What A Day: A crisis in the faking

BY BRIAN BEUTLER, PRIYANKA ARIBINDI

& CROOKED MEDIA

Wednesday, May 8, 2019

—Shorter the president: I didn’t lose money, I cheated on my taxes

LAST-DITCH CONTEMPT

President Trump has now made a blanket claim of executive privilege over all undisclosed aspects of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report and investigation—all of which the Justice Department has withheld from Congress, despite a valid subpoena. Complete. And. Total. Exoneration.

That means the Justice Department will not provide Congress an unredacted copy of the Mueller report, or hand over any interview transcripts and other evidence from the investigation until either the White House acknowledges that the information isn’t privileged, or a court orders the Justice Department to comply with the subpoena. At the earliest.

In other words, it is now likely to take months (possibly years) for House Democrats to make real progress in their efforts to fill in the gaps that the redacted Mueller report left in their understanding of the Russia investigation and Trump’s criminal obstruction of justice.

The White House and Attorney General William Barr described the decision to claim executive privilege as a reaction to Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee, who voted Wednesday afternoon to hold Barr in contempt of Congress for flouting their subpoena and refusing to testify under oath. Really seems like they want the whole truth to get out there!

The full House must now vote on the contempt citation and decide how it will seek to enforce it. Nearly all congressional contempt citations are civil, which means the courts ultimately decide whether the executive branch must comply with Congress’s demands.

One way House Democrats could shorten the timeline would be by initiating an impeachment inquiry, which would give the Judiciary Committee powers comparable to a grand jury, strengthen Congress’s case in court, and make it easier for the Judiciary Committee to compel witness testimony.

The committee’s chairman, Jerrold Nadler, called the impasse a “constitutional crisis,” but added that impeachment “may not be the best answer in this constitutional crisis." House intelligence committee chairman Adam Schiff also suggested that impeachment will only be on the table if and when the lengthy legal fight over contempt ends with the courts siding with Trump. “The case for compliance is compelling, preliminary to a potential impeachment proceeding. If a court were to find otherwise, that would certainly strengthen the case for impeachment.”

So we wait.

60 percent of the 700 annual deaths from pregnancy-related complications in America are preventable, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The report also indicates that black, Native American, and Alaska Native women are three times more likely to die from these complications than white women. Several 2020 Democratic hopefuls, including Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, and Cory Booker have promised to reduce the U.S.’s grim maternal mortality rate, and the racial disparities within it.

The Senate intelligence committee has subpoenaed Donald Trump, Jr., to answer more questions about his 2017 testimony before a different Senate committee, in which he claimed to have only “peripheral” knowledge about a deal to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. Michael Cohen told a House committee earlier this year that he met with Don, Jr. approximately 10 times about the matter. But knowing Don Jr, he probably thought “peripheral” meant “approximately 10 times.” Because he’s, you know, deeply stupid.

Donald Trump lost more money than “nearly any other individual taxpayer” year-over-year between 1985 and 1994 according to federal tax information the New York Times obtained. Trump explained the losses by claiming he actually was just committing tax fraud [see above].

Uber and Lyft drivers in major cities around the globe are on strike today, using Uber’s Friday IPO as an opportunity to emphasize their fight for the right to unionize and for better pay, which Uber cut to make the company’s finances appear less dreadful. Support their strike by not taking an Uber or Lyft today.

A federal appeals court has ruled that the Trump administration can keep returning Central American asylum seekers to Mexico while immigration courts process their cases. A lower-court judge had temporarily blocked the policy.

Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen helped evangelical leader Jerry Falwell, Jr., keep his “personal” photos from becoming public months before he persuaded Falwell to endorse Trump in the 2016 election, vouching for his supposedly Christian values. “I actually have one of the photos,” Cohen once told Tom Arnold [seriously] who secretly recorded their conversation [also seriously]. “It’s terrible.”

The White House will require pharmaceutical companies to list the prices of prescription drugs that cost over $35 a month in their television ads as early as this summer.

New York’s state Senate passed a bill requiring authorities to release any resident’s state tax returns to certain congressional committees (cc: the president, bcc: future president Don Jr).

Late Night host Seth Meyers grilled Meghan McCain about her repeated attacks on Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), who has apologized for controversial comments she made about AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying group. He asked McCain if she should apologize for her own language, which has contributed to making Omar the target of an onslaught of Islamaphobic hate and death threats.

The world caught a glimpse of the new royal baby, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, for the first time today. From Priyanka: It’s a very cute name for a very cute baby, I don’t care what anyone who edits this has to say.