats and Mueller’s team.

Republicans rebuked Trump this week, failing to stand with him on his threat to close the U.S.-Mexico border and to come up with an alternative to Obamacare ahead of the 2020 election. The House joined the Senate, voting to end U.S. involvement in Yemen, marking the first time both chambers of Congress have voted to invoke the war-powers resolution to end U.S. military engagement in a foreign conflict.

House Democrats took aggressive action this week, including demanding six years of Trump’s tax returns, preparing a lawsuit over Trump’s national emergency, and making public testimony from whistleblower Tricia Newbold on security clearance. Secret Service arrested a Chinese woman at Mar-a-Lago, raising concerns that Trump’s “Winter White House” is vulnerable to spying, while FBI director Christopher Wray told Congress white supremacy is a “persistent, pervasive threat.” Trump seemed off his game this week, stumbling on the birthplace of his father, mispronouncing words and making odd statements — raising concerns again about his mental health.

D26_oRkU4AIRLwL.jpg-large

“If you’re wondering what fascism leads to, just ask Benito Mussolini and his mistress Claretta.” – Jim Carrey

not my pic.

On Monday, WAPO reported Trump has made 9,451 false or misleading claims in his first 801 days in office. In the last 200 days, Trump made 22 false or misleading claims per day, up from 5.9 per day in his first year in office.
Ratings by E-Poll Market Research showed Trump is most often described as “aggressive” (48%),“mean” (38%), and “overexposed” (29%). His strong positive appeal is at 14%, while strong negative is 39%.
Within the regime, press secretary Sarah Sanders scored 15% for “trustworthy,” and White House counselor Kellyanne Conway 8% for the same. Jared Kushner was most described as “insincere” (29%) and “creepy” (27%).
NBC News reported that at least 14 major contributors to Trump’s inaugural committee have been nominated to ambassador positions, although experts say they are less qualified than nominees in the past.
There are 52 still vacant ambassadorships out of 250, including in key countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar. After two years, Obama had 11 unfilled, and George W. Bush had 15.
On Saturday, returning from her two week suspension, Fox News host Jeanine Pirro said Trump’s accusers had a “blueprint for a future effort to overthrow the government,” adding they should face time behind bars.
On Sunday, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney told “This Week” that Robert Mueller intended to have Attorney General William Barr determine whether Trump obstructed justice.
On Sunday, a NBC News/WSJ poll found 40% of American do not believe Trump has been cleared of wrongdoing in the Mueller probe, while 29% believe he has.
On Sunday, Fox News host Chris Wallace pressed Kellyanne Conway on her repeated claims that Trump has been totally exonerated in the Mueller investigation in a heated exchanged. Wallace said it “just isn’t true.”
Actor Jim Carrey tweeted: “If you’re wondering what fascism leads to, just ask Benito Mussolini and his mistress Claretta,” along with a cartoon of the two being hanged upside down after they were executed in 1945.
On Sunday, Alessandra Mussolini, Benito’s granddaughter, a far right politician, tweeted in response to Carrey: “You are a bastard.”
On Sunday, hundreds of Polish nationalists protested in New York City over U.S. legislation which compensates Holocaust survivors whose property was seized during World War II.
Some protestors chanted “Stop slandering Poland in the media,” and “Treat anti-Polonism like anti-Semitism,” while others perpetuated anti-Semitic stereotypes and denied the Holocaust, calling it a “hoax.”
On Monday, Israeli researchers said they found a network of hundreds of fake Twitter accounts that reached more than 2.5 million Israelis boosting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of next week’s election.
On Sunday, Fox News apologized after a chyron on a “Fox & Friends” segment that read: “Trump Cuts Aid to 3 Mexican Countries.”
On Monday, AP reported as Trump threatened to shut the U.S. border with Mexico, Trump is considering bringing on an “immigration czar” to coordinate policy between federal agencies.
Trump is considering former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach and former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli for the position. Kobach was also a leader of Trump’s short-lived election-fraud commission.
On Sunday, Axios reported Trump has told confidants that he is “saving” Judge Amy Barrett — young and viewed as an extremist — to replace Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
On Monday, after Senate democrats voted down a disaster relief-package for Puerto Rico saying there was not enough money, Trump blamed Puerto Rican politicians in a tweet, calling them “incompetent or corrupt.”
Trump again cited an incorrect number, tweeting: “91 Billion Dollars to Puerto Rico,” falsely claiming it was more than “than Texas & Florida combined,” and “taking dollars away from our Farmers.”
On Tuesday, Trump again lashed out, falsely claiming in a tweet “Puerto Rico got 91 Billion Dollars,” adding, “all their local politicians do is complain & ask for more money. The pols are grossly incompetent.”
Trump also tweeted that Puerto Ricans “only take from USA.” Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló responded to Trump, tweeting “this “place” you refer to, #PuertoRico, is home to over three million proud Americans.”
On Tuesday, deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley referred to Puerto Rico as “that country” in an interview on MSNBC. When the host clarified Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory, Gidley said it was a “slip of the tongue.”
On Friday, Trump attacked California politicians for wildfire funding, saying “California’s always the first one to complain. And I don’t mean the people of California. They’re fantastic. I’m talking about the politicians.”
On Monday, Fox News host Tucker Carlson mocked MSNBC host Chris Hayes’ masculinity on his show, saying Hayes “is what every man would be if feminists ever achieved absolute power in this country.”
On Tuesday, a gas station clerk in San Jose, California was fired after ranting at a woman speaking Spanish, demanding she prove she was a U.S. citizen, and saying, “Trump needs to hurry up and build the wall.”
On Wednesday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested 280 workers at CVE Technology Group in Allen, Texas in what authorities say is one of the largest enforcement actions of its kind in a decade.
On Tuesday, Daily Beast reported the Department of Homeland Security disbanded a group of intelligence analysts who were part of the Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) that focused on domestic terrorism.
Numerous current and former DHS officials expressed concern with the move, citing the growing threat fromhomegrown violent extremists and domestic terrorists. I&A has been quietly cutting staff since last year.
On Thursday, FBI director Christopher Wray testified before the House Appropriations Committee, and broke from Trump saying white supremacy presents a “persistent” and “pervasive” threat to the U.S.
Wray also said: “The danger, I think, of white supremacists, violent extremism, or any other kind of violent extremism is, of course, significant.” Trump has downplayed the danger of white nationalism.
On Thursday, BuzzFeed reported Barr said in a letter he was “troubled by the concerns” raised by a group of LGBTQ employees who complained about discrimination at the DOJ, and ordered an investigation.
The group claimed employees have faced increasing discrimination under the Trump regime – including gay FBI agents at the academy being pushed out — leading to a decline in morale and an exodus of staff.
On Thursday, 157 House Republicans voted against passing reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act, which passed, and also booed Rep. Debbie Dingell during a debate on the House floor.
The National Rifle Association pressured Republican lawmakers to oppose the bill because it adds a provision that people convicted of abusing their dating partners could not own or buy firearms.
On Tuesday, the Alabama House and Senate introduced a bill that would make performing an abortion a Class A felony, and attempting to perform an abortion a Class C felony.
On Friday, Kansas Republicans passed an ‘abortion reversal bill,’ requiring notice to patients that abortions can be reversed, despite the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists discrediting this view.
On Friday, the Acadiana Advocate reported three historically black churches have burned down in 10 days in St. Landry Parish, Louisiana in what officials called “very suspicious” fires.
On Saturday, Patrick Carlineo Jr. of Addison, New York was arrested after making a threatening call to Rep. Ilhan Omar’s office, telling a staffer “she’s a [expletive] terrorist. I’ll put a bullet in her [expletive] skull.”
Alaska U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason ruled that Trump’s 2017 executive order lifting an Obama-era ban on oil and gas drilling in the Arctic Ocean and parts of the North Atlantic coast was unlawful.
Judge Gleason ruled the ban will remain in effect “unless and until revoked by Congress.” The ruling may have broader implications for the regime’s efforts to open drilling on coastline and public lands.
On Tuesday, McClatchy reported the Trump 2020 campaign is seeking a list of “climate change victories” that can be attributed to Trump as polls show growing concern over global warming.
White House officials have liaised with the E.P.A. on behalf of the campaign. For one, the regime plans to argue greenhouse gas emissions decreased in Trump’s first year in office due to private sector innovation.
The regime is still divided on creating a presidential committee on climate security, since results would be made public. Trump continues to question the science behind climate change, while other in the regime disagree.
On Wednesday, WAPO reported the Trump regime will cut federal inspectors for food safety inspections at hog plants by about 40%, and shift much of the power and responsibility to the pork industry.
The proposed new system, scheduled to start in May, would allow plant owners to use plant employees for inspections, with training at owners’ discretion. Also, there will be no limits on slaughter-line speeds.
On Wednesday, a coalition of Democratic attorneys general filed a lawsuit seeking to stop the rollback of school nutrition policies championed by former first lady Michelle Obama for “illegally weakening” standards.
On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell failed to adopt a resolution to change the rules so that non-Cabinet level and district court judicial nominees would face just two hours of floor debate instead of 30.
McConnell needed 60 votes, but got 51 from Republicans. On Wednesday, Leader McConnell used the “nuclear option” for the afternoon and evening only, with the Senate voting 51-48 to push through confirmations for some positions.
On Thursday, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp signed a controversial bill, in private, replacing the state’s voting machines with touchscreens, which Democrats warned they may make the system more vulnerable to hacking.
On Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell rejected a request by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press to unseal records relating to the mystery foreign state-owned company in the Mueller case.
On Monday, BuzzFeed reported Judge T.S. Ellis III, the judge who presided over Paul Manafort’s case in Alexandria, will not face disciplinary action over four ethics complaints related to his treatment of Mueller’s team.
On Tuesday, CNN reported that George Sorial, who since 2017 has served as the Trump Organization’s top compliance official and has been with the company since 2007, is stepping down to write a book.
On Monday, House Judiciary Chair Jerrold Nadler said he plans to bring subpoenaing the full Mueller report to committee vote on Wednesday if Barr does not release it by the April 2 deadline.
On Monday, Rep. Nadler also wrote an op-ed criticizing Barr’s decisions to unilaterally withhold parts of the Mueller report from Congress, and to render judgment on whether Trump obstructed justice.
On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee voted 24-17 along party lines to authorize subpoenas for the full Mueller report and underlying documents.
The committee also voted to subpoena five former White House officials they believe may have received documents relevant to Mueller’s probe including Donald McGahn, Steve Bannon, Hope Hicks, and Reince Priebus.
The five, also including McGahn’s former deputy Ann Donaldson, were among the 81 individuals and entities sent document requests by Nadler last month.
On Tuesday, Trump reversed course on calling for the public release of the Mueller report, tweeting about a segment on Fox News saying for that for Democrats “NOTHING WILL EVER SATISFY THEM!”
Trump also tweeted, “Robert Mueller was a God-like figure to the Democrats, until he ruled No Collusion,” adding, Democrats “have become totally unhinged, and would like to go through the whole process again.”
Trump also tweeted there is no amount of information that will satisfy “Jerry Nadler or Shifty Adam Schiff,” adding, “It is now time to focus exclusively on properly running our great Country!”
On Tuesday, in an interview on CNN, former FBI director James Comey condemned Trump calling for a counter-investigation after the Mueller report on how the probe started, saying it creates a troubling precedent.
When asked by host Christiane Amanpour whether he is kept awake at night by the possibility he helped Trump win, Comey replied, “Sure,” and, “I hope someday somebody proves that what we did was irrelevant.”
On Monday, in a series of tweets, Trump said, “the cost of ObamaCare is far too high,” adding “good things are going to happen!” He tagged four Senators — Leader Mitch McConnell, Rick Scott, John Barrasso and Bill Cassidy.
Trump also tweeted that the Republicans “are developing a really great HealthCare Plan with far lower premiums (cost) & deductibles than ObamaCare,” adding the replacement will come after the 2020 election.
On Tuesday, Leader McConnell told reporters that he and Trump spoke Monday, and he “made it clear to him” that Senate Republicans had no intention of trying to overhaul Obamacare ahead of the 2020 election.
McConnell cited the political peril of the issue for Republicans in the midterms. The Trump regime is continuing to push for the dismantling of the Affordable Care Act through the courts.
On Tuesday, Trump told reporters he was “100 percent” prepared to shut the U.S.-Mexico border, saying, “If we don’t make a deal with Congress, the border’s going to be closed.”
Trump also said Democrats in Congress need to address immigration: “Congress has to meet quickly and make a deal,” and adding, “Security is more important to me than trade.”
Trump said of his decision to cut off aid to Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras: “They don’t do anything for us,” adding they have been “taking advantage” of the U.S. for many years, and “they arrange these caravans.”
Around the same time, Leader McConnell told reporters, “Closing down the border would have potentially catastrophic economic impact on our country, and I would hope we would not be doing that sort of thing.”
On Tuesday, at a White House event with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Trump falsely claimed his father was born in Germany — the third time Trump has made this claim. Fred Trump was born in New York.
Trump also ranted, threatening to “get rid of” immigration judges, chain migration, catch and release and visa lottery, and added, “we have to do something about asylum and to be honest with you.”
Trump also on three separate occasions substituted the word “oranges” for “origins,” demanding to know the “oranges of the investigation.” Trump also stated out of the blue, “I’m very normal.”
On Tuesday, Trump told House Republicans in a speech during the National Republican Congressional Committee’s spring dinner to be a “bit more paranoid than you are” about vote counting.
Trump also said, “There were a lot of close elections … they seemed to, every single one of them went Democrat,” adding, “You don’t like it either, you just don’t want to say it because you’re afraid of the press.”
Trump also falsely claimed that the noise from wind turbines causes cancer, as well as lowering property values: “If you have a windmill anywhere near your house, congratulations, your house just went down.”
On Wednesday, during an exchange with reporters on whether wind turbine noise causes cancer, White House Director of Strategic Communications Mercedes Schlapp responded, “I don’t have an answer to that.”
The confusion on where his father was born, strange language, and the statement that he is “normal” caused some mental health professionals to question whether Trump is undergoing some kind of cognitive decline.
On Thursday, Trump said he would delay closing the border with Mexico for a year, adding “that will be a very powerful incentive,” and that he is not bluffing: “I will do it. I don’t play games.”
On Tuesday, according to a memo summarizing her testimony, White House Personnel Security Office whistleblower Tricia Newbold claimed the White House reversed 25 security clearances that were denied.
Newbold called Congress her “last hope” for addressing what she considers improper conduct that has left the nation’s secrets exposed. She privately testified before the House Oversight Committee in March.
Newbold said the 25 were granted access to national security information since 2018 despite allegations offoreign influence, conflicts of interests, questionable or criminal conduct, financial problems, or drug abuse.
The 25 include Jared Kushner, Ivanka, and national security adviser John Bolton. Chair Elijah Cummings said his committee would vote to subpoena Carl Kline, Newbold’s direct manager, who overruled her clearance denials.
Newbold had previously filed concerns with numerous White House officials, including Kline; his immediate supervisor, Samuel Price; the White House Counsel’s Office; assistant to the president Marcia Kelly; and Chief Security Officer Crede Bailey. None acted.
Newbold, who has a rare form of dwarfism, also accused Kline of retaliation, alleging he moved her files to a shelf several feet above her, out of her reach, beginning in December 2017 when she hired a lawyer.
On Wednesday, WAPO reported that Jared Kushner is “Senior White House Official 1” described in documents detailing Tricia Newbold’s testimony to the House Oversight Committee.
In her testimony, Newbold said she and another career employee denied Kushner security clearance last yearbecause he had too many “significant disqualifying factors.” They were overruled by Kline.
On Tuesday, the House Oversight Committee voted 22-15, along party lines, to subpoena Kline, who was White House personnel security chief for the first two years of Trump’s time in office.
On Thursday, the Atlantic reported the number of whistleblowers in the era of Trump has spiked, with dozens inside the federal government cooperating with the House Oversight Committee.
Whistleblowers started to come forward shortly after Trump took office, in relation to Michael Flynn. Among the whistleblowers, Democrats confirmed a handful work at the White House.
On Monday, Trump tweeted, “Can you believe that the Radical Left Democrats” want to do the Census Report without a citizenship question, calling it “meaningless and a waste of the $Billions (ridiculous).”
On Monday, the newly installed U.S. Census Bureau Director Steven Dillingham refused to comment on the question — Is this person a citizen of the United States? — saying the bureau must remain “totally objective.”
On Tuesday, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross rejected a second invitation to testify before a House committee, the Appropriations subcommittee, claiming it would be a distraction from the agency’s budget discussion.
On Tuesday, the House Oversight Committee voted 23-14 to subpoena Ross’s records related to the regime’s decision to add the census question. Rep. Cummings said the regime’s “stonewalling” had left them no choice.
On Friday, a third federal judge halted the Trump regime from adding a citizenship question to the 2020 Census. In a 119-page opinion, U.S. District Judge George Hazel of Maryland called the question unlawful.
The judge wrote of “the lack of any genuine need for the citizenship question,” and noted “the mysterious and potentially improper political considerations that motivated” the regime to add it.
On Tuesday, court documents revealed Secret Service agents arrested Yujing Zhang after she bypassed a security checkpoint and gained access to the reception area of Mar-a-Lago on Saturday.
Zhang was carrying two passports, four cell phones, a laptop, and a thumb drive containing malicious software. She told security officials she was going to the swimming pool, although she was not carrying a swimsuit.
Zhang was approached by a receptionist and asked why she was there. She claimed she was going to a United Nations Chinese American Association event later that evening. The receptionist knew the event did not exist.
Zhang was charged with two federal crimes: making false statements to a federal officer and entering restricted property. The court filing did not provide additional information about the malware.
On Tuesday, the Miami Herald reported the event Zhang was allegedly heading to was advertised on Chinese-language social media by Li “Cindy” Yang, whose business advertises access to Trump and his family.
Although the event Zhang said she was attending did not exist, it was one of two advertised and promoted for that day by Yang’s business. Yang is not mentioned in the court filing.
NBC News reported that Trump was golfing, and not at Mar-a-Lago when Zhang entered; however, first lady Melania Trump and other members of the Trump family were there.
On Wednesday, WAPO reported that each weekend at Mar-a-Lago— a money-making operation for Trump — hundreds of members, overnight guests, and party-going strangers attend, and need to be screened.
To protect Trump, the Secret Service is required to screen every visitor against pre-approved lists. For his business, Trump requires Secret Service to defer to Mar-a-Lago staffers about allowing in visitors not on the list.
Even when Trump is at the property, visitors described times when names were not on the list, but Mar-a-Lago security personnel made exceptions if they knew the guest or found another staffer to vouch for them.
On Wednesday, Senate leaders Chuck Schumer, Dianne Feinstein, and Mark Warner asked FBI director Wray to investigate whether foreign spies could exploit weaknesses at Mar-a-Lago to steal classified information.
On Wednesday, House Oversight Committee Chair Cummings told reporters that Mazars USA, Trump’s tax and accounting firm, has asked for a so-called “friendly” subpoena so it can comply with the panel’s request.
On Wednesday, House Ways and Means Committee Chair Richard Neal formerly requested in a letter to the IRS commissioner that the IRS hand over six years of Trump’s personal and business tax returns.
Rep. Neal invoked a little-known provision in the federal tax code granted during Warren Harding’s administration to only tax-writing committees, which say that the Treasury secretary “shall” furnish the information.
On Wednesday, at an event at the White House, Trump repeated the excuse for not releasing his returns that he used during the campaign, telling reporters, “We are under audit…I’m always under audit.”
On Thursday, NYT reported on February 5, Trump pushed Leader McConnell to confirm Michael Desmond, his nominee to be the chief counsel of the IRS, before putting forward the confirmation of Barr.
McConnell proceeded with Barr first, but Desmond was confirmed on February 27. In private practice,Desmond worked alongside William Nelson and Sheri Dillon, tax counsels to the Trump Organization.
When asked Thursday by reporters if he would direct the IRS not to disclose his tax returns, Trump demurred, “They’ll speak to my lawyers,” adding, “They’ll speak to the attorney general.”
On Thursday, the top federal ethics watchdog declined to certify Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin’s 2018 financial disclosure report, citing the sale of his stake in a film production business to his wife not complying with ethics rules.
On Friday, Politico reported Mnuchin is losing two of his most trusted aides: Eli Miller, chief of staff, and Tony Sayegh, the top communications official — both as the agency faces pressure over Trump’s tax returns.
On Friday, Trump’s personal lawyer, William Consovoy, asserted Trump’s right as a private citizen, and told the Treasury Department in a letter not to turn over his tax returns to House Democrats.
Consovoy said Rep. Neal’s request did not have a “legitimate committee purpose” and “is a transparent effort by one political party to harass an official from the other party because they dislike his politics and speech.”
The IRS and Treasury Department have given no indication of how they will respond to the the House request. Rep. Neal gave the IRS until next week to comply.
On Wednesday, NYT reported the House Intelligence Committee has asked Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a close friend of first lady Melania Trump and a top contractor to Trump’s inaugural, for documents related to the event.
Winston Wolkoff’s lawyers said she has been cooperating with prosecutors in the Southern District of New York since last fall. She had also received a subpoena from the federal prosecutors.
On Wednesday, NYT reported some members of Mueller’s team say the Mueller report was more damaging to Trump than Barr revealed in his letter. The team included 19 lawyers, 40 FBI agents, and other personnel.
Some are also concerned that because of Barr’s portrayal of the report and how it shaped the narrative, Americans’ view will have hardened before the investigation’s conclusions become public.
The special counsel’s investigators had already written multiple summaries as part of the report — which some felt Barr should have released along with his letter.
Officials speaking for Barr told the Times that he was trying to keep with Justice Department practice not to disclose derogatory details in closing an investigation, pointing to Comey’s treatment of Hillary Clinton.
On Wednesday, WAPO reported members of Mueller’s team have complained to close associates that the evidence they gathered on obstruction was alarming and significant.
Some members were upset Barr did not release summary information the special counsel team had prepared. The members said summaries of different sections of the report were prepared for public view.
One official said they assumed their summaries would be made public “and so they prepared their summaries to be shared in their own words — and not in the attorney general’s summary of their work.”
On Wednesday, Rudy Giuliani told Fox News host Laura Ingraham that Mueller’s team was biased, saying “they are a bunch of sneaky, unethical leakers,” and adding, “And they are rabid Democrats who hate” Trump.
On Thursday, when asked about the NYT report, press secretary Sanders told “Fox & Friends” that theDemocrats are a “sad excuse for a political party” and “nothing but sore losers” who are getting “beat” by Trump.
On Thursday, in response to the NYT and WAPO stories, the Justice Department issues a statement saying it was concerned about illegally releasing grand jury information, which is confidential.
The statement also said Barr “decided to release the report’s bottom-line findings and his conclusions immediately — without attempting to summarize the report” and then release the redacted version.
Shortly after, Trump tweeted, “The New York Times had no legitimate sources” adding, “In fact, they probably had no sources at all! They are a Fake News paper.”
Trump also falsely claimed in a tweet that the NYT has “already been forced to apologize for their incorrect and very bad reporting on me!”
Trump also tweeted Democrats are subjecting him to the “highest level of Presidential Harassment” in the nation’s history, adding, “there is nothing we can ever give to the Democrats that will make them happy.”
Trump also tweeted: “few people seem to care about the Russian Collusion Hoax,” but that “some Democrats are fighting hard to keep the Witch Hunt alive,” and calling it “ridiculous Collusion Delusion” and “so illegal!”
On Thursday, NBC News reported according to an official who has spoken to Mueller’s team, the evidence on obstruction of justice is compelling and the report includes more information than has been made public.
Mueller team members also said the report included detailed accounts of the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia, revealing campaign members were manipulated by a sophisticated Russian intelligence operation.
On Thursday, Speaker Pelosi told reporters, “people on the Mueller team think there’s a mischaracterization by the attorney general,” adding, “I don’t know, there is an easy answer to this: Release the Mueller report.”
On Thursday, Rep. Nadler sent a letter to Barr requesting the public release of the summaries prepared by Mueller’s team, and all communications between the DOJ and Mueller’s office about the Mueller report.
On Thursday, Sen. Rand Paul blocked a resolution calling for the public release of the Mueller probe from coming to the Senate floor. This marks the fourth time Republicans have blocked the vote.
On Friday, Trump quoted an op-ed by Fox Business host Lou Dobbs saying Democrats have invented a cover-up, tweeting, “Trolling the Mueller Report. Democrats Lost On Collusion. Now They’re Inventing A Coverup.”
On Friday, the DOJ responded to the Electronic Privacy Information Center lawsuit filed to make the Mueller report public, saying the DOJ shouldn’t “circumvent this orderly process” of Barr’s planned release.
On Thursday, Axios reported Trump is expected to name Herman Cain on the Federal Reserve board. Cain, the CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, ran for president in 2012 but withdrew over sexual harassment allegations.
Trump has told confidants he views his selection of Jerome Powell as Fed Chairman as one of his worst mistakes, reportedly saying Powell has no “feel” for the markets, and comparing him to a golfer who cannot putt.
Guardian reported that Trump’s other pick, Stephen Moore, was held in contempt of court in November 2012 for failing to pay his ex-wife over $300,000 in money owed under their divorce settlement.
Gavin de Becker, an investigator for Jeff Bezos, said in an op-ed Saudi Arabia had gained access to Bezos’ private information before the National Enquirer made information on his extramarital relationship public.
On Thursday, the House joined the Senate, voting 247-175 to pass a measure to end U.S. involvement in Yemen, denouncing a Saudi-led bombing campaign that has been blamed for a humanitarian crisis.
The measure marks the first time both chambers of Congress have voted to invoke the war-powers resolution to end U.S. military engagement in a foreign conflict. Trump is expected to veto the measure.
On Friday, Saudi Arabia arrested two more U.S. citizens who were activists. The move puts additional pressure on Trump as he decides whether to side with Congress or veto their measure.
On Thursday, Speaker Pelosi announced the House will file a lawsuit challenging Trump’s declaring a national emergency at the Southern border, saying we will “defend our democracy and our Constitution.”
Speaker Pelosi said in a statement, “The president’s action clearly violates the Appropriations Clause by stealing from appropriated funds, an action that was not authorized by constitutional or statutory authority.”
On Thursday, CBS News reported the Homestead facility in Miami, the largest shelter for unaccompanied minors, is rapidly adding more than 850 beds to a massive facility that currently houses more than 2,300 teens.
Under the Flores settlement, unaccompanied minors are required to be housed in “non-secure” facilities, but Homestead has tall fencing. Sen. Jeff Merkley described Homestead as “a massive prison for migrant children.”
On Thursday, the Miami Herald reported former White House chief of staff John Kelly was spotted at the Homestead shelter.
Homestead, run by Caliburn International, is the only for-profit detention center in the country. Caliburn was formed after a company purchase by DC Capital Partners, where Kelly was employed as a lobbyist.
On Friday, Trump withdrew his nominee for the director of ICE, Ronald Vitiello, a 30-year veteran of the U.S. Border Patrol who serves as a top official at ICE, saying he wants someone “tougher” to lead the agency.
WAPO reported Trump’s decision to suddenly dump Vitiello caught DHS and lawmakers by surprise, with some mistaking it for a clerical error. He would have been Trump’s first senate-confirmed director of ICE.
Vitiello was supposed to join Trump on his trip to the Mexican border, but was left off the list last minute. Reportedly, Trump had heard complaints about Vitiello by Stephen Miller, ICE union boss Chris Crane, and others.
Six officials said Trump’s decision was a sign of Miller’s increasing power. Reportedly Trump told Miller he would be in charge of all immigration and border affairs, and would have a say in Trump’s third ICE nominee.
On Friday, speaking to reporters before boarding his plane, Trump called on Congress to “get rid of the whole asylum system” because “it doesn’t work.” For the second time, Trump also said we should “get rid of judges.”
On Friday, Trump again attacked the media, tweeting, “They can’t stand the fact” that his regime has done more that “virtually any other Administration,” adding, “They are truly the ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!”
On Friday, Trump traveled to the border of Mexico in Calexico, California to participate in a roundtable on immigration and border security. Trump claimed migrants are straining the system and added, “Our country is full.”
Trump also defended his national emergency saying, “There is indeed an emergency on our southern border,” adding, “It’s a colossal surge, and it’s overwhelming our immigration system. We can’t take you anymore.”
In a ceremonial gesture, Trump was presented with a piece of the future border wall. In his time in office, Trump has yet to add any new fencing or other barriers anywhere on the Southern border.
Trump also complained about the build-up of migrants at the border, saying, “Judge Flores, whoever you may be, that decision is a disaster for our country.” Flores was a teenage migrant from El Salvador.
Ahead of Trump’s visit, protestors flew a “baby blimp” Trump, the 20-foot-tall inflatable balloon of Trumpwearing a diaper and holding a cell phone, which has appeared across the U.S. and other places around the world.
On Friday, in a letter, 41 immigration and civil rights groups urged Fortune 500 CEOs to blacklist Trump aides who were involved in planning, carrying out, or defending the regime’s family separation policies.
On Friday, the State Department revoked the entry visa for Fatou Bensouda, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court who was investigating possible war crimes by American forces in Afghanistan.
On Saturday, WAPO reported, despite Trump’s claim that our country is full, DHS and the Labor Department plan to grant an additional 30,000 H-2B visas this summer, doubling the number they had planned to give out.
H-2B visas allow foreigners to come to the U.S. for several months to work at companies such as landscaping, amusement parks, or hotels. Last year, about 80% these visas went to people from Mexico and Central America.
On Thursday, Michael Cohen’s attorney said in a letter to Democrats in Congress that Cohen has discovered substantial files on a hard drive that he is working through and will provide in exchange for staying out of jail.
On Friday, when asked to respond on Cohen, Trump replied, “he’s old news. He lied numerous times during his last testimony. They’ve had that for many months.”
On Friday, Cohen’s attorneys publicly released the memo provided to House democrats Thursday, citing “Trump’s involvement in a conspiracy to collude with Russian government intervention” in the 2016 campaign.
On Thursday, Trump told the Washington Times when asked for a reaction to former first lady Barbara Bush’s quote, he replied, “I have heard that she was nasty to me, but she should be. Look what I did to her sons.”
On Friday, Roger Stone defended Trump in an Instagram post, calling Barbara Bush “nasty, rude, vindictive, entitled, self-important,” and adding, “that’s the woman I had several unpleasant encounters with.”
On Friday, police were stationed outside the Ecuador embassy in London, following tweets from the WikiLeaks account said Julian Assange could be kicked out of the building within “hours to days.”
British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said Assange is a “free man” and can leave the embassy whenever he chooses. Police said there is an active warrant for Assange’s arrest that they are obliged to execute if he leaves.
On Friday, Trump said for the third time in three years, he will not attend the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, calling it “boring” and “negative.” Instead, Trump will hold a rally that night.
On Friday, Commercial Bank of Ivanovo, a Russian bank in North Carolina which was 80% owned by former Congressman Charles Taylor, lost its license over repeatedly breaking anti-money laundering regulations.
On Saturday, Trump tweeted, “I have not read the Mueller Report yet, even though I have every right to do so,” adding, “Only know the conclusions, and on the big one, No Collusion.”
Trump also tweeted, “our great A.G. who found No Obstruction,” adding, “13 Angry Trump hating Dems (later brought to 18)” spent two years and $30 million and “found No Collusion, No Obstruction.”

