Last Call For It's Mueller Time, Con't

So a bit of good news on the "Justice Department" front, the investigation into former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe has been dropped.

The Justice Department has decided to abandon its efforts to seek criminal charges against former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, according to a letter sent to his attorneys.

McCabe's lawyers were told last September that he should expect to be indicted on charges stemming from inaccurate statements he made to FBI investigators about his actions around the time of the 2016 election. However, no indictment was ever returned, leading to speculation that the Washington-based grand jury probing the matter took the rare step of rejecting charges.

Prosecutors had been cagey since that time about the status of the investigation into McCabe, who has been a frequent subject of public attacks from President Donald Trump. In theory, they could have presented the case to another grand jury, but on Friday, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington informed McCabe's attorneys that it was giving up its quest to charge the FBI veteran.

"We write to inform you that, after careful consideration, the Government has decided not to pursue criminal charges against your client, Andrew G. McCabe," prosecutors J.P. Cooney and Molly Gaston wrote on behalf of the new U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Tim Shea. "Based on the totality of the circumstances and all of the information known to the Government at this time, we consider the matter closed."

McCabe expressed great relief at the decision, but sounded bitter about the probe hanging over him and his family for years.

"I have to say that as glad as I am that the Justice Department and the D.C. U.S. Attorney's office finally decided to do the right thing today, it is an absolute disgrace that they took two years and put my family through this experience for two years before they finally drew the obvious conclusion and one they could have drawn a long, long time ago," he said on CNN, where he serves as a paid commentator.

They couldn't even get a grand jury to indict.  For now, they're still playing by that rule.  But it wasn't the only reason why McCabe was spared.

The timing of Friday's letter to McCabe's lawyers may have been driven by a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by a non-profit watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics Washington. U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton, who is handling the FOIA case, had publicly pressed prosecutors to make a final decision about the McCabe prosecution and had set a deadline Friday for them to disclose previously-secret records related to the FOIA litigation.

The newly-disclosed files showed that in private, Walton was even more stern with prosecutors, warning them that Trump's complaints about McCabe would taint any decision they made.

"The public is listening to what's going on, and I don't think people like the fact that you got somebody at the top basically trying to dictate whether somebody should be prosecuted ... I just think it's a banana republic when we go down that road," Walton told government lawyers behind closed doors in September. "I think there are a lot of people on the outside who perceive that there is undo inappropriate pressure being brought to bear ... It's just, it's very disturbing that we're in the mess that we're in in that regard.

"I just think the integrity of the process is being unduly undermined by inappropriate comments and actions on the part of people at the top of our government," added Walton, an appointee of President George W. Bush. "I think it's very unfortunate. And I think as a government and as a society we're going to pay a price at some point for this."

Closing the case today also spares the Trump regime from having to answer the FOIA request.  That was what motivated the timing more than anything, I think.

It doesn't mean that the regime is done with McCabe however. The Trump vengeance plan now being executed across the country as Senate Judiciary chair Lindsey Graham is apparently making good on his threats to drag everyone involved in the creation of Mueller probe before the kangaroo court of Trumpworld, including, you guessed it, Andrew McCabe.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is requesting interviews with a slew of current and former Justice Department and FBI officials as part of his panel's probe into the department's handling of the investigation into Russia's election interference and the Trump campaign.

Graham sent a letter to Attorney General William Barr on Friday asking that he make 17 officials, many of whom are identified only by title, available for interviews.

"As you are aware, the committee is continuing to investigate matters related to the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation's handling of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, including the application for, and renewals of, a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act [FISA] warrant on Carter Page," Graham wrote in the letter, according to a copy obtained by CBS News.

Graham notes in his letter that the committee will "additionally be directly contacting former Department officials to schedule transcribed interviews."

Graham has said he plans to call former FBI Director James Comey, former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe to testify as part of his investigation.

Graham, a top ally of Trump's, has vowed he will use his gavel to look into the origins of the Russia investigation and the decision to surveil Page, a former campaign aide.

