I watched the Acosta presser live all the way through and here’s my take.
An overnight article from the Times is the first to press past questions about Jeffrey Epstein’s wealth to suggesting that – like Donald Trump – it may all simply be an illusion. No one disputes that he’s a very wealthy man by any normal standard. He appears to own almost a quarter of a billion in real estate alone. But the claims of being a billionaire or running a fund which manages tens of billions of dollars appears to be based on very little.
This is turning out to be a quintessentially Trumpian day. The social media bias summit the White House is hosting today is made up of attendees best known as online pro-Trump hype men, pushing images, memes and videos portraying Trump as a sort of alternative reality he-man constantly stomping, vanquishing and owning his foes. And while all this has been going on the White House has been telling everyone Trump has some secret way to end-run the Supreme Court and get his census citizenship question on the census after all. And now, a couple hours before the announcement, we learn that this epic SCOTUS smackdown is actually a lot of don’t-look-behind-the-curtain razzmatazz to fuzz up what is actually Trump announcing he’s giving up, doing pretty much what his Justice Department announced a week ago but Trump apparently needed a week of hand holding and yessing to accept.
New NBC/WSJ Poll: Biden 26%, Warren 19%, Harris 13%, Sanders 13%, Buttigieg 7%. No one else over 2%.
Oral arguments in DC Circuit Court of Appeals on House Oversight Committee’s subpoena of President Trump’s accounting firm for his financial records. Tierney Sneed is in the courtroom, and Josh Kovensky is live-blogging it via the streaming audio.
One of the theories circulating about Jeffrey Epstein makes a certain logical sense on its face and yet, in practice – as something that really could be case as opposed to merely possible – it just seems too far-fetched. It goes like this. Running a procurement ring can’t make you billions or even hundreds of millions of dollars. Even an extortion ring couldn’t really put together those numbers. But maybe it worked something like this. Epstein does have some kind of money management fund. Maybe it’s not very successful. Maybe it’s just invested in an index fund or treasury bonds. But what if Epstein has the goods on a bunch of high rollers and for Epstein to stay silent they invest in his fund?
Let’s discuss this. There’s too little evidence here to support any clear theory. But given the current leadership of the Department of Justice, a hermeneutic of suspicion is called for. But consider these dates.
On Friday CNN reported that the US Attorneys Office in Manhattan appears to preparing to close its main investigation into the Trump Organization without filing any charges. Not every probe finds wrongdoing or chargeable offenses. But look at these two paragraphs …
TPM’s Josh Kovensky reports on the beginnings of a high dollar donor revolt at the NRA centered on allegations of corruption and cronyism against longtime NRA chief Wayne LaPierre.
If you missed it over the weekend, take a look at this. The chain of events preceding what appears to be the US Attorney’s Office in Manhattan dropping the Trump Organization investigation with no charges really requires some scrutiny. Dropped requests for executive interviews, Deputy US Attorney departing, Barr getting sworn in – all come together in a disquietingly close timeframe.
If you’re a Prime member I’d like to invite you to join Tierney Sneed and me tomorrow afternoon at 2:30 PM eastern for a video conference briefing and Q&A on Robert Mueller’s upcoming testimony: what to expect from the committees, from Mueller and what questions remain to seek clarity on from the report itself. If you’d like to join us, join me after the jump for how to sign up.