The Politics & Policy Daily: The Barr for Obstruction of Justice

On March 25, 2019 By admin

• Breaking News

What We’re Following Today

It’s Monday, March 25.

‣ Senator Tom Udall, a Democrat from New Mexico, announced that he will not run for reelection in 2020. “The worst thing anyone in public office can do is believe the office belongs to them, rather than to the people they represent,” Udall said in a statement.

‣ Michael Avenatti, the former lawyer for the adult-film star Stormy Daniels, was arrested on charges that he tried to extort Nike for $25 million. Avenatti was also charged in a separate case, where he was accused of embezzlement and defrauding a bank.

Here’s what else we’re watching:

Mueller Fallout
Two days after receiving Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s final report, Attorney General William Barr presented his conclusions in a four-page letter to Congress: There was no collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign, and while Mueller himself didn’t ultimately make a determination on whether the president obstructed justice, Barr said he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein decided the evidence presented didn’t meet the bar for that crime. Here’s what’s been unfolding since:

‣ The White House Response: President Trump’s team is claiming victory and celebrating Mueller’s report as a boon to his reelection chances. “The findings of the Department of Justice are a total and complete exoneration of the President of the United States,” Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders tweeted after Barr’s letter was posted online. The president himself reacted shortly after:

(via Twitter)

‣ The $Resistance: Meanwhile, the pundits, commentators, and entrepreneurs who were banking on Mueller discovering the smoking gun that would remove Trump from office have been disappointed. With the report finalized, writes Ian Bogost, “the Mueller-industrial complex is quickly collapsing.”

‣ The special counsel’s Russia probe is over. Other investigations remain. There are multiple legal inquiries surrounding the president and his associates, including an emoluments case that might head to the Supreme Court. And many other Trump-related controversies could have been investigated by Congress instead, reports Russell Berman.

The U.S. and Israel: Speaking at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual conference, Vice President Mike Pence criticized recent comments from Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, saying that “anti-Semitism has no place” in Congress and questioning her position on the Foreign Affairs Committee. Omar has recently sparked controversy for comments that some perceived as perpetuating anti-Semitic tropes.

Also today: President Donald Trump, joined by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, formally signed a declaration recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, reversing decades of U.S. policy.

— Elaine Godfrey

Snapshot

President Trump smiles at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after signing a proclamation in the Diplomatic Reception Room at the White House. (Susan Walsh / AP)

Ideas From The Atlantic

The Mueller Probe Was an Unmitigated Success (Franklin Foer)
“Even if the actual Mueller report is anything like the attorney general’s summation of its contents, Russiagate will go down as one of the biggest scandals in American political history.” → Read on.

Barr’s Summary of Mueller’s Report Raises These Questions (Ken White)
“Though Barr emphasized that he and Rosenstein had been involved in evaluating the status of the investigation for months, and that they consulted the Office of Legal Counsel and other Department of Justice experts, this conclusion reflects startling and unseemly haste for such a historic matter.”  → Read on.

What the Mueller Report Has Not Answered (David Frum)
“[Trump] was the beneficiary of a foreign intelligence operation, but not an active participant in that operation. He received the stolen goods, but he did not conspire with the thieves in advance.” → Read on.

We Drew Congressional Maps for Partisan Advantage. That Was the Point. (Ralph Hise and David Lewis)
“‘I propose that we draw the maps to give a partisan advantage to 10 Republicans and three Democrats, because I do not believe it’s possible to draw a map with 11 Republicans and two Democrats,’ one of us said in 2016, as the North Carolina legislature drew new congressional maps.” → Read on.

Where #MeToo Came From, and Where It’s Going (Catharine A. MacKinnon)
“The #MeToo mobilization, this uprising of the formerly disregarded, has made increasingly untenable the assumption that the one who reports sexual abuse is a lying slut.” → Read on.

