"I'm trying to grapple with the word 'suggest'." pic.twitter.com/WZ2LB6jwbv
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) May 1, 2019
From this morning, with your indulgence …
Great work on the news that broke overnight. There are many reasons why I’ve read TPM since the post-Brooks Brothers Riot days, and why I finally ponied up and subscribed to Prime (and then AF), but last night (or this morning, in my case) is as good an illustration as any.
Robert Mueller’s reasoning for deciding not to decide whether President Trump obstructed justice is certainly debatable, but good lord the reasoning Attorney General William Barr used to overrule Mueller and decide the issue. It’s extraordinary.
Quick follow up on last night’s post about Rudy Giuliani and Bill Barr already working to target Trump’s 2020 political opponents with investigations. I’ve mentioned before that John Solomon for a couple decades has been the go-to guy for Republican operatives to peddle their oppo research. This has all been more out in the open of late. And even The Hill, with its minimal editorial standards, felt compelled to reclassify him as an opinion columnist rather than a reporter. But one of my colleagues notes that prior to getting into the Times, this Hunter Biden/Ukraine stuff was pushed most heavily by The Hill and all of those pieces were by Solomon. Keep a close eye on this.
Speaker Pelosi just spoke before reporters on Capitol Hill and was clear on two key points. President Trump’s blanket refusal to honor subpoenas is itself obstruction of justice. Also, Bill Barr committed a crime when he lied to Congress. Lying to Congress carries a jail sentence. Video after the jump.
Benjamin Wittes calls William Barr’s handling of the Mueller report “catastrophic.”
Nicole Lafond reports that three weeks after he filed his defamation lawsuit against his hometown newspaper, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) still hasn’t served any of the defendants.
Below David notes that Benjamin Wittes (of Lawfare) is now saying Bill Barr’s handling of the Mueller Report was “catastrophic” – after earlier huffily vouching for his bona fides and integrity. James Comey yesterday penned a blistering OpEd arguing, in so many words, that Barr had sold his soul to Trump. This comes only a couple weeks after Comey insisted Barr deserved the benefit of the doubt in his handling of the report. Some of this is just the common story of giving the benefit of the doubt to members of your club, insiderism and credentialism, an old story. But there’s another dimension of this I want to focus on. Read More
There’s a key point to understand about this White House letter from Emmet Flood to Bill Barr about the Mueller Report. There’s a clear and consistent, if deeply wrong, through line connecting all of this. Most people – polls show this – have seen Mueller’s probe as something like an Independent Counsel investigation. It’s not simply a criminal probe. It’s a public exercise to determine – apart from the possible direct influence of the President and any conflicted appointees – what happened in a question of great and legitimate public concern: Did the President conspire with a foreign government during the 2016 election and did he obstruct justice or abuse his office during the subsequent investigation?
Hmmm. Yeah, someone needs to sit down with Rudy and arrange a deposition. From TPM Reader JB …
Just read your great editor’s brief on Barr’s lawlessness and Rudy’s efforts in Ukraine. I just wanted to point out that now that Rudy has acknowledged working on the Ukrainian prosecutor this Times article from last year on Ukrainian officials stopping their potential cooperation with the Mueller probe sure looks different.