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BY BRIAN BEUTLER, PRIYANKA ARIBINDI & CROOKED MEDIA Monday, April 1, 2019 |
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| —Amy Klobuchar on her first Senate race |
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| YOU WILL BE SERVED |
| Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee will authorize subpoenas (aka PokeBalls for criminals) this Wednesday to compel the Justice Department to provide Congress with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s full report, as well as to secure cooperation from several former top administration officials, who witnessed President Trump’s efforts to obstruct the Mueller investigation.
The announcement comes in response to Attorney General William Barr, who informed House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler that he will not turn over Mueller’s report by the Tuesday deadline Nadler and other Democratic chairmen set last week, and that the report he does transmit will be redacted.
Barr’s counteroffer, contained in a letter he sent to Congress on Friday, tries to appease Democrats by assuring them that Mueller “is assisting” the Justice Department in redacting the report, and that the White House won’t be given an opportunity to assert executive privilege over its contents.
In a New York Times op-ed, aka Medium for old men, Nadler explained why Barr’s offer is inadequate. “The attorney general’s recent proposal to redact the special counsel’s report before we receive it is unprecedented. We require the evidence, not whatever remains after the report has been filtered by the president’s political appointee.”
Nadler’s objections point to the necessary outcome. It’s possible—likely even—that the Mueller report contains information that really should be redacted. But the public needs to have confidence that what we learn from the redacted version accurately conveys the findings of the full report.
Barr and Congress need to establish a process that creates that confidence, and an admission that Mueller is "assisting" Barr (with no explanation of what that assistance entails) accompanied by a refusal to let Nadler and others in Congress see what’s under the redactions doesn't accomplish that.
And the good news for Democrats is that the public is behind them in every way. There is overwhelming public support for releasing the full Mueller report. Several other polls find that, despite Barr’s and Trump’s best deceptive efforts, the public thinks the Mueller report contains evidence of wrongdoing, and does not exonerate Trump of obstruction of justice. Public sentiment demands not just that Democrats authorize the subpoenas, but that Nadler deploys a subpoena for the full report this week. |
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| The Trump administration has announced it will cut off aid to El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, defying experts who say that cutting aid to these countries will likely increase the number of people seeking to leave them and come to the U.S., because the aid dollars help address the “root causes of migration” by making these countries more secure, and improving economic development. It’s almost seems like Trump has no basic understanding of this issue and just wants to be cruel to brown people. Huh! Weird!
The administration is also threatening to close ports of entry and ramp up immigration enforcement along the U.S.-Mexico border, which would increase the cost of food and other trading goods, while doing nothing to deter asylum seekers, who have continued migrating to the U.S. despite its cruel treatment of asylum seekers.
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| A government whistleblower who went public earlier this year has told the House oversight committee that the Trump White House granted security clearances to at least 25 people whom career employees had declined to clear because their applications revealed “foreign influence, conflicts of interest, concerning personal conduct, financial problems, drug use, and criminal conduct.” The White House has refused to cooperate with the committee’s investigation, and its chairman, Elijah Cummings, could authorize subpoenas for documents and testimony as soon as Tuesday.
Former Nevada politician Lucy Flores says former Vice President Joe Biden approached her from behind, smelled her hair, and kissed the back of her head in 2014, in an encounter that Flores says was not sexual in nature, but still inappropriate. Biden responded Sunday: “In my many years on the campaign trail and in public life, I have offered countless handshakes, hugs, expressions of affection, support and comfort and not once...did I believe I acted inappropriately. If it is suggested I did so, I will listen respectfully." Another woman has since come forward with similar allegations.
Tortoise who was cursed by a witch/Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will change the Senate rules this week to expedite confirmation of President Trump’s judicial and executive branch nominees, and he’s justifying his decision by pretending to think using the Senate rules to obstruct confirmations is bad. Hopefully when Merrick Garland retires he can convince that witch to reverse the curse and finally let Mitch go be repulsive in the ocean for awhile.
The Saudi operatives who murdered Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi got their training at an Arkansas-based military training company owned by President Trump’s Intelligence Advisory Board Chairman, Steve Feinberg. Khashoggi’s final words were, “I can’t breathe. I have asthma. Don’t do this.”
President Trump’s wildly unqualified and scandalously partisan nominee to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, Stephen Moore, stiffed his ex-wife of over $300,000, which he was obligated to pay under the terms of their divorce, and it got him held in contempt of court. It’s almost like Trump has a thing for scumbags.
Grammy-nominated Los Angeles musician, entrepreneur, and community activist Nipsey Hussle was murdered outside of the clothing store he owned on Sunday. He was known for working to improve his community, and was scheduled to meet with police officials to discuss ways to curb gang involvement.
President Trump wants to put vote suppressor and anti-immigrant racist, Kris Kobach, last seen getting sanctioned by a federal judge, in charge of the border. It’s almost like Trump has a thing for scumbags. Did we already mention that?
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| Twenty years after two students murdered 13 people in the first mass school shooting to play out on live television, today’s Columbine High School students are no safer than they were, and have responded to the government’s failure to protect them by placing stickers on their cell phones and identification cards indicating that they want pictures of their bodies to be publicized if they are killed in a similar massacre. "Our country has a history of photography effecting real change," the campaign's founder, 17-year-old Kaylee Tyner, told CNN. These kids are brave, but this is unspeakably depressing commentary on the state of the country. |
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| Democratic presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar has unveiled a trillion dollar infrastructure proposal, which includes a plan to connect every American household to broadband internet by 2022, so that rural communities aren’t deprived of the opportunities broadband provides the rest of the country.
A trillion dollar infrastructure plan was a key component of President Trump’s 2016 platform—but he abandoned the promise immediately in favor of cutting corporate taxes and raiding public funds to build a useless border wall. Klobuchar and Senate Democrats seek not only to reclaim this particular issue from him, but to emphasize proposals that would improve the lives of the voters who believed Trump’s false promises in the first place. |
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