What Else We’re Reading

‣ Trump Might Not Be Guilty, But Neither Is the Press (Jack Shafer, Politico Magazine)
‣ Buttigieg Surges to Third Place in New Iowa Poll (Chris Mills Rodrigo, The Hill)
‣ Eager to Court Jews (And Fracture Democrats), Republicans Push Bills on Anti-Semitism (Glenn Thrush, The New York Times) (? Paywall)
‣ Dems Freeze Out GOP on Bipartisan Bills (Melanie Zanona and Sarah Ferris, Politico)
‣ The Ghosting of the Democratic Centrists (Josh Kraushaar, National Journal)

We’re always looking for ways to improve The Politics & Policy Daily. Comments, questions, typos, grievances and groans related to our puns? Let us know anytime here.

Were you forwarded this newsletter? Sign up for our daily politics email here. We have many other free email newsletters on a variety of other topics. Find the full list here.

Bharara warns president: Don't mess with Manhattan probes…

On March 25, 2019 By admin

• Breaking News

Ex-U.S. Attorney Bharara to Trump: don't mess with Manhattan probes

By Nathan Layne

(Reuters) – Preet Bharara, the ex-U.S. Attorney in Manhattan, has a piece of unsolicited advice for President Donald Trump: don’t meddle with investigations being pursued by his former office, especially one involving the Trump business or a family member.

Any such attempt, Bharara predicted, would likely prompt Democrats in Congress to start the impeachment process.

Bharara, who was fired as head of the office soon after Trump became president, wrote a book, “Doing Justice: A Prosecutor’s Thoughts on Crime, Punishment and the Rule of Law,” that goes on sale Tuesday.

A recurring theme in the book is the reputation of the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s office – formally known as the Southern District of New York – for political neutrality and independence.

The office’s willingness to pursue high-profile cases was confirmed with its prosecution of Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer, who pleaded guilty in August to campaign finance crimes which prosecutors say he carried out at the direction of Trump.

The office’s work is considered by many legal experts to be a bigger threat to Trump than Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, which is believed to be nearing its conclusion.

Reuters asked Bharara what would happen if Trump ordered the Southern District to halt a probe, a prospect that may not be far-fetched given that Trump last year asked then-acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker if Geoffrey Berman, Bharara’s Trump-appointed successor, could be tapped to oversee the Cohen investigation, according to the New York Times.

Berman is recused from the matter for undisclosed reasons.

Bharara said if he were still U.S. attorney and received such an order he would resign and buy “a one-way ticket for the shuttle to D.C.” to testify before a congressional committee.

“And then, I think you set the timer on impeachment,” he said. “So I don’t think it would be a wise thing to do.”

Trump has repeatedly criticized Mueller’s probe as a “witch hunt” pushed by Democrats who want to impeach him. He has called Cohen a “rat,” accusing him of lying to prosecutors to try and reduce his sentence of three years in prison due to start in May

Rudy Giuliani, a lawyer for Trump, did not respond to requests for comment.

Unlike the special counsel, the Southern District has wide latitude to pursue cases with some connection to New York. In addition to Cohen, it is looking at Trump’s inaugural committee and the business practices at Trump’s real estate firm.

Bharara’s book is not about Trump but he acknowledges the president “infuses the book like he infuses everyone’s life at the moment” even if he is not cited frequently by name.

The book instead centers on a variety of both high-profile and lesser known cases to illustrate his views on how the justice system should work and when it falls short.

He addressed a frequent criticism of his tenure – that his and other agencies failed to prosecute bankers for the financial crisis. He wrote that holding people accountable was difficult because “much of what happened in 2008 was not the product of a few people with clear, provable intent.”

He pushed back at the notion that politics, bias or other considerations blunted his response to the crisis, noting that the Southern District prosecuted hedge fund executives and New York politicians from both major parties during his time there.

“I’m more than willing to accept credible criticism on behalf of the law enforcement community, but the idea that self-interest or politics or fear was a factor is a silly criticism, at least at SDNY,” he wrote.

(Reporting by Nathan Layne and Karen Freifeld in New York; Editing by Alistair Bell)

Justices turn down mystery corporation in grand-jury dispute

On March 25, 2019 By admin

• Breaking News

Yesterday Attorney General William Barr sent a summary of the report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller to Congress. Today, the Supreme Court released orders from the justices’ private conference last week and turned down a petition that asked the justices to review a ruling by a lower court holding an unnamed foreign corporation in contempt for failing to provide information requested by a subpoena related to the Mueller investigation.

