I’m very curious what Bill Barr is up to with this letter to Robert Mueller insisting he not testify to anything beyond the four corners of the his report, and then only the unredacted points. You can see the letter here. This whole exercise has the Department of Justice acting like the White House Counsel’s Office. Indeed, in some respects it seems to have the DOJ operating more like the President’s own personal attorneys.
The letter begins by noting that Mueller has already said he doesn’t want to testify beyond what is contained in his report and then says it expects him to keep to that. Obviously, what he said was his preference has no binding power. There’s various stuff of that nature. But the letter really gets down to brass tacks in the penultimate paragraph where it says Mueller cannot testify to anything beyond what is stated in the report because the entire investigation is covered by executive privilege.
The Nixon reelection campaign was in the news last week because of this article this article by Never Trump Republican Charlie Sykes. He offers a warning to Democrats that in 1971 Democrats thought they had Nixon on the ropes only to see George McGovern lose to him in a devastating electoral landslide in 1972. As it happens, the history is off. Nixon was doing reasonably well in 1971 and was actually pretty popular in 1972. But the story of the Nixon presidency has notable parallels and contrasts to today that are worth revisiting.
It’s good to be back. I was away the second half of last week on a family trip, picking up my older son from camp. So sorry for the lack of posts. I always notice that some fallow time, some time away from the news and from posting, lets me return to it with some freshness and rejuvenated perspective.
In case you missed it, we published two remembrances of Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens at TPM Cafe this week, both by prominent law professors who clerked for Stevens.
Deborah Pearlstein writes on how Stevens might respond to the Trump administration’s census shenanigans. Amanda Cohen Leiter reflects on Stevens’ propensity for writing his own opinions, even when arriving at the same conclusions as other justices, in order to preserve his thinking for posterity.
I keep seeing comparisons between Trump’s racial appeals and George Wallace’s 1968 campaign. Here’s the AP’s Steve Peoples and Zeke Miller: “Not since George Wallace’s campaign in 1968 has a presidential candidate — and certainly not an incumbent president — put racial polarization at the center of his call to voters.” Someone here can correct me if my memory is failing me, but in 1968, Wallace did not make explicit racial appeals.
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Crowd at North Carolina rally breaks into “send her back!” chant after President Trump attacks Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN):
I mentioned this yesterday on the Chris Hayes show. We can see how President Trump has united the GOP behind his openly and aggressively racist attacks on four freshman congresswomen of color. Yesterday all but four Republican members of the House voted against a formal criticism of the President’s attacks. Two of those are retiring. So they barely even count. What jumps out to me though is this. I suspect if any Republican member of Congress said exactly the same things he or she wouldn’t have survived the controversy. At a minimum they would have been roundly denounced and forced to apologize.
We’ve been debating back and forth over recent weeks, impeachment vs aggressive oversight and then further debating: can this really be as fast and as hard as we can go at this? As we discussed yesterday with TPM Reader MA, the cold reality is that Democrats just don’t have much power, not enough to meet the big expectations of their supporters and those terrorized or angered by all of Trump’s transgressions and criminality. In an unprecedented fashion, the White House has adopted a policy of massive resistance to ALL oversight. That’s forced the House to rely on the Courts to enforce even the most basic compliance. But can they really not up the pace?
We held a briefing yesterday on this question. We had on a former longtime General Counsel of the House Judiciary Committee. I think it really captured for me that yes, they really are hanging back. The additional things they could be doing might not work. They could also fall prey to administration slow-walking and delays. But there are things they could be doing and which they are not doing.
If this is a question that interests you and you missed the briefing, you can watch a taped version here. It’s available to all Prime members. Just make sure you’re logged in. Here’s the link.
We’ve got a few more seats open for our Briefing and Q&A on the upcoming Mueller testimony this afternoon at 2:30 PM Eastern. I’ll be joined by TPM’s Tierney Sneed and Ted Kalo, former longtime General Counsel of the House Judiciary Committee. This is a good opportunity to get our questions answered about why the pace of investigations up on the Hill seems to be going so slowly. If you’re a Prime member and you’d like to join us, join me after the jump.