A few readers asked whether the government shutdown might shut down the Special Counsel’s Office and whether this might even be one of the President Trump’s motivation. It turns out, no, it does not. The overwhelming majority of Justice Department officials remain on the job during a shutdown as “essential personnel”. That includes the Special Counsel’s Office, whose employees remain on the job.
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North Carolina election officials asked feds to indict accused vote fraudster Leslie McCrae Dowless Jr. more than a year ago. But nothing happened.
With Christmas and New Year’s upon us, I thought I would give some book recommendations. As always a few caveats and explanations about my criteria. I almost never read political books or any books about the contemporary world. I read history almost exclusively and usually at least a few centuries in the past. My criteria are deeply subjective. The books I recommend ones that held my attention to the end (most don’t), books I found engrossing and from which I learned new things. A number of the books below I’ve recommended before. Others are new. Read More
Earlier this month, Tierney Sneed reported from Washington, D.C.’s federal courthouse that staff were “doing everything they could” to “make sure a secret case believed to be related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe stayed secret.”
We still don’t know much about that legal dispute, beyond that an unknown foreign company is fighting (and has been losing its attempts) to quash a subpoena which may come from Mueller.
But, Tierney Sneed reports this morning, the case has arrived at the Supreme Court. Read more here.
Casting about for a last-minute gift idea for a news-obsessed friend or family member? Perhaps a TPM gift subscription — providing access to daily, members-only articles, and supporting the work we do — would brighten their holiday season.
This is a good article on Trump’s ties to Russia. It’s not about collusion per se or really anything that happened during the 2016 election. It’s about the backstory, things that happened as far back as the 1990s. If you’ve read up on this subject, a lot will be familiar. But Michael Hirsch has added some new reporting about the backstory and the what congressional investigators who get started next month are going to be interested in. More than anything he does a good job of weaving together all the disparate elements of the story.
Here’s a remarkable detail about the present government shutdown. The Department of Homeland Security prepared a “to whom it may concern” letter to employees to forward to their creditors. It essentially asks banks, credit card companies and any other creditors to take pity on their employees who can’t cover their debt obligations while they are not being paid. The letter concludes by thanking creditors “for your patience and compassion towards our employees during this time.” Read More
A very interesting snippet from yesterday’s traveling press pool …
Response to question on how the U.S. withdrawal from Syria will impact Israel:
Trump: “I don’t see it that way. I spoke with Bibi. I told Bibi, you know we give Israel 4.5 billion dollars a year. And they are doing very well at defending themselves.”
“We’ll always be there for Israel.”
“I’m the one that moved the embassy to Jerusalem. I was the one who was willing to do that”
“So that’s the way it is we are going to take great care of Israel. Israel is going to be good. We give Israel 4.5 billion a year. And we give frankly a lot more than that if you look at the books. They’ve been doing a good job.”
That story out of Alabama raises an important question. Once we have figured out just the scope of what Russia was doing in the 2016 election cycle (and going forward) we need to grapple with the fact that there are lots of entities offering and already providing these services to the highest bidder. The fact that Russia’s 2016 operation was mounted by a hostile foreign government coordinating with the beneficiary campaign is a huge, central issue. But it’s not the only issue. Read More