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Matt Bai’s Political World

Fire the special counsel. Please.

Matt Bai         April 12, 2018 

Yahoo News photo illustration; photos: AP, Getty

Let me put it to you this way, Mr. President. Who are you going to listen to — the voice of the stable genius inside your head, or the timid voices of experience, the ones that said you’d never win?

You know what you want to do. Just do it already.

Oh sure, all the sour-faced pundits are warning of a national crisis if you follow through. All those bed-wetting Republicans on the Hill are counseling patience and caution. Your senior staff is glued to their Twitter feeds, praying you won’t hit Send on something you can’t take back.

But they’re not the ones who sit in that swivel chair, are they. They never in their lives registered so much as a blip in the Nielsen ratings. Paul Ryan’s so smart that you gave him the biggest tax cut in the history of civilization and he still can’t hold his seat in Podunk, Wis.

Go on, Mr. President. Fire Bob Mueller. Please.

Don’t stop there, either — fire the rest of them, too. Sessions will be useless. That Boy Scout Rosenstein won’t have your back, either. There must be something in the halls of the Justice Department that causes people to suddenly grow a conscience, like some goiter sprouting on the soul.

Burn it down, Mr. President. Do what you really came here to do. Let’s see how those Ivy League lawyers like taking orders from Attorney General Laura Ingraham and her new deputy, Michael Cohen.

You said it yourself: This latest raid on Cohen, your most trusted personal lackey, was an attack on America. I couldn’t agree more. The first image that jumped into my mind when I heard the news was Pearl Harbor.

Many years from now, our grandchildren will mark the day of the Stormy Daniels Raid with little shoebox dioramas of federal prosecutors marching into Rockefeller Center.

What were they really after, anyway? Payoffs to paramours? Campaign finance violations? No, Mueller’s aiming higher than that.

Prosecutors sometimes talk about “tickling the wire,” by which they mean purposely freaking out witnesses who might be under electronic surveillance. You rattle the dumpster a little, and then you sit back and listen as the rats inside panic.

My guess is that Mueller is onto the real stuff now: loans from Moscow laundered through European banks, clumsy backchannel connections to your meathead son-in-law, bullying from the Oval Office that might cross the line into outright obstruction.

He’s crossed the moat and breached the castle now. He’s rummaging through the Hall of Armor.

And what he’s doing now is goading you. Tickling the wire. Pushing your buttons to see just how reckless your cronies can get.

You and I know who Mueller is, Mr. President. Born in Manhattan, schooled at St. Paul’s and Princeton. He played high school hockey with John Kerry. He even looks like John Kerry. He might be John Kerry, for all we know.

The newspaper profiles never fail to mention that Mueller joined the Marines, fought in Vietnam, got himself covered head to toe with medals for valor. Meanwhile, you described your own version of combat, after all those deferments, as having dodged venereal diseases while hopping from one bed to the next.

Can’t anyone around here take a joke?

No, Mueller isn’t just a prosecutor; he’s the stand-in for all the bluebloods and public service types who never respected you, who never thought you belonged, who always thought you too coarse and outer-borough, too much of a carnival barker, to join their clubs or sit on their boards.

He’s trying to destroy you, Mr. President. He thinks you’re beneath the office.

And if you’re going to stop him, what better time to do it than now, just as Jim Comey’s big memoir hits the virtual shelves? You don’t need me to tell you what getting rid of Mueller would do to the Comey Sanctification Tour. This is what you’re better at than anyone alive — commandeering the news cycle.

This isn’t hard. Look at all the people you’ve already fired. Priebus, Flynn, Tillerson, Price, McMaster — the list goes on.

Of course, you didn’t actually fire them, eye to eye. That’s something you only do on TV, when people are watching and you get to humiliate some wannabe TV star. Your style is more to let them know on Twitter, or in the fake news.

Which is why I’ve theorized that you’re a man of show business, not of action. I’ve said that other world leaders sense your insecurity and walk all over you. I’ve never bought the storyline about you as an aspiring tyrant because, when you get down to it, I don’t think you really have the steel.

So prove me wrong. Reprise Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre. Find your Robert Bork.

Because here’s the thing, Mr. President: All these responsible people frantically warning of a constitutional crisis if you do this — they’re afraid. They don’t think the institutions of American democracy and jurisprudence are strong enough now to withstand the assault. They think the Republican Party you’ve annexed will prostrate itself in your presence, as it has for the entire last year.

Even more than that, they don’t believe in the voters. Their faith is shaken. They fear that Americans are so angry at the system, so dimwitted and disillusioned, that we’ll accept anything that comes disguised as anti-elitism.

They worry that you’ll win, and America’s claim to being a nation of laws will be lost.

I don’t. If I’m being straight with you, I think firing Mueller is your Waterloo. And this kind of clear-cut crisis may be exactly what we need.

I think there are more than enough Republicans who genuinely believe in the bedrock principles of American government (and, not for nothing, who can see what your leadership is about to do to them in the midterm elections), and a solid majority of patriotic voters who won’t stand by and watch another president try to strong-arm the judicial system.