The corporation, which is owned by an unidentified foreign country, had argued that it did not need to provide the information sought by the subpoena because it is immune from lawsuits under the federal Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act and because doing so would cause it to violate the laws of its own country. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected those arguments in December, prompting the corporation to go to the Supreme Court.

Chief Justice John Roberts put the lower court’s order requiring the corporation to provide the information or pay penalties on hold temporarily, but in January the full court allowed the order to go into effect, which meant that penalties of $50,000 per day would continue to accrue while the corporation appealed. The federal government urged the Supreme Court to stay out of the dispute, and today the justices did exactly that.

The justices also turned down a request to weigh in on a copyright dispute over an iconic 1984 photograph of basketball great Michael Jordan. Taken by Jacobus Rentmeester, an Olympic rower who became a renowned photographer, for LIFE Magazine, the picture depicts Jordan soaring through the air, with his legs in a split, ready to dunk the basketball held high in his left hand.

As virtually all sports fans (and many people who are not sports fans) know, when Jordan left college, he entered into an endorsement deal with Nike. Nike’s marketing campaign with Jordan used a photograph that, according to Rentmeester, “copies virtually every original element expressed” in Rentmeester’s original photo (and then used that photo to create the famous “Jumpman” logo), leading Rentmeester to file a lawsuit alleging that Nike had violated his copyright on the photo. After the lower courts ruled for Nike, Rentmeester asked the justices to take up the case, but today they declined to do so.

The justices did not act on some of the high-profile cases that they have considered on their docket at several successive conferences, involving issues such as abortion and protection under federal employment laws for LGBTQ employees.

The justices’ next conference is scheduled for Friday, March 29.

This post was originally published at Howe on the Court.

The post Justices turn down mystery corporation in grand-jury dispute appeared first on SCOTUSblog.

Parkland parents are in emergency mode after second shooting survivor takes own life

On March 25, 2019 By admin

• Breaking News

The Parkland community is taking emergency action after a second student who survived last year’s school massacre has died by suicide.

The student, a 16-year-old boy whose name has not been made public, was the second Parkland survivor to take his own life in the space of a week — raising questions about the quality of long-term mental health care available to the kids who saw 17 of their peers and teachers gunned down on Feb. 14, 2018.

On Sunday, a group of more than 60 local officials, law enforcement people, parents, teachers and school officials convened for an emergency meeting to discuss the issue of mental health, the Miami Herald reported.

“They will be asking parents to take this issue seriously,” said Ryan Petty, whose 14-year-old daughter, Alaina Petty, was killed in last year’s shooting, according to the Herald. “Parents cannot be afraid to ask their kids the tough questions.”

The Parkland school district will distribute the “Columbia protocol” to parents, (also known as the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale), which is a set of questions designed to assess an individual’s risk of suicide. Petty told the Herald that, based on those answers, students will be offered emergency counseling options.

Last weekend, 19-year-old Sydney Aiello, who had recently graduated from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, also committed suicide. Aiello had lost one of her best friends, Meadow Pollack, in the shooting. Aiello’s mother told local news outlets that her daughter had suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and survivor’s guilt.

Current and former students from Stoneman Douglas, many of who became national voices in the fight for gun control after the horrific shooting, took to Twitter over the weekend to express their condolences. Many also described the pressure of having to get on with their everyday responsibilities of school, while simultaneously dealing with the trauma that came from the shooting a year ago.

A little over a year after the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado left 13 dead, the school’s star basketball player took his own life. The mother of a student who was left paralyzed from the shooting also committed suicide that year.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255, text TALK to 741741, or visit www.suicidepreventionlifeline…. for more information.

Cover: Students and parents visit a makeshift memorial set up at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., in honor of those killed during a mass shooting to mark the one-year anniversary of the Feb. 14, 2018 school shooting. Credit: mpi04/MediaPunch /IPX