"I'm going to get to the bottom of the FISA work process because it was an abuse of power of the Department of Justice, the FBI," Graham told CBS News on Sunday.

Graham added he would be doing "oversight of the FISA warrant system that failed."

Whether or not these testimonies will be televised is another thing, but getting interviews under oath would be the next step, much like House Democrats did in their impeachment investigation.  Expect months of testimony, leaks, and eventually televised hearings would be my guess.

The real witch hunt is happening before our eyes.

Lowering The Barr, Con't

Following up on this morning's news, this afternoon has been a Valentine's Day massacre on the rule of law in the US.  First of all, Donald Trump straight up decreed that he has the right to interfere in any Justice Department case as he sees fit.

President Trump asserted Friday that he had the legal right to intervene in federal criminal cases, a day after Attorney General William P. Barr publicly rebuked him for attacks on Justice Department prosecutors and others involved in the case of Roger J. Stone Jr., the president’s longtime friend.

In a morning tweet, Mr. Trump quoted Mr. Barr saying that the president “has never asked me to do anything in a criminal case.” The president said he had “so far chosen” not to interfere in a criminal case even though he insisted that he is not legally bound to do so.

“This doesn’t mean that I do not have, as President, the legal right to do so, I do, but I have so far chosen not to!” he said.
The assertion by the president, rejecting a request by Mr. Barr to stop tweeting about the department’s cases, adds to the mounting controversy over the decision by senior Justice Department officials to overrule prosecutors who had recommended a seven to nine year sentence for Mr. Stone, who was convicted of seven felonies in a bid to obstruct a congressional investigation that threatened the president.

That recommendation infuriated Mr. Trump, who called the department’s handling of the case “a disgrace” and later praised Mr. Barr after his top officials intervened to recommend a lighter sentence for Mr. Stone. The four prosecutors who were overruled resigned from the case in protest; one quit the department entirely.

The Justice Department and Bill Barr immediately followed up with...interfering in federal cases involving Trump.  Surprise!

Attorney General William P. Barr has assigned an outside prosecutor to scrutinize the criminal case against President Trump’s former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn, according to people familiar with the matter.

The review is highly unusual and could trigger more accusations of political interference by top Justice Department officials into the work of career prosecutors.

Mr. Barr has also installed a handful of outside prosecutors to broadly review the handling of other politically sensitive national-security cases in the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, the people said. The team includes at least one prosecutor from the office of the United States attorney in St. Louis, Jeff Jensen, who is handling the Flynn matter, as well as prosecutors from the office of the deputy attorney general, Jeffrey A. Rosen.

Over the past two weeks, the outside prosecutors have begun grilling line prosecutors in the Washington office about various cases — some public, some not — including investigative steps, prosecutorial actions and why they took them, according to the people. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive internal deliberations.

The Justice Department declined to comment.

The intervention has contributed a turbulent period for the prosecutors’ office that oversees the seat of the federal government and some of the most politically sensitive investigations and cases — some involving President Trump’s friends and allies, and some his critics and adversaries.

Barr is clearly setting the stage not for a Trump pardon of Flynn, Stone, and Manafort, but outright overturning their convictions so that he doesn't have to.   The question then is what the Durham investigation means for prosecuting Trump's enemies list.

But it starts with the Flynn plea deal.

US Attorney Jeffrey Jensen of St. Louis has been tasked with taking a second look at some aspects of the sensitive cases, one of the officials said. It was not clear which other cases were under review, and what form the reviews had taken. 

Jensen is working together with Brandon Van Grack -- the former Mueller prosecutor who led the case against Flynn -- to review the case, according to a Justice Department official. It's possible that if the department continues to fight Flynn's attempts to withdraw his guilty plea, Van Grack could be a witness on the circumstances of his plea deal, according to several people familiar with the case.

Putting Justice Department prosecutors on the stand to justify their plea deals in a case involving a witness against the person in the White House.   Sure seems like Barr is opening the door for a massive purge.

Things are moving at a pretty rapid pace now, as expected after Trump was unshackled by his Senate GOP enablers.