I think trying to shut down the special counsel and seize control of the Justice Department will be the thing that brings this entire Legoland of an administration crashing down on itself.

So enough bluster, Mr. President. It’s time to walk the walk.

Because I’m pretty sure that all you’ll have left, when Mueller and Rosenstein and Sessions are all back at law firms basking in the public’s admiration, are enough unshakable, reactionary supporters to just about fill a park in Charlottesville.

Everyone else in your party will have moved on to President Pence.

ABC Good Morning America

Judge finalizes $25 million settlement for ‘victims of Donald Trump’s fraudulent university’

Aaron Katersky and M.L. Nestel, GMA    April 10, 2018

Trump University attendees are getting paid back.

A federal judge in the Southern District of California on Monday finalized a $25 million settlement to be paid to attendees of the now-defunct real estate seminar called Trump University.

Judge Gonzalo Curiel’s decision came after an appeals court rejected arguments from a Florida woman who attended Trump University and said she wanted to pursue a separate lawsuit.

New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman called the settlement a victory for Trump U. “victims.”

“Judge Curiel’s order finalizing the $25 million Trump University settlement means that victims of Donald Trump’s fraudulent university will finally receive the relief they deserve,” he said in a statement, adding that the amount surpassed the initial number the class-action suit initially negotiated.

“This settlement marked a stunning reversal by President Trump, who for years refused to compensate the victims of his sham university,” the statement added. “My office won’t hesitate to hold those who commit fraud accountable, no matter how rich or powerful they may be.”

Trump University was a for-profit series of courses about real estate and entrepreneurship that also pushed people to buy Trump’s books.

The courses themselves claimed to teach attendees Donald Trump’s secrets to success in real estate. Plaintiffs accused Trump University of false advertising.

Within weeks of Trump’s ascending to the presidency, Trump University agreed to settle the claims for $21 million, plus another $4 million for the New York Attorney General’s office.

Schneiderman first sued Trump in 2013 for allegedly defrauding thousands of Trump University attendees out of millions of dollars.

The $25 million settlement will recover about 90 percent of the costs of those who attended Trump University, which, as part of the settlement, did not admit to wrongdoing.

The Trump Organization spokesman said when the lawsuit was filed that he had “no doubt” Trump University would prevail if the case went to trial, but a “resolution of these matters” was a priority so Trump could focus on the running the country.

GQ – Politics

Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell Aren’t Going to Protect Robert Mueller

Jay Willis, GQ            April 10, 2018

The revelation that the FBI raided the New York offices of longtime Trump lawyer and noted hush money dispensary Michael Cohen on Monday has sent our president into another one of his trademark spells that leave White House reporters scrambling to identify previously-unused synonyms for “angry.” And despite hints that the searches were conducted at the direction of the U.S. Attorney’s office in New York, Trump, surrounded by grim-faced members of his Cabinet, directed his ire elsewhere. “Why don’t I just fire Mueller?” he mused. “Well, I think it’s a disgrace what’s going on. We’ll see what happens.” He added: “Many people have said you should fire him.”

This morning, in the aftermath of the president’s most serious threat to fire the special counsel since that time he tried to fire the special counsel, Paul Ryan woke up and tweeted about bridges.

The speaker has adopted a strategy of willful ignorance for dealing with whatever unhinged nonsense Donald Trump said the night before. “As the Speaker has always said, Mr. Mueller and his team should be able to do their job,” explained a Ryan spokesperson after the president’s weekend fusillade against Mueller in March. When pressed, Mitch McConnell praised Mueller’s integrity but declined to protect the investigation from presidential interference on the grounds that McConnell doesn’t believe that the president will fire him. “I don’t think that’s necessary,” he said after Trump smeared the Russia probe as a partisan witch hunt. “I don’t think Bob Mueller is going anywhere.” On Tuesday, he trotted out more of the same.

This is nice, if Mitch McConnell’s hunch is right. But he seems to suggest that the only appropriate catalyst for taking action to prevent Trump from firing the special counsel would be… Trump firing the special counsel. This is not how prospective legislation works. And if he is wrong—if, hypothetically speaking, his trust in Donald Trump’s patience and good temperament is misplaced, and if the president ignores the advice of his lawyers and moves to oust Mueller anyway—Congress’ failure to act will be solvable only with a time machine. I do not believe that Mitch McConnell has invented a time machine.

Watch:  What if Trump Actually Fires Mueller? See the video.

For Ryan and McConnell, their approach to the Mueller investigation has always been the product of a complex risk calculus. When it was in its early stages, they paid lip service to its importance because they understood that firing the special counsel would have been a de facto admission of wrongdoing in the court of public opinion, which, in turn, would have hampered their efforts to take health care away from poor people and give tax cuts to rich people. At last, they had the scenario they always dreamed of: a unified Republican government, and an empty vessel of a president who would obediently sign whatever bills they put in front of him. All they cared about was ensuring that Trump’s impetuousness didn’t hasten its end.

