The Nixon Foundation has announced the death of Fred Malek, former personnel director in the Nixon White House.
Fred Malek, dedicated public servant, counselor to presidents, and decisive, inspirational leader passed away yesterday at 82.
Statement from the Nixon daughters: https://t.co/j4oEShHOQw pic.twitter.com/1lggmmkM8K
— Nixon Foundation (@nixonfoundation) March 25, 2019
I been trying to place the fallout from the Mueller Report in larger historical perspective. These tweets by Dave Weigel of The Washington Post has been clarifying:
I’ve thought for a long time that the working template for presidential scandals is not Watergate, but Iran Contra. Protect the president at all costs, and go to the base to say it’s a witch hunt. Worked for Bill Clinton eventually, too.
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) March 25, 2019
Watergate, not Iran/Contra: that is to say a President having to resign from scandals is very rare (it’s only happened once). More common is for a president’s underlings and associates to take the fall, sometimes to be rewarded later with a pardon.
Amid the Mueller/Barr news, the story of Trump’s nomination of Stephen Moore to be a governor of the U.S. Federal Reserve is getting buried. This is a shame since this is a hugely consequential position, one of the most important appointments a president can make. Also, Moore is ridiculously unfit for the job.
We might get the Mueller Report one day, but so far all we can work with is Attorney General William Barr’s four-page letter. As analysts spend time parsing the letter, the stranger it seems.
It appears Attorney General Bill Barr will be submitting a summary report of special counsel Mueller’s findings to Congress within the next hour.
The much anticipated moment is here. Special Counsel Robert Mueller has submitted his report to Attorney General William Barr. Now the fate of report becomes a profoundly political matter. In a letter to congress, Barr promises he’ll advise Congress about the report perhaps as early as the weekend. But Barr has tremendous discretion as to how much he can tell Congress or the public.
First indications that Mueller report has been delivered to Barr.
No indications that anything substantive is about to be released publicly.
Late Update: Attorney General Bill Barr in a letter CNN read on the air is telling Congress he may be able to provide it with more information as early as this weekend.
The global revival of fascism and white nationalism has gotten me re-reading some of the writers part of the original fascist wave, especially the American poet Ezra Pound. Pound remains at the center of an unsettled debate about the relationship between art and politics. Living in Italy from 1924 to 1945, Pound was a full-on enthusiast for the regime of Benito Mussolini, even broadcasting on its behalf while Italy was at war with the United States. After the war, Pound only avoided being charged with treason by being judged insane. He was institutionalized at St. Elizabeths hospital in Washington from 1945 until 1958.