It will not end well for our republic.

Retribution Execution, Con't

There's a lot to cover today as Trump has gone completely off the rails, and there's little doubt now that the remaining Justice Department investigation into the Mueller probe itself is going to be used to put a lot of Trump's enemies, perceived and real, in jail.

Trump administration officials investigating the government’s response to Russia’s election interference in 2016 appear to be hunting for a basis to accuse Obama-era intelligence officials of hiding evidence or manipulating analysis about Moscow’s covert operation, according to people familiar with aspects of the inquiry.

Since his election, President Trump has attacked the intelligence agencies that concluded that Russia secretly tried to help him win, fostering a narrative that they sought to delegitimize his victory. He has long promoted the investigation by John H. Durham, the prosecutor examining their actions, as a potential pathway to proving that a deep-state cabal conspired against him.

Questions asked by Mr. Durham, who was assigned by Attorney General William P. Barr to scrutinize the early actions of law enforcement and intelligence officials struggling to understand the scope of Russia’s scheme, suggest that Mr. Durham may have come to view with suspicion several clashes between analysts at different intelligence agencies over who could see each other’s highly sensitive secrets, the people said.

Mr. Durham appears to be pursuing a theory that the C.I.A., under its former director John O. Brennan, had a preconceived notion about Russia or was trying to get to a particular result — and was nefariously trying to keep other agencies from seeing the full picture lest they interfere with that goal, the people said.

But officials from the F.B.I. and the National Security Agency have told Mr. Durham and his investigators that such an interpretation is wrong and based on a misunderstanding of how the intelligence community functions, the people said. National security officials are typically cautious about sharing their most delicate information, like source identities, even with other agencies inside the executive branch.

Mr. Durham’s questioning is certain to add to accusations that Mr. Trump is using the Justice Department to go after his perceived enemies, like Mr. Brennan, who has been an outspoken critic of the president. Mr. Barr, who is overseeing the investigation, has come under attack in recent days over senior Justice Department officials’ intervention to lighten a prison sentencing recommendation by lower-level prosecutors for Mr. Trump’s longtime friend Roger J. Stone Jr.

A spokesman for Mr. Durham did not respond to phone and email inquiries. The C.I.A. and the National Security Agency declined to comment. The people familiar with aspects of Mr. Durham’s investigation spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic.

The indictments of Trump's enemies are coming.  Barr at this point is begging Trump to stop tweeting about them so that he can get them rolled out without it being too obvious.

In an exclusive interview, Attorney General Bill Barr told ABC News on Thursday that President Donald Trump "has never asked me to do anything in a criminal case” but should stop tweeting about the Justice Department because his tweets “make it impossible for me to do my job.”
Barr’s comments are a rare break with a president who the attorney general has aligned himself with and fiercely defended. But it also puts Barr in line with many of Trump’s supporters on Capitol Hill who say they support the president but wish he’d cut back on his tweets.

“I think it’s time to stop the tweeting about Department of Justice criminal cases,” Barr told ABC News Chief Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas.
When asked if he was prepared for the consequences of criticizing the president – his boss – Barr said “of course” because his job is to run the Justice Department and make decisions on “what I think is the right thing to do.”

But Trump won't be contained, and everyone knows the game is up anyway.  He'll never stop tweeting.  He doesn't care. The consiglieri is warning the boss that the feds will notice, and the boss keeps on buying yachts and cars and fur coats and telling everybody at the butcher shop that the guys who tried to prosecute him are gonna get whacked anyway.

He's openly making quid pro quo threats against NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo and laughing at him openly on Twitter.

President Donald Trump appeared Thursday to link his administration's policies toward New York to a demand that the state drop investigations and lawsuits related to his administration as well as his personal business and finances.

Hours before New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo was set to meet the president at the White House, Trump tweeted that Cuomo “must understand” that National Security far exceeds politics,” a reference to his administration’s recent decision to halt New York’s access to the Global Entry and other “trusted traveler” programs that allow New Yorkers faster border crossings and shorter airport lines.