As Mueller reaches the president’s inner circle, though, the investigation, not Trump’s urge to obstruct it, emerges as the most significant obstacle to the implementation of the Republican agenda. Ryan and McConnell are about to spend the summer trying to convince the American people that the GOP has earned itself another two-year legislative majority. An ongoing investigation that yields a growing collection of guilty pleas from the party’s scandal-ridden presidential administration will not be a helpful element of that sales pitch. And while they can’t openly call for Trump to fire Mueller, they can remain conspicuously quiet whenever the president floats the possibility of doing so in public.

Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell have never been mistaken for paradigms of moral courage. But their persistent failure to denounce the president’s attacks on an investigation they claim to support is as much a product of ideologically-motivated pragmatism as it is one of inveterate spinelessness.

If Mueller’s work proceeds at its current pace, there may come a point at which Republican leadership decides that for the sake of their policy goals, they’d rather take their chances with a constitutional crisis than face whatever damning facts the investigation might uncover if it were to continue unabated. To Ryan and McConnell, Mueller has gone from inconvenient irritant to existential threat, and they need him gone. Their silence demonstrates that as clearly as their words ever could.

New York Times

Horror of Being Governed by ‘Fox &
Friends’

Charles M. Blow,  Opinion Columnist         April 8, 2018

 From left: Brian Kilmeade, Ainsley Earhardt and Steve Doocy hosting the “Fox & Friends” program last year.Credit: Sam Hodgson for The New York Times

During the early days of the Obama administration, I did a few appearances on “Fox & Friends.”

The conversations were predictably shallow, tilted and exploitive. The hosts had a particular knack for asking the idiotic with chipper earnestness, spewing venom through simpering smiles. There was, I felt, maleficence at work with a pretense of positivity.

I knew well that I was swimming in a shallow intellectual pool, and yet I told myself that I was doing yeoman’s work, doing my small part to try and correct misinformation and to reach those lost in Fox’s fog.

But I soon discovered that the show, and indeed the network, was beyond redemption.

I was simply being used to help give the show the appearance of fairness, impartiality and legitimacy, when it was anything but.

Appearing on Fox, I became part of the disinformation machine rather than hobbling it. So, I cut ties, stopped responding to their requests and stopped the appearances.

I never saw the show as anything more than a carnival, a propaganda tool for conservatives. I would never have thought that the show’s hosts would emerge as the most influential in American media, as the website Mediaite dubbed them.

This show, with its kindergarten-level intellectual capacity, moved from parroting conservative policies to constructing presidential priorities. “Fox & Friends” has essentially become Donald Trump’s daily briefing.

Countless media outlets have written and talked about the strangely intense connection between Trump and the show.

As The Guardian put it, “The show manages to serve as a court sycophant, whispering in the ear of the king, criticizing his perceived enemies and fluffing his feathers.”

Politico Magazine concurred, saying the show “feels intentionally designed for Trump himself — a three-hour, high-definition ego fix.”

And the impact that the show is having on Trump is undeniable. Dan Snow, a master’s student at the University of Chicago, analyzed the president’s tweets and found that they are highly concentrated in the hours when the show is on.

As Politico wrote, Trump is “live-tweeting” Fox’s coverage. Vox noted that at times he seems to be tweeting precisely what he sees on the show, sometimes even using their exact language.

Indeed, a February analysis by The Washington Post found that of all the things that Trump has tweeted about since his inauguration, “Fox & Friends” ranked third, behind only Obama and tax cuts.

In fact, Trump had tweeted about the show roughly twice as often as about the stock market and roughly three times more often than about the border wall.

Trump’s Fox fixation isn’t benign or inconsequential — because, like him, the network has an aversion to the truth.

According to PunditFact, a project of the Tampa Bay Times and The Poynter Institute that checks the accuracy of claims made by pundits, of the statements on Fox that have been fact-checked, only 10 percent were rated true, while a full 60 percent were rated either mostly false, false or “pants on fire,” the worst possible rating.

The site did not do a separate analysis confined to “Fox & Friends,” but it has done three fact checks each on two of the show’s co-hosts: Brian Kilmeade and Steve Doocy.

In both cases, two statements were rated false and one rated “pants on fire.”

But these fact checks don’t even paint the full picture of how problematic this show is. Kilmeade once said on the show that “the Swedes have pure genes because they marry other Swedes,” and of Finland he said, “Finns marry other Finns so they have a pure society,” which was apparently better than America because, “We keep marrying other species and other ethnics.”

The intellectual giant who is Doocy once attacked SpongeBob for pushing a “global warming agenda.” He was accused in a lawsuit by former co-host Gretchen Carlson of engaging in a “pattern and practice of severe and pervasive sexual harassment of Carlson” in part by “refusing to accept and treat her as an intelligent and insightful female journalist rather than a blond female prop.”

This would all be silly trifle if in January the show didn’t mark its 195th month as the number one morning cable news program and if the president of the United States wasn’t taking cues from it.

In a way, America is being governed by the dimmest of wits on the most unscrupulous of networks. The very thought of it is horror-inducing.

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