The Weekly List podcast is here! You can find more information here by clicking here.

THE LIST — weeks 1–52 of The Weekly List is out as a book! You can order your copy by clicking here.

Trump talks to reporters during a briefing with military leaders and others in the Cabinet Room at the White House April 03, 2019. Notably, there was not a single woman or person of color at the table.

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POLITIKS OF GRAFFITI 125: NOT EXONERATED (by any stretch of the imagination)

Published on March 30, 2019 by jacquelinemhadel2 Comments

This week, none of the photos are mine, but they did come to me on my various social media accounts and I found them to be very appropriate to the insane happenings of this week. Art. is Art. is Art. And it informs us of what’s going on whether we care to read the words or not…

MARCH 30, 2019

Week 124

Experts in authoritarianism advise to keep a list of things
subtly changing around you, so you’ll remember. https://theweeklylist.org/weekly-list/week-124/

This week was dominated by news of the Mueller report, which was delivered to Attorney General William Barr last Friday, but has yet to be given to Congress or the American people. On Sunday, AG Barr sent a four-page letter to Congress, which he characterized as a “summary” of the Mueller report, but later in the week, in a second letter, wrote it “did not purport to be, an exhaustive recounting of the Special Counsel’s investigation or report” which was revealed to be nearly 400 pages long.

Barr’s Sunday letter said that Mueller did not find evidence Trump or his campaign knowingly colluded with Russia, but on obstruction of justice charges, Mueller did not render an opinion. Barr and deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein however concluded not to proceed with criminal charges, and Trump instantly weaponized the information to falsely claim he was fully exonerated, and pivot to attacking Democrats and the media, with the help of his allies. The media was caught on its heels, as some of the initial reporting incorrectly cited the Mueller report, including the front page of Monday’s New York Times. Trump aides who had been jailed or investigated by Mueller’s team were given media opportunities to declare themselves as victims of an overaggressive prosecutor. By Friday, bowing to public pressure, Barr in a second letter said he would release a redacted version of the Mueller report by mid-April or sooner.

As Trump took his victory lap, the Justice Department, on his orders, argued to a federal appeals court that the Affordable Care Act should be invalidated. Trump also sought to end most aid to Puerto Rico, as the Pentagon notified Congress the first $1 billion was being allocated to his wall. With the economy continuing to weaken, Trump refreshed his attacks on the Federal Reserve, as his pick Stephen Moore came under increasing criticism. At week’s end photos emerged of hundreds of migrants being held in inhumane conditions under a bridge in El Paso due to overcrowding at facilities. Trump blamed Central American countries and, by Saturday, said he would cut off U.S. aid to El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala.

A mural in Hodeida, Yemen derides the relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia.
It’s a graphic display of how people in the north of Yemen see America’s role in a war that’s been tearing into the fabric of their country for exactly four years.
The US is Saudi Arabia’s biggest arms supplier. The jets and the bombs they drop as well as the tanks, artillery pieces and vehicles used by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who lead a coalition against Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi movement, are mostly US-made.

(SIC) effected = AFFECTED. An artist, Andrew Spear, shared this on my Facebook feed. Appropriate depiction of Betsy DeVILos.

An apt cartoon demonstrating exactly how little Barr’s joke of a summary represents Mueller’s full report. What an insult to Americans.

56321781_10218825144568064_6263550682649853952_n — And as soon as he lies to his base, telling them that a little 4-page summary “exonerated” him, he went right into trying to take away healthcare from Americans.

This also came across my Facebook feed and I felt it was important to share it this week, of all weeks.

On Saturday, Mueller’s office said it is handing off its case before Judge Amy Berman Jackson against Rick Gates, who continued to cooperate in several investigations, to the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s office.
On Saturday, in a call with roughly 120 House members, Speaker Nancy Pelosi amplified her call that the Mueller report be made public in full, and rejected the notion of classified briefings.
On Sunday, Trump broke 40 hours of silence on Twitter, tweeting: “Good Morning, Have A Great Day!” and “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” Last weekend, Trump sent over 50 tweets, a record amount.
On Sunday, Attorney General William Barr delivered a letter to the Chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Judiciary committees outlining what he felt were the principal conclusions of the Mueller report.
Barr said in his four-page summary that the Mueller investigation found that neither Trump nor any of his aides conspired with the Russian government’s efforts to manipulate the 2016 presidential election.
The letter stated “despite multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign,” Mueller did not find evidence of “agreement — tacit or express — between the Trump campaign and the Russian government on election interference.”
Barr also said Mueller did not reach a conclusion on obstruction of justice: “The Special Counsel states that “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.””
On obstruction of justice, Barr said Mueller’s report “catalogu[ed] the President’s actions, many of which took place in public view,” but also cited actions taken privately which are described in the report.
Although Mueller did not take a stance, Barr and deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein concluded the evidence gathered “is not sufficient to establish that the president committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.”
Experts noted the unusual nature of Trump appointees, including his recently hand-picked AG, making a decision on obstruction of justice, rather than forwarding the full report to Congress for their judgment.
Trump declared victory an hour later in his first public remarks, tweeting “No Collusion, No Obstruction, Complete and Total EXONERATION. KEEP AMERICA GREAT!”
Press secretary Sarah Sanders said Mueller “did not find any collusion and did not find any obstruction. AG Barr and DAG Rosenstein further determined there was no obstruction…total and complete exoneration.”
Trump later told reporters, “This was an illegal takedown that failed. And hopefully somebody’s going to be looking at the other side,” adding, “so many people have been so badly hurt, after not looking at the other side.”
Speaker Pelosi and Leader Chuck Schumer said the letter “raises as many questions as it answers,” noting “Barr’s public record of bias against the Special Counsel’s inquiry,” and demanded release of the full report.
House Judiciary Chair Jerrold Nadler called for the release of all underlying evidence, citing “Special Counsel Mueller worked for 22 months” to determine if Trump obstructed justice,” while “Barr took 2 days.”
On Sunday, CNN reported Mueller’s team deliberated at length with the Justice Department about seeking to subpoena Trump for a sit-down interview, after Mueller made the request for months.
The decision was made to accept written answers instead. By Mueller not making the request, AG Barr was able to write “there were no such instances” during the investigation where Mueller was turned down.
On Monday, NYT noted Trump has ended norms in place since Watergate: firing an FBI director for investigating him and his associates, forcing out an attorney general for not protecting him, and dangling pardons.
Because Mueller took no position on obstruction of justice according to Barr, future occupants of the White House will feel entitled to do the same, and thwart efforts by law enforcement to scrutinize their actions.
On Sunday, Donald Jr. said in a statement the “Collusion Truthers in the media and Democrat Party” should be “held accountable,” saying they “are only going to double down on their sick and twisted conspiracy theories.”
On Monday, Kellyanne Conway called on House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff to resign, while House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Schiff should lose his committee leadership position.
On Monday, Trump posted a tweet of a Fox News clip mocking Schiff. He later told reporters in the Oval Office, “There are a lot of people out there who have done some very, very evil things.”
Trump added, “I would say treasonous things against our country,” and “those people will certainly be looked at,” and, “They lied to Congress. Many of them…They have done so many evil things.”
On Monday, Schiff told reporters, “Undoubtedly there is collusion,” adding his committee will continue to investigate if Trump and the “people around him compromised in any way by a hostile foreign power.”
On Monday, Trump’s re-election campaign sent a memo to television producers telling them to “employ basic journalistic standards when booking” officials who “made outlandish, false claims, without evidence.”
The list included Democratic lawmakers Sen. Richard Blumenthal and Reps. Nadler, Schiff, and Eric Swalwell, as well as Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez and former CIA Director John Brennan.
On Monday, Steve Bannon told Yahoo News that with the Mueller probe over, Trump “is going to go full animal,” adding that Trump will “come off the chains.”
Bannon also said Trump will use the report “to bludgeon” House members requesting documents, and that he had repeatedly told Trump, “Don’t say Mueller’s bad, I don’t think he’s going to have anything.”
On Monday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Lindsey Graham said his committee may “look into the other side,” threatening to investigate FISA warrants, the Clinton campaign, and the counterintelligence investigation.
On Wednesday, Sen. Rand Paul tweeted: “time for Congress to investigate” former President Obama, saying “What did [he]know and when? How did this hoax go on for so long unabated?”
On Monday, after criticism that Barr and Rosenstein seemed to make a quick decision on obstruction of justice, a “leak” indicated the two knew Mueller would not make a decision on obstruction three weeks prior.
On Monday, NBC’s Savannah Guthrie asked Sanders if Trump owed Mueller an apology for calling him “a national disgrace, discredited, a prosecutor gone rogue.” Sanders responded, “Are you kidding?”
On Monday, in the evening, Trump tweeted, “the Fake News Media has lost tremendous credibility with its corrupt coverage,” praising Fox News for being “up BIG,” and “ratings of CNN & MSNBC tanked last night.”
On Monday, Senate Leader Mitch McConnell blocked a resolution by Sen. Schumer to unanimously pass a non-binding resolution which cleared the House 420-0 in Week 121, for public release of the Mueller report.
On Wednesday, McConnell again blocked a resolution, this time by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, ranking memberon the Senate Judiciary Committee, calling for the public release of the Mueller report.
Both times, McConnell claimed Barr is working with Mueller to determine what in the report should or should not be released. Graham had blocked Schumer’s first attempt to bring the resolution to the floor in Week 121.
On Monday, Graham told reporters at a morning press conference that Barr should testify publicly before his committee. Graham added he would leave it up to Barr if Mueller should testify.
On Tuesday, Graham told reporters Barr told him he would send the Mueller report to the White House first, in case it wants to claim executive privilege over any parts, before it is made public.
Graham also said Barr told him it would most likely take “weeks, not months,” to make a version of Mueller’s final report public.
On Monday, six Democrats who chair House committees sent a letter to Barr requesting he submit the full Mueller report to Congress by April 2.
On Tuesday, CNN reported Speaker Pelosi told House Democrats in a private meeting that Barr said it was his job to defend Trump and that Trump is “above the law” in a memo, so wait to see the full report.
On Wednesday, AG Barr said he will not meet the Democrat’s April 2 deadline. Rep. Nadler said he is “disappointed” and that Democrats are exploring legal options, including possibly subpoenaing Mueller.
On Tuesday, a Quinnipiac poll found 84% of Americans believe the Mueller report should be made public, 9% do not. Among Republicans, 77% say it should be made public, 17% do not.
On Wednesday, a CNN poll found 56% of Americans do not believe Trump and his campaign were exonerated from collusion, while 43% believe he was: 77% of Republicans said he was, 80% of Democrats said he was not.
Without seeing the full report, 7% said it makes them more likely to back Trump, and 6% less likely — while a combined 86% said they already figured out their vote or the investigation results would not sway them.
On Thursday, NYT reported and the DOJ confirmed that the Mueller report exceeds 300 pages, revealing Mueller went beyond the bare-bones summary required by DOJ regulations.
The length of the report also raised questions of how Barr could summarize its contents in four-pages.
DOJ officials, including some in Barr’s office, may redact information that Trump could claim as privileged before sending it to Congress. Democrats would likely contest Trump claiming privilege.
On Monday, the Supreme Court turned down the request of the mystery foreign state-owned company fighting the Mueller team’s subpoena to get a Supreme Court appeal.
On Monday, Bloomberg reported a lawsuit by BTA Bank JSC alleged Felix Sater and the wealthy Kazakh businessman Ilyas Khrapunov explored financing a Trump Tower Moscow deal in 2012 using laundered money.
The complaint filed in Manhattan federal court said Sater tried to help launder some of the $4 billion stolen a decade ago by Khrapunov’s father-in-law, ex-BTA Chairman Mukhtar Ablyazov.
On Monday, the House Intelligence Committee postponed its scheduled interview with Sater this week, citing needing further answers to lingering questions arising from Barr’s summary of the Mueller report.
On Wednesday, David Goodhand, an assistant U.S. attorney, told the chief judge of the U.S. District Court for D.C., Judge Beryl Howell, the court where Mueller’s grand jury was convened, that their cases are “continuing robustly.”
The cases related to Russian collusion in the 2016 election, raising questions of why Mueller’s report was finalized while the cases continued to proceed in the D.C. court.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in D.C. is now leading the subpoena fight with the mystery foreign company, the upcoming trial in November against Roger Stone, and the sentencing of Rick Gates.
On Monday, Graham said he told Trump over the weekend at Mar-a-Lago that he had encouraged John McCain to turn over the Steele dossier to the FBI, saying of it, “it could be a bunch of garbage, it could be true, who knows?”
On Wednesday, Graham told CNN on Trump, “I could give a damn what he thinks about me and John McCain,” adding “I’m not into this idea the only way you can help honor John McCain is to trash out Trump.”
On Monday, Rep. Mo Brooks quoted a passage from Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” on the House floor, comparing Hitler’s characterization of “big lie” propaganda to Democrats and the media use of the Mueller probe.
On Monday, Pennsylvania Republican State Rep. Stephanie Borowicz was criticized for “disrespectful” prayer before the state’s first Muslim lawmaker, Democrat Rep. Movita Johnson-Harrell, was sworn in.
NBC News reported advocates and lawyers said in a letter transgender and gay migrants held at an immigration facility in New Mexico have been subjected to “rampant sexual harassment, discrimination and abuse.”
The letter relating to Otero County Processing Center in Chaparral claimed the warden placed or threatened to place migrants who complained with solitary confinement, or in barracks with heterosexual men.
The facility is operated by Management & Training Corporation, a private company that has benefitted from Trump’s policies, said it follows ICE’s transgender detainee guidelines, and was not aware of the incidents.
IndyStar reported Lynn Starkey, a counselor with 39 years of exemplary work at an Indiana high school, including teacher of the year recognition, was told she will lose her job over being in a same-sex marriage.
Starkey will become the second guidance counselor at Roncalli High School, one of more than 60 schools run by the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, to lose her job over being in a sex-same marriage.
On Friday, the Tulsa World reported the buildings that house Oklahoma’s Democratic Party headquarters were vandalized with racist and anti-Semitic symbols and words.
On Friday, Pat Buchanan warned against “people from different…cultures and ethnicities and races” coming to the U.S. on Laura Ingraham’s podcast, claiming Black Americans have not been “fully assimilated.”
On Monday, Jeremy Richman, the father of a first-grade girl killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre, was found dead in an apparent suicide. This follows the suicides of two Parkland high school students last week.
National Rifle Association’s Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre warned in a fundraising letter the group could be “shut down forever,” blaming Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s pressure on banks and insurance companies.
Alex Jones said in a sworn deposition that a “form of psychosis” caused him to believe certain events, like the Sandy Hook massacre, were staged. Jones blamed “trauma of the media and the corporations lying so much.”
On Monday, federal prosecutors in New York charged Michael Avenatti, former attorney for Stormy Daniels, with an extortion attempt. He was also charged by federal prosecutors in California with bank and wire fraud.
On Tuesday, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office dropped criminal charges against Jussie Smollett. As records were sealed, it was unclear why. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel called it a “whitewash of justice.”
On Thursday, Trump suggested the FBI and DOJ will review Smollett’s case, tweeting “FBI & DOJ to review the outrageous Jussie Smollett case in Chicago. It is an embarrassment to our Nation!”
Bloomberg reported lawyers for Trump will go before an appeals court seeking to overturn a ruling that he cannot block critics on Twitter, claiming the account belongs to him personally and not the government.
On Tuesday, Jennifer Utrecth, an attorney for the Justice Department, argued for Trump. One Circuit Judge remarked, “It’s curious to me that the Department of Justice is here representing essentially a private entity.”
On Wednesday, Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s head of legal, policy, and trust, told WAPO that the platform is considering labeling tweets that violate the company’s abuse terms, giving users who may see them context.
The move would allow the company to keep tweets up because they are in the public interest. Twitter has been criticized as Trump’s tweets often violate its rules against bullying, dehumanization, and threatening harm.
On Tuesday, Motherboard reported in a major policy shift, Facebook announced it would ban white nationalism and white separatism the same as white supremacy, on both its Facebook and Instagram platforms.
Users who try to post that type of content will be directed to a nonprofit that helps people leave hate groups. Facebook made the shift after a backlash from civil rights activists and historians.
On Thursday, Axios reported that Google is pulling a conversion therapy app, following pressure from LGBTQ groups. Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft have also banned the app in recent months.
On Monday, the Pentagon notified Congress it authorized the transfer of $1 billion to begin construction of a new wall, the first such transfer since Trump’s veto of a resolution to block his national emergency.
The Pentagon funds, diverted from other projects, will be used to build 57 miles of fencing and other measures on the U.S.-Mexico border. The Army Corp of Engineers will be deployed to begin planning and construction.
Every Democrat on related Senate Appropriations Committee subcommittees joined in a letter to acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan to object, saying the funds and personnel were not approved.
On Tuesday, the House fell short of overriding Trump’s veto of a resolution to block his national emergency. Fourteen Republicans crossed to join Democrats, but roughly 50 were needed.
On Monday, the Trump regime broadened its attack on the Affordable Care Act, as the Justice Department argued to a federal appeals court that the entire law should be invalidated.
In December, a federal judge ruled the ACA’s individual mandate was unconstitutional. A DOJ legal filing challenging the individual mandate at the 5th Circuit took it further saying the ACA should be struck down.
The regime’s new position was harshly criticized by the insurance industry and by consumer advocates, saying it would put more than 100 million Americans’ coverage at risk.
On Tuesday, Trump tweeted his support, saying, “The Republican Party will become “The Party of Healthcare!” However, Trump did not offer any information on the regime’s plans.
On Tuesday, Politico reported Trump told Republicans they have to come up with “a plan that is far better than Obamacare.” Healthcare was a top issue for voters in the midterm victory by Democrats.
Trump’s actions caught Republicans by surprise. Trump allies, including Rep. Mark Meadows, have acknowledged Trump has provided little to no guidance on crafting a health care plan.
On Wednesday, Leader Schumer announced Democrats will try to force a vote on defunding the DOJ’s effortson invalidate the ACA.
On Wednesday, Politico reported the shift in legal tactics by Trump was opposed by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and AG Barr. Allies of acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney helped pushed the move.
On Wednesday, federal judge James Boasberg blasted the Trump regime for failing to consider how many Medicaid beneficiaries would lose coverage under proposals to require recipients to work to get coverage.
The Trump regime had approved the work requirement for Arkansas and Kentucky. The judge deemed the approvals to be “arbitrary and capricious,” and said the work requirement could not go into effect.
On Thursday, a federal judge in D.C. blocked the Trump regime’s association health plans (AHPs), a cheaper alternative which allows businesses and individuals to band together to create group coverage.
AHPs are less expensive and also exclude protections required under ACA. The judge found the plans violate the ACA, calling it an ACA “end-run” — a victory for blue states which had sued to block the plans.
On Friday, Politico reported Trump appointee Seema Verma, who oversees Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare, directed millions of taxpayer dollars to Republican communications consultants.
The subcontracts, routed through a larger federal contract, break with precedent. Staffers in her department raised concerns about her use of federal funds on GOP consultants and to amplify her own work.
On Tuesday, NBC News reported Vice President Mike Pence talked director of national intelligence Dan Coats out of quitting over his frustration with Trump at the end of last year.
Among the tensions, Trump pushed Coats to find evidence that Obama wiretapped him, demanded Coats publicly criticize U.S. intelligence as biased, and accused Coats of being behind leaks of classified information.
Trump has also taken to referring to Coats privately as “Mister Rogers,” when he is upset Coats will not implement a directive or leaves Trump feeling disrespected. Pence has pushed Trump to refer to him as Coats.
On Tuesday, Trump tweeted “the Mainstream Media is under fire and being scorned all over the World as being corrupt and FAKE,” saying for two years the media pushed the “Russian Collusion Delusion.”
Trump also tweeted the media “always knew there was No Collusion,” and again invoked the phrase ‘enemy of the people,’ tweeting “they truly are the Enemy of the People and the Real Opposition Party!”
On Tuesday, WAPO reported Puerto Rico faces a food-stamp crisis as Congress missed the deadline for reauthorization in March, resulting in a cuts in stamps for 1.3 million, or 43% of the island’s residents.
In an Oval Office meeting in February, Trump told top advisers to limit the federal support going to Puerto Rico to only money going to the electric grid, saying instead funds should be going to the mainland.
On Tuesday, Trump told GOP senators behind closed doors that Puerto Rico received too much money to rebuild after Hurricane Maria, and it “is way out of proportion to what Texas and Florida and others have gotten.”
On Wednesday, the White House told NBC News that Trump “will not put taxpayers on the hook to correct a decades-old spending crisis” that left Puerto Rico “with deep-rooted economic problems.”
On Thursday, CNN reported Trump has refused to meet with Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló. Aides forRosselló said at a tense encounter at the White House in Wednesday, Trump aides said they were pushing too hard.
Trump later denied Rosselló’s claims, telling reporters that he has “taken better care of Puerto Rico than any man, ever.” Trump claims Puerto Rico is wasting money, an assertion that Rosselló denied.
On Tuesday, in her first testimony before the Democratic-led House, Education Department Secretary Betsy DeVos defended deep cuts to education as part of Trump’s budget to cut her agency’s spending by 10%.
Proposed funding cuts included $18 million for the Special Olympics, while boosting funding for charter schools by $60 million.
On Wednesday, following public outcry on cutting funding for the Special Olympics, DeVos issued a statement, blaming the media and some members of Congress for “falsehoods and fully misrepresenting the facts.”
On Thursday, at a press conference, Trump told reporters “I just authorized the funding of the Special Olympics,” adding, “I have overridden my people.”
After Trump’s statement, DeVos said, “I am pleased and grateful the president and I see eye-to-eye on this issue,” adding, “This is funding I have fought for behind-the-scenes over the last several years.”
On Tuesday, Paula Kerger, the longtime president and CEO of PBS, said in an interview “I wish I knew” whyfor a third year Trump’s proposed federal budget would zero-out funding for the network.
Kerger noted PBS is “in places where local journalism has really collapsed, and our local radio and TV stations really are the local media presence” saying she will again rely on Congress to restore funding.
On Tuesday, WAPO reported the Army chose Palantir Technologies to build its intelligence systems, marking the first time the government chose a Silicon Valley software company over a traditional military contractor.
Palantir was co-founded by Peter Thiel, the billionaire investor who has served as a Trump adviser from time to time, including during his 2016 campaign.
On Wednesday, Bloomberg reported that Trump’s current pick for Federal Reserve, Stephen Moore, owes more than $75,000 to the Internal Revenue Service according to court documents.
Moore also was the president of political advocacy organization Club for Growth when the group paid a $350,000 penalty to settle Federal Election Commission violations.
WAPO reported experts are also concerned about Moore’s long record of controversial statements, and about Trump having a direct line to him impacting the market’s view of the Fed’s independence.
On Thursday, the Commerce Department reported economic growth slowed at the end of 2018, with GDP gaining just 2.2% in the fourth quarter, putting yearly GDP grown at 2.9%, below Trump 3% promise.
On Thursday, as the numbers came out, Trump tweeted “Very important that OPEC increase the flow of Oil. World Markets are fragile, price of Oil getting too high,” adding, “Thank you!”
On Friday, CNBC reported OPEC leader Saudi Arabia said it will ignore Trump’s threshold for oil prices.
On Friday, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told Axios that he “would love to see” the Fed cut rates by half a point, mirroring comments made by Stephen Moore.
On Friday, Trump blamed the Fed for the slowing economy, tweeting: “Had the Fed not mistakenly raised interest rates, especially since there is very little inflation” GDP would be higher.
On Thursday, Politico reported Leader McConnell is moving closer to using the procedural move known as the nuclear option to speed through Trump’s nominees, claiming “unprecedented obstruction.”
The Senate Rules Committee approved a resolution in February that would limit debate time for executive branch nominees and District Court judges, but not Supreme Court and cabinet nominees.
McConnell’s action comes after prodding by Trump at a closed-door meeting Tuesday. Democrats strenuously objected. McConnell is still hoping for bipartisan support of what he calls “a change the institution needs.”
On Thursday, Jessie Liu, Trump’s pick for the number three position at the DOJ, withdrew from consideration over serving as a top official of the National Association of Women’s Lawyers, which supported abortion rights.
On Friday, Politico reported that Linda McMahon will resign as head of the Small Business Administration, a cabinet position, to return to the private sector.
On Friday, NBC News reported that according to the Partnership for Public Service, 155 high-ranking positions which require senate confirmation do not yet have a nominee by Trump.
Experts say that after 26-months of Trump in office, every position should have a nominee. The Partnership for Public Service data also shows 282 of 714 (40%) of key executive branch jobs are unfilled.
Another reason for lag is the high turnover. Brookings Institute found, prior to the McMahon resignation,turnover of top Trump officials was at 66%, including 10 of 12 cabinet positions.
On Thursday, NBC News reported Trump is expected to pick Morgan Ortagus, a Fox News contributor, to replace Heather Nauert, a former Fox News anchor, as State Department spokesperson.
HuffPost reported Trump has placed images of the White House emblazoned with the words “Trump Hotels” on products for sale at the Trump Store in Trump Hotel DC.
On Wednesday, the Washingtonian reported the Trump Hotel DC pulled merchandise using White House images, citing criticism.
On Wednesday, USA Today published excerpts from hours of interviews with Barbara Bush conducted by Susan Page for an upcoming book. Bush blamed Trump for a heart attack she said she had in June 2016.
Bush said the morning after election day, “I woke up and discovered, to my horror, that Trump had won.” She also said, “Putin endorsed him, for heaven’s sake. Putin the killer!…That’s an endorsement you don’t want.”
When asked if she still considered herself a Republican, in October 2017 she said yes, but in February 2018, Bush, who had been one of the most recognizable faces of the party, said, “I’d probably say no today.”
NASA was forced to scrap its first all-female spacewalk because of a lack of “spacesuit availability” in astronaut Anne McClain’s size. McClain’s spot was substituted by a man for Friday’s mission.
On Tuesday, George Papadopoulos told Reuters “my lawyers have applied for a pardon” from Trump, claiming Mueller’s team threatened him that if he did not agree to the plea deal, he would be charged with a more serious crime.
Other former Trump aides also came public to say they were victims of an overly aggressive Mueller probe including Michael Caputo in an op-ed and on MSNBC alongside Carter Page.
On Wednesday, in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, Trump said he would not rule out pardons, saying, “Many, many people were incredibly hurt by this whole scam.”
Several Trump allies, including Hannity, Fox New host Tucker Carlson, Sen. Rand Paul, Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk, and Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton also spent the week publicly pushing for pardons.
On Thursday, AP reported Trump’s closest advisers and GOP allies are trying to steer him away from pardons, saying it could spark a political firestorm overshadowing what Trump sees as a moment of triumph.
On Wednesday, in an interview with ABC News, former Trump legal spokesman Mark Corallo said he spoke to Mueller’s team about the crafting of the statement to cover up the Trump Tower meeting.
Corallo said Hope Hicks lied about the statement, and grew angry when he disagreed, adding when he said there were documents to prove she was lying, she responded, “Nobody’s ever going to see those documents.”
On Wednesday, House Oversight Committee Chair Elijah Cummings sent a letter to Trump audit firm Mazars USA, requesting 10 years of “statements of financial condition” and audits for Trump and several of his companies.
On Thursday, Judge Tanya Chutkan said Maria Butina, who admitted to working as a Russian agent to infiltrate the NRA, will be sentenced on April 26. Charges against Butina were not part of the Mueller probe.
On Friday, the DOJ formally asked Judge Chutkan in a court filing to send Butina back to Russia after she is sentenced, and to have her acknowledge she cannot return to the U.S. for 10 years.
On Thursday, Jared Kushner testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee at a closed-door hearing. Kushner, who appeared before the committee in 2017, was re-interviewed as part of its Russia investigation.
Later Thursday, Kushner said in a statement, “today I voluntarily answered follow up questions” hoping it “puts an end to these baseless accusations,” and adding “it is time for Congress to complete its work, move on.”
On Friday, Roger Stone, in another possible violation of his gag order, posted an Instagram image of Rep. Schiff’s head laid over a “bullschiff” meter. Stone later deleted the image.
On Thursday, Trump tweeted, “Congressman Adam Schiff, who spent two years knowingly and unlawfully lying and leaking, should be forced to resign from Congress!”
On Thursday, the nine Republicans on Schiff’s committee called on him to step down as chair, citing Schiff’s statement that there is collusion is “incompatible with your duties as the chairman.”
On Thursday, Schiff gave an impassioned speech to his committee, citing his evidence of collusion, and adding “the day we do think that’s OK is the day we will look back and say that is the day America lost its way.”
On Thursday, Speaker Pelosi told reporters at a press conference when asked about Barr’s letter said, “We don’t need you interpreting for us. It was condescending, it was arrogant, and it wasn’t the right thing to do.”
Pelosi also said, “I have said, and I’ll say again, no thank you, Mr. Attorney General, we do not need your interpretation, show us the report and we can draw our own conclusions.”
When asked about attacks on Schiff, Pelosi said, “What is the president afraid of? Is he afraid of the truth?That he would go after a member, a chairman of a committee,” adding “I think they’re just scaredy cats.”
Pelosi also attacked Rep. Devin Nunes, saying, “I’m so proud of the work of Chairman Adam Schiff — in stark contrast to the irresponsible, almost criminal behavior of the previous chair of the committee.”
On Thursday, Trump held his first rally since Mueller finished his probe, in Grand Rapids, Michigan — his first rally in the rust-belt in nearly 2 1/2 years. Trump spoke for more than 80-minutes.
Before the rally, the chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party held a warm-up rally where she led the crowd in chants of “No Collusion! No Obstruction!” and the crowd chanted, “Lock her up!”
Trump declared victory in the Mueller investigation, hammering his critics and the media saying, “The Russia hoax is finally dead. The collusion delusion is over.”
Trump invoked the “deep state,” saying the probe “was nothing but a sinister effort…to sabotage the will of the American people,” and an effort to “illegally regain power by framing innocent Americans.”
Trump again attacked Rep. Schiff, saying, “They’re on artificial respirators right now,” and “Little pencil-neck Adam Schiff. He’s got the smallest, thinnest neck I’ve ever seen.”
Contradicting his own 2020 budget proposal which slashed funding by 90%, Trump said he was going to fully fund the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, saying “I support the Great Lakes. Always have….They’re big. Very deep.”
With no outlines for an alternative, Trump barely mentioned healthcare. He invoked Sen. John McCain’s no vote which was met with boos, and renewed his pledge to protect coverage for pre-existing conditions.
On Friday, Trump’s 2020 campaign started selling “Pencil-Neck Adam Schiff” t-shirts, with a description “He spent two years knowingly and unlawfully lying and leaking. He should be forced to resign.”
On Friday, Pelosi again defended Schiff and took a shot at Rep. Nunes, tweeting his “calm, professional leadership is something we should all be proud of. Unlike his predecessor…”
On Friday, in a two-page letter to Congress, AG Barr said the Mueller report, which numbers close to 400 pages, will be delivered to Congress “by mid-April, if not sooner.”
Barr does not plan to submit the report to White House beforehand, saying Trump “would have the right to assert privilege over certain parts of the report, he has stated publicly that he intends to defer to me.”
Barr said he would redact grand jury information, information about ongoing investigations, and information that would “potentially compromise sources and methods” used for intelligence collection.
Barr’s letter also contradicted his Sunday letter which he characterized as a “summary” of the Mueller report, saying it “did not purport to be, an exhaustive recounting of the Special Counsel’s investigation or report.”
Asked by reporters about the letter at Mar-a-Lago, Trump said, “I have great confidence in the attorney general, if that’s what he’d like to do,” adding, “I have nothing to hide. This was a hoax. This was a witch hunt.”
Rep. Nadler responded, saying, “Congress requires the full and complete Mueller report, without redactions, as well as access to the underlying evidence, by April 2. That deadline still stands.”
On Friday, in an op-ed, former deputy attorney general Sally Yates called for Barr to release the full Mueller report as soon as possible, saying, “It is time for the American people to hear the whole truth.”
On Friday, Trump mocked Democrats tweeting, “Mueller was a Hero to the Radical Left Democrats, until he ruled that there was No Collusion with Russia,” adding, “no matter what we give them, it will never be enough.”
On Friday, photos emerged of hundreds of migrants being held in a penned-in area under the Paso Del Norte International Bridge in El Paso. The regime described the situation as a temporary measure.
Reportedly, a surge in migrants coming from Central America strained facilities at the Southwest border. This week, Customs and Border Protection handled thousands of people in excess of the system’s capacity.
Advocates say migrants in the outdoor holding center complained of not having enough food and water, of not receiving adequate medical attention, and of being cold.
On Friday, in a series of tweets, Trump threatened “I will be CLOSING the Border, or large sections of the Border, next week,” blaming Democrats and Mexico saying, “they just take our money and ‘talk.’”
Trump later told reporters at Mar-a-Lago that there is a “very good likelihood” that he will close the borderwith Mexico next week: “I will close the border if Mexico doesn’t get with it.”
On Saturday, Trump said he would cut hundreds of millions in aid to El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemalaover what he said was their lack of help in stopping the flow of migrants to the U.S.
On Friday, Trump demanded WAPO and NYT should be stripped of their Pulitzer Prizes for coverage of collusion with Russia, tweeting: “there was No Collusion! So, they were either duped or corrupt?”
On Saturday, NYT reported on Trump’s 2020 campaign. Aides say he relies on always having a foil, and now without Mueller or a Democrat to run against, Trump will use the media as a stand-in.
The campaign is also battling Trump’s preference for fights and distractions, and a tougher electoral map. Aides also say Trump, 72, is tired, and will only commit to one campaign event a day.
On Saturday, Trump sent one tweet, then headed to his Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach for the 55th time.

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Attorney General William Barr departs his home March 26, 2019 in McLean, Virginia. Democratic members of the Congress have urged Barr to release the full text of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and possible obstruction of justice charges against Trump.

POLITIKS OF GRAFFITI 124: “WHATSAPP, SHEEPLE, WHATSAPP?!”

Published on March 23, 2019 by jacquelinemhadel1 Comment

Week 123

Experts in authoritarianism advise to keep a list of things
subtly changing around you, so you’ll remember. https://theweeklylist.org/weekly-list/week-123/

This week started with maniacal tweeting by Trump: more than 50 tweets over the weekend on a variety of unrelated topics, including multiple retweets of conspiracy theorists. The week’s news was overshadowed by Trump’s daily attacks against deceased Senator John McCain and George Conway, husband of senior White House adviser Kellyanne Conway. The off-kilter — even by his standards — behavior by Trump seemed foreboding, and sure enough, on Friday, Mueller’s final report was delivered to Attorney General William Barr.

Among the subjects of his ire on Twitter this week, Trump continued to focus on alleged and unsubstantiated bias of social media companies, as his ally Rep. Devin Nunes filed a $250 million defamation lawsuit against Twitter and three Twitter accounts. Congressional probes moved ahead, including new revelations that Jared Kushner used WhatsApp to communicate on official White House business, including with foreign officials, and in possible violations of the Presidential Records Act — as did Ivanka Trump for White House business with her use of a personal email account. Meanwhile the White House refused to cooperate with Congressional document requests, as Rep. Elijah Cummings accused them of “stonewalling.”

As the week came to a close, the country waited on edge for the findings from the Mueller report, and Democrats agitated for the full report to be made public. Unlike the prior weekend’s flurry, Trump did not send a single tweet or provide any comment to reporters after the report was delivered to the AG.

D15JpQ_UkAA9pBv.jpg-large — “Innocent people are now being slaughtered, families ruined and childrens’ lives destroyed. All in his name. If the Craven Republican Senate allows this vile miscreant to continue encouraging devisiveness, the “Trump Presidency” will become an EXTINCTION LEVEL EVENT.” ~ Jim Carrey

Trump-poster-by-SABO-in-Washington-DC. — Artist: SABO in Washington, D.C. (not my photo)

The State Department barred the press corps from listening in on a call hosted by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for “faith-based media” about international religious freedom ahead of his trip to the Middle East.
Despite repeated inquiries and complaints from members of the press corps, the State Department refused to provide a transcript of the call, a list of which faith-based media outlets were included, or criteria to be on the call.
In an interview later in the week with Christian Broadcasting Network, citing the holiday of Purim, Pompeo said God may have sent Trump to save Israel from Iran, saying, “I am confident that the Lord is at work here.”
On Saturday, a week after Fox News host Jeanine Pirro’s remarks about Rep. Ilhan Omar’s hijab and patriotism, the network pulled her show claiming it was because of “scheduling matters.”
On Sunday, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney told “Fox News Sunday” that the New Zealand mosque massacre had nothing to do with Trump, and that Trump “is not a white supremacist.”
On Monday, on “Fox & Friends, Kellyanne Conway said the mosque shooter was “not a conservative” and “not a Nazi,” and encouraged people to “read the entire” manifesto.
By contrast, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern rejected hate, said the shooter should be “nameless,” expressed sympathy and love for Muslim communities, and said she would push to enact new gun reform.
Over the weekend Trump sent a manic barrage of over 50 tweets and retweets from Friday morning through Sunday evening. NYT reported since the election, Trump has averaged 16 tweets per weekend.
Trump did not play golf, or participate in any meetings. He only left the White House to attend a church service Sunday. He spent the weekend tweeting, venting on current tensions and stoking old grievances.
Trump tweeted: “Bring back @JudgeJeanine Pirro,” adding, “the Radical Left Democrats” and the “Fake News Media” are “using every trick in the book to SILENCE a majority of our Country.”
Trump also tweeted, “They have all out campaigns against @FoxNews hosts who are doing too well,” adding, “stop working soooo hard on being politically correct,” and “Be strong & prosper, be weak & die!”
Trump also tweeted: “Keep fighting for Tucker, and fight hard for @JudgeJeanine,” adding, “your competitors are jealous” and “they can’t beat you, you can only beat yourselves!”
Trump also attacked SNL, calling it “not funny/no talent,” adding the show “can spend all of their time knocking the same person (me).” The show was a rerun of a show that Trump had previously attacked on Twitter too.
Trump also tweeted SNL was “like an advertisement without consequences. Same with Late Night Shows…” and threatened “Should Federal Election Commission and/or FCC look into this?”
Trump retweeted a report on right-wing sites that Minnesota Democrats are unhappy with Rep. Omar, and retweeted Jack Posobiec, a Trump supporter known for advancing conspiracies, including “Pizzagate.”
Trump also retweeted conspiracies that Christopher Steele used posts by “random individuals” in the dossier, on “Russiagate,” and that Andrew Weissman was the “Kingpin of Prosecutorial Misconduct.”
Trump sent four tweets attacking General Motors for closing a plant in Lordstown, Ohio, blaming a union leader who is a Democrat and saying, “Get that big, beautiful plant in Ohio open now” and “Bring jobs home!”
Trump also tweeted he spoke to GM CEO Mary Barra, saying, “I am not happy that it is closed when everything else in our Country is BOOMING,” adding, “She blamed the UAW Union — I don’t care, I just want it open!”
On Friday, in an effort to appease Trump, GM staged a ceremony for a $1.4 billion new investment at a Michigan factory. Barra, wearing safety glasses, made the announcement alongside UAW leaders and workers.
Trump also attacked Google, saying the company “is helping China and their military, but not the U.S.” adding, “Terrible!” A Google spokesperson promptly responded: “We are not working with the Chinese military.”
Trump also accused the Democrats of “trying to steal a Presidential Election,” at the ballot box, “then, after that failed, with the ‘Insurance Policy,’” calling it “the biggest Scandal in the history of our Country!”
Trump also tweeted quoted a Suffolk/USA Today Poll, tweeting “50% of Americans AGREE that Robert Mueller’s investigation is a Witch Hunt.” Some pollsters objected to the way the poll question was worded.
According to the database Factba.se, this was the 261st time Trump used the term “witch hunt” in a tweet.
Trump did not mention the New Zealand massacre over the weekend. On Monday however he ranted in a tweet that the “The Fake News Media is working overtime to blame me,” adding, “ So Ridiculous!”
Trump also attacked deceased Sen. John McCain, saying, “spreading the fake and totally discredited Dossier ‘is unfortunately a very dark stain against John McCain,’” quoting a Fox News interview of Ken Starr.
Trump also tweeted of McCain, “‘last in his class’” (he was fifth to last), and that he “sent the Fake Dossier to the FBI and Media hoping to have it printed BEFORE the Election.” McCain sent it to the FBI after the election.
Trump also falsely claimed of McCain: “He & the Dems, working together, failed.” Several Republicans and Democrats in the Senate condemned Trump’s comments, but Sen. Lindsey Graham gave a neutral statement.
On Tuesday, during an appearance with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, Trump said “I was never a fan of John McCain and I never will be,” calling it a “disgrace” that McCain voted against repealing Obamacare.
Trump also said at this joint news conference with Bolsonaro that he would make Brazil “a major non-NATO ally or even possibly, if you start thinking about it, maybe a NATO ally.”
He later acknowledged he would have to talk to “a lot of people” about admitting Brazil to NATO. Trump also said he backs Brazil’s effort’s to join the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Trump also said at his joint news conference that he was “very proud to hear the president use the term ‘fake news.’” Attacks on the Brazilian media have spiked in the past year.
Earlier Tuesday, Trump tweeted: “the Fake News Media has NEVER been more Dishonest or Corrupt than it is right now,” adding, “Fake News is the absolute Enemy of the People and our Country itself!”
On Tuesday, just before midnight, Trump retweeted a QAnon conspiracy theorist, adding, “Not a good situation!” about a video of a young man going through a very thorough pat-down by a TSA agent.
On Tuesday, McCain’s widow, Cindy McCain, posted a message she received in which the sender said she was “glad” McCain, a “traitorous…warmongering shit,” was dead, and hoped daughter Meghan “chokes to death.”
On Wednesday, Trump continued his attacks on McCain at an event in Ohio, saying, “I have to be honest, I’ve never liked him much. Hasn’t been for me. I really probably never will.”
Trump also claimed he gave McCain “the kind of funeral that he wanted,” but “I didn’t get a thank you.” Trump was not invited to McCain’s funeral. Sen. Johnny Isakson was the only GOP senator to strongly speak out against Trump’s statements.
On Wednesday, Meghan McCain called Trump’s attacks “a “bizarre new low,” and said her dad “would think it’s hilarious” that Trump “was so jealous of him that he was dominating the news cycle in death as well.”
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell tweeted a muted response: “Today and every day I miss my good friend John McCain. It was a blessing to serve alongside a rare patriot and genuine American hero in the Senate.”
On Thursday, a spokesperson for the National Cathedral said of McCain’s funeral, “No funeral at the Cathedral requires the approval of the president or any other government official.”
On Thursday, Trump defended his attacks on McCain, telling Fox Business Network host Maria Bartiromo, “I don’t talk about it. People ask me the question, I didn’t bring this up.” Bartiromo said, but “he’s dead.”
Trump said he spends “a very small portion” of his time attacking McCain, adding, “I’m not a fan. He was horrible what he did with repeal and replace,” adding, “you people bring it up, I don’t bring it up.”
On Monday, George Conway, the husband of Kellyanne Conway, sent a series of tweets included images from the American Psychiatric Association’s “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.”
Conway included pages on “narcissistic personality disorder” and “antisocial personality disorder,” sayingTrump’s “condition is getting worse” and that “there are now fewer people” to check his worst impulses.
On Monday, when asked by reporters, Kellyanne said, “No, I don’t share those concerns,” and “I have four kids, and I was getting them out of the house this morning to talk to the president about substance.”
On Monday, Trump 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale tweeted: “We all know that Trump turned downMr. Kellyanne Conway for a job he desperately wanted.” This statement is false—Conway turned Trump down.
Parscale added, “Now he hurts his wife because he is jealous of her success. POTUS doesn’t even know him!”On Tuesday, Trump quoted the tweet, adding of George Conway, “A total loser!”
On Tuesday, minutes later, George Conway tweeted: “Congratulations! You just guaranteed that millions of more people are going to learn about narcissistic personality disorder and malignant narcissism! Great job!”
On Tuesday, WAPO reported Trump has wanted to attack Conway before on Twitter, but aides were able to talk him out of it, saying it would cause unnecessary drama. They had been successful until this week.
On Wednesday, Trump tweeted that Conway who is “often referred to as Mr. Kellyanne Conway” is “VERY jealous of his wife’s success & angry that I, with her help, didn’t give him the job he so desperately wanted.”
Trump also called Conway “a stone cold LOSER” and “husband from hell!”
Later, when asked by a reporter if his attacks fit Melania’s anti-bullying campaign, Trump said Conway is “a whack job,” and he is “doing a disservice to a wonderful wife,” and “I call him Mr. Kellyanne Conway.”
On Wednesday, Kellyanne Conway defended Trump, tell Politico he is a “counterpuncher” and “don’t play psychiatrist any more than George should be” and that Trump “is obviously defending me.”
On Thursday, Conway sent a series of tweets attacking Trump and his mental state, saying Trump was no longer articulate and coherent, and “couldn’t be allowed” to talk to Mueller because “he’d lie his ass off.”
On Friday, Conway attacked Trump again, tweeting: “THINK about the fact that we don’t just have a mentally unstable president — but a president who thinks he needs to be re-elected to avoid being indicted.”
On Sunday, AP reported police arrested Noel Thomas Becht on suspicion of trespassing, disorderly conduct, and threatening and intimidating at United Islamic Center of Arizona, a Phoenix mosque.
On Monday, Corinne Terrone, a public school clerk in Connecticut resigned after a viral video showed her repeatedly calling a Black man the N-word at a Shop Rite. Her children were present during the incident.
Elecia Dexter, the black editor who took over The Democrat-Reporter after her predecessor Goodloe Sutton called for the KKK to ride again, stepped down citing Sutton’s continued interference.
NBC News reported in addition to the Customs and Border Protection database in Week 122, one journalist and four immigration attorneys have also been stopped and questioned at border stations in Arizona and Texas.
On Monday, Rep. Steve King posted a meme on Facebook of a pair of blue and red figures, with the words “civil war” and “one side has about 8 trillion bullets, while the other side doesn’t know which bathroom to use.”
At a town hall Tuesday, King claimed he “wasn’t aware” the image had been posted his page. Also, when asked whether “a white society is superior to a nonwhite society,” he said, “I don’t have an answer for that.”
Daily Beast reported Virginia police officer Daniel Morley was suspended after leaked chat logs revealed he was onboarding new members for white nationalist group Identity Evropa at a local high school.
On Tuesday, federal judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly rebutted the Trump regime’s claim that no legal blocks remain to enforcing its transgender military ban, saying the injunction she issued in 2017 remains in place.
On Wednesday, NBC San Diego reported Customs and Border Protection defended the decision to detain 9 year-old Julia Isabel Amparo Medina for 32 hours after she got out of a car to walk to school across the border.
CBP officials accused Julia Medina, a passport-holding U.S. citizen, of lying about her identify, saying she did not look like her photo, and took her into custody “to perform due diligence” of her identity and citizenship.
WAPO reported Selene Saavedra Roman, a flight attendant for Mesa Airlines who has DACA status, was detained by ICE for six weeks in what advocates say is an example of how the Trump regime seeks to end DACA.
In Fall River, Massachusetts, 59 gravestones were defaced with anti-Semitic language and swastikas. The police chief said he could not remember seeing “something on this scale” before, and will treat the vandalism as a hate crime.
The Charlottesville, Virgina school board closed the schools for two days citing a race-based threat of “ethnic cleansing” made on Wednesday. On Friday, police arrested a 17 year-old from another school for making the threat.
On Friday, William Sullivan was arrested in an upstate New York supermarket, after telling a Jewish co-worker “You’re in the gas chamber now,” and then insulting her Jewish faith with an expletive.
WAPO reported an analysis done by University of North Texas professors using data from the Anti-Defamation League’s HEAT map found counties that hosted a 2016 Trump rally saw a 226% increase in hate crimes.
On Friday, Mississippi’s governor signed a law that bans abortions after a doctor can detect a fetal heartbeat during an ultrasound. The state has only one clinic that provides abortion services.
On Friday, Georgia’s senate approved House Bill 481, which would also outlaw abortions once a doctor detects a heartbeat in the womb, usually around six weeks.
On Friday, Michigan’s attorney general said the state will no longer fund adoption agencies that deny LGBTQ parents. The agency cited, Catholic Charities, was mentioned by Trump at the National Prayer Breakfast.
The Washington state senate passed a bill 28-21 to require presidential candidates to release five years of tax returns in order to appear on the primary or general election ballot. It will now head to the assembly.
Colorado became 12th state and first swing state and to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, an agreement under which states pledge their presidential electors to whoever wins the popular vote.
On Thursday, a circuit court judge ruled Wisconsin’s Republican-controlled legislature acted illegally when it convened a lame duck session and stripped power away from incoming Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.
On Sunday, NYT reported that in the past year, Saudi Crown Prince MBS authorized a secret campaign to silence dissent, which included surveillance, kidnapping, detention, and torture of Saudi citizens.
On Sunday, Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska told CNBC in Moscow that he sued the U.S. Treasury Department for “weaponizing the financial system” against him, and denied the Kremlin encouraged his legal action.
Sanctions have been lifted against his companies, but not against him personally. Deripaska claimed he is “a victim of this country’s political infighting,” adding sanctions have forced him to adapt to a “new reality.”
The Atlantic reported Alexander Ionov, the founder of an NGO called the Anti-Globalization Movement,raised money to fund Maria Butina’s legal defense, reaching about 2 million rubles (approximately $30,000).
On Monday, Reuters reported that Norway claims it has provided proof that Russian forces disrupted global positioning system signals during recent NATO war games, and demanded an explanation from Russia.
On Monday, ProPublica reported a sealed search warrant they obtained showed federal prosecutors raided Elliott Broidy last summer, seeking records related to his dealings with foreign officials and the Trump regime.
The warrant showed agents were able to compel Broidy, a major Trump campaign fundraiser and deputy finance chair of the Republican National Committee, to use his hand and face to unlock any phones.
The warrant sought records in Broidy’s office related to the United Arab Emirates, UAE adviser George Nader, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and any travel to the Middle East.
The warrant cited investigations of conspiracy, money laundering, and lobbying on behalf of foreign officials, and also lists names “Joel Rouseau” and “Intelligent Resources,” which has an address in Miami Beach.
On Thursday, NYT reported Jared Kushner’s brother Josh was in Saudi Arabia in October 2017 just days before Jared was there to talk policy. Josh is the founder of eight-year-old venture capital firm Thrive Capital.
Josh attended a three day exclusive investor conference where Crown Prince MBS promised to spend billionsof dollars. Kushner was granted private conversations with high ranking Saudi officials.
Jared sat on the board and investment committee of Thrive until January 2017. His May 2018 financial disclosure form shows he received $8.2 million in capital gains from Thrive while working at the White House.
On Monday, NYT reported on Trump’s nearly two decade relationship with Deutsche Bank, which lent him well over $2 billion, when other banks refused to lend due to his uncreditworthiness.
When Trump was elected, the bank switched into damage-control mode over their intertwined relationship. Rosemary Vrablic, a managing director at Deutsche Bank in private banking, attended his inauguration address.
In the late 1990s, the bank tried to make a name for itself in the U.S., its investment banking division went on a hiring spree, including hiring Justin Kennedy, the son of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.
In 2003, the bank’s bond desk helped Trump sell debt to finance his casino. Trump promised them a trip to Mar-a-Lago if the tough deal got done. After, he flew 15 salesmen on his Boeing 727 for a weekend of golfing.
In 2005, when Trump wanted to finance a skyscraper in Chicago, he told the bank his net worth was about $3 billion, while bank employees concluded $788 million. Nonetheless the bank lent him $500 million.
In 2008, with the project mostly built, Trump used a “force majeure” clause citing then Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan calling the financial crisis a tsunami, to try to get out of repaying the loan.
Starting in 2010, Vrablic helped Trump get a loan to repay his Chicago loan, and even though Trump overstated his net worth dramatically and repeatedly, financed his bid for an NFL team and other transactions.
On Monday, a CNN poll found Trump’s disapproval rating down to 51% — the lowest disapproval found in the poll since Trump took office. The poll found 42% approve of Trump’s performance.
On Monday, CNN reported Trump’s White House expects to be able to review Mueller’s findings before they are sent on to lawmakers, and to have the opportunity to claim executive privilege over information.
On Tuesday, a senior Justice Department official said deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein had decided to remain at the DOJ “a little longer,” after meeting with AG William Barr. The reason why was not disclosed.
Later Tuesday, a CNN reporter said according to her source, Rosenstein wanted to stay on so he can be the “heat shield,” or absorb the punches, if there is fallout from the Mueller report.
On Tuesday, in court filing, Mueller’s team asked for more time to hand over Manafort’s records requested by WAPO, citing they are too busy with “other work” right now, and asking for an extension until April 1.
On Wednesday, when asked by reporters when the Mueller report would be released, Trump responded: “I have no idea. No collusion, no collusion,” adding, “a man gets appointed by a deputy. He writes a report.”
Trump also said, “Let’s see whether or not it’s legit,” calling Mueller “conflicted” and criticizing the lawyers who worked on the case. Trump also said the report should be made public, saying, “let people see it.”
On Monday, top Democrats on the House and Senate Intelligence and Judiciary committees asked FBI director Christopher Wray in a letter to conduct criminal and counterintelligence probes of Cindy Yang.
The letter cites allegations of human trafficking, foreign lobbying, and potential campaign finance violations. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement they joined in urging an investigation.
On Monday, Daily Beast reported the House Judiciary Committee is planning to hold hearings on the rise of white nationalism, and will hear from federal agencies on what they are doing to confront the threat.
On Monday, the House Judiciary Committee said it had “tens of thousands” of documents by the deadline from a “large number” of the 81 people, agencies, and organizations from whom it sought documents.
However Trump’s lawyers denied the request, informing Chairman Jerrold Nadler they would not be turning over documents. It was unclear if the committee would move to subpoena the documents.
The Hill reported Thursday, according to a letter it obtained, Roger Stone invoked the Fifth Amendment and said he would not produce the requested documents “on the advice of counsel.”
Reuters reported Friday that Kushner will cooperate with the House committee’s probe. Kushner reportedly submitted documents to Nadler’s panel on Thursday.
On Tuesday, in an op-ed, House Oversight Committee Chair Elijah Cummings wrote “the White House hasn’t turned over a single piece of paper to my committee.”
Rep. Cummings said he has sent 12 letters to the White House on a half-dozen topics, and accused the White House of engaging “in an unprecedented level of stonewalling, delay and obstruction.”
On Tuesday, House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff told NBC News that it is an open question if Trump is under the influence of a foreign power, and whether that would present a national security threat.
Rep. Schiff cited concern that U.S. foreign policy was dictated by Trump’s “desire to make hundreds of millions of dollars off a tower in Moscow,” adding it was unclear if Mueller’s team had fully investigated this angle.
On Tuesday, at a town hall Rep. Nadler compared Trump’s rise to that of Hitler, saying of Trump’s rhetoric around immigrants, “This is the same type of propaganda that we heard in the 1920s.”
On Wednesday, House Majority Whip James Clyburn told NBC News that Trump and his family are “the greatest threats to democracy of my lifetime.”
Clyburn said when Hitler was elected he “went about the business of discrediting institutions to the point that people bought into it,” adding, “Nobody would have believed it now…We had better be very careful.”
On Thursday, in a letter, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone rejected House Oversight, Foreign Affairs, and Intelligence Committees’ Democrats’ request for documents related to Trump’s communications with Putin.
Cipollone cited “unbroken recognition that the Constitution assigns the conduct of foreign affairs exclusively to the Executive Branch,” and said Democrats did not provide any law or regulation that would justify access.
On Thursday, WSJ reported the House Judiciary Committee is considering a second wave of document requests from Rudy Giuliani and Michael Cohen’s former lawyer related to pardon discussions, as well as Rex Tillerson and Gary Cohn.
On Thursday, House Oversight Chair Cummings revealed in a letter that Ivanka and Jared Kushner used private messaging accounts for official White House business in a way that may have violated federal records laws.
Ivanka and Jared’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, told his committee last year that in addition to private email accounts, Kushner used the encrypted messaging service WhatsApp for official business, including with foreign contacts.
Lowell told lawmakers Ivanka did not preserve some emails from her private account that she did not reply to. He now claims after September 2017, she forwarded all official business to her White House account.
Lowell said he was unsure if Kushner communicated classified information on WhatsApp, but said he took screenshots of communication and sent them to his official White House account or the National Security Council.
Rep. Cummings said in a letter to Cipollone the new findings raise possible violations of the Presidential Records Act by members of the Trump regime, including Ivanka and Kushner, and gave an April 4 deadline to reply.
On Friday, Trump told reporters when asked about Kushner’s WhatsApp messaging, “I know nothing about it. I’ve never heard that.”
On Tuesday, prosecutors released publicly redacted copies of the Michael Cohen search warrants that launched the FBI raid of his home, hotel, and office in April 2018.
The documents showed the court-approved warrants were first obtained by Mueller’s team in July 2017 to search Cohen’s emails from all of 2016 up to July 2017 to assess if he illegally worked for foreign entities.
Mueller’s team also got a second warrant a month later for the cloud backup files to Cohen’s phones, and a third warrant for emails dating to June 2015 related to his taxi business and false statements to banks.
Mueller’s team turned over documents to the Southern District of New York in February 2018. The SDNY got an additional search warrant for emails from November 2017 to February 2018.
The documents revealed Cohen was paid $583,332 from Columbus Nova, a company linked to Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, from January to August 2017. Vekselberg was sanctioned in 2018 for election interference.
The documents had significant redactions, including 18 1/2 pages in the section about hush-money payments to women titled “The Illegal Campaign Contribution Scheme.”
The court stated that redactions were necessary because “disclosure would jeopardize an ongoing investigation” of the SDNY.
On Monday, Rep. Devin Nunes sued Twitter, two anonymous accounts, and political consultant Liz Mair for $250 million in damages, alleging “negligence, defamation per se, insulting words, and civil conspiracy.”
Nunes told Fox News host Sean Hannity “this was an orchestrated effort,” adding “people were targeting me.” The Twitter accounts included one named “Devin Nunes’ Mom” and the other, “Devin Nunes’ Cow.”
On Monday, Trump shared the news of Nunes’ lawsuit, tweeting an article in the Daily Beast, titled, “Rep. Devin Nunes Files $250M Defamation Lawsuit Against Twitter, Two Anonymous Twitter Accounts.”
The account for Devin Nunes’ Mom was suspended this year, but the same user created “Devin Nunes’ Alt-Mom” and was active, as was “Devin Nunes’ Cow” — both spent Tuesday and beyond mocking Rep. Nunes.
By Wednesday, the “Devin Nunes’ Cow” account had surpassed Rep. Nunes’ Twitter following of 395,000, with 467,000 followers and growing. Prior to the lawsuit, the cow account had roughly 1,200 followers.
On Friday, dictionary company Merriam-Webster said in their weekly round-up: “There are a surprising amount of cow-related words this week.”
On Tuesday, Trump renewed his attacks on technology companies tweeting, “Facebook, Google and Twitter, not to mention the Corrupt Media, are sooo on the side of the Radical Left Democrats.”
NBC News reported that HUD Secretary Ben Carson’s 2017 schedule was extremely light. Carson held one senior staff meeting a week, and for 5 of 31 Fridays he was off or had no appointments, and on another 5 he left before 2 p.m.
On Tuesday, Politico reported the White House plans to drop the “acting” from Mulvaney’s title, upgrading him to Trump’s chief of staff. One senior official said of Mulvaney that he “has stayed out of a lot of people’s way.”
On Tuesday, Capt. “Sully” Sullenberger, a safety expert, said in an op-ed, “Our credibility as leaders in aviation is being damaged,” saying the Boeing 737 Max controversy is “unprecedented” and an “ugly saga.”
On Tuesday, Trump named Stephen Dickson, a former executive of Delta Air Lines, as the permanent head of the Federal Aviation Administration. The position had been filled by an acting director for 14 months.
Bloomberg reported Trump offered former campaign adviser Stephen Moore a position on the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors. Moore would still need to complete a clearance process before the nomination.
Bloomberg also noted the appointment appeared to be political meddling in the Central Bank. Moore has publicly criticized Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, and cheered the effects of Trump’s tax cuts.
In his interview with Maria Bartiromo, Trump had blamed the Fed for 3.1% growth, saying, “If we didn’t have somebody that would raise interest rates and do quantitative tightening, we would have been at over 4.”
On Friday, the Treasury Department said in its monthly budget report that the U.S. budget deficit for February was $234 billion, the largest ever in U.S. history. Corporate revenue was down 20% due to Trump’s tax cut.
On Friday, Federal Emergency Management Agency announced it had failed to protect sensitive personal data of 2.3 million survivors of hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria, and the 2017 California wildfires.
An analysis by WAPO found money being taken away from the Pentagon to pay for Trump’s wall would particularly hit construction projects in Puerto Rico and a program helping European allies deter Russia.
On Tuesday, a federal judge ruled the Interior Department violated federal law, saying it “did not sufficiently consider climate change” when it auctioned off federal land in Wyoming for oil and gas drilling.
The judge temporarily blocked drilling on about 300,000 acres of land in Wyoming. The ruling could signal trouble for the regime’s efforts to boost fossil fuel production by auctioning off federal land for drilling.
On Saturday, Politico reported on a leaked recording of oil executives at a private meeting at a beachside Ritz–Carlton in Southern California laughing about their access to the Trump regime.
The influential industry group, the Independent Petroleum Association of America, celebrated that their lawyer David Bernhardt, was appointed by Trump to the powerful number two spot at the Interior Department.
On Thursday, in a tweet, Trump said “after 52 years” the U.S. will “recognize Israel’s Sovereignty over the Golan Heights,” a huge policy shift thought to help Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu in the upcoming election.
Countries around the world, including France, Germany, Russia, and Egypt criticized Trump’s announcementon the Golan Heights, saying it was a violation of international law and could further destabilize the region.
On Thursday, the Treasury Department imposed new sanctions on two Chinese shipping companies, saying they have helped North Korea evade international sanctions — the first sanctions imposed since late last year.
On Friday, Trump reversed the Treasury Department in a tweet, citing the “additional large scale Sanctions” imposed yesterday, and saying, “I have today ordered the withdrawal of those additional Sanctions!”
The shift caught the regime by surprise. In explaining Trump’s rationale, press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters, “President Trump likes Chairman Kim, and he doesn’t think these sanctions will be necessary.”
On Friday, all of Washington awaited the Mueller report as rumors swirled that it would be released. Giuliani told a reporter that morning, “They said it was going to be at noon or 12:30.”
NYT reported starting in the morning, reporters and photographers congregated at the office building where the special counsel has its offices, including cameras waiting in the garage for Mueller and others’ cars.
The Trump campaign sent out a text, saying, “President Trump has put up with the WITCH HUNT for two years.” Trump also brought Emmet Flood, his lawyer in the special counsel investigation, along to Mar-a-Lago.
On Friday late afternoon, Mueller submitted a confidential report to AG Barr, ending his 22-month investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible obstruction of justice by Trump.
Around 4:35 pm, Emmet Flood was notified that the DOJ had received the report. Roughly half an hour later, Barr sent a letter to the relevant House and Senate committees, as well as senior congressional leaders.
Barr wrote in the letter to the Chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, “I may be in a position to advise you of the Special Counsel’s principal conclusions as soon as this weekend.”
Barr said he would consult with Mueller and Rosenstein, “to determine what other information from the report can be released to Congress and the public.”
Barr also said he remained “committed to as much transparency as possible,” and that neither he nor any of his predecessors had challenged any actions Mueller took during his probe.
The DOJ said Mueller has not recommended any further indictments. It was unclear if Mueller found Trumpcommitted a crime, but did not charge him due to DOJ policy that a sitting president cannot be indicted.
On Friday, Democrats signaled they were ready to fight for the public release of Mueller’s complete findingson social media, on air and in statements, concerned that Barr may hold parts back to protect Trump.
Speaker Pelosi and Minority Leader Schumer said in a statement the Mueller “investigation focused on questions that go to the integrity of our democracy itself,” adding, “the American people have a right to the truth.”
The Democratic chairs of the six House committees said a joint statement: “Anything less than full transparency would raise serious questions” of whether DOJ policy “is being used as a pretext for a coverup of misconduct.”
Leader McConnell said in a statement he welcomes the report, saying “Many Republicans have long believed that Russia poses a significant threat to American interests,” and hoped for “openness and transparency.”
Watchdog group Electronic Privacy Information Center sued for the full release of the Mueller report, saying, “The public has a right to know the full scope of Russian interference “ and whether Trump played any role.
Late Friday, former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos tweeted: “Time to hit back!” and Trump ally Rep. Jim Jordan tweeted he was looking forward to the report and, “This distraction is finally over.”
Jerome Corsi told CNN that he and Stone “feel vindicated.” Corsi also said “I went in there to cooperate with them. They treated me as a criminal,” adding ,“I consider this entire investigation to be fraudulent.”
On Friday, at Mar-a-Lago, Sen. Lindsey Graham and Trey Gowdy, who chaired the House Oversight Committee during the Benghazi hearings, joined Trump at Mar-a-Lago.
Hours after the Mueller report was released, Graham spoke at a Mar-a-Lago dinner, joking about Trump opening a hotel in Jerusalem and asked the crowd whether they would like to see Gowdy on the Supreme Court.
Graham called for an investigation into Hillary Clinton and the Steele dossier, to which the crowd began chanting, “Lock her up!” Graham responded, “Don’t lock her up! We want her to run again.”
Graham was the keynote for the annual fundraiser for the Palm Beach Republicans. Asked why Graham did not defend his best friend McCain to the audience, a spokesperson said he spoke about it earlier in the week.
Trump spoke briefly, saying “If Lindsey’s speaking, I want to come down here for two reasons. No. 1: he’s a great speaker. And No. 2, I know if I’m here, he’s not going to say anything bad about me.”
WAPO reported public perception of Mueller’s job performance was 58% approve, 28% disapprove (+30) six months in at November 1, 2018, but dropped on February 10, 2019 to 51% approve, 34% disapprove (+17).
The drop was driven by largely by Republicans whose approval fell from 38% to 21% over that period. Independents dropped slightly from 56% to 52% and Democrats from 78% to 77%.
On Saturday, Trump went to Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach for his 175th round of golf in his 653 days in office. Trump has not tweeted since the Mueller report was released.
On Saturday, DOJ official announced AG Barr is not sending the “principal conclusions” of Mueller’s report to lawmakers today, but is still expected to do so this weekend.
Beyond the Mueller probe, Trump faces numerous other legal woes, including investigations of hush money payments, his inaugural committee, Congressional inquiries, New York state investigations, a defamation lawsuit by Summer Zervos, and the emoluments clause lawsuit.