Trump continued, “New York must stop all of its unnecessary lawsuits & harrassment, start cleaning itself up, and lowering taxes.”
Trump’s invocation of “lawsuits & harrassment” was a reference to the state’s numerous lawsuits against his administration and also against Trump’s business, which is based in New York.

That prompted Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.), one of the House managers who prosecuted Trump’s impeachment in the Senate, to accuse the president of “expanding his abuse of power to blackmailing U.S. states (threatening millions of people he supposedly works for). In this case, he's holding New York state hostage to try to stop investigations into his prior tax fraud.”

State attorney general Letitia James has subpoenaed for Trump’s financial records, and the state is pursuing multiple inquiries about the Trump Organization’s business practices. James also just secured a $2 million settlement from Trump’s now-defunct charitable foundation, which was accused of numerous violations of misuse of funds.

The settlement prompted a sharp rebuke from Trump, who tweeted on Nov. 7 that James’ suit against the foundation was for “political purposes.”

“When you stop violating the rights and liberties of all New Yorkers, we will stand down,” James said Thursday, responding to Trump’s tweet. “Until then, we have a duty and responsibility to defend the Constitution and the rule of law. BTW, I file the lawsuits, not the Governor.”

Much more after the jump.  It's been a while since I've split a post up like this, but the lawlessness is coming at breathtaking speed.

StupidiNews!

• Oklahoma says it will resume executions in death penalty cases now that the state has a "reliable supply" of lethal injection drugs.
• GOP Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell is now saying that if a Supreme Court confirmation is needed in an election year, that the "will of the people" is to confirm a Trump pick quickly.
• Multiple industry conferences and trade fairs in China has been postponed due to the Wuhan coronavirus, with estimates of the financial damage well into the billions of dollars.
• The Senate has voted 55-45 to restrict Donald Trump's use of military power against Iran, while the bill is expected to pass the House, there is not support to override a promised Trump veto.
• Internet security researchers have discovered a network of hundreds of Google Chrome browser extensions that downloaded user data to compromised servers since as early as 2017.

Last Call For The Kids Are Not Alright, Con't

America's kids are learning from Donald Trump's example.  Unfortunately, they're learning how to be bullies, how to harass black and brown and Muslim kids, and how to carry his hatred into a whole new generation.

Two kindergartners in Utah told a Latino boy that President Trump would send him back to Mexico, and teenagers in Maine sneered "Ban Muslims" at a classmate wearing a hijab. In Tennessee, a group of middle-schoolers linked arms, imitating the president's proposed border wall as they refused to let nonwhite students pass. In Ohio, another group of middle-schoolers surrounded a mixed-race sixth-grader and, as she confided to her mother, told the girl: "This is Trump country."

Since Trump’s rise to the nation’s highest office, his inflammatory language — often condemned as racist and xenophobic — has seeped into schools across America. Many bullies now target other children differently than they used to, with kids as young as 6 mimicking the president’s insults and the cruel way he delivers them.

Trump’s words, those chanted by his followers at campaign rallies and even his last name have been wielded by students and school staff members to harass children more than 300 times since the start of 2016, a Washington Post review of 28,000 news stories found. At least three-quarters of the attacks were directed at kids who are Hispanic, black or Muslim, according to the analysis. Students have also been victimized because they support the president — more than 45 times during the same period.

Although many hateful episodes garnered coverage just after the election, The Post found that Trump-connected persecution of children has never stopped. Even without the huge total from November 2016, an average of nearly two incidents per school week have been publicly reported over the past four years. Still, because so much of the bullying never appears in the news, The Post’s figure represents a small fraction of the actual total. It also doesn’t include the thousands of slurs, swastikas and racial epithets that aren’t directly linked to Trump but that the president’s detractors argue his behavior has exacerbated.

“It’s gotten way worse since Trump got elected,” said Ashanty Bonilla, 17, a Mexican American high school junior in Idaho who faced so much ridicule from classmates last year that she transferred. “They hear it. They think it’s okay. The president says it. . . . Why can’t they?”

