Before more time goes by I want to make sure you saw this piece by Josh Kovensky from last week: a secret meeting where at least part of the Trump/Russia collusion probably happened. Read it.
Trump’s President. He can shut down the government. Some compromises are necessary. But these are points well-taken. From TPM Reader JB …
Without quarreling with those who are arguing today that the leadership deal to fund government agencies is a humiliating defeat for Trump, I think we ought to remember a few things.
One, several hundred million taxpayer dollars wasted on ornamental fencing and barriers that will rip up land in the lower Rio Grande Valley is to be the price of saving a little face for Trump and his anti-immigrant supporters in Congress.
In a bracingly candid comment, Trump confidante Tom Barrack said the murder of Jamal Khashoggi was basically fine and not nearly as bad as things America does. He also has this interesting line: “The atrocities in any autocratic country are dictated by the rule of law.”
Trump appears low energy and climb-downy in first reactions to congressional deal.
As a number of people have noted, it’s not at all clear to me how President Trump can agree to this new bipartisan DHS border funding compromise without a humiliating climbdown. Democrats insisted that the limited funding for reinforcing the southern border can only be in the form of more of the fences that were approved and built before Trump’s presidency. That means we’re back to Mitch McConnell who is really the key person in this situation. Read More
Congressional negotiators say they have a deal to prevent a second government shutdown.
Now we have the AP confirming that Bezos investigators have confirmed that Michael Sanchez, brother and manager of Bezos’s girlfriend Lauren Sanchez, is the one who gave texts and pictures to The National Enquirer.
I urge you to read Josh Kovensky’s account of how Robert Mueller’s team came to suspect Paul Manafort was not living up to his plea agreement but was instead playing for a pardon from President Trump.
I addressed this on Twitter. Let me try to address it here. Yesterday, freshman member of Congress Ilhan Omar riffed on a tweet by Glenn Greenwald about Kevin McCarthy and pro-Israel politics in Congress.
She responded and here was my response to hers …
McCarthy’s a fool who has no power to punish anyone. Criticism of Israel doesn’t equal anti-Semitism. And this is a very unfortunate tweet. https://t.co/WaCjbr2yNp
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) February 11, 2019