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Left, the Twitter feed @DevinCow, or “Devin Nunes’ cow,” which mercilessly mocked Rep. Devin Nunes of California this week. At right, his real twitter account. On Wednesday, Nunes filed a defamation lawsuit against the cow, and Twitter, in a Virginia court.

POLITIKS OF GRAFFITI 123: MANIFESTO

Published on March 16, 2019March 16, 2019 by jacquelinemhadel1 Comment

MARCH 16, 2019

Week 122

Experts in authoritarianism advise to keep a list of things
subtly changing around you, so you’ll remember. https://theweeklylist.org/weekly-list/week-122/

This week in what was perhaps his most authoritarian act to date, Trump issued his first veto after the House and Senate voted to block his emergency declaration. The veto followed Trump’s declaration of a national emergency after Congress refused to fund his wall, which was unprecedented. Taken together, Trump irreverently thumbed his nose at the separations of power.

Trump also continued his record pace of appointments to the judicial branch, this week with the aid of newly installed ally Sen. Lindsey Graham as Judiciary Committee Chair. Graham discarded a century old norm of allowing in-state senators to submit a “blue slip” to oppose nominations, allowing Trump to appoint two judges to the 9th Circuit Court.

In New Zealand, 49 people were murdered while worshipping at two mosques in Christchurch in what Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern called “an extraordinary and unprecedented act of violence.” In his manifesto, the killer parroted several Trump terms, and wrote he saw Trump as a symbol “of renewed white identity and common purpose.” Trump tried to distance himself and the uprise of white nationalism from blame for the massacre.

This week Paul Manafort got his second sentence, and as Trump continued to hint at a pardon, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance filed separate charges, out of the purview of a Trump pardon. New York Attorney General Letitia James opened an investigation into Trump’s financing for projects, and subpoenaed Deutsche Bank, raising Trump’s ire. Several Congressional investigations also progressed this week, as the country awaits the findings of the Mueller probe.

I can’t even remember what city, what country, I took this pic in last year (2018.)

D1qcQj9VAAAXLAh.jpg-large — The selfish, classless, and infantile behavior of goons like Roger Stone is the long-term effect of Gerald Ford’s pardon of Nixon. We should have locked Richard Nixon up. Instead, he was allowed to retire in comfort inspiring a new wave of scumbags. – Jim Carrey

WSJ reported increasingly savvy world leaders are bypassing standard protocols and government processes of American diplomacy and instead going directly to Trump, who encourages such approaches.
Authoritarian leaders including North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russia’s Vladimir Putin cut out the middle layer of aides and agencies to communicate directly with Trump.
Senior officials have been left in the dark about the conversations, leading to confusion and in some cases needing to backtrack on Trump’s remarks. Trump has said he is his only spokesperson.
On Sunday, Axios reported Trump lied to RNC donors at Mar-a-Lago Friday, telling them he said “Tim Cook Apple” really fast, and the “Cook” part of the sentence was soft, but all you heard from the “fake news.”
On Monday, Trump tweeted, “I quickly referred to Tim + Apple as Tim/Apple as an easy way to save time & words,” adding, “the Fake News was disparagingly all over this, & it became yet another bad Trump story!”
Trump also referenced Rep. Ilhan Omar’s comments, telling RNC donors “the Democrats hate Jewish people,” and that he could not understand how any Jew could vote Democrat these days.
On Monday, Trump proposed an annual budget to Congress including $8.6 billion in funding for his wall, with $5 billion for the Department of Homeland Security and $3.6 billion for the Defense Department’s military construction budget.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer said they were prepared to block Trump’s demand, writing in a joint statement: “The same thing will repeat itself if he tries this again. We hope he learned his lesson.”
Trump’s budget proposed freeing up funds for his wall and the military by cutting spending on Medicaid and Medicare, AIDS and other health programs, and a 15% cut in the Agriculture Department’s budget.
The budget also called for drastic cuts in food stamps programs, and federal agency cuts of 31% in the budget for the Environmental Protection Agency, and a 24% cut from the State Department.
Trump’s budget projected the federal deficit will hit $22.8 trillion by 2025, more than 50% higher than the $14.7 trillion when he took office, after promising on the campaign trail that he would eliminate the debt.
The budget included $20 million for Jack Nicklaus’ small children’s health project. Nicklaus golfed with Trump as least twice since November, and met with Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and then-Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney.
Golf Magazine reported Trump is taking credit on his locker at Trump International in West Palm Beach, Florida, with a plaque saying he won the 2018 club championship, although he did not play in it.
On Monday, Politico reported Facebook removed several ads place by Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s campaign, after she called for the break-up of Facebook and other tech giants. Facebook later backtracked after the reporting.
On Wednesday, Facebook suffered its most severe outage since 2008, with related Instagram, WhatsApp, and its messaging app also experiencing glitches. The cause of the outage was not made public.
On Wednesday, NYT reported federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York are conducting a criminal investigation of data deals Facebook struck with the world’s largest technology companies.
A grand jury in New York subpoenaed records from at least two makers of smartphones and other devices that entered into agreements to gain access to personal information on hundreds of millions of Facebook users.
On Monday, CNBC reported new court filings revealed a mysterious $125,000 payment to Paul Manafort’s attorney in June 2017 originally came through a donation to a Trump PAC called Rebuilding America Now.
Manafort installed Laurance Gay to run the PAC. Rebuilding America Now passed funds to Multi Media Services Corporation, whose silent owner is is Tony Fabrizio, chief pollster for Trump’s 2016 campaign, to make the payment.
On Monday, Roger Stone’s attorneys said in a submission to the court that it did not occur to him until after the February 21 hearing that the new introduction for a paperback edition his book would violate the gag order.
The submission claimed, “There was/is no intention to hide anything,” saying the introduction “presented a question we tried, obviously clumsily, to address,” adding “having been scolded” we only want to defend Stone.
On Monday, press secretary Sarah Sanders held the first press briefing in 42 days, the longest period without a briefing since Trump took office, appearing as Trump released his budget.
According to data by the American Presidency Project, the length of time between briefings under Sanders is longer than any of the 13 previous press secretaries.
When asked if Trump will pardon Manafort, Sanders said Trump will “make his decision when he’s ready.”
On Tuesday, House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff tweeted: “Congress is investigating reports that Trump and his legal team privately dangled pardons to obstruct investigations, including ours.”
Schiff also tweeted: “Yesterday, the White House refused to rule out a pardon for Paul Manafort,” adding, “That Trump does so in the open is no less corrupt.”
On Wednesday, Michael Cohen’s attorney clarified his testimony in a letter to House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings, saying “at no time did Mr. Cohen personally ask President Trump for a pardon” nor did Trump offer.
On Wednesday, CNN reported two emails provided to Congress by Cohen dated April 21, 2018, show Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani assured Cohen he could “sleep well tonight” because he had “friends in high places.”
The emails were from Robert Costello, a lawyer who was part of the joint defense agreement, allegedly sent after speaking to Giuliani. Costello said that Cohen asked him to raise the issue of a pardon with Giuliani.
Giuliani told CNN the emails were not about a pardon, rather, “That was about Michael Cohen thinking that the President was mad at him,” adding, “I called (Costello) to reassure him that the President was not mad.”
On Wednesday, NYT reported federal prosecutors have requested emails and documents from Costello as part of an investigation into “possible violations of federal criminal law.”
Costello wrote to Cohen, “I am sure you saw the news that Rudy is joining the Trump legal team,” sayingCostello’s relationship with Rudy “could be very very useful for you.” Cohen wrote back to Costello, “Great news.”
Costello had agreed to reach out to Trump’s team on behalf of Cohen, and had about a dozen conversations with Giuliani, who was Trump’s lead lawyer at the time, creating a “back channel of communication.”
During one conversation, Costello asked if Trump would put a pardon “on the table” for Cohen. Giuliani responded that Trump was unwilling to discuss pardons at that time.
An email sent on June 13 from Costello to Cohen suggested Giuliani was about to speak to Trump, and said if Cohen had a message to convey “you should tell me and my friend will bring it up for discussion this evening.”
On Saturday, Fox News host Jeanine Pirro questioned Rep. Omar’s support for the Constitution, saying she “wears a hijab,” adding. “Is her adherence to this Islamic doctrine indicative of her adherence to Shariah law?”
On Sunday, Fox News said in a statement, “We strongly condemn Jeanine Pirro’s comments about Representative Ilhan Omar. They do not reflect those of the network and we have addressed the matter with her directly.”
On Sunday, an audio recording uncovered by Media Matters of Fox News host Tucker Carlson on “Bubba the Love Sponge Show” revealed he made numerous misogynistic statements, including saying that women are “extremely primitive.”
On Monday, Media Matters released more audio from interviews between 2006 and 2011 of Carlson using racist and homophobic language to describe Iraqi people, African Americans, gay people, and immigrants.
On Monday, after refusing to apologize Sunday, Carlson said on his show “the great American outrage machine is a remarkable thing,” in front of title cards that read “THE MOB” and “CRACKDOWN ON DISSENT.”
On Tuesday, several advertisers had stopped running ads on the shows hosted by Jeanine Pirro and Tucker Carlson.
CNN reported 2,287 people in ICE custody were quarantined due to outbreaks of mumps and other diseases. There has been a spike of contagious diseases in the last year, including 236 cases of the mumps.
On Monday, former Maine Gov. Paul LePage said the Democratic Party’s “money comes from” Jewish donors “for the most part,” in his reasoning for why Jews will donate less after Rep. Omar’s comments.
On Tuesday, “Fox & Friends” ran a segment on “Jexodus,” a combination of the words “Jewish” and “exodus,” with picture of Rep. Omar, with the co-host claiming “now some Jewish millennials are leaving the party.”
Shortly after, Trump tweeted the Jexodus spokesperson, tweeting “Jewish people are leaving the Democratic Party. We saw a lot of anti Israel policies start under the Obama Administration, and it got worsts & worse.”
On Tuesday, WAPO reported the Trump regime will shut down all the international offices of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Duties will be transferred to domestic offices and the State Department.
The Trump regime claimed it is maximizing resources. The closures will slow processing family visa applications, foreign adoptions, and citizenship petitions from members of the military stationed abroad.
The move is viewed by experts as part of the regime’s efforts to discourage foreigners from coming to the U.S., adding that closing the offices will also lower U.S. engagement around the world.
On Tuesday, House Democrats proposed the Dream and Promise Act which would allow more than 2 million immigrants to apply for U.S. citizenship, including “Dreamers” and those with temporary work permits.
On Tuesday, three Democratic lawmakers re-introduced the Journalist Protection Act, citing Trump’s “antagonistic rhetoric” encourages people to think that “violence against journalists is more acceptable.”
On Tuesday, a federal appeals court in Ohio voted to uphold an anti-abortion funding law, which blocks public money for Planned Parenthood.
On Wednesday, Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee tried unsuccessfully to gut protections for Native American women from non-Native men on tribal lands from the Violence Against Women Act.
On Wednesday, the Pentagon instituted Trump’s new transgender policy, requiring transgender persons currently in the military to adhere to the dress and grooming standards of their biological sex.
On Thursday, Vice President Mike Pence and his sister hosted Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, who is openly gay, and his partner. Pence and his wife Karen, who was not present, are both openly anti-LGBTQ.
On Friday, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow reported on an Office of Refugee Resettlement 28-page spreadsheet which shows that acting head Scott Lloyd tracked the pregnancies of unaccompanied minors.
Lloyd tracked information about these girls, including teenagers and pre-teens, who reported being raped and pregnant, and used it to block them from being able to get access to abortions they requested.
On Tuesday, as several countries grounded the Boeing 737 Max 8 after two deadly crashes, Trump tweeted: “Airplanes are becoming far too complex to fly. Pilots are no longer needed, but rather computer scientists from MIT.”
Trump also tweeted, “Always seeking to go one unnecessary step further, when often old and simpler is far better,” adding, “I don’t want Albert Einstein to be my pilot.”
On Tuesday, WSJ reported the top job at the Federal Aviation Administration has been vacant for 14 months, as enforcement fines as dropped by 88% and long delays on the tarmacs have increased.
Thirty-five Congressional mandates have also gone unanswered. Consumer advocates say the Transportation Department has been invisible, with no meaningful enforcement happening.
Transportation Department Secretary Elaine Chao, in a push to reduce regulation, has also stopped a number of rules in progress during the Obama-administration from going into effect.
On Tuesday, Dallas Morning News reported before the two crashes, at least five pilots filed complaints about suspected safety flaws in the Boeing 737 Max 8 in a federal database where pilots can voluntarily report.
An FAA spokesperson said complaints were filed directly to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which serves as a neutral third party, adding, “thus far, our review shows no systemic performance issues.”
On Tuesday, the FAA, at risk of losing its status as the world’s aviation safety leader, doubled down on its decision not to ground the Boeing 737 Max 8, after China, the European Union, India, and other countries did so.
NYT reported Trump spoke Dennis Muilenburg, the chief executive of Boeing, early Tuesday. A statement to the Times by Boeing said Muilenburg “reiterated our position that the Max is a safe aircraft.”
Shortly after the 2016 election, Trump had attacked Boeing publicly over the cost of Air Force One planes. Weeks later, Boeing lowered the cost and donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural committee.
On Wednesday, after 42 other countries had banned flights of the Boeing Max 8, Trump announced he would reverse an earlier FAA decision to keep the jets flying and ground flights, hours after Canada did the same.
On Wednesday, WAPO reported Trump privately disparaged the Boeing 737, saying “it sucks,” and that he had not chosen the model for Air Force One, or for the airline he once ran that went bankrupt.
Trump cited information exchange with Canada: “We were coordinating with Canada.” Throughout the process, Trump reportedly played the role of aviation expert, despite having no formal training in the area.
Experts noted federal regulators typically take the lead on safety issues. Trump announcing the grounding was not normal. Secretary Chao or the acting FAA administrator should have made the announcement.
A federal judge ruled Education Department Secretary Betsy DeVos illegally delayed an Obama-era rule requiring states to address racial disparities in special education programs.
The rule was drafted under the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act to identify districts with “significant disproportionality” of minority students. The judge found DeVos’s delay to be “arbitrary and capricious.”
On Wednesday, in a vote along party lines, the Senate confirmed Neomi Rao to replace Brett Kavanaugh on a key appeals court. Rao had come under scrutiny over her views and writings on date rape and abortion.
In one essay as undergraduate at Yale, Rao had suggested women could avoid rape by remaining sober. She later apologized. Trump has now filled 20% of the nation’s appellate court judgeships.
On Wednesday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Lindsey Graham is moving forward with Trump nominees to to fill two vacant seats in California on the 9th Circuit Court, despite oppositions by CA senators.
A more-than-100-year-old Senate tradition allowed senators from the state to fill out a form called a “blue slip” to indicate opposition to a nominee and block them. For the first time under Graham, these are being ignored.
Trump continues to push through judicial nominees at a record pace. With an additional confirmation of Paul Matey to the 3rd Circuit Court on Tuesday, Trump has now appointed 35 jurists to the appeals bench.
On Friday, the Trump regime announced it will lift protections for the greater sage grouse on nearly 9 million acres, opening the land to leasing opportunities for the oil, gas, and mining industries.
Additionally, Joe Balash, an Interior Department assistant secretary, confirmed to the Post that he told fossil fuel industry leaders the Atlantic coast will be included in the regime’s plan to expand leasing.
Balash also said the regime planned to expand federal leasing to nearly the entire outer continental shelf.Offshore leases in the Atlantic have not been granted for decades, and drilling has not been allowed for a half-century.
On Friday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the regime will revoke or deny visas to International Criminal Court personnel seeking to investigate alleged war crimes and other abuses committed by U.S. forces.
The ICC has a pending request to look into possible war crimes in Afghanistan. Pompeo said the restrictions may also be used to deter efforts “to pursue allied personnel, including Israelis” without their consent.
On Monday, the Miami Herald reported a federal court of appeals in New York took steps to unseal evidence of an international sex trafficking operation run by Jeffrey Epstein and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell.
The documents related to a 2015 case filed by Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who claimed she was recruited by Maxwell while working at Mar-a-Lago when she was 16 years-old and that she and others were sexually abused.
On Monday, in an interview with WAPO Magazine, Speaker Pelosi said, “I’m not for impeachment” adding, “Impeachment is so divisive…unless there’s something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan.”
Pelosi also added, “I don’t think we should go down that path, because it divides the country. And he’s just not worth it.” Her comments drew broad attention, and were closely scrutinized for their meaning and intent.
On Monday, House Oversight Committee Chair Elijah Cummings said he is interested in speaking to Sheri Dillon and Stefan Passantino, attorneys responsible for Trump’s ethics and financial disclosures.
Cummings said in his request both “appeared to provide false information” to federal prosecutors relating to payments to Cohen by Trump. So far the two are not cooperating.
On Tuesday, the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee released the transcript from the committee’s interview of Lisa Page, the second transcript released following that of Bruce Ohr.
Page explained her talk with Peter Strzok of an “insurance policy” referenced the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into the Trump’s team colluding with Russia taking on a greater significance if he won.
Page also pushed back that the FBI did not charge Hillary Clinton, saying the move would be too “constitutionally vague,” unprecedented, and “that they did not feel that they could sustain a charge.”
On Wednesday, Sen. Rand Paul tweeted, “FBI Mistress, Lisa Page confirmed….there was an anti-Trump Insurance Policy,” adding, “it’s the fake Russian investigation…yet they continued with WITCH HUNT!”
On Monday, New York Attorney General Letitia James’ office opened an investigation into financing of four major Trump Organization projects and Trump’s failed effort to buy the N.F.L.’s Buffalo Bills in 2014.
The office subpoenaed Deutsche Bank and Investors Bank for records relating to the financing of the deals, at a time when other banks would not lend. The new inquiry was prompted by Cohen’s testimony.
The inquiry is civil, not criminal, and its scope is unclear. The four deals being investigated are Trump Hotel DC; the Trump National Doral outside Miami; and the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago.
On Tuesday, Trump tweeted, “New York State and its Governor, Andrew Cuomo, are now proud members of the group of PRESIDENTIAL HARASSERS,” adding, “The Witch Hunt continues!”
On Wednesday, NY AG James announced she had reached an agreement with New York lawmakers to amend the state’s double jeopardy laws, adding “We anticipate that the bill will be passed in the coming week.”
On Wednesday, in a series of morning tweets, Trump quoted a GOP tweet and NY AG James, adding “All part of the Witch Hunt Hoax. Started by little Eric Schneiderman & Cuomo. So many leaving New York!”
Trump also retweeted an analysis by his supporters Diamond and Silk, saying “AG Letitia James of New Yorkis abusing her power by targeting” him, adding it is “against the Law and a violation of the Hatch Act.”
Trump also tweeted, “I greatly appreciate Nancy Pelosi’s statement against impeachment,” saying, “I never did anything wrong,” and claiming he is the leader with “the most successful first two years in history.”
Trump also retweeted comments by Geraldo Rivera, saying Pelosi’s comments “are refreshing & conciliatory,” adding once Mueller exonerates Trump of allegations that “he’s a Russian spy, let’s move on.”
Trump also parroted words by former late night host Jay Leno on “Fox & Friends,” tweeting “comedy is totally one-sided,” adding “the one-sided hatred on these shows is incredible and for me, unwatchable.”
Trump then tweeted, “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” and then “KEEP AMERICA GREAT!”
Trump also accused “the Fake News” of editing photos of First Lady Melania Trump to stoke “conspiracy theories “that it’s actually not her by my side in Alabama and other places.”
Trump also seized on the release of the Page transcripts, tweeting “the just revealed FBI Agent Lisa Page transcripts make the Obama Justice Department look exactly like it was, a broken and corrupt machine.”
Later Wednesday, Trump quoted Fox News, tweeting “Double Standard,” Page “admits being told to go easy on Clinton,” and a second tweet saying, “Page testified Russian Collusion was still unproven.”
Trump also tweeted he agrees with a tweet by Sen. Rand Paul, in which Paul uses Trump-like terms including, “FBI Mistress, Lisa Page,” “the fake Russian investigation!,” and “WITCH HUNT!”
On Thursday, NY AG James told a judge in filing that Trump should “pay a $5.6 million penalty on top of $2.8 million in restitution for spending money” for using the Trump Foundation for business and political purposes.
James said “Trump caused the foundation to enter repeatedly into self-dealing transactions and to coordinate unlawfully with his presidential campaign.” James is seeking a ruling without a trial.
On Wednesday, Rep. Jerrold Nadler told reporters that in a closed-door meeting with former acting AG Matthew Whitaker, contrary to his public testimony, did not deny Trump had called him to discuss the Cohen investigation.
Nadler said Whitaker had been “directly involved” in conversations about whether to fire unspecified U.S. attorneys, and in discussions about the “scope of the Southern District [of New York] attorney and his recusal.”
Conversations about curtailing New York prosecutors’ investigations into Cohen could propel investigations by Congress and Mueller’s team into whether Trump sought to obstruct justice.
On Thursday, the House voted 420-0 to pass a resolution calling for Mueller’s report to be made available to the public and Congress. The resolution is non-binding.
Shortly after, when Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called for a vote on the measure, Trump ally Sen. Graham effectively blocked the Senate from taking it up.
Graham said he would only move forward if the resolution also included the appointment of a new special counsel to investigate how the DOJ conducted its investigation, pointing to the surveillance of Carter Page.
On Wednesday, ahead of the Senate vote, in a series of tweets, Trump said “Prominent legal scholars agree” that his national emergency is “both CONSTITUTIONAL and EXPRESSLY authorized by Congress.”
Trump also tweeted, “If, at a later date, Congress wants to update the law, I will support those efforts, but today’s issue is BORDER SECURITY and Crime!!!” adding, “Don’t vote with Pelosi!”
Trump also tweeted, “A vote for today’s resolution by Republican Senators is a vote for Nancy Pelosi, Crime, and the Open Border Democrats!”
On Thursday, in a rebuke to Trump, the Senate voted 59-41 to block Trump’s national emergency declaration, with 12 Republicans crossing over to join Democrats. Trump has vowed to veto the measure.
Moments later, Trump tweeted “VETO!”
On Wednesday, in Washington D.C., Judge Amy Berman Jackson sentenced Manafort to 43 months, bringing his total time in prison to seven and a half years, including his sentence in Virginia in Week 121.
After two hours of discussion in which Manafort finally apologized, Jackson described how he deceived the American public, and how secret lobbying on behalf of foreign governments in the U.S. hurts democracy.
Jackson also said Manafort “backed away from the facts,” and that “Court is one of those places where facts still matter,” adding, “if the people don’t have the facts, democracy doesn’t work.”
Jackson made several strong statements before sentencing Manafort about the “no collusion” bunk, saying “the ‘no collusion’ mantra is simply a non sequitur,” and “not accurate, because the investigation is still ongoing.”
After the hearing, Manafort’s attorney Kevin Downing falsely claimed the judge “conceded that there was absolutely no evidence of any Russian collusion” and “two courts have ruled ‘no evidence of any collusion.’”
Downing had falsely claimed the same after the Virginia case, seeming to communicate with Trump. Shortly after, Trump told reporters of Manafort, “I feel badly for him,” adding it’s a “very sad situation.”
Trump also told reporters, “On a human basis, it’s a sad thing,” and when asked about a possible pardon said, “I have not even given it a thought as of this moment,” and “It’s not something now that’s on my mind.”
On Wednesday, a short time after Manafort’s sentencing, Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance charged Manafort with 16 crimes, including mortgage fraud and more than a dozen other state felonies.
Vance said Wednesday the charges were filed to ensure Manafort will face prison time even if Trump pardons him for federal crimes. Manafort’s attorneys will challenge the indictment on double-jeopardy grounds.
On Thursday, at a brief scheduling hearing, Judge Amy Berman Jackson set a trial date for Roger Stone of November 5, but did not address the issue of his latest possible gag order violation.
Departing court, Stone’s attorney Robert Buschel told ABC News, “When I’m walking out of court with my client, it’s a good day,” referring to the possibility Stone could have been incarcerated for violating the gag order.
On Thursday, in documents released related to Russian businessman, Aleksej Gubarev’s lawsuit against BuzzFeed, forensic evidence revealed his company was involved with the hack of John Podesta’s emails.
The report found evidence which “suggests that Russian cyber espionage groups used XBT infrastructure to support malicious spear phishing campaigns against the Democratic Party leadership” and resulted in the theft of emails.
On Wednesday, Bloomberg reported Russian President Vladimir Putin supports new laws passed in the upper house of parliament which punish online media for spreading “fake news,” and jailing critics for disrespect.
On Thursday, Rep. Cummings requested documents and an interview with former Fox News reporter Diana Falzone about Trump’s “debts and payments to silence women” prior to the 2016 presidential election.
In his letter, Rep. Cummings also requested information about any “action taken against” Falzone in “connection with attempts to report on such stories.” Falzone’s attorney said she will comply.
On Thursday, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross testified before the House Oversight Committee on whether he lied to Congress when he testified last year about his decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.
Ross’s testimony came after a second federal judge found he violated federal law and the Constitution. Ross maintained the basis for his decision was the official DOJ memo released in March 2018.
Democrats grilled Ross, and clashed with Republicans during the hearing. Chair Cummings requested Ross provide documents and written answers to unanswered questions, else possibly face a subpoena.
On Friday, CNN reported that Trump’s lawyers are refusing to make former chief of staff John Kelly available for questioning on granting of security clearances. Rep.Cummings called it “stonewalling.”
On Thursday, a New York appellate court voted 3-2, ruling Summer Zervos’ lawsuit against Trump can proceed, rejecting Trump’s argument that he cannot be sued in state court while in office.
The decision will likely mean Trump will have to sit for a sworn deposition, currently scheduled for June. Zervos was one of 19 women who publicly accused Trump of sexual misconduct during the 2016 campaign.
On Tuesday, a joint status report filed by Mueller’s team and Michael Flynn’s attorneys indicated Flynn’s cooperation with the special counsel is “complete,” adding “Flynn remains “in a position to cooperate” if needed.
On Thursday, NPR reported prosecutor Andrew Weissman is stepping down. The spokesperson for the special counsel said Weissman “will be concluding his detail to the special counsel’s office in the near future.”
Weissman, who Steve Bannon called “the LeBron James of money laundering investigations,” had led the prosecution of Manafort, and is in talks with New York University Law School about a job.
Weissman’s imminent departure, along with the recent resignation of the senior-most FBI agent working on Mueller’s team, Special Agent in Charge David Archey, signaled to some that the probe could be close to complete.
On Friday, in a court filing, Mueller’s team said former Trump campaign official Rick Gates “continues to cooperate with respect to several ongoing investigations,” and asked to delay his sentencing.
The joint report from Mueller and Gates’ attorneys asked for a 60 day delay before providing the next updateon Gates’ status, countering the narrative that the Mueller probe was about to wrap up.
On Thursday, in an interview released by Breitbart, Trump said, “You know, the left plays a tougher game, it’s very funny. I actually think that the people on the right are tougher.”
Trump warned, “I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump — I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough,” adding, “it would be very bad, very bad.”
On Friday, at least 49 people were murdered while worshipping at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. Part of the massacre was broadcast live on Facebook in a 17-minute long video.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern called the attack “an extraordinary and unprecedented act of violence.” The killer also sent a manifesto to Ardern, media, and lawmakers minutes before the attack.
The killer said in his manifesto he wanted to “incite violence, retaliation and further divide” and used Trump terms like “invaders,” attacking “mass immigration,” and said he hoped to “directly reduce immigration rates.”
Similar to the Pittsburgh synagogue killing, the killer said in his manifesto that he drew inspiration from the rise of white nationalism in America, calling Trump a symbol “of renewed white identity and common purpose.”
The killer also identified conservative commentator Candace Owens as his biggest influence in the manifesto, writing “her own views helped push me further and further into the belief of violence over meekness.”
Some democrats pointed to Trump’s long record of derogatory remarks about Muslims, his Muslim ban, and comments about Charlottesville in 2017, saying that both sides included “some very fine people.”
On Friday, Trump tweeted: “My warmest sympathy and best wishes goes out to the people of New Zealandafter the horrible massacre,” adding, “The U.S. stands by New Zealand for anything we can do. God bless all!”
Trump then continued in a series of tweets, quoting a Fox News segment: “The ‘Jexodus’ movement encourages Jewish people to leave the Democrat Party,” adding, “Republicans are waiting with open arms.”
Trump then again quoted Fox News, tweeting: “New evidence that the Obama era team of the FBI, DOJ & CIA were working together” to spy on and “take out” Trump, adding, “Peter Strzok’s testimony is devastating.”
Trump also tweeted, “there was knowingly & acknowledged to be ‘zero’ crime when the Special Counsel was appointed,” adding, “the appointment was made based on the Fake Dossier (paid for by Crooked Hillary).”
Trump also cited, “now disgraced Andrew McCabe,” and said that the special counsel “should never have been appointed” and that “there should be no Mueller Report.”
Trump then concluded, tweeting “….THIS SHOULD NEVER HAPPEN TO A PRESIDENT AGAIN!”
On Friday, in a letter to the attorney general, Sen. Graham requested a complete record of documents, conversations, and other communications relating to the discussions about removing Trump from office.
Graham said conversations involving former FBI director Andrew McCabe and deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein and others about the 25th Amendment amount to “a coup” and promised to investigate.
On Friday, Trump told reporters he does not believe white nationalism is a rising threat, saying, “I don’t really. I think it’s a small group of people that have very, very serious problems.”
When by reporters if she agreed with Trump’s comment that he doesn’t see white nationalism as a rising global threat, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said, “No.”
On Friday, Trump issued his first veto after Congress voted to block his emergency declaration. Trump called the resolution to block his declaration “dangerous,” “reckless” and a “vote against reality.”
After having previously acknowledged he could have waited for his declaration, Trump provided a flurry of statistics to support the contention that this was an emergency, though many were vague.
Trump claimed that there is an “invasion” into the U.S. by migrants, adding so many of them had been apprehended that there was “nowhere left to hold all of the people that we’re capturing.”
Trump was flanked by Pence, DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, and Attorney General William Barr, who said the emergency order was “clearly authorized under the law” and “solidly grounded in law.”
Secretary Nielsen said, “The fact that this is an emergency is undeniable. We have not seen this type of flow. As you know, it’s predominantly families and children…there’s a very unique and dangerous humanitarian crisis.”
Pence said, “I don’t know that I have never been more proud to stand next to your desk than I am today,” adding “We have a crisis on our southern border.”
Trump was also flanked by so-called Angel Moms, telling one before he signed the veto, “They will not have died in vain. Did I tell you that a long time ago? Three years ago, when we first met.”
GOP Sen. Lamar Alexander noted the unprecedented nature of Trump asking for funding from Congress, Congress denying it, and then Trump using the “National Emergencies Act of 1976 to spend the money anyway.”
On Friday, Speaker Pelosi said the House will vote to override Trump’s veto “to protect our Constitution and our democracy” on March 26, accusing Trump of a “lawless power grab.”
On Friday, WAPO reported according to a court docket entry, Cesar Sayoc, the man accused of mailing bombs to Trump’s critics in Week 102, is likely to plead guilty to federal charges next week.
On Friday, the WAPO Editorial Board condemned Trump’s response to the shooting, saying he should have spoken out about the killer and his nativist rhetoric, and noting his own rhetoric overlapped with the killer on Friday.
The Post also noted that just hours later, Trump cited an “invasion” of immigrants to justify his national emergency declaration to build a wall.
On Tuesday, Talking Points Memo reported Li “Cindy” Yang, who co-founded GY US Investments LLC with her husband, was also using proximity to Trump and his regime to peddle investor visas.
GY US Investments offered “immigration investment projects,” a reference to the EB-5 visa program under which foreign citizens can get a two-year U.S. green card in exchange for making certain investments.
On Friday, WAPO reported although Yang has not been accused of any wrongdoing, her ability to provide access raises concerns about access to Trump and his regime for members and guests of his clubs.
Articles have identified Yang as deputy director of the Florida branch of the Council for the Promotion of the Peaceful Reunification of China, whose chapters are overseen by a wing of the Chinese Communist Party.
An expert noted China’s Communist Party seeks to “co-opt and control” diaspora communities to spread pro-China views. Sources say there is relatively light screening of guests at Mar-a-Lago.
On Saturday, Trump tweeted that he told House Republicans to vote to release the Mueller report, saying “ Makes us all look good and doesn’t matter. Play along with the game!”

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Trump holds an executive veto, his first, in the Oval Office of the White House March 15, 2019 in Washington, DC. President Trump vetoed the congressional resolution that blocks his national emergency declaration on the southern border.

POLITIKS OF GRAFFITI 122: A “FOX”Y REGIME

Published on March 10, 2019 by jacquelinemhadel1 Comment

MARCH 09, 2019

Week 121

Experts in authoritarianism advise to keep a list of things
subtly changing around you, so you’ll remember. https://theweeklylist.org/weekly-list/week-121/

By parisemike in Venice, California. March 2019.

This week a bombshell exposé by Jane Mayer on the ties between Trump and Fox News sparked questions of whether America had its first version of state TV. The piece had broad fallout, and sparked a renewed conversation on the line between journalism and propaganda.

This week Democrats ramped up investigations, while Trump hit back and escalated his pace of daily lies and misleading statements. With Congressional hearings finally underway, Trump and his regime continued a pattern of irreverent corruption and kleptocracy, as well as continued efforts to limit transparency and hide information.

A shocking story by an NBC affiliate revealed U.S. Customs and Border Patrol has been keeping a database of journalists and other activists involved at the Southern border, the second list by the Trump regime targeting U.S. journalists that has been uncovered since Trump came into power. The regime also reportedly revoked an award from a journalist who had been critical of Trump on social media.

Several revealing and concerning stories about haphazard U.S. foreign policy were reported, seeming to suggest increasingly that decisions are being made solely by Trump, who continues to show a general disinterest in, and at times hostility towards, both U.S. intelligence and protocols. This week the Commerce Department reported the largest trade deficit in goods in the nation’s history, as Trump’s isolationist policies and trade wars took hold — the federal budget deficit also ballooned, largely as a result of the Republican tax break.

On Saturday, The Atlantic reported House Oversight Committee Democrats are poring over the Cohen testimony. Chairman Rep. Elijah Cummings said the transcript is providing a road map for Democrats to follow.
WAPO reported in Trump’s first 773 days in office, he has made 9,014 false or misleading claims. Trump has escalated the pace from 5.9 per day in his first year, to 16.5 per day in his second, to 22 per day so far in 2019.
A leaked document obtained by NBC station KNSD-TV revealed U.S. Custom and Border Protection kept a secret database tracking 59 journalists and immigration advocates related to the caravans.
The database, compiled with the help of Mexican authorities, labeled people as organizers, instigators, or “unknown,” and said they should be targeted for screening at the border.
The database included 10 journalists, seven of whom are U.S. citizens, and included 31 Americans in all. Based on symbols on the database, 12 appeared to have been questioned and nine were arrested at the border.
NBC News confirmed that several people in the database had been pulled aside at the border and told they were being questioned as part of a “national security investigation.”
On Thursday, according to a statement from Customs and Border Protection, the Department of Homeland Security and the House Homeland Security Committee are investigating whether CBP agents targeted journalists for questioning.
Foreign Policy reported the State Department rescinded a “Women of Courage” award for Finnish journalist Jessikka Aro without explanation, reportedly after seeing her social media posts that were critical of Trump.
NBC News reported just two days after Trump’s failed second summit with Kim Jong Un, photo imagery by Beyond Parallel revealed North Korea is “rapid rebuilding” the long-range rocket site at Sohae Launch Facility.
On Saturday, WAPO reported despite the ongoing investigations of Trump and his failed North Korea summit, Republicans continue to rally around Trump. His ownership of the party was especially visible at CPAC.
Republicans cited Trump’s pull in the primaries, a fraying consensus about conservatism as nationalism, an overhaul of the judiciary branch, and a shared disdain of the media and Democrats.
Fox News host Sean Hannity said on his show of Trump critics: “I think they put themselves at great jeopardy.” An increase in tribalism was also cited, with a senator saying Watergate might not be prosecuted today.
On Saturday, Trump skipped the annual Gridiron dinner in D.C. Ivanka, who Trump reportedly asked to sub in for him that afternoon, said, “As if being Donald Trump’s daughter isn’t the hardest job in the world.”
On Sunday, NYT reported that following Trump’s public criticism of their agencies, intelligence chiefs have revamped their presentations to Trump to focus on what he wants to hear about: economics and trade.
Intelligence officials giving Trump briefings worked to answer his repeated question of who is winning — meaning what country is making more money. Briefers also use charts and graphs of economic data.
Trump has also reduced in-person briefings to twice a week by either director of national intelligence Dan Coats or C.I.A. director Gina Haspel, featuring far more charts and visual aids to appeal to Trump.
Trump is easily bored by activities and motivations of secondary foreign officials, and has shown less interestthan previous leaders on potential terrorist plots or spy work. Trump only wants information he agrees with.
WAPO reported two years in, Trump’s national security officials and Republican allies are struggling to defend and explain his haphazard foreign policy statements — the mantra: it is what Trump says it is.
Trump’s foreign policy is described as “part nationalist, part conservative, part isolationist, part militaristic pageantry.” Trump distrusts traditional allies like NATO, slapping tariffs on allies and adversaries.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has had trouble being in sync on Trump’s statements on North Korea, and trade negotiator Robert Lighthizer was corrected by Trump in front of Chinese officials in the Oval Office.
On Sunday, when asked about North Korea’s involvement in Otto Warmbier’s death on “State of the Union,” national security adviser John Bolton responded that “My opinion doesn’t matter.”
On Wednesday, Trump signed an executive order canceling the requirement that U.S. intelligence officials publicly report the number of civilians killed in drone strikes on terrorist targets outside war zones.
Rep. Adam Schiff called it “a troubling retreat from transparency,” and other experts warned the lack of data would give propaganda to Islamist extremists who claim the U.S. acts without regard for civilians.
On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said his security forces had nabbed 600 spies during 2018, including 129 officers and 465 agents of foreign intelligence agencies.
Putin told Russian state news TASS, “Just like before, and now probably even harder, (foreign intelligence services) are trying to influence events in our country,” adding they are seeking to “step up” their activities.
Putin did not specify any countries by name. Paul Whelan, a resident of Michigan and a former Marine who was arrested last year on suspicion of espionage, is being held at the Lefortovo detention center in Moscow.
On Thursday, Daily Beast reported U.S. embassy staffers in Riyadh said Jared Kushner did not include any embassy officials in his meeting last week with Saudi King Salman and Crown Prince MBS.
Additionally, the Saudi government provided security and handled the entire schedule for Kushner and his entourage, responsibilities typically carried out by the U.S. embassy. Little detail of the meeting was given.
On Friday, Bloomberg reported the Trump regime is drawing up plans to demand allies, including Germany and Japan and eventually other countries hosting U.S. troops, pay the full price of American soldiers deployed on their soil.
On Monday, 21 states and D.C. sued the Trump regime over a rule announced in Week 119 which would prevent family planning clinics that provide abortions or abortion referrals from receiving federal funds.
For the third time, Rep. Steve King promoted Faith Goldy, a Canadian white nationalist, in a tweet. Goldy once recommended a book calling for the “elimination of Jews” and has appeared on The Daily Stormer podcast.
On Monday, a federal judge said the Trump regime violated the law when it halted the Obama-era Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s efforts to collect pay data by race and gender from large companies.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ordered the regime to reinstate the rule, saying the government had failed to demonstrate that the requirements would “meaningfully increase the burden on employers.”
WAPO reported while Trump invited the NCAA’s Division 2 football champs to the White House, he has not invited any women’s championship teams. Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton did so numerous times.
A poster at an event sponsored by the Republican Party of West Virginia which linked Rep. Ilhan Omar to 9/11 sparked outrage. The poster was put up by ACT for America, classified as an anti-Muslim hate group by the SPLC.
On Monday, after tornadoes hit Alabama, Trump tweeted: “FEMA has been told directly by me to give the A Plus treatment” to the red state, in contrast to mismanagement in Puerto Rico, and threats to California.
On Monday, HuffPost reported Trump is advancing young judicial nominees who are members of the Federalist Society, and hold ideologies that are extremely anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ.
On Tuesday, the Senate confirmed Allison Rushing, 37, to the federal appeals court. Rushing interned for Alliance Defending Freedom, an anti-LGBTQ group. She was opposed by over 200 civil rights organizations.
On Tuesday, a group of male Republican New Hampshire lawmakers wore pearls to a Congressional hearing, seeming to mock mothers of victims of gun violence who also attended the hearing.
On Wednesday, a federal judge ruled Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross violated the constitutional underpinning of representative democracy by adding a citizenship question to the 2020 Census.
U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg in San Francisco also found Ross made a “strong showing of bad faith” by trying to conceal his motives behind adding the question.
The judge also said Ross was fully aware that the question would result in a census undercount, particularly among Latinos, adding Ross engaged in a “cynical search” to find an expert who approved of his plan.
On Wednesday, the House Oversight Committee opened an investigation into Georgia’s voting problems, sending a letter to Gov. Brian Kemp, who at the time when he ran for governor also served as secretary of state.
Issues under investigation included voter purges and suspensions, malfunctioning and hackable machines, and efforts to close precincts and polling places — all of which may have contributed to voter suppression.
On Friday, News 4 reported administrators at Sidwell Friends School in D.C. are investigating high school students who included two swastikas and racist imagery in an on-screen presentation made for 500 students.
On Friday, Daily News reported school administrators in Bronxville, New York are investigating an allegation that a teacher held a fake auction in which her white students bid on black students pretending to be slaves.
On Friday, College of Charleston students walked out of class to protest the school administration’s slow response to a video shot during a First Year Experience class which featured slavery jokes and racist slurs.
A police officer in Boulder, Colorado was placed on administrative leave after a video went viral of him drawing his gun on a black student, who works and lives at the property, picking up trash in front of his home.
On Saturday, NBC News reported 29 parents who had been deported to Central America by immigration officers returned to the southern border to demand asylum and reunification with their children.
The parents have 27 children in U.S. custody, the youngest 5 years-old — some separated from their children for more than a year. Some children are still detained, and others are living with foster families or relatives.
On Sunday, Trump tweeted: “After more than two years of Presidential Harassment, the only things that have been proven is that Democrats and other broke the law.”
Trump also tweeted that the Michael Cohen testimony was “given by a liar to reduce his prison time,” adding Cohen’s “just written book manuscript showed” it’s a lie. Cohen’s lawyer said the manuscript Trump references does not exist.
Trump also tweeted: “I am an innocent man being persecuted by some very bad, conflicted & corrupt people in a Witch Hunt,” adding the investigation is “only because I won the Election!”
On Sunday, House Judiciary Chair Jerrold Nadler told “This Week” his committee will be issuing documentsto dozens of entities and individuals. Asked if he thought Trump obstructed justice, Nadler responded, “Yes, I do.”
On Sunday, Senate Intelligence ranking democrat Mark Warner told “Meet the Press” his committee has found “enormous amounts of evidence” of potential collusion between Trump and Russians during the 2016 election.
On Sunday, House Intelligence chair Adam Schiff told “Face the Nation” that his committee has uncovered both “direct evidence” and “abundant circumstantial evidence” of the Trump campaign colluding with Russia.
On Sunday, in the evening, Trump tweeted: “Presidential Harassment by “crazed” Democrats at the highest level in the history,” and “the most vicious and corrupt Mainstream Media” any president has endured.
He also tweeted, yet the most “successful first two years,” adding “We are WINNING big, the envy of the WORLD.”
On Monday, an exposé by Jane Mayer in The New Yorker reported on ties between Trump and Fox News, with an expert saying it is the closest our country has come to having state TV.
Since Trump took office, he has given 42 interviews to Fox News (7 to Hannity alone), while only giving 10 to the three major television networks combined, and none to CNN.
Mayer also reported, citing information compiled by the left-leaning watchdog group Media Matters, thatTrump has parroted lines from Fox News shows more than 200 times on Twitter since August 2018.
In addition to Bill Shine, Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications, other ex Fox News alumni who worked for Trump include Ben Carson, John Bolton, K.T. McFarland, Heather Nauert, Hope Hicks, and Sebastian Gorka.
Shine, who was complicit in a workplace culture of coverups, payoffs, and victim intimidation relating to sexual assault, is still being paid millions from Fox News even while collecting a paycheck from the White House.
Trump frequently retweets claims of Fox News during his “Executive Time.” Although press secretary Sarah Sanders has stopped doing daily press briefings, she has appeared on Fox News shows thirty times.
Mayer also reported prior to the network’s presidential debate, Fox employees may have alerted Trump that Megyn Kelly was going to ask him tough questions, including on his alleged mistreatment of women.
Fox News also reportedly killed the Stormy Daniels story ahead of the election. Fox reporter Diana Falzone, who uncovered it, was told “Good reporting, kiddo. But Rupert wants Donald Trump to win. So just let it go.”
Mayer also reported that in a Oval Office meeting with John Kelly, Trump pressured Gary Cohn to tell the DOJ to block the AT&T-Time Warner merger, over Trump’s ire against CNN. Cohn told Kelly not to follow through.
On Tuesday, WAPO reported in a letter responding to Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Pramila Jayapal, T-Mobile acknowledged it had spent $195,000 at the Trump Hotel DC after announcing a merger with Sprint.
T-Mobile spent 14% of its D.C. expenditures over those 10 months at Trump Hotel DC. The T-Mobile-Sprint megamerger will require approval from the DOJ and Federal Communications Commission.
On Wednesday, the Democratic National Committee barred Fox News from hosting or televising a candidate debate for the party’s 2020 primary election, a highly unusual rebuke.
Chairman Tom Perez said in a statement Fox News “is not in a position to host a fair and neutral debate for our candidates,” citing Mayer’s reporting showing an “inappropriate relationship” between Trump and the network.
On Wednesday, Trump tweeted, “Democrats just blocked @FoxNews from holding a debate,” adding, “I think I’ll do the same thing with the Fake News Networks and the Radical Left Democrats in the General Election.”
On Friday, Nancy Erica Smith, lawyer for Diana Falzone issued a statement demanding Fox release her from her nondisclosure agreement so she can talk about getting the Stormy Daniels story before the 2016 election.
On Tuesday, WAPO reported that in 2011, shortly after Trump challenged President Obama to “show his record,” the headmaster at New York Military Academy, which Trump attended, was instructed to bury Trump’s record.
The academy superintendent, Jeffrey Coverdale, told the Post some trustees gave him a directive to hand over Trump’s records to them, but he refused, instead for the first time moving them elsewhere on campus.
Coverdale left the school in 2013, and is not sure what happened after. On the campaign trail, Trump over-inflated his academic success in high school and college. Trump was not an academic standout at the academy.
On Sunday, Roger Stone posted an image on Instagram which contained an image of him under the words “Who framed Roger Stone.” The post was up for roughly 24 hours before Stone apparently deleted it.
On Monday, Mueller’s team notified Judge Amy Jackson Berman of the post, saying it could be in violation of the judge’s gag order, which covers “posts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or any other form of social media.”
On Tuesday, Judge Jackson blasted Stone in court over his new book that criticizes Mueller, and demandedthat Stone explain his efforts to comply with the gag order by March 11.
Judge Jackson also chastised Stone’s lawyers for misrepresenting to her that publication of the book, titled “The Myth of Russian Collusion,” was “imminent,” after they admitted the book is already on sale.
Judge Jackson will decide whether the book release and/or the Instagram post violate the gag order and justify consequences for Stone. A status conference for Stone was previously scheduled for March 14.
On Monday, Jerome Corsi retracted an article he wrote in 2018 for InfoWars and apologized. The article claimed murdered Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich was behind leaking DNC emails to Wikileaks.
Corsi also tweeted, telling followers “I’m not being threatened,” and wrote, “As Christians gentleman, I have sympathy for the suffering the Seth Rich family has gone through. I hope all will understand that. God Bless.”
On Monday, former lead counsel for Trump Ty Cobb told an ABC News podcast that Mueller is an “American hero,” and, parting ways with Trump added, “I don’t feel the investigation is a witch hunt.”
Cobb also said he disagreed with the more confrontational approach being taken by Trump’s current legal team, saying it “wouldn’t have been” his strategy, adding that he doesn’t “feel the same way about Mueller.”
On Monday, House Ways and Means Chair Richard Neal said his committee will likely seek 10 years of Trump’s tax returns, relying on a 1924 law that gives tax-writing committees broad powers.
On Monday, the House Judiciary Committee announced it is sending 81 letters seeking information and documents from individuals and groups relating to Trump’s campaign, businesses, transition, and regime.
Rep. Nadler said in a statement: “Trump has evaded accountability for his near-daily attacks on our basic legal, ethical, and constitutional rules and norms.” The investigation will focus on obstruction of justice by Trump.
When asked by reporters Monday if he would cooperate, Trump responded: “I cooperate all the time with everybody,” adding, “no collusion. It’s all a hoax.” Recipients have until March 18 to respond.
Later, press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement that Nadler and the Democrats “have embarked on this fishing expedition,” adding, “they are terrified” that their “false narrative of ‘Russia collusion’ is crumbling.”
On Monday, Rep. Schiff said he has hired Daniel Goldman, a veteran prosecutor in the SDNY with experiencefighting Russian organized crime, to lead his committee’s investigation of the Trump regime.
Goldman will join two other former federal prosecutors. The House Intelligence Committee will beaggressively investigating whether collusion occurred between the Trump campaign and Russia.
On Monday, Fox News host Sean Hannity blasted the House investigation, calling it a “gruesome display of modern-day McCarthyism.”
On Tuesday, Trump parroted Hannity’s comments, tweeting: “We the people will now be subjected to the biggest display of modern day McCarthyism,” adding, “which is the widest fishing net expedition.”
Trump also started undermining the 2020 election, tweeting Democrats were “vicious and totally showed their cards,” adding they “are trying to win an election in 2020 that they know they cannot legitimately win!”
Trump’s 2020 campaign said in a statement: “These desperate Democrats know they cannot beat President Trump in 2020,” saying instead they are on a “disgraceful witch hunt” to “topple the will of the American people.”
On Tuesday, former Trump campaign aide Michael Caputo said he does not plan to cooperate with the House inquiry, and is working with some of the 80 others to begin a joint strategy of resisting requests for testimony.
On Tuesday, a new Quinnipiac University poll found 64% of registered voters believe Trump had committed crimes before entering office, and 45% think he committed crimes while serving in office.
After Cohen’s Congressional testimony last week, 50% believe Cohen and 35% believe Trump. Just 30% believe Trump is honest, the lowest rating in the poll since Trump took office.
On Tuesday, House Oversight Chair Cummings said the White House refused to hand over documents related to security clearances to his committee. Instead, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone offered a briefing.
On Wednesday, CNN reported Trump pressured John Kelly and White House counsel Don McGahn to grant security clearance to Ivanka after concerns were raised by the personnel office.
After both Kelly and McGahn refused, Trump granted Ivanka and Jared security clearances on his own. Three weeks ago, Ivanka told ABC News that Trump had “no involvement” in her or Kushner’s clearance.
On Friday, Axios reported a White House source leaked documents to the House Oversight Committee related to Kushner and Ivanka’s security clearance, after the White House rejected the request.
On Monday, NBC News reported Matthew Whitaker, who had been serving as a senior counselor since Attorney General William Barr was sworn in, left the Justice Department. His next move was unclear.
On Tuesday, WSJ reported Trump plans to nominate Jessie Liu to the number 3 spot at the DOJ, replacing Rachel Brand who left in February 2018. Liu would be the lone minority woman in DOJ leadership.
Liu previously served on Trump’s transition team at the DOJ, and acknowledged she had an in-person interview with Trump before he nominated her to be U.S. attorney, something highly unusual.
On Tuesday, NYT reported New York state regulators have subpoenaed Aon PLC, Trump’s insurance broker, following Cohen’s House testimony last week that Trump exaggerated his wealth to insurance companies.
The nine-page subpoena served by a state agency which is part of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration demands materials relating to Aon’s business with Trump and the Trump Org dating back to 2009.
On Tuesday, Trump tweeted: “PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT!”
On Tuesday, Trump told reporters, “It’s too bad,” adding, “Instead of doing infrastructure, instead of doing health care, instead of doing so many things that they should be doing, they want to play games.”
On Tuesday, NYT reported it had obtained six checks written by Trump while in office of $35,000 each paid to Michael Cohen — one of 11 such payments made to Cohen to reimburse for hush money payments.
The dates on the check revealed the parallel lives Trump was leading while in office and conducting the country’s business, while paying for efforts to keep his affairs out of the public eye in the run up to the 2016 election.
Cohen claimed the checks started in February 2017 after a meeting in the Oval Office. The first check for January and February for $70,000 was signed on February 14 by Donald Jr. and Allen Weisselberg.
On Tuesday, WSJ reported a lawyer for Michael Cohen, Stephen Ryan, approached Trump’s attorneys about the possibility of a pardon after the FBI raided Cohen’s properties in April 2018.
Trump attorneys, including Jay Sekulow, Rudy Giuliani, and Joanna Hendon, dismissed the idea of a pardon; however, Giuliani left open the possibility that Trump could grant one in the future.
Ryan also approached Trump Organization general counsel Alan Garten and outside attorney Alan Futerfas. Ryan left the impression if Cohen could not rely on a pardon, he might cooperate with SDNY prosecutors.
Conversations among parties on this topic are being probed by the House Judiciary Committee, and were part of their document requests made on Monday.
On Tuesday, NBC News reported the House and Senate intelligence committees are also investigating the pardon discussions. It is not clear how serious the discussions were, and no pardon was granted.
On Wednesday, WSJ reported Cohen directed Ryan to ask for a pardon from Trump, contradicting his testimony before Congress where he said, “I have never asked for, nor would I accept, a pardon from Mr. Trump.”
On Thursday, Cohen attorney Lanny Davis said “Prior to Michael Cohen’s decision to leave the ‘Joint Defense Group’ and tell the truth on July 2, 2018, Michael was open to the ongoing ‘dangling’ of a possible pardon.”
On Wednesday, Cohen gave the House Intelligence Committee documentation showing edits to the false written statement he delivered to Congress in 2017 about the Trump Tower Moscow project.
Cohen claimed in his testimony that Trump attorney Jay Sekulow made changes to his statement to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, and that it was also reviewed by lawyers like Abbe Lowell.
On Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters Trump’s children are fair game for House committees, saying, “They are investigating certain subjects. Whoever falls into that net, falls into the net.”
On Thursday, ABC News reported Congressional lawmakers are planning to ask Donald Jr. to return to testify about the Trump Tower Moscow project, after he said he knew “very little” about a deal in prior testimony.
On Thursday, Cohen sued the Trump Organization, saying the company is obligated to pay both his $1.9 million in legal bills, and another $1.9 million he owes as part of a criminal sentence.
Cohen said the company paid his legal counsel — at the time, McDermott Will & Emery LLP — but stopped covering the fees they are contractually obligated to pay after he started cooperating with federal investigators.
On Friday, Fox News reported Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee traveled to New York to meet with Cohen at least four times for over 10 hours before last week’s public testimony.
On Monday, Senate Leader Mitch McConnell said he would not stop passage of a resolution to block Trump’s national emergency declaration, after Sen. Rand Paul became the fourth to say he would vote for it.
Sen. Paul said as many as 10 Republicans may vote for the measure, a serious rebuke to Trump and rare example of Congress standing up to try to rein in his power. Trump is likely to veto the measure.
On Tuesday, Sen. Lindsey Graham said Senate Republicans opposing Trump’s national emergency declaration are “playing with fire,” after meeting with Trump, saying the “border is in a state of crisis.”
On Tuesday, the Treasury Department announced the federal budget deficit grew by 77% in the first four months of fiscal year 2019, amid falling revenue caused by Trump’s tax cuts and higher spending.
The deficit grew from $176 billion to $310 billion year over year. White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow acknowledged on Fox News that national debt has “inched up a bit,” but said “growth solves the problem.”
On Wednesday, General Motors closed a massive assembly plant in Lordstown, Ohio — a plant that had operated for 50 years. This marks the first time GM will not be manufacturing cars in Ohio in half a century.
GM also plans to close plants in Detroit and Oshawa, Ontario, and transmission plants in Warren, Michigan, and near Baltimore.
On Wednesday, at the American Workforce Policy Advisory Board meeting at the White House, Trump called Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook “Tim Apple.” Previously, Trump called Lockheed Martin’s CEO “Marillyn Lockheed.”
On Thursday, the Commerce Department announced the U.S. trade deficit in goods with the rest of the world in 2018 rose to $891 billion, the largest deficit in U.S. history.
The overall trade deficit grew 12.5% from 2017 to $621 billion. American exports to China slumped nearly 50% in December from the year prior, as the trade gap in goods overall for 2018 with China reached $419 billion.
On Wednesday, Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen testified before the House Homeland Security Committee about Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy— Nielsen’s first hearing since Democrats took control.
Nielsen backed Trump’s emergency declaration, saying, “this is not a manufactured crisis. This is truly an emergency,” and claiming the number of immigrants entering the U.S. illegally had doubled from a year ago.
Also Wednesday, DHS acting inspector general John V. Kelly said in a separate hearing he has opened three investigations into the Trump regime’s immigration policies, including tracking separated children.
The IG will also look into whether deported parents were given the opportunity to take their children with them. Nielsen told lawmakers, “To the best of my knowledge, every parent was afforded that option.”
When Rep. Nanette Barragán asked, “You let kids be separated without tracking them. Do you know how outrageous that is…You have no feeling, no compassion, no empathy here,” Nielsen did not respond.
On Thursday, AP reported that the Pentagon may use $1 billion in leftover funds set aside for military pay and pension accounts to pay for Trump’s wall. The funds are currently available since recruitment is down.
CNBC reported the firm owned by Trump’s former longtime bodyguard Keith Schiller was paid $225,000 by the Republican National Committee for security consulting since he left the White House in September 2017.
The RNC claimed Schiller was kept on to “work on other security needs for the committee” for the 2020 convention. It was unclear what that work entailed. The RNC fee to Schiller is $15,000 per month.
On Friday, The Guardian reported Trump’s inauguration committee took money from shell companies tied to foreigners. It is illegal for non-resident foreigners to donate to political campaigns, including inaugurations.
The Guardian identified three payments of $25,000 each, coming from an Indian real estate investor, a lobbyist with ties to Chinese investors, and an Israeli with international links.
On Thursday, the House voted 407-23 on a measure to condemn all forms of hate, sparked by a fierce debate between Democrats following comments by Rep. Ilhan Omar which were viewed as anti-Semitic.
Trump, seeking to capitalize on the infighting, tweeted Wednesday, “It is shameful that House Democrats won’t take a stronger stand against Anti-Semitism in their conference.”
Trump has been silent to the same in the GOP and trafficked in anti-Semitic tropes. Republicans were silent this week about Rep. Jim Jordan’s tweet, in which he replaced the letter “s” with $ in spelling Tom Steyer’s name.
On Thursday, Judge T.S. Ellis III sentenced Paul Manafort to 47 months in prison, dismissing sentencing guidelines of 19 to 24 year as “vindictive” and “way out of whack” for 69 year-old Manafort.
Legal experts criticized Ellis’s sentence, saying wealthy white-collar criminals often receive lighter sentences because the judge empathizes with them. Manafort arrived in court gray-haired and in a wheelchair.
The judge had predicted some pushback. However, his sentencing provoked a social media firestorm including public defenders, prosecutors, and ordinary citizens — citing racial disparity in sentencing as well.
Observers also noted Judge Ellis showed his distaste for special counsel throughout proceedings. Judge Amy Berman Jackson will sentence Manafort next week on two conspiracy charges.
On Friday, in a series of morning tweets, Trump said, “Thank you @foxandfriends. Great show!” Trump did not publicly change course despite earlier reporting by Jane Mayer on his ties to the network.
Trump also tweeted, “I cannot believe the level of dishonesty in the media. It is totally out of control, but we are winning!” Adding in another tweet, “PRESIDENTIAL HARASSMENT!”
Trump also falsely claimed in a tweet, “Both the Judge and the lawyer in the Paul Manafort case stated loudly” that “there was NO COLLUSION with Russia,” adding, “the Witch Hunt Hoax continues.”
Judge Ellis actually said that Manafort was “not before this court for anything having to do with collusion with the Russian government to influence this election.”
After disappointing job numbers of 20,000 added in February, Trump quoted a “Fox & Friends” guest Stuart Varney, tweeting: “This is as good a time as I can remember to be an American Worker.”
Trump also tweeted, “Bad lawyer and fraudster Michael Cohen” said under oath he did not ask for a pardon and “his lawyers totally contradicted him,” adding, “he directly asked me for a pardon. I said NO. He lied again!”
Trump also claimed Cohen lied under oath to Congress about wanting a job in the administration: “He also badly wanted to work at the White House. He lied!”
Cohen responded, tweeting: “Just another set of lies” by Trump, adding since it was International Women’s Day, Trump should apologize for his “own #lies and #DirtyDeeds” to Karen McDougal and Stephanie Clifford.
On Friday, before departing for Alabama, Trump told reporters he felt “very badly for Paul Manafort.” Trump also repeated the false claim that “the judge said there was no collusion with Russian…It’s a collusion hoax.”
When asked about a pardon for Manafort, Trump said, “I haven’t discussed it,” and also claimed Cohen “directly asked me for a pardon.” Trump also accused Democrats of becoming the “anti-Israel party, anti-Jewish party.”
Visiting Alabama, Trump signed Bibles while visiting relief sites. The act of signing Bibles drew mixed reviews from clergy, with some saying it was appropriate, while others said Trump was wrong to do so.
On Friday, ex-Fox News executive Bill Shine abruptly resigned from the White House, after nine months on the job. Shine said he will now work as a senior advisor for Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign.
Shine was Trump’s fifth communications director, as Trump continues to believe he does not need one. The move, after Mayer’s reporting, came as a surprise to White House aides and officials on the Trump 2020 campaign.
On Friday, Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson resigned to become president of the University of Texas at El Paso. Wilson was seen as a candidate to replace Jim Mattis in the still unfilled defense secretary spot.
On Friday, Trump formally nominated former oil and gas lobbyist David Bernhardt to succeed Ryan Zinke at the Interior Department. Bernhardt was been the acting secretary since Zinke’s departure.
Congressional Democrats who have tried to conduct oversight said acting secretary Bernhardt claimed said he could not provide his calendar, because he has not maintained one in years and is not legally bound to do so.
On Friday, Trump allies on the House Judiciary Committee revived allegations of FBI misconduct, publicly releasing a transcript of an August interview with DOJ official Bruce Ohr.
Later Friday, Trump again attacked Cohen, quoting Rep. Mike Turner: “The only time that Michael Cohen told the truth is when he pled that he is guilty,” adding also “no collusion” and “I did not tell him to lie!”
On Friday, the Miami Herald reported Li Yang, the founder of Orchids of Asia Day Spa, posed with Trump for a photograph at a Super Bowl party, 19 days before Robert Kraft was arrested for soliciting prostitution.
Yang said she no longer owns the spa, which has been accused of human trafficking. Yang also posted a photowith and signed by Trump on her social media from a fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago on March 2, 2018.
Mother Jones reported Yang and her husband, Zubin Gong, started GY US Investments LLC in 2017, which on its website in mostly Chinese, offers services for clients looking to make high-level connections in the U.S.
Yang’s bio photo on the website is a photo with Trump with his signature, and says she is a member of the “Presidential Fundraising Committee.” Yang donated $42,000 to a Trump PAC and $16,000 to his campaign.
Yang’s Facebook page, since taken down, included photos of her with Donald Jr., Rep. Matt Gaetz, RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis among others.
The GY US Investments website also lists upcoming events at Mar-a-Lago. Photos show Chinese executives at the Mar-a-Lago New Year’s event mingling with Trump family members including Eric and Donald Jr.
ProPublica reported on another case of Trump’s buddies from Mar-a-Lago being given inside access: Albert Hazzouri, a dentist from Scranton, PA, whom Trump had previously called out at a rally for being a good golfer.
Hazzouri sent Trump a note on Mar-a-Lago stationary, with the salutation “Dear King,” as a favor to the 163,000-member American Dental Association relating to “veterans’ care and American Native Indians’ care.”
Trump wrote on the note, “Send to David S at the V.A.,” meaning David Shulkin, then head of Veterans Affairs. Next to the Mar-a-Lago logo, a Trump aide stamped: “The president has seen.”
On Friday, in an interview with Al Jazeera, Erik Prince admitted he attended an August 2016 Trump Tower previously reported by the Times in Week 80, that also included Donald Jr. and George Nader.
Reportedly at the meeting, Nader said the UAE and Saudi Arabia wanted to help Trump win the White House.When asked why he did not disclose the meeting to Congress, Prince said maybe they got the transcript wrong.

The Weekly List podcast is here! You can find more information here by clicking here.

THE LIST — weeks 1–52 of The Weekly List is out as a book! You can order your copy by clicking here.

A bombshell exposé by Jane Mayer, “The Making of the Fox New White House,” explored ties between Trump and the cable-TV network, asking if America had its first state TV.

SAN JOSE, COSTA RICA 🇨🇷: DÍA INTERNACIONAL DE LA MUJER – EQUAL RIGHTS MARCH 2019

Published on March 9, 2019 by jacquelinemhadelLeave a comment

8mar19. San Jose, Costa Rica 🇨🇷

POLITIKS OF GRAFFITI 121: COWARDLY CRIMINAL FAWNING OVER MURDEROUS DICkTATORS (AMERICA IS ASHAMED)

Published on March 3, 2019 by jacquelinemhadel2 Comments

Jim Carrey, Feb 27
If Trump makes a nuclear deal w/ North Korea, it’s a FRAUD: China and Russia trying to keep their Prize Pony in the White House. When there’s a Nobel Prize for cowardice and moral desolation Trump will be the first to receive it.

MARCH 02, 2019

Week 120

Experts in authoritarianism advise to keep a list of things
subtly changing around you, so you’ll remember. https://theweeklylist.org/weekly-list/week-120/

This week the country was riveted by the public testimony of Michael Cohen, Trump’s long-time attorney and fixer, before the House Oversight Committee — the first public testimony in the new Democrat-controlled Congress. Cohen’s testimony overwhelmed the spectacle of Trump’s second summit with North Korea dictator Kim Jong Un in Hanoi — which produced no concrete results, despite a pre-planned joint signing ceremony. Cohen, who said he is now in “constant contact” with federal prosecutors, gave seven hours of testimony, offering an insider’s perspective and many new details which, by week’s end, were already leading Congressional investigators to call more witnesses and open new areas of inquiry.

As Cohen was testifying and Trump meeting with Kim, Jared Kushner met with the Saudi King Salman and Crown Prince MBS, then Turkish President Recep Erdogan. Just as Kushner stayed silent during his Saudi visit on the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, Trump sided with another dictator, saying he believed Kim played no part of the brutal torture and death of American college student Otto Warmbier, before trying to reverse himself the next day. During Kushner’s trip, the Times reported Trump had ordered officials to grant his son-in-law top-secret security clearance, overruling concerns by U.S. intelligence and former White House Counsel Don McGahn.

Trump returned from his rough week abroad to a hero’s welcome at the 2019 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), a conference which notably had been a forum for conservative debate, but under Trump has evolved into a pro-Trump cult-like setting, and giving center stage to those who previously were fringe players of the Republican Party.

D0hLVgcUcAAooOM.jpg-large

Jim Carrey, Feb 28
Know how you can tell when an admitted liar is being truthful? When he has CORROBORATING EVIDENCE! Like this hush money check to Michael Cohen signed by his boss…CROOKED DONALD TRUMP!!!

Dz8e_l9VYAAhlEU.jpg-large — Jim Carrey, Feb 21
If u can still support this repugnant oaf, while ignoring 17 investigations, 34 indictments, 7 guilty pleas, 9000 lies, child imprisonment, money laundering, racism, misogyny, infidelity, environmental rape, and high treason, you’re not just misinformed… you’re a Sith.

The Southern Poverty Law Center reported that in the era of Trump, eight Republicans with openly white supremacist, nativist, anti-LGBT or anti-government ties won seats in Congress in the midterms.
Additionally, ten other Republicans, who also courted hate and extremism, won their primaries, but lost in general elections.
On Saturday, WAPO reported ahead of the second summit with Kim Jong Un, Trump has changed the definition of success from denuclearization to “no rush,” as long as North Korea maintains a testing moratorium.
Trump also claimed success in ratcheting down rhetoric with North Korea, which he had inflamed. Reportedly, he may look to create a spectacle to distract from Michael Cohen’s public Congressionaltestimony Wednesday.
On Sunday, Trump tweeted: “We will be having one of the biggest gatherings in the history of Washington, D.C., on July 4th,” adding, “fireworks display, entertainment and an address by your favorite President, me!”
It was unclear what Trump meant as a major 4th of July parade already takes place in D.C. each year. A spokesperson for Washington’s mayor told CNN, “Like you, we are still assessing what will be different.”
Trump also tweeted, “The only Collusion with the Russians was with Crooked Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee,” adding, “And, where’s the Server that the DNC refused to give to the FBI?”
Trump also retweeted an earlier tweet saying, “Highly respected Senator Richard Burr, head of Senate Intelligence, said… “WE HAVE FOUND NO COLLUSION BETWEEN THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN AND RUSSIA.””
On Sunday, House Intelligence chair Adam Schiff told “This Week” Democrats will do whatever is necessary to make the Mueller report public, including subpoenaing the report and calling Mueller to testify.
On Sunday, Steve Bannon told “Face the Nation” that 2019 “will be the most vitriolic year in American politics since before the Civil War,” citing the SDNY investigations and Democrats weaponizing the Mueller probe.
On Sunday, House Judiciary chair Jerrold Nadler said in a radio interview that Trump and his conduct are “the greatest threat to the democratic system and to the constitutional government since the Civil War.”
On Sunday, Republican Sen. John Cornyn tweeted a quote by fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, who had ties to socialism. Cornyn later tried to play it off as critique of the Democratic-socialists.
On Sunday, Reuters reported Russian state television listed U.S. military facilities Moscow would target in the event of a nuclear strike, adding that with weapons being developed, Russia could hit them in less than five minutes.
On Monday, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov told a Russian news agency that Trump has asked for Moscow’s advice in dealing with North Korea at the second summit this Wednesday and Thursday.
Lavrov, who is also visiting Vietnam this week, added “the U.S. is even asking our advice, our views on this or that scenario of how the summit in Hanoi could pan out.”
On Monday, BBC reported concerns have been raised that Elizaveta Peskova, daughter of Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, is interning for a right-wing French politician Aymeric Chauprade at the European Union.
On Monday, in an interview with CNN, former Senate leader Harry Reid said in the age of Trump, he wishes for George W. Bush “every day,” saying, “he and I had our differences, but no one ever questioned his patriotism.”
Reid said he did not think the Senate would go along with impeaching Trump, but added, “I don’t think there would be a backlash because the vast majority of the people know something’s wrong with Trump.”
Reid also said former FBI director James Comey did not do enough to stop Russia in 2016: “I watch [Comey] in the halls…being so self-righteous I almost wanted to shout, ‘Where were you when we needed you?’”
On Monday, Trump attacked Reid tweeting he got thrown out and is “working hard to put a good spin on his failed career,” adding he “led through lies and deception,” and was replaced by “Cryin’ Chuck Schumer.”
On Monday, Trump tweeted: “Oil prices getting too high,” urging the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, “please relax and take it easy. World cannot take a price hike — fragile!”
On Monday, in a radio interview, former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said Trump shows a “lack of understanding” of basic economics, citing his stance on reducing trade deficits with China and others.
Yellen also noted that Trump pressuring the Fed is unhealthy, saying: “I think it does have the impact, especially if conditions in the U.S. for any reason were to deteriorate, it could undermine confidence in the Fed.”
On Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit rejected the DOJ’s attempt to overturn AT&T’s merger with Time Warner. Trump’s DOJ had wanted Time Warner to spin off CNN, the frequent target of Trump’s ire.
On Monday, Politico reported two House committees, Finance and Intelligence, will target Trump’s personal finances, crossing Trump’s stated red line of examining his personal finances.
The committees will examine why Deutsche Bank would lend to the Trump Organization when other banks would not, and given Deutsche’s ties to laundering Russian money, whether Russia was involved.
On Saturday, several University of Mississippi basketball players kneeled on the court during the national anthem to show solidarity with counter protestors amid a rally in support to a monument for the Confederacy.
On Sunday, while accepting an award at the Oscars, Spike Lee said of the 2020 election, “Let’s all be on the right side of history. Make the moral choice between love versus hate. Let’s do the right thing!”
On Monday, Trump tweeted in response, “Be nice if Spike Lee could read his notes…when doing his racist hit on your President, who has done more for African Americans…than almost any other Pres!”
AP reported Elecia Dexter, a black woman, will replace Goodloe Sutton as publisher and editor of the Democrat-Reporter. Sutton, who had been in that role since the 1960s, will retain ownership of the newspaper.
On Monday, Maryland Democrat Del. Mary Ann Lisanti apologized to the Maryland Black Caucus for using the n-word to refer to Prince George’s district while out after-hours with colleagues at a cigar bar.
On Tuesday, Virginia first lady Pat Northam handed out raw cotton to two eighth-grade students on a mansion tour, and asked them to imagine being enslaved and having to pick the crop. She apologized Wednesday.
On Wednesday, Detroit Free Press reported a police officer Gary Steele was fired after posting a racially insensitive Snapchat video after stopping a 23 year-old woman for an expired license plate.
On Wednesday, Daily Beast reported Marc Short, VP Pence’s incoming chief of staff, in a college column maligned people living with HIV and AIDS, saying it spread largely as the result of “repugnant” homosexual intercourse.
Fairbanks, Alaska mayor Jim Matherly vetoed a measure passed by the city council, which would have which extended protections in employment, housing, and public accommodations to the LGBTQ community.
On Monday, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, requiring doctors to provide care to infants who “survive an abortion or attempted abortion,” got 53 votes, 7 shy of the 60 needed to advance in the Senate.
On Monday, Alva Johnson, an event planner on Trump’s 2016 campaign, said in a lawsuit that Trump kissed her on the lips without her consent before a rally in Tampa on August 24, 2016.
More than a dozen women have publicly accused Trump of touching them in an inappropriate way; Johnson is the first new charge since he took office. In the news chaos, the accusations got very little media attention.
Press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement the accusation was “absurd on its face,” and “This never happened and is directly contradicted by multiple highly credible eye witness accounts.”
On Tuesday, an attorney for lawyer Alan Dershowitz asked in a letter to the U.S. District Court of Appeals that the Jeffrey Epstein sex abuse case be held behind closed doors, and without the media having access.
On Monday, Axios reported according to Department of Health and Human Services documents, thousands of unaccompanied migrant children have reported being sexually assaulted in U.S. custody.
The Office of Refugee Resettlement received a 4,556 complaints from October 2014 to July 2018, with a record number of complaints, totaling 514, for the second quarter of 2018.
On Thursday, in a letter to the DHS’s Inspector General and Officer for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, three immigration advocacy groups claimed infants as young as five-months old are being detained by ICE.
The groups said there have been “an alarming increase in the number of infants” in ICE custody at the Dilley, Texas, facility, now at least nine under the age of one, and urged the departments to “intervene immediately.”
On Friday, ten members of the Proud Boys appeared in a New York Supreme Court, facing charges of assault and rioting for an attack outside the Metropolitan Republican Club in Manhattan in Week 101.
Prosecutors recommended as much as a year in jail. Two Proud Boys have already pleaded guilty. In Week 119, the new head of the Proud Boys was named a volunteer by Roger Stone and stood behind Trump at a rally.
On Saturday, Politico reported Qatar hired Stuart Jolly, a former Trump campaign staffer, as a D.C. lobbyist. Qatar also has former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski’s firm on monthly retainer.
On Monday, NBC News reported the number of Americans taking the State Department exam to become diplomats has declined in the first two years of the Trump regime, and is now at its lowest level since 2008.
On Monday, 58 former U.S. national security officials, both Democrat and Republican, said in a letter to the Trump regime they are aware of “no emergency that remotely justifies” diverting funds to build a border wall.
On Tuesday, the Senate voted to confirm Eric Miller as a judge on the country’s most liberal appeals court in Washington State without the consent of either home-state senator, known as “blue slips.”
This is the first time a nominee had been confirmed without the support of at least one home-state senator. Sen. Patty Murray called it a “dangerous first” and accused the GOP of “bending to the will” of Trump.
Miller will sit on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the frequent subject of Trump’s ire for its left leaning and decisions against him, as well as the court likely to hear the appeal of his national emergency.
On Thursday, the Senate confirmed Andrew Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist and D.C. insider to lead the E.P.A., along party lines. Wheeler had been the acting administrator since Scott Pruitt resigned amid ethics violations.
In his time serving, Wheeler has sought to repeal environmental regulations, undoing much of the Obama-era legacy, and promoted coal. The regime described it as an effort to combat regulatory overreach.
On Wednesday, McCrae Dowless, the North Carolina political operative who worked for Republican Mark Harris in 2018, was indicted on seven felonies amid allegations of ballot-tampering in the 9th Congressional District.
On Friday, Politico reported that state officials are opting for 2020 voting machines in Georgia, Delaware, Philadelphia and other jurisdictions which pose unacceptable risks, and could be hacked by Russia or China.
The new machines print out a slip of paper with the vote displayed in plain text and embedded in a barcode.Security experts warn hackers could manipulate the barcodes without voters noticing.
Politico reported Democratic Party chairs in four early states want 2020 candidates to sign a pact to avoidwaging social media disinformation warfare against each other, citing reports of disinformation in Week 119.
On Monday in an interview with MSNBC’s Ayman Mohyeldin, Jim Walden, the attorney for former Cambridge Analytica employee Brittany Kaiser said when she spoke to Mueller’s team, they asked her extensively about data and data mining by the company.
He also said that the RNC and NRA exported their voter data to Cambridge Analytica to use in analyzing the last six percent of voters, but that the Trump campaign did not want to be publicly associated with the company.
Kaiser flew to New York to meet with then campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. Bannon, who was a stakeholder in Cambridge Analytica along with the Mercers, did coordinating with the Trump campaign.
On Monday, WSJ reported the Trump Organization donated $191,000 in profits from foreign governmentsto the U.S. Treasury, a 30% increase from the $150,000 in 2017. It was unclear how profits were calculated.
On Monday, WSJ reported the House Judiciary Committee is investigating whether Matthew Whitaker perjured himself in his Week 117 testimony on if Trump asked him to put Geoffrey Berman in charge of the SDNY investigation.
On Monday, in federal court in D.C., Paul Manafort’s attorneys asked for leniency on sentencing, in light of his age (he turns 70 on April 1) and health concerns, adding he is not a hardened criminal.
On Friday, in federal court in Virginia, Manafort’s attorneys again asked for leniency, saying Manafort is a loyal, compassionate, idealistic man who has learned a “harsh lesson.”
On Tuesday, prosecutors asked the federal judge in the Maria Butina case to delay her sentencing, saying she is still cooperating. The judge agreed to wait until March 28 to decide the date for a sentencing hearing.
On Tuesday, the House Oversight Committee voted to subpoena the Trump regime over family separations at the southern border, in what will be the first subpoenas of the new Congress.
The Justice Department, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services will be subpoenaed. Chairman Rep. Elijah Cummings said committee members have been seeking documents for seven months.
On Tuesday, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously against Roger Stone associate Andrew Miller, finding no flaw in deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein’s appointment of Mueller.
On Tuesday, Twitter permanently suspended Trump supporter and far-right activist Jacob Wohl after he told USA Today he planned to set up fake accounts in an attempt to manipulate the 2020 presidential election.
Wohl told WAPO Tuesday that creating a false account was largely an “intellectual exercise” to gauge whetherthe account could be used to impact liberal women.
On Tuesday, Trump ally Rep. Matt Gaetz tweeted a threat at Cohen the day before his Congressional testimony, saying, “Hey @MichaelCohen212 -Do your wife & father-in-law know about your girlfriends?”
Speaker Nancy Pelosi tweeted a statement, “I encourage all Members to be mindful” of comments on social media and to the press warning, “efforts to intimidate family members or pressure witnesses will not be tolerated.”
Later Tuesday, Gaetz tweeted, “Speaker, I want to get the truth too,” around “liars” like Cohen, adding, “it was NOT my intent to threaten, as some believe I did. I’m deleting the tweet” and “I’m sorry.”
On Wednesday, Daily Beast reported the Florida Bar opened an investigation into whether Gaetz violated professional conduct rules by threatening Michael ahead of his Congressional testimony.
A staff writer for the Atlantic reported Gaetz took a call from Trump in Hanoi to discuss the Cohen testimony: “I was happy to do it for you. You just keep killing it,” Gaetz was heard telling him.
On Tuesday, Cohen met behind closed doors with the Senate Intelligence Committee. Senators from both parties said the testimony made a strong impression on them.
Ranking Democrat Mark Warner said: “When this investigation started I said it may be the most important thing I’m involved in…. Nothing that’ve I heard today dissuades me from that view.”
On Tuesday, Hillary Clinton, who worked as an attorney for the House Judiciary Committee during the Nixon impeachment inquiry, advocated for more public hearings to help the public understand what happened.
On Tuesday, Speaker Pelosi said before voting to block Trump’s national emergency, “The resolution is not about politics. It’s not about partisanship. It’s about patriotism. It’s about the Constitution.”
Pelosi also asked, “Is your oath of office to Donald Trump or is it to the Constitution of the United States?”The resolution of disapproval passed 245 to 182, with 13 Republicans voting along.
On Tuesday, the White House press corps was evicted from its workspace at the Melia Hotel. NBC News reported a Vietnamese security officer barked “You must go now!” at members of the press corp in the lobby.
The move was highly unusual since the White House had approved of and supported the use of the space. It was unclear who was behind it — North Korea, Vietnam, the U.S., or a combination of those governments.
On Wednesday, in an evening interaction with the media, when a reporter asked Trump for his reaction to Cohen’s written testimony, Trump did not respond and simply shook his head. Other reporters asked as well.
Shortly after, the White House banned four journalists from covering Trump’s dinner with Kim Jong Un in Hanoi, in what WAPO called “an extraordinary act of retaliation.”
Press secretary Sanders said reporters from the Associated Press, Bloomberg News, the Los Angeles Times, and Reuters were excluded over “sensitivities over shouted questions in the previous sprays.”
Sanders had tried to exclude all reporters and only allow photographers and television crew, but reversed after loud pushback, allowing just one reporter from Robert Murdoch-owned WSJ to attend.
On Wednesday, from his hotel room in Hanoi at roughly 4 p.m. ICT/4 a.m. EST, Trump attacked Cohen, tweeting: “Michael Cohen was one of many lawyers who represented me (unfortunately). He had other clients also.”
Trump also tweeted that Cohen “was just disbarred by the State Supreme Court for lying & fraud. He did bad things unrelated to Trump,” adding, “he is lying in order to reduce his prison time. Using Crooked’s lawyer!”
Trump also attacked a Democrat: “I have now spent more time in Vietnam than Da Nang Dick Blumenthal, the third rate Senator from Connecticut” adding, “his war stories of his heroism in Vietnam were a total fraud.”
As Cohen’s testimony got underway, it overwhelmed the spectacle of Trump’s second summit, which received little attention. Trump had urged his team to respond to Cohen even before he touched down Tuesday night.
On Tuesday, in the late evening, Cohen’s opening testimony was made public. Cohen asked the House Oversight Committee to protect his family from Trump’s threats, sharing copies of tweets he found threatening.
Cohen said he was ashamed of his failings, and called Trump a “racist,” “conman,” and “cheat,” adding as a candidate he knew Stone was talking with Julian Assange about a WikiLeaks drop of DNC emails.
Cohen provided copies of financial statements for 2011–2013 Trump gave to banks like Deutsche, and a copy of a check Trump wrote from his personal bank account in April 2017 to reimburse hush money payments.
Cohen also provided a second check signed by Donald Jr. and Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg. The monthly payment checks for $35,000 each were written after Trump took office.
Cohen also provided letters he wrote on Trump’s behalf that threatened Trump’s high school, colleges, and the College Board not to release his grades or SAT scores ahead of the campaign.
Cohen also said Individual #1 is Trump, and that he ran for president to promote his brand, but did not think he would win, saying Trump called the campaign the “greatest infomercial in political history.”
Cohen said, as Trump arrived in Vietnam 50 years later, he helped him cover up his service record. He saw Donald Jr., who Trump said had the worst judgment, whisper “the meeting is all set” just before June 9.
On Wednesday, with the country watching the public hearings, Cohen said that he was willing to tell all now out of fear that if Trump were to lose the 2020 election, “there will never be a peaceful transition of power.”
Republicans on the committee spent the day attacking and trying to discredit Cohen as a liar and a grifter seeking to cash in on a movie or book deal. Rep. Paul Gosar scolded Cohen, saying, “liar, liar, pants on fire.”
Cohen testified Trump knew in advance that WikiLeaks planned to release emails damaging to Hillary Clinton, saying he overheard a July 2016 call from Stone saying the group would publish a “massive dump” within days.
Cohen said he briefed Trump on Trump Tower Moscow’s progress, and also gave updates to Donald Jr. and Ivanka. He also talked to former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski about possible business travel to Russia.
Cohen also said Jay Sekulow and other members of Trump’s legal team made “several” changes to his false statement to Congress, including changing the length of time the “project stayed and remained alive.”
Cohen also said he did not travel to Prague, had no knowledge of the salacious tape mentioned in the Steele dossier, and lamented lying to First Lady Melania Trump to cover Trump’s affairs with other women.
As Rep. Mark Meadows defended Trump as not being a racist, Lynne Patton, a political appointee at HUD who is a Black woman, stood behind him. The GOP members on the committee were all white.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib called it “insensitive” and possibly racist “to use a black woman as a prop.” Patton has become one of the few, and most prominent, Black American officials in the Trump regime.
Rep. Cummings closed out the hearing, saying, “When we’re dancing with the angels, the question will be asked, ‘In 2019, what did we do to make sure we kept our democracy intact? Did we stand on the sidelines and say nothing?’ Come on now! We can do more than one thing. And we have got to get back to normal.”
During the testimony, Roger Stone wrote in a text message to BuzzFeed News: “Mr. Cohen’s statement is not true.” A spokesperson for the special counsel declined to comment on whether Stone had violated his gag order.
On Wednesday, Fordham University confirmed Cohen had sent the school a letter in May 2015, threatening legal action if Trump’s academic records became public. The school also received a call from a campaign staffer.
On Thursday, Rep. Cummings told reporters his panel will look to interview several of the people Cohen mentioned in his testimony, including Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Allen Weisselberg.
Other names mentioned by Cohen in his testimony included Trump’s longtime assistant Rhona Graff, Stone, Corey Lewandowski, Jay Sekulow, Rudy Giuliani, and several others who worked at the Trump Organization.
On Thursday, Cohen gave his third day of testimony for 7.5 hours before the House Intelligence Committee behind closed doors. Committee chair Schiff said Cohen would return to testify on March 6.
Rep. Schiff also said the committee plans to make Cohen’s testimony public at some point, and that Felix Sater, who Cohen said worked with him on the Trump Tower Moscow project, will publicly testify March 14.
On Wednesday, a White House statement revealed Jared Kushner met with King Mohammed bin Salman and Crown Prince MBS in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to discuss a Mideast peace plan and “economic investment.”
The White House readout did not specify if the three discussed the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. It was unclear what “economic investment” referred to.
The White House also said Kushner met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday, also to push a Mideast peace plan.
On Thursday, NYT reported Trump ordered former chief of staff John Kelly to give Kushner top-secret security clearance last May, despite concerns from intelligence officials and White House counsel Don McGahn.
Kelly was so troubled, he wrote a contemporaneous internal memo about how he had been “ordered” by Trump. McGahn also wrote an internal memo detailing the concerns that had been raised about Kushner.
In January, Trump said he had no role in Kushner’s security clearance. Last May, Kushner’s attorney Abbe Lowell had claimed Kushner went through the standard process for clearance, as did Ivanka three months ago.
The full scope of intelligence concerns was not clear. The Kushner family’s business has ties to foreign governments and investors in, and Kushner had unreported contacts with, countries including Israel, the UAE, and Russia.
A spokesperson for Lowell told the Times, “In 2018, White House and security clearance officials affirmed that Mr. Kushner’s security clearance was handled in the regular process with no pressure from anyone. That was conveyed to the media at the time, and new stories, if accurate, do not change what was affirmed at the time.”
On Thursday, Rep. Cummings said his committee had launched an investigation into Kushner’s security clearance process, and threatened to subpoena if the White House continues to not cooperate.
On Friday, in a letter, Rep. Cummings wrote on the request for information on Kushner’s security clearance, “I am now writing a final time to request your voluntary cooperation with this investigation.”
On Friday, a spokesperson for Lowell issued a new statement: “Mr. Lowell was not aware of nor told of any request for or action by the President to be involved in the security clearance process. Again, officials affirmed at the time that the regular process occurred without any pressure.”
On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was indicted on corruption charges following a two-year investigation. Netanyahu faces one count of bribery and three counts of breach of trust.
In a televised statement Netanyahu dismissed the charges as a politically motivated “witch-hunt,” adding, “there is nothing to these (allegations).”
On Thursday, Trump defended Kim over the death of American college student Otto Warmbier, saying “he tells me he didn’t know about it” until after the fact, and “I take him at his word.”
Warmbier’s family, who said their son was brutally tortured, won a $501 million judgement against North Korea in December. In defending him, Trump said Kim “feels badly about it.”
Trump drew bipartisan criticism for his remarks. In the past year, Trump has also sided with Putin, taking his word that did not interfere in the 2016 U.S. election and with Crown prince MBS over the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.
On Thursday, Trump abruptly canceled a working lunch amid a standoff over North Korea demanding the U.S. remove all economic sanctions without North Korea completely ending its nuclear program.
Trump told reporters “Sometimes you have to walk,” adding, “This wasn’t a walk away, like you get up and walk out. No, this was very friendly. We shook hands. . . . There’s a warmth that we have, and I hope that stays.”
Trump also told reporters Cohen’s testimony was “shameful” and false, and that “having a fake hearing like that and having it in the middle of this very important summit is really a terrible thing.”
Trump carved out one area, “He lied a lot, but it was very interesting because he didn’t lie about one thing; he said no collusion with the Russian hoax,” adding of that one part, “I was actually impressed.”
Trump left Hanoi empty-handed, despite the White House having scheduled a joint signing ceremony where Trump and Kim were meant to triumphantly conclude their two-day summit.
On Friday, in a rare news conference in the middle of the night, North Korea’s foreign minister Ri Yong Ho disputed Trump’s account of why the summit ended, saying Kim demanded only partial sanctions relief.
Ri also told reporters North Korea had offered to put a permanent halt of the country’s nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests in writing, adding Trump wasted an opportunity that “may not come again.”
Later, a State Department senior official then clarified the U.S. position saying that the North Koreans“basically asked for the lifting of all sanctions.”
The official acknowledged the North’s demand was for lifting of United Nations Security Council sanctions imposed in 2016, and not sanctions imposed earlier when the North conducted its first nuclear test.
Later, North Korea state-run media took a softer tone than Ri, not mentioning Trump’s decision to walk away without any agreements, and indicating the North was looking ahead to more talks.
On Friday, in a series of five morning tweets, Trump attacked Cohen over his testimony, tweeting: “Wow, just revealed that Michael Cohen wrote a “love letter to Trump” manuscript for a new book that he was pushing.”
Trump also tweeted, “Your heads will spin when you see the lies, misrepresentations and contradictionsagainst his Thursday testimony,” adding, “Like a different person! He is totally discredited!”
Trump also tweeted, “Cohen’s book manuscript shows that he committed perjury on a scale not seen before…What does Hillary Clinton’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, say about this one. Is he being paid by Crooked Hillary.”
Trump also tweeted, “Oh’ I see! Now that the 2 year Russian Collusion case has fallen apart… they say, “gee, I have an idea, let’s look at Trump’s finances and every deal he has ever done” and follow “discredited” Cohen.
Trump also tweeted, “No way, it’s time to stop this corrupt and illegally brought Witch Hunt,” adding “time to start looking at the other side,” and “Republicans have been abused long enough. Must end now!”
A new Hill-HarrisX poll revealed 37% of respondents found Cohen credible, while 25% did not and 39% had not yet formed an opinion.
Cohen’s credibility was split along party lines: with 58% of Democrats finding him credible, 11% do not; while just 15% of Republicans found him credible, 48% do not.
On Friday, Warmbier’s parents issued a statement saying, “Kim [Jong Un] and his evil regime are responsiblefor the death of our son Otto,” adding, “No excuses or lavish praise can change that.”
On Friday, Trump sought to clarify his comments on Warmbier’s death, tweeting, “I never like being misinterpreted,” and saying “Of course I hold North Korea responsible.” This is not what Trump said Thursday.
Trump also tweeted: “Remember, I got Otto out along with three others. The previous Administration did nothing,” adding, “Otto Warmbier will not have died in vain,” and, “I love Otto and think of him often!”
On Wednesday, NYT reported the attorney general for the District of Columbia subpoenaed Trump’s inaugural committee, the third government body to do so after New York and New Jersey.
The subpoena sought documents related to payments to the Trump Hotel DC and the Trump Organization, including any communications related to “the pricing of venue rentals.”
The subpoena also named Fairmont Hotel and AccorHotels, which was paid $1.56 million for a block of rooms, and also requested information on the role Ivanka, Donald Jr., and Eric played on the committee.
On Thursday, House Financial Services Committee chair Maxine Waters she was given a lead that may result in her opening an investigation into the Trump Foundation. Cohen mentioned the foundation in his testimony.
Rep. Waters also said Deutsche Bank is “now being cooperative,” adding, “they had not been,” and, “they have offered to cooperate and my staff have just started to work with them to get the documents.”
On Thursday, Republican senators urged Trump not to move forward with his national emergency declaration, saying there is support for a resolution to disapprove to pass in the Senate.
The House has already passed a resolution to block Trump’s emergency declaration. This would necessitate Trump invoking his veto power for the first time. There is not enough support to override a veto.
On Friday, Mueller’s team told federal District Judge Amy Berman Jackson in a new filing that it expects its case against Stone to take five to eight days in court.
On Friday, in a late evening filing, Judge Berman Jackson ordered Stone’s attorney to explain why they did not tell her about the imminent publication of a book that could violate his eight-day old gag order.
In the order, the judge asked the attorneys why they had not told the court about the book in a court filing or during the February 21 hearing, saying Stone “should not be talking about this Court” or the special prosecutor.
On Friday, the day of the March 1 deadline for Trump to dramatically increase tariffs on China, Trump tweeted, “I have asked China to immediately remove all Tariffs” on U.S. agricultural products.
Trump also tweeted “I did not increase their second traunch of Tariffs to 25% on March 1st,” adding “this is very important for our great farmers.” American farmers have been suffering from Trump’s trade wars.
Trump made the request “based on the fact that we are moving along nicely with trade discussions” with China. It was unclear what progress has been made. China has imposed retaliatory tariffs.
On Friday, WAPO ran a story titled “In America, talk turns to something unspoken for 150 years: Civil war,” citing many of the examples chronicled in The Weekly List as well or use of the term or similar in recent times.
The 2019 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) focused on the threat of socialism. The conference used to be forum for conservative debate, but has reportedly evolved into a pro-Trump event.
A 16-foot high painting of Trump’s face in front of the American flag titled ‘Unafraid and Unashamed’ by artist Julian Raven hung in the CPAC exhibition hall. The painting was first unveiled at a Trump rally in 2015.
The CPAC speaker roster was full of Trump loyalists who previously were considered on the fringe of the GOPlike YouTube duo Diamond and Silk, and activist-provocateur James O’Keefe.
Conservative radio host Erick Erickson said CPAC was “filled with speakers, grifters, and performance artists, while never-Trump conservative Bill Kristol tweeted: “Some future. Some party.”
On Friday, Matt Schlapp, chairman of the CPAC, defended nationalism in an interview with Fox News, saying “there’s nothing wrong with nationalism,” while defending the call for stronger borders.
On Saturday, Trump tweeted “93% Approval Rating in the Republican Party,” adding “Not bad considering I get the most unfair (BAD) press in the history of presidential politics! And don’t forget the Witch Hunt!”
Despite his rough week, Trump arrived to CPAC on Saturday to a hero’s welcome to a sea of red ‘MAGA’ hats, chants of “Trump! Trump! Trump! Trump!” and “four more years.”
As Trump walked on stage, he hugged an American flag as “God Bless the USA” played over the speakers. As he started to speak, chants of “Lock her up!” from attendees erupted.
Trump’s meandering, off-script speech lasted over two-hours — his longest. He attacked Mueller, Democrats, socialism, climate change, and a supposed caravan at the southern border full of “stone cold killers,”
Trump told the crowd he was joking when he asked Russia to hack Clinton’s emails, and criticized the “fake news” for taking him seriously, “So everybody is having a good time, I’m laughing, we’re all having fun.”
Trump also said of the media, “These people are sick, and I’m telling you, they know the game and they play it dirty, dirtier than anybody has ever played the game.”
Trump mocked former attorney general Jeff Sessions for recusing himself, using a southern accent, saying “And the attorney general says ‘I’m gonna recuse myself,’” as the crowd booed.
Trump invited conservative activist Hayden Williams, 26, on stage, and said he will sign an executive order “very soon” requiring colleges and universities to support free speech if they want to receive federal grants.
On Saturday, Trump tweeted about one of his Scottish golf courses, “Very proud of perhaps the greatest golf course anywhere in the world. Also, furthers U.K. relationship!” — using his Twitter account to promote his business interests.
Experts noted Trump is meant to be walled off from his business while in office. Additionally, concerns were raised over tying his family business interests to U.S. foreign policy.
Trump also retweeted a tweet promoting his 2020 campaign merchandise, “Get your OFFICIAL campaign merchandise” with the website link, adding, “if you’re at @CPAC, check out our Official booth!” #TeamTrump.”

The Weekly List podcast is here! You can find more information here by clicking here.

THE LIST — weeks 1–52 of The Weekly List is out as a book! You can order your copy by clicking here.

Michael Cohen, former lawyer for Trump, testifies before the House Oversight Committee on Capitol Hill, on Wednesday, February 27, 2019.

SAN JOSE, COSTA RICA POLITIKS & GRAFFITI: “REBELLION”

Published on February 18, 2019February 18, 2019 by jacquelinemhadelLeave a comment

My journey to becoming a global documenter of graffiti and street art began back in Bogota, Colombia in 2012. It was all of the words scrawled and stenciled on the walls all over the city that prompted a keen interest within me. Two things happened: My Spanish improved quickly (because I had to go home and translate the words into English) and secondly, I got a sense almost overnight of the political issues of the disenfranchised elements of society within the country.

Realizing that graffiti had the power to communicate important messages and concerns of ordinary citizens, I began to pay close attention to the writings on the walls all over the world. It’s amazing what you can see when you look. It’s amazing what you can hear when you listen. It’s amazing what you can understand when you open your heart.

Once the foundation of my passion was set, my documentation progressed to all genres of street art including murals, stickers, sculptures, wheat pastes, everything and anything, that I judged to be making a statement of some kind in a public arena.

Since 2012, this blog has grown exponentially and one series in particular, the “Politiks of Graffiti” series featuring street art images I’ve collected around the world, combined with the weekly list covering the current state of the U.S. government compiled by activist Amy Siskind, has garnered a lot of interest and has a bit of a following on Twitter. It’s important to note that I cover all forms of political statements I discover in public art. It’s unfortunate that it just so happens, the current “P.O.G” is heavily laden with visual commentary of ’45.’ I would love for it to be something else, or something more, and I believe it will be, eventually.

In the future, I plan to do a book of “Graffiti and Global Politics,” or something like that, using the images I’ve collected around the world in the past decade.

That being said, I am currently in San Jose, Costa Rica and the walls are rife with political statements.

Please check them out below:

DCIM103GOPROG0101513. — On the very first day I arrived in San Jose, I saw this stencil on walls, on roads (literally, I was crossing the street, looked down, and this image was stenciled on the road!), and here at a bus stop. I researched to find out that this man is Oscar Arias. He is a former President of Costa Rica and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. He’s been accused of sexual assault by a nuclear disarmament activist. VIOLADOR is RAPIST in Spanish.

DCIM103GOPROG0031587. — These two stencils are about domestic violence and oppression of the poor. On the left: “If he insults you, he doesn’t love you. If he hits you, don’t stay.” On the right: “The rich abort the dying poor.”

DCIM103GOPROG0031506. — “The revolution will be feminist or it will not be.” I take it to mean that the revolution must be run by women, because if it isn’t. then there won’t be one at all.

“They infuse terror and want forgiveness.”

“Against patriarchal and capitalist violence, our deep rebellion.”

DCIM103GOPROG0071510. — “The earth is feminist.”

I’m not sure about this translation: “Outside rosaries of our ovaries.” It definitely has something to do with telling men that they don’t make decisions for women and their bodies.

11/12/13/14/15FEB2019 San Jose, Costa Rica.

POLITIKS OF GRAFFITI 119: STUCK IN THE ROUGH

Published on February 17, 2019 by jacquelinemhadel2 Comments

FEBRUARY 16, 2019

Week 118

Experts in authoritarianism advise to keep a list of things
subtly changing around you, so you’ll remember. https://theweeklylist.org/weekly-list/week-118/

This was a jarring week as Trump declared a national emergency after Congress refused to fund his wall — perhaps his most brazen authoritarian act yet. Trump’s predilection not to govern, but rather rule by an unprecedented executive fiat, set off alarm bells for Constitutional separation of powers, as Trump departed early Friday for a weekend of golf at Mar-a-Lago.

This week the Mueller probe made news as reporting indicated Trump’s former campaign chair Paul Manafort discussed a peace plan for Ukraine and handed off internal polling data in a secretive meeting to a business associate with ties to Russian intelligence, and a search warrant revealed Roger Stone was in direct contact with WikiLeaks while interacting with the Trump campaign —both in the months before the 2016 election.

At a Trump campaign-style event in El Paso, a BBC cameraman was physically assaulted by a supporter — symbolic of Trump’s continued attacks on the media and his stoking of hatred against marginalized communities. Trump’s speech in El Paso and his declaring a manufactured emergency in Rose Garden were both a repetition of disproven lies and exaggerations, as Trump continues to propagate a dystopian alternate reality and act unilaterally.

DzitGZ-UYAAWuLX.jpg-large — **“Great news! The Epic National Emergency at our border has had no negative impact on The Leader’s golf game.” – Jim Carrey**

**I discovered these “Sidewalk Merkels” in Frankfurt, Germany in October 2018.**

A CNN poll found 51% of American approve of the way Mueller is handling the investigation, while just 35% approve of the way Trump is responding. 33% believe Trump and 56% Mueller.
On impeachment, 61% believe if Trump authorized his campaign to coordinate with Russia he should be impeached, while 65% support it if Mueller’s report finds Trump tried to interfere in the investigation.
On Saturday, Trump appeared to mock the Trail of Tears, tweeting: “Today Elizabeth Warren, sometimes referred to by me as Pocahontas, joined the race,” adding, “See you on the campaign TRAIL, Liz!”
Thousands of Native Americans died in the forced relocation. Conservatives tried to defend the statement noting Trump’s lack of historical knowledge, despite his pattern of insulting Native Americans.
Donald Jr. also made light of the Trail of Tears, quoting Trump’s tweet and adding, “Savage!!! Love my President.”
On Sunday, actor Rob Lowe deleted a tweet mocking Sen. Warren over her past Native American ancestry claims which said she “would bring a whole new meaning to Commander in ‘Chief.” He later apologized.
On Sunday, acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney told “Fox News Sunday” if Congress will not give Trump money for his border wall, “we will go off and find the money someplace else,” adding, “sort of move money around.”
Mulvaney also said the regime was close to identifying the source of the leaks of Trump’s daily schedule, adding based on his work at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, “it’s nearly impossible to fire a federal worker.”
On Sunday, Trump defended last week’s reporting on his Executive Time, tweeting “it should have been reported as a positive, not negative,” adding, “I probably work more hours than almost any past President.”
Trump also tweeted, “The fact is, when I took over as President, our Country was a mess,” adding several examples of why, and saying, “I had no choice but to work very long hours!”
Later Sunday, Axios reported a White House staffer had leaked an additional four days of Trump’s private schedules from last week. Trump spent 50% of his time in “Executive Time” during those days.
On Sunday, Trump took a swipe at global warming and Amy Klobuchar, tweeting: “Klobuchar announced that she is running for President, talking proudly of fighting global warming while standing in a virtual blizzard.”
On Monday, Rep. Ilhan Omar apologized after tweets saying support for Israel was “all about the Benjamins baby,” which drew condemnation from fellow Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
On Monday, Trump told reporters of Rep. Omar, “I think she should be ashamed of herself,” adding “I think it was a terrible statement and I don’t think her apology was adequate.”
On Tuesday, Trump called on Rep. Omar to resign and calling her “terrible,” adding “she should either resignfrom Congress or she should certainly resign from the House Foreign Affairs Committee.”
On Wednesday, Rep. Omar responded, tweeting, “You have trafficked in hate your whole life — against Jews, Muslims, Indigenous, immigrants, black people and more. I learned from people impacted by my words. When will you?”
On Monday, the Roosevelt School District on Long Island said it had taken appropriate action after teachers displayed two nooses as part of a large classroom collage under the term “back to school necklaces.”
On Monday, Ruben Diaz Sr., a member of the New York City Council, said the legislative body is “controlled by the homosexual community.” The speaker of the council demanded an apology, Diaz refused.
On Monday, Democrats sought to put a cap on ICE detention beds, saying it will force the Trump regime “to prioritize deportation for criminals and people who pose real security threats, not law-abiding immigrants.”
The Trump regime asked for 52,000 beds given its claim that the number illegally crossing the border has reached 2,000 per day. Democrats are looking for a cap at 16,500 beds, the level as Obama left office.
On Tuesday, rapper 21 Savage was released from ICE custody on bond after being detained in Week 117 for overstaying his visa. ICE refused to answer why it had originally refused to release him on bond.
On Tuesday, Republicans in Wisconsin’s state legislature blocked a resolution to recognize Black History Month, citing the resolution mentioned the former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick.
The Sandusky Register reported city leaders of Sandusky, Ohio declared Election Day will become a paid holiday, replacing Columbus Day. The city is 69% white, 23% black, 7% Hispanic, and 0.4% Native American.
On Tuesday, Guardian reported that advocates say the Trump regime is continuing to separate families at the border, despite claims the practice ceased with the end of “zero tolerance,” including in El Paso, Texas.
Daily Beast reported a Trump regime report released Tuesday revealed the regime is considering using Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo, Texas, to house detained unaccompanied immigrant children.
Environmental law experts say Goodfellow, formerly used as a landfill site, is toxic and could pose serious health risks including exposure to multiple toxic chemicals, heavy metals, and contaminated groundwater.
On Thursday, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against Customs and Border Protection on behalf of two American women who were stopped inside a convenience store in Montana in Week 80 for speaking Spanish.
The lawsuit claimed the women were shocked when the agent said their accent was “very strong” and asked where they were born. The agent said he was “dead serious” and asked to see their identification.
The agent also said speaking Spanish “is very unheard of up here.” CBP agents have the authority to detain and question people up to 100 miles from an international border.
On Thursday, AP reported the commander for the Portland, Oregon police rapid response team exchanged friendly text messages with the leader of right-wing extremist group, Patriot Prayer.
According to a member of Portland’s city council, Lt. Jeff Niiya exchanged collaborative text messages with Patriot Prayer leader Joey Gibson to provide aid and support for the group’s plans to demonstrate.
Fox News refused to air a national advertisement for “A Night at the Garden,” an Oscar-nominated documentary about the 1939 Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden. The ad was titled “It Can Happen Here.”
On Monday, Michael Cohen postponed his testimony scheduled for this week before the Senate Intelligence Committee due to post surgery medical needs. This is Cohen’s third postponement in February.
YouTube announced it will longer recommend videos that “come close to” violating its community guidelines, including conspiracy theory videos. Experts say the goal had been to keep people on the site to see ads.
On Tuesday, ranking Democrat Mark Warner said he “respectfully disagrees with Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Richard Burr that the committee has not found evidence of Trump-Russia collusion.
In a rare public split of the leaders, Warner told reporters, “I’m not going to reach any conclusion until we finish the investigation. And we still have a number of the key witnesses to come back.”
Warner also noted that the Senate has not uncovered direct evidence: “We were never going to find a contract signed in blood saying, ‘Hey Vlad, we’re going to collude,’” but there may be circumstantial evidence.
Warner added, “there’s never been a campaign in American history that during the campaign and its aftermath that the campaign folks affiliated with the campaign had as many ties with Russia as the Trump campaign.”
Among the key witnesses to testify or come back is Cohen, who Burr said “any good will that might have existed…is now gone” after Cohen was seen out with friends on Saturday night and then postponed his testimony.
Burr also added he would prefer Cohen appear before the committee prior to going to prison on March 6, but “the way he’s positioning himself [by] not coming to the committee, we may help him go to prison.”
The Atlantic reported despite Burr claiming Christopher Steele had not responded to the committee’s attempts to engage with him, Democratic aides say Steele submitted written answers to the committee in August.
Another contention is Burr’s unwillingness to hire outside investigators, which experts saw as a “red flag” given the complex nature of the investigation, including financial transactions with Deutsche Bank.
On Wednesday, Trump tweeted: “The Senate Intelligence Committee: THERE IS NO EVIDENCE OF COLLUSION BETWEEN THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN AND RUSSIA!”
On Wednesday, Cohen lawyer Lanny Davis disputed Burr’s claims, calling them “inaccurate,” and said Cohen is suffering from severe post shoulder surgery pain, but will testify to Congress before going to prison.
On Tuesday, WAPO reported a meeting on August 2, 2016 between Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, and Konstantin Kilimnik at the Grand Havana Room has emerged as a potential fulcrum in Mueller’s investigation.
Kilimnik, a Russian political operative, flew into the U.S. for the meeting. According to a partially redacted transcript of the February 4 hearing, the three discussed a proposed resolution to the conflict over Ukraine.
During the hearing, Judge Amy Berman alluded to Manafort handing off internal polling data from Trump’s presidential campaign to Kilimnik, and that after the meeting, the three exited from three separate doors.
Mueller’s team said among the false statements Manafort made while cooperating were key lies about the August meeting and other interactions with Kilimnik, who also has ties to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.
On Wednesday, the judge ruled Manafort had lied to Mueller’s team, breaching his cooperation agreementand is “no longer bound” by the plea agreement, possibly adding additional years on to his prison sentence.
The judge said Mueller’s team established Manafort “intentionally made multiple false statements to the FBI, [Mueller’s office] and the grand jury,” including on “his interactions and communications with Kilimnik.”
Manafort also lied about a payment from a company to a law firm, which he previously said was a loan repayment, and made material false statements on another case which is not yet publicly known.
The judge said she will factor in Manafort’s lies in his sentencing on March 13, where he faces up to 10 years in prison in the D.C. case, along with a possible seven-to-10-year sentence in his related Virginia case.
On Sunday, NBC News reported ahead of Trump’s scheduled trip to the El Paso, Texas, politicians and business leaders say his portrayal of their community is unfair, misleading, and exaggerated.
In El Paso, violent crime has been cut in half since the 1990s, with recent data showing fewer than 400 incidents per 100,000 people. McAllen, Texas, where Trump visited in January, has seen a similar drop off.
Also, according to U.S. Border Patrol statistics, the number of undocumented immigrants apprehended at the border dropped from nearly 120,000 in 2000 to 25,000 in 2017.
On Monday, in a series of morning tweets, Trump ripped media fact-checkers, quoting Fox News host Jesse Watters who accused them of lying to the public, saying “Fact checkers have become Fake News.”
On Monday, the El Paso County Commissioners Court approved a resolution condemning the Trump regimefor misinformation and lies about a “crisis situation” noting “2017 was the lowest year of illegal cross-border migration on record.”
Trump also attacked Democrats, saying they “do not want us to detain, or send back, criminal aliens,” and “are so self righteous and ANGRY!” adding, “Loosen up and have some fun. The Country is doing well!”
Trump also tweeted, shortly after the additional Axios reporting on his considerable Executive Time, “No president ever worked harder than me (cleaning up the mess I inherited)!”
On Monday, lawmakers said in the late evening that they had reached an “agreement in principle” to avoid a government shutdown, without giving Trump much of the money he sought to build his wall.
The deal includes just $1.375 billion for 55 miles of fencing, and does not include the cap Democrats wanted on ICE detention beds. Lawmakers hoped to avoid a shutdown at the end of the three-week extension Friday.
On Monday, Trump was briefed on the committee’s progress as he took the stage in El Paso. He told the crowd, “Just so you know, we’re building the wall anyway.” Trump also said the wall “has to be built.”
On the stage, banners read “Finish the Wall.” Trump falsely claimed a “big, beautiful wall right on the Rio Grande” is already being built. The crowd chanted “Lock her up!” and “Build the Wall,” reminiscent of 2016.
Trump said, “I will never sign a bill that forces the mass release of violent criminals into our country. And I will never abolish or in any way mistreat our great heroes from ICE and Border Patrol and law enforcement.”
Trump repeated his attack on media fact-checkers, telling the crowd, “Where are the fact-checkers? Some of the most dishonest people in media are the so-called ‘fact-checkers.’’
Trump also went off topic, saying embattled VA Governor Ralph Northam would “even allow a newborn babyto come out into the world, wrap the baby, and make the baby comfortable, and then…execute the baby!”
Democrat Beto O’Rourke held a protest rally in El Paso. Trump said “We have 35,000 people tonight and he has 200 people, 300 people.” Actual estimates were 6,500 for Trump’s rally and at least 10,000 for Beto.
At the Trump rally, a BBC cameraman was attacked. A spokesperson said, “BBC cameraman Ron Skeans was violently pushed and shoved.” A BBC reporter said the supporter also tried to smash Skeans’ camera.
A viral 36-second video captured a Trump supporter wearing a red Make America Great Again cap shouting at the media as he is restrained by event security. The crowd’s chant shifted from “U.S.A.” to “Let him go.”
On Tuesday, press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement that Trump “condemns all acts of violence against any individual or group of people — including members of the press.” Trump did not comment or tweet.
On Tuesday, the White House Correspondents’ Association condemned the physical attack, and called on Trump to “make absolutely clear to his supporters that violence against reporters is unacceptable.” He did not.
Bloomingdale’s issued an apology and removed t-shirts that read “Fake News” from its stores, after reporter Allison Kaden suggested on a New York news station that the clothing “delegitimizes” journalists.
On Tuesday, at a meeting with his cabinet, Trump told reporters he is again considering a military parade, in what he called “a ‘Salute to America’ parade,” saying it would be “a gathering, as opposed to a parade.”
Trump suggested July 4 for the parade, and after having his requests stymied by the Pentagon under James Mattis, this time said he would enlist the Interior Department, which oversees the National Park Services.
On Tuesday, Trump said he was “extremely unhappy” with the bipartisan shutdown deal, singling out Democrats and saying, “It’s sad. They’re doing the country no favors. They’re hurting our country very badly.”
A White House official told NBC News that even if Trump signs the deal, other options are on the table to build his wall, including redirecting federal money through executive orders.
On Tuesday, conservative commentator Ann Coulter ripped Trump, tweeting, “Trump talks a good game on the border wall but it’s increasingly clear he’s afraid to fight for it,” adding, “call this his ‘Yellow New Deal.’”
On Wednesday, NYT reported White House aides sought to minimize the damage of Trump agreeing to the bipartisan deal by calling conservative news hosts Lou Dobbs and Sean Hannity, and conservative lawmakers.
Trump criticized Speaker Pelosi and Democrats saying, “With the wall, they want to be stingy,”and again threatening to redirect federal funds, adding, “but we have options that most people don’t really understand.”
On Monday, California governor Gavin Newsom announced he will recall the 360 National Guard troops who had been deployed to the border, saying the state would not be part of Trump’s “manufactured crisis.”
On Wednesday, Trump tweeted “California has been forced to cancel the massive bullet train project after having spent and wasted many billions of dollars,” saying the state owes the government $3.5 billion.
On Wednesday, Governor Newsom responded, tweeting “Fake news,” adding, “this is CA’s money, allocated by Congress for this project,” and “(Also, desperately searching for some wall $$??).”
On Monday, Trump tweeted, “Coal is an important part of our electricity generation mix” adding Tennessee Valley Authority “should give serious consideration to all factors before voting to close viable power plants.”
The 49 year-old coal plant Trump cited buys much of its coal from Murray Energy, chaired by Trump mega-donor, Robert Murray. The TVA board, an independent agency, planned to meet Thursday to discuss its closure.
On Thursday, the TVA said it would close two coal-fired plants, including the one that purchased coal from Murray Energy. Kentucky Sens. Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul had also urged TVA to keep the plants open.
On Tuesday, the Treasury Department’s daily statement showed the national debt passed $22 trillion for the first time. When Trump took office, the national debt stood at $19.95 trillion.
The surge in the national debt resulted from Trump’s $1.5 trillion tax cut for the rich and corporations in 2017, as well as a growth in domestic and military spending.
On Thursday, the Internal Revenue Service released data showing for the first 12 days of this year’s tax filing season, the first year reflecting Trump’s 2017 tax-cut law, the average tax refund was 8.7% less than in the prior year.
On Wednesday, WAPO reported Trump installed a room-sized golf simulator at the White House, which allows him to play virtual rounds at courses around the world. The system costs about $50,000.
White House officials said Trump paid for the installation, and that Trump did not play during his “Executive Time.” Trump played 70 rounds of outdoor golf a year, about double Obama at 38 rounds.
On Sunday, Daily Beast reported that according to multiple sources, Michael Sanchez, brother to Lauren Sanchez who has ties to Trump associates, was the one to give Jeff Bezos’ texts to the National Enquirer.
On Monday, WSJ reported that last year America Media Inc. sought Justice Department advice on whether it should register as a foreign agent after publishing a magazine promoting Saudi Arabia and crown prince MBS.
AMI also sought Saudi financing in last year when considering an acquisition of Time, Sports Illustrated, Fortune, and Money. A lawyer for David Pecker said Sunday the financing was “never obtained.”
On Tuesday, when asked by a reporter if he was aware that AMI was investigating Jeff Bezos, Trump responded, “No, no I wasn’t.”
On Tuesday, Trump ally Tom Barrack defended Saudi Arabia at a summit in Abu Dhabi, saying of Jamal Khashoggi’s murder, “whatever happened in Saudi Arabia, the atrocities in America are equal, or worse …”
On Wednesday, in a rebuke to Trump, the House voted 248-to-177 to halt aid for Saudi Arabia’s conflict in Yemen. The Senate passed a parallel resolution in December. Trump could vote to veto the resolution.
Bipartisan members of Congress expressed fresh outrage after Trump’s White House missed a legally mandated deadline to report whether the regime believes Saudi crown prince MBS is behind Khashoggi’s murder.
On Wednesday, FEMA director Brock Turner resigned, saying in a statement he was leaving “to go home to” his family.” A spokesperson for the agency said Turner’s departure was unrelated to last year’s vehicle controversy.
On Wednesday, Politico reported former Interior Department secretary Ryan Zinke will team up with Corey Lewandowski, working as a senior adviser at Washington lobbying firm Turnberry Solutions.
On Friday, a federal court in D.C. ruled the Mashantucket Pequot tribe can revive a lawsuit and add new claims of political interference, after the Interior Department under Zinke had blocked their plans to open a casino.
On Tuesday, Jonathan Reiner, former VP Dick Cheney’s cardiologist, tweeted: “It’s been 4 days since the president underwent his annual physical exam and still no data has been released. What are they hiding?”
On Thursday, the White House released limited information on Trump’s physical exam, with the doctor citing Trump “remains in very good health.” Trump reportedly weighs 243 pounds, making him technically obese.
On Tuesday, former Trump attorney John Dowd told ABC News that the Mueller probe was “a terrible waste of time,” adding, “I will be shocked if anything regarding the president is made public, other than ‘We’re done.’”
Dowd said Trump cooperated and at “no time in history has anybody had this kind of look at communications with the president,” adding if he were supervising Mueller, “ [I would] tell him to ‘knock it off, get it done.”
On Wednesday, Roger Stone’s legal team asked the judge to hold Mueller’s team in contempt, claiming they had “publicly distributed the Indictment prior to its release from the sealing ordered by the Court” to CNN.
Stone has used the raid to fundraise for his legal fees, writing in emails and on social media of the FBI’s “excessive use of force,” and equating it to captures of Osama bin Laden and Pablo Escobar.
On Thursday, in an interview aired on CBS, former acting FBI director Andrew McCabe said he authorized an investigation into Trump’s ties to Russia the day after meeting him in May 2017, for fear he would be fired.
McCabe said he was speaking to someone who “won the election for the presidency, and who might have done so with the aid of the government of Russia, our most formidable adversary,” adding it “troubled me greatly.”
On “CBS This Morning,” Scott Pelley, the correspondent who interviewed McCabe, said McCabe disputes the assertion that deputy director Rod Rosenstein was joking about wearing a wire when he met with Trump.
Pelly said there were discussions of the 25th Amendment — “counting noses” on where various cabinet members would vote. The full interview with McCabe about his new book will air on Sunday’s “60 Minutes.”
A spokesperson for Rosenstein released a statement saying he “never authorized any recording that Mr. McCabe references,” adding, “there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment,” nor was he considering it.
As CBS was airing their story, the Atlantic published an excerpt from his book in which Trump wanted McCabe to send a sinister message to employees: “I felt the way I’d felt in 1998, in a case involving the Russian Mafia.”
Shortly after, Trump attacked McCabe, tweeting: “Disgraced FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe pretends to be a “poor little Angel” when in fact he was a big part of the Crooked Hillary Scandal & the Russia Hoax.”
Trump also called McCabe “a puppet for Leakin’ James Comey,” and “part of “insurance policy” in case I won,” adding, “McCabe’s wife received BIG DOLLARS from Clinton people for her campaign.”
Trump ally Lindsey Graham, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement that it was “imperative” that McCabe and others come before his committee to address what appears to be bias against Trump.
On Thursday, Alan Dershowitz, an informal adviser to Trump, told Fox News host Tucker Carlson of the DOJ discussing the 25th Amendment to remove Trump, “If that’s true, it is clearly an attempted coup d’etat.”
Trump quoted Dershowitz, tweeting: “Trying to use the 25th Amendment to try and circumvent the Election is a despicable act of unconstitutional power grabbing…which happens in third world countries.”
On Thursday, WAPO reported McCabe’s book also took aim at former AG Jeff Sessions, saying he did not read intelligence reports, and often confused classified material with newspaper clips.
McCabe also accused Sessions of being racist, saying he blamed nearly every societal problem on immigrants and uttered racist sentiments. Sessions also became overwhelmed in meetings on multiple subjects.
On Wednesday, in outlining their Russia probe, Democrats said at least three committees will be involved: House Intelligence Committee will take the lead, along with House Financial Services and House Foreign Affairs.
House investigators also indicated they may target Ivanka, citing “a number of public reports about her involvement in the Trump Tower Moscow deal,” and saying she may have relevant information.
On Friday, in a letter to White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, House Oversight Committee Chair Elijah Cummings said two Trump attorneys may have lied to Congress about Cohen’s hush money payments.
Cummings also questioned the false statements made by the two attorneys, Sheri Dillon and Stefan Passantino, wondering whether they “were acting at the direction of, or coordination with, the president.”
On Saturday, Politico reported Rep. Adam Schiff, chair of the Intelligence Committee and Rep. Eliot Engel, chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, are close to taking action to force Trump to reveal his private talks Putin.
Schiff and Engel are consulting with House General Counsel Douglas Letter on the best way to compel the Trump regime to turn over documents and other information related to the one-on-one meetings.
On Thursday, Daily Beast reported that DHS has gutted two task forces set up to protect against foreign adversaries meddling in U.S. elections in response to the 2016 election.
The two tasks forces were set up as part of the Cyber Security and Infrastructure Agency to secure election infrastructure and focus on foreign influence efforts, including through social media.
The staff for both task forces have dwindled. Before midterms the CSIA task forces reported to Chris Krebs, the Senate-confirmed director. After, leadership has been moved to someone lower in command.
Experts say Trump has shown no interest in securing U.S. elections, or coming up with a strategy. A lawmaker suggested the task forces were never intended to be permanent.
On Wednesday, House Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler said in a letter that Matt Whitaker may have “misled” the committee in his testimony last week, calling it “unsatisfactory” or “contradicted by other evidence.”
Nadler also said he would seek more information from Whitaker, and that his staff would work for a “reasonable accommodation” about further information, leaving open the possibility of deposing him.
On Thursday, William Barr was sworn in as the new attorney general. Whitaker will stay on at the DOJ as a senior counselor in the associate attorney general’s office.
On Thursday, Fox Business host Lou Dobbs called on AG Barr to investigate Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts for his “liberal” based appointments on the FISA court, which oversees surveillance.
On Thursday, the White House announced that Trump will sign the bipartisan government spending bill, but would also declare a national emergency and seek $8 billion for his border wall under executive actions.
As of Thursday, the $8 billion included $1.375 billion in the spending bill; $600 million from the Treasury Department; $2.5 billion from a Defense Department; and $3.5 billion from a military construction budget.
Press secretary Sanders said the executive action was to “ensure we stop the national security and humanitarian crisis at the border.” The Senate and House both passed the spending bill by large majorities.
Speaker Pelosi told reporters if Trump declares a national emergency, Democrats could consider legal actions, saying “first of all, it’s not an emergency,” and adding that Trump “has tried to sell a bill of goods.”
On the one-year anniversary of the Parkland shooting, Pelosi also warned Republicans that if Trump sets the precedent, a future Democratic president could declare gun violence a national emergency.
Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer released a statement vowing to defend the Constitution’s separation of powers, saying “declaring a national emergency would be a lawless act, a gross abuse of the power.”
On Friday, in a rambling, incoherent 50-minute speech from the Rose Garden, Trump declared a national emergency to build his wall, a campaign promise he had said Mexico would pay for back in 2016.
Trump was sniffling and often went off topic and ad-libbed during the speech. His remarks were confusing, full of false and misleading statements, and veered off to numerous unrelated topics.
Before speaking about the national emergency, Trump opened with a long preamble about trade deals and North Korea, including falsely claiming Obama was on the verge of striking North Korea.
Trump oddly noted after declaring a national emergency, “I can do the wall over a longer period of time. I didn’t need to do this” — a statement certain to be used in legal challenges.
In making his case, Trump falsely described a lawless, chaotic southern border. Illegal border crossings have been declining for decades. It is not true that immigrants commit more crimes than native-born Americans.
Trump used campaign-style rhetoric: “we’re talking about an invasion of our country with drugs, with human traffickers, with all types of criminals and gangs.” WAPO reported Trump used the word “invasion” seven times.
Trump also repeated a series of false claims, including: “A big majority of the big drugs, the big drug loads don’t go through ports of entry. They can’t go through ports of entry.”
Trump also said, “You can’t take human traffic — women and girls — you can’t take them through ports of entry.” This is false. About 80% of human trafficking victims passed through official ports of entry.
Trump also used an unproven and exaggerated claim: “You have chain migration. Where a bad person comes in, brings 22 or 23 or 35 of his family members…They are all in.”
Trump acknowledged he would likely lose in lower-court judges, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit would probably rule against him before he ultimately got a “fair shake” in the Supreme Court.
The White House claimed over 50 national emergencies have been declared since 1976 when Congress enacted the National Emergencies Act, allowing presidents to bypass Congress.
However, NYT reported there is no precedent for Trump’s national emergency, where a president has asked for funds from Congress, been denied, then used emergency powers to get funds and move forward.
Of past national emergencies, 51 of 59 have been related to imposing sanctions or trade regulations on foreign officials and groups for things like human rights violations, terrorism, or narcotics trafficking.
Only once has a president’s national emergency been challenged in court: in 1952, in the case of Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, the Supreme Court overturned President Harry Truman’s national emergency.
Trump cited Obama: “We may be using one of the national emergencies that (Obama) signed having to do with cartels, criminal cartels. It’s a very good emergency he signed.” This order froze financial assets.
In 2014, both Trump and Pence said Obama should not use executive authority on “DREAMers.” Trump tweeted: “Repubs must not allow Pres Obama to subvert the Constitution…because he is unable to negotiate w/ Congress.”
When reporters asked Trump about his February summit with North Korea, Trump said that Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize for opening a dialogue with North Korea.
Trump also complained that Obama was there “for about 15 seconds” before he was awarded the prize, and “he didn’t even know what he got it for,” adding, “I’ll probably never get it, but that’s OK.”
Trump claimed Abe “gave me the most beautiful copy of a letter” he sent. AP could not confirm Trump’s claim. Japan’s Foreign Ministry said it cannot comment on details of the exchanges between Trump and Abe.
As Trump was speaking, the dystopian Hulu series of “The Handmaid’s Tale” was filming for season 3 in around Washington D.C. Onlookers tweeted confusion about whether it was a real life protest instead.
Ahead of him signing the bill, conservative commentator Ann Coulter tweeted Trump is not fighting, and “the goal of a national emergency is for Trump to scam the stupidest people in his base for 2 more years.”
When asked about Coulter’s influence, Trump told reporters, “I don’t know her. I hardly know her. I haven’t spoken to her in way over a year,” adding, “I have nothing against her, but she’s off the reservation.”
On Friday, Coulter fired back, saying in an interview “It was one thing, the promise he made every single day at every single speech,” adding, “the only national emergency is that our president is an idiot.”
On Friday, House Democrats said they will vote on a joint resolution overriding Trump’s national emergency, forcing Senate Republicans to go on the record, after several spoke against Trump declaring an emergency.
Pelosi and Schumer said in a statement, Trump’s declaration “if unchecked, would fundamentally alter the balance of powers, inconsistent with our Founders’ vision,” adding, “Congress cannot let the president shred the Constitution.”
On Friday, the first legal challenge was filed against Trump’s national emergency by legal advocacy group Public Citizen, on behalf of three Texas landowners and an environmental group.
Government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics sued, saying Trump’s DOJ failed to show the legal authority of his national declaration by refusing to provide documents requested under the FOIA.
The ACLU announced a lawsuit against the Trump regime over his “blatantly illegal declaration,” saying, “There is no emergency. This is an unconstitutional power grab that hurts American communities.”
On Friday, California’s Gov. Newsom and AG Xavier Becerra said the state would sue the Trump regime over his declaration. Newsom called Trump’s wall “a vanity project, a monument to stupidity.”
On Friday, CNN reported press secretary Sanders has been interviewed in the Mueller probe. Sanders said Trump “urged me, like he has everyone in the administration, to fully cooperate with the special counsel.”
The White House did not immediately grant Mueller’s team an interview with Sanders. The interview took place late last year, around the time the special counsel interviewed John Kelly.
While it is unclear what the topics were, two areas of interest appear to be how she composed statements made on the podium defending Trump and Sanders’ statements relating to the June 9 Trump Tower meeting.
On Wednesday, Jerome Corsi filed an amicus brief arguing for the court to impose a gag order on Stone. On Friday, Corsi also sued Stone for defamation, seeking damages in excess of $25 million.
On Friday, Mueller’s team said in a new filing that search warrants executed on accounts in the investigation into Russian hackers uncovered communications between Stone with Guccifer 2.0 and with WikiLeaks.
The warrants were part of the case against 12 Russian GRU officers. Although the content of the communications was not provided, this was the clearest indication yet of Stone’s direct contact with WikiLeaks.
Stone’s attorneys objected to his case being labeled as “related” to the Russian hacking case, and asked it be moved to a new judge. The judge denied the requests, saying they are indeed related.
The judge also issued a gag order for Stone in and around the Washington, D.C. courthouse where the case is being heard, and said she could change her mind and amend her order to broaden the gag “if necessary.”
On Friday, Mueller’s team filed a memo with the court in Virginia, saying Manafort’s crimes including tax and bank fraud were “brazen” and “serious,” and noting federal guidelines for such crimes would be 19.5 to 24.5 years.
The memo said Manafort “acted for more than a decade as if he were above the law,” and failed to pay millions of taxes, adding, “the sentence here should reflect the seriousness of these crimes” to deter others.
The memo also said “Manafort’s age does not eliminate the risk of recidivism he poses,” saying his “criminal activity has occurred over more than a decade,” and he conspired to tamper with witnesses after indicted.
Mueller’s team also said they would fine Manafort tens of millions of dollars. Judge T.S. Ellis has not set a sentencing date. Manafort will be sentenced in his D.C. case on March 13.
On Friday, the Guardian reported a senior Belgian intelligence officer is under investigation over allegedly exchanging confidential information with a woman believed to be a Russian agent.
Additionally, Clement Vandenborre, head of counter-intelligence at GISS, was suspended for allegedly shredding confidential documents as part of the scheme. The Belgian capital is home to NATO headquarters.
On Friday, at the Munich Security Conference, German Chancellor Angela Merkel addressed the conference with critiques of U.S. foreign policy, receiving a sustained standing ovation, except from Ivanka.
Vice President Mike Pence, defending U.S. foreign policy, told the audience at the conference that he brings greetings from Trump, and not a single person clapped.
Pence also followed Trump’s lead, criticizing NATO allies, saying they “still need to do more,” adding the U.S. expects “every NATO member to put in place a credible plan to meet the 2 percent threshold.”
The Munich Security Conference report cited the Trump regime for displaying an “irritating enthusiasm for strongmen across the globe” and “disdain for international institutions and agreements.”
On Saturday, in an op-ed titled, “Phony Wall, Phony Emergency,” the Times Editorial Board called out Trump for his “breathtaking display of executive disregard for the separation of powers.”
The Editorial Board also mocked Trump for leaving early Friday to head to Mar-a-Lago after signing the bill, noting Trump “plans to manage the border crisis from the golf course at Mar-a-Lago this weekend.”

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Donald Trump Holds MAGA Rally: Trump speaks during a rally at the El Paso County Coliseum on February 11, 2019 in El Paso, Texas. Trump continues his campaign for a wall to be built along the border as the Democrats in Congress are asking for other border security measures.

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