Asked about Trump’s effect on student behavior, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham noted that first lady Melania Trump — whose “Be Best” campaign denounces online harassment — had encouraged kids worldwide to treat one another with respect.

“She knows that bullying is a universal problem for children that will be difficult to stop in its entirety,” Grisham wrote in an email, “but Mrs. Trump will continue her work on behalf of the next generation despite the media’s appetite to blame her for actions and situations outside of her control.”

Most schools don’t track the Trump bullying phenomenon, and researchers didn’t ask about it in a federal survey of 6,100 students in 2017, the most recent year with available data. One in five of those children, ages 12 to 18, reported being bullied at school, a rate unchanged since the previous count in 2015.

However, a 2016 online survey of over 10,000 kindergarten through 12th-grade educators by the Southern Poverty Law Center found that more than 2,500 “described specific incidents of bigotry and harassment that can be directly traced to election rhetoric,” although the overwhelming majority never made the news. In 476 cases, offenders used the phrase “build the wall.” In 672, they mentioned deportation.

The nation's kids are becoming more like Trump every day, especially young white boys copying his hatred of black and brown folks and women.  They think it's funny because it shocks the adults in their lives.  They think it's okay and like Trump, they believe they should be able to get away with it.

Unless something changes, they will.

And then they'll grow up and vote and become the new leaders of Trumpism.

The Great Equalizer

After nearly 100 years, the Equal Rights Amendment is both closer to becoming part of the Constitution, and further away from it, than it's ever been.

The U.S. House gave the Equal Rights Amendment a temporary new lease on life Thursday by voting to remove a 1982 deadline for ratification by the states.

The 232-183 vote, on a resolution introduced by Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.), pushes the issue to the Senate, where Sens. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) have introduced a similar measure.
During debate on the House floor, Republicans leaned on antiabortion and constitutional arguments to oppose the ERA, arguing that enshrining protections for women in the Constitution would mean abortion could not be restricted. Democrats focused on the legality of deadlines and the importance of equal rights.

“This has nothing to do with the abortion issue. That is an excuse, not a reason,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), arguing that women are still paid less than men for similar work, and often are shorted on pensions and maternity leaves.

She and some of the other female lawmakers wore purple to show their support for the long-sought constitutional amendment, which was first proposed nearly a century ago.

But it will take more than color coordination to enact the ERA.

Three-quarters of the states must ratify a proposed amendment for it to be added to the Constitution. With new Democratic majorities in both chambers, the Virginia General Assembly met that threshold last month, becoming the 38th state to ratify the ERA.

Supporters of the amendment say that Congress’s deadline can be changed by a simple vote of the same body, because the Constitution itself does not specify a ratification deadline.

Others disagree.

In anticipation of Virginia’s vote, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel advised the national archivist not to certify the ratification because of the expired deadline.

Three lawsuits have been filed over the ERA, including one this month by the attorneys general of Illinois, Nevada and Virginia, calling for its addition to the Constitution. A lawsuit opposing ratification was filed in Alabama last year by the attorneys general of Alabama, Louisiana and South Dakota.

Another lawsuit supports ratification and was filed in Massachusetts by Equal Means Equal, the Yellow Roses group and Katherine Weitbrecht.

At least one of the legal challenges is expected to end up at the U.S. Supreme Court.

And it's that last part that's the killer.  Even if the ERA got past the Senate tomorrow, the Roberts Court would block it. Even Justice Ginsburg has openly questioned the process, noting five states have withdrawn their support for the ERA since 1972.

It doesn't look good, and it looks like it won't make it into the Constitution at any point soon.

Retribution Execution, Con't

Donald Trump has continued his attacks on anyone and everyone involved in his impeachment and the/or the Mueller investigation as he went on yet another Twitter rampage on Wednesday.

President Trump is testing the rule of law one week after his acquittal in his Senate impeachment trial, seeking to bend the executive branch into an instrument for his personal and political vendetta against perceived enemies.

And Trump — simmering with rage, fixated on exacting revenge against those he feels betrayed him and insulated by a compliant Republican Party — is increasingly comfortable doing so to the point of feeling untouchable, according to the president’s advisers and allies.

In the span of 48 hours this week, the president has sought to protect his friends and punish his foes, even at the risk of compromising the Justice Department’s independence and integrity — a stance that his defenders see as entirely justified.

Trump complained publicly about federal prosecutors’ recommended prison sentence for one of his longtime friends and political advisers, Roger Stone. After senior Justice Department officials then overruled prosecutors to lighten Stone’s recommended sentence, the president congratulated Attorney General William P. Barr for “taking charge” with an extraordinary intervention.

Next Trump sought to intimidate the federal judge in the Stone case, badgering her on Twitter for previous rulings, and attacked the four prosecutors who resigned from the case in apparent protest of the Justice Department’s intervention. Then Trump floated the possibility of a presidential pardon for Stone, who was convicted by a jury in November of tampering with a witness and lying to Congress.

The president has openly encouraged his Justice Department to retaliate against a quartet of former FBI officials who long have been targets of his ire for their involvement in the Russia probe.

“Where’s [James] Comey?” Trump bellowed Wednesday in a stream-of-consciousness diatribe from the Oval Office. “What’s happening to [Andrew] McCabe? What’s happening to Lisa and — to Pete Strzok and Lisa Page? What’s happening with them? It was a whole setup, it was a disgrace for our country, and everyone knows it, too, everyone.” 

For months now, Trump has been enraged that these FBI officials have not been charged with crimes. And he has vented at length privately in recent weeks that James A. Wolfe, a former aide to the Senate Intelligence Committee, received a prison sentence of two months for lying to FBI agents about his contact with reporters during a federal leak investigation — a criticism the president repeatedly publicly on Wednesday.

Some of Trump’s top aides have counseled him against speaking out on legal matters, warning him that doing so could wrongly influence proceedings because officials at the Justice Department or elsewhere would then know they needed to please him or risk his wrath. Trump has often responded, “I have a right to say whatever I want,” according to a former senior administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal conversations.

“He knows exactly what he’s doing,” this official explained. “He knows that he has more power than anyone else in the government — and when he tweets, everyone has to listen to him.”

A second former senior official, former chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, said of Trump, “He is mad and he should be mad. The Democrats and the media wasted three years of the nation’s time on a witch hunt. Now he understands how to use the full powers of the presidency. The pearl-clutchers better get used to it.”

We've reached the point now where Trump is openly defying the Constitution on an hourly basis and feels he no longer is answerable to anyone on the planet.  There's no effort to cover up or conceal what he wants.  He wants everyone who defied him to go to prison.  And Bill Barr is going to have to make a decision very soon about whether or not he delivers on that.

Our country is run by a rampaging toddler in full tantrum mode in the middle of the grocery store.  Nothing resembling a parent or guardian is around.  There's no longer any indication that the "adults" that were supposed to be in charge even exist.  It's all Trump Twitter rage, all the time.

Bill Barr won't even bother talking to Congress until the end of March and in the intervening seven weeks Trump will have carte blanche to wreck the country.  Trump keeps demanding people go to jail.  We know now Barr will do whatever Trump orders him to do.  How long does it take Trump to order Barr to round up Comey, Mueller, and whoever else he wants?

We're well past the point where we should be in the streets.

StupidiNews!

• China is now saying a whopping 14,800 new Wuhan coronavirus cases have appeared over the last 24 hours, dashing hopes of a slowdown and possible peak of the spread of the disease.
• Texas has filed a lawsuit with the US Supreme Court against California over the Golden State's travel ban on Texas stating the Roberts' Court precedence on religious beliefs prevents it.
• House Republicans want to address climate change and deforestation by planting a trillion trees in the US by 2050, a goal climate experts say is far too little, too late without also cutting emissions.
• Senate Republicans are looking to back a new bipartisan bill that would limit Donald Trump's military options in Iran, but it's unclear if the bill can get enough votes to override a guaranteed veto.
• Chinese network manufacturer Huawei is firing back at Pentagon critics who say the company is funneling data to the Chinese government by pointing out AT&T has done the same for the US.

Last Call For Retribution Execution, Con't

As Donald Trump continues to build his Derp State executive branch and cabinet agency made of loyalists, yes men and sycophants, the six-month clock is coming up on his acting replacement for former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, which means Trump has to name somebody and get them past the Senate.  

He's failed that before with Texas Rep. John Ratcliffe's disastrous nomination.  As such, he appears to be counting on four-term Republican Congressman Chris Stewart to fill the job of suck-up.

Joseph Maguire, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, has filled in as the acting director of national intelligence since Dan Coats resigned in August. But under current law limiting the duration of postings for acting cabinet-level officials, Mr. Maguire must step down next month.

Mr. Trump has not nominated a permanent replacement for Mr. Coats since his early pick, Representative John Ratcliffe, Republican of Texas, withdrew in August after questions about whether he exaggerated his résumé.

Mr. Stewart, like other Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, vigorously defended Mr. Trump during impeachment hearings in the fall that focused on the president’s pressure campaign on Ukraine. And he has been sharply critical of the handling by the Justice Department and F.B.I. of an investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russian interference in the 2016 election.

“They want to take away my vote and throw it in the trash,” Mr. Stewart said of Democrats just before the impeachment vote in the House. “They want to take away my president and delegitimize him so he cannot be re-elected.”

Mr. Stewart, 59, has long been interested in the post of intelligence chief, people close to him said. He is well-liked by congressional Republicans and is thought to enjoy support from Senate Republicans, who would confirm him if he is nominated.

But Democrats are likely to balk at the selection of a House lawmaker with such a political track record. Senate Republicans could have the votes to approve on their own a nominee like Mr. Stewart, but some have said they want to see a nominee with bipartisan support. Senator Richard Burr, Republican of North Carolina, who leads the Senate Intelligence Committee, was cool to Mr. Ratcliffe’s nomination and is likely to influence the White House’s ultimate choice.

The clock is ticking on a decision. Mr. Maguire cannot serve past March 11 under federal law. Before then, the administration must have a director nominated and confirmed or be forced to find a new acting director.

So expect another cog to be placed in Trump's Derp State machine by a compliant Senate GOP.  Watch Mitt Romney's votes to approve Trump judges and cabinet members.  Remember, this is someone who thinks Trump should have been removed from office.

That Poll-Asked Look, Con't

The latest Quinnipiac University national poll wrecks the notion that Trump somehow benefited from his acquittal, as he gets crushed in all the head-to-head matchups by a margin that not even the electoral college can save him from.

Among all registered voters, Democratic candidates lead President Trump in general election matchups by between 4 and 9 percentage points, with Bloomberg claiming the biggest numerical lead against Trump: 

• Bloomberg tops Trump 51 - 42 percent;
• Sanders defeats Trump 51 - 43 percent;
• Biden beats Trump 50 - 43 percent;
• Klobuchar defeats Trump 49 - 43 percent;
• Warren wins narrowly over Trump 48 - 44 percent;
• Buttigieg is also slightly ahead of Trump 47 - 43 percent. 

President Trump's favorability rating is underwater, as 42 percent of registered voters have a favorable opinion of him, while 55 percent have an unfavorable view of him. However, it is his best favorability rating since a March 7th, 2017 poll, when his favorability rating was a negative 43 - 53 percent.

So people hate him slightly less now, but he still loses to everybody.

Even Bloomberg.

Lowering The Barr, Con't

Trump's Attorney General, Bill Barr, is now openly taking control of all federal cases involving Trump and his criminality.  There is no Justice Department anymore.  It's just the Trump regime legal division now.

The U.S. attorney who had presided over an inconclusive criminal investigation into former acting FBI director Andrew McCabe was abruptly removed from the job last month in one of several recent moves by Attorney General William Barr to take control of legal matters of personal interest to President Donald Trump, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.

A person familiar with the matter confirmed to NBC News that Trump has rescinded the nomination of Jessie Liu, who had been the U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., for a job as an undersecretary at the Treasury Department.

Liu also supervised the case against Trump associate Roger Stone. On Tuesday, all four line prosecutors withdrew from the case — and one quit the Justice Department altogether — after Barr and his top aides intervened to reverse a stiff sentencing recommendation of up to nine years in prison that the line prosecutors had filed with the court Monday. (Liu left before the sentencing recommendation was made.)

But that wasn't the first time senior political appointees had reached into a case involving a former Trump aide, officials told NBC News. Senior officials at the Justice Department also intervened last month to help change the government's sentencing recommendation for Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. While the prosecutors had once recommended up to six months in jail, their latest filing now says they believe probation would be appropriate.

The new filing came on the same day Liu was removed from her job, to be replaced the next day by a former prosecutor selected by Barr. Liu had been overseeing the criminal investigation into McCabe, who was accused by the department's inspector general of lying to investigators. McCabe has not been charged, despite calls by Trump for him to go to prison. 

The resignations and the unusual moves by Barr come as Trump has sought revenge against government officials who testified after congressional Democrats subpoenaed them in their impeachment investigation. In the days since the Senate acquitted him, Trump fired his ambassador to the European Union, a political supporter whom he nominated, and had other officials moved out of the White House. 

"This signals to me that there has been a political infestation," NBC News legal analyst Chuck Rosenberg, a former U.S. attorney in Virginia, said on MSNBC. "And that is the single most dangerous thing that you can do to the Department of Justice."

The Justice Department doesn't appear to care that this looks like the Attorney General is personally interfering with multiple federal cases involving Trump anymore.  It's not even lifting a finger to deny this is what's going on.  More will be coming, and soon. 

StupidiNews!

• Bernie Sanders has won the New Hampshire primary with a narrow 26% win to Pete Buttigieg's 25%, Amy Klobuchar came in with a strong third-place 20% finish, followed by Warren and Biden.
• Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky has fired his Chief of Staff and has replaced him with the man who negotiated directly with Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani.
• The death toll from the Wuhan coronoavirus is now over 1,100 but the number of new reported cases in China has fallen dramatically, a development that doctors say could mean the virus has peaked.
• Defeat for the party of Indian PM Narendra Modi in local elections in Delhi represents the third straight local election loss for Modi so far.
• National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien says the US has proof that Chinese mobile network company Huawei has given backdoor access to all its global networks to the Chinese government.

Last Call For Stone Cold Criminal, Con't

The prosecution in convicted Trump lackey Roger Stone's case filed sentencing recommendations last night for Stone for witness tampering in his role in the WikiLeaks DNC hack, and asked for seven to nine years in prison.  The Trump regime in the last 24 hours has gone completely insane with rage over the recommendation.

The Justice Department plans to reduce its sentencing recommendation for Roger Stone, a longtime confidant of President Trump, after top officials professed to be blindsided by the seven-to-nine-year penalty prosecutors urged a judge to impose, a senior Justice Department official said Tuesday.

In a stunning rebuke of career prosecutors that immediately raised questions about political interference in the case, a senior Justice Department official said the department “was shocked to see the sentencing recommendation in the Roger Stone case last night.”

“That recommendation is not what had been briefed to the department,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive case. “The department finds the recommendation extreme and excessive and disproportionate to Stone’s offenses. The department will clarify its position later today.”

The statement came hours after Trump tweeted about the sentence prosecutors recommended, saying: “This is a horrible and very unfair situation. The real crimes were on the other side, as nothing happens to them. Cannot allow this miscarriage of justice!” The senior Justice Department official, though, said the decision to revise prosecutors’ recommendation came before Trump’s tweet.

Stone was convicted by a jury in November of obstructing Congress and witness tampering. His was the last conviction secured by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III as part of the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Stone has been a friend and adviser to Trump since the 1980s and was a key figure in his 2016 campaign, working to discover damaging information on Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.

All four prosecutors who signed the sentencing memo have now left the Stone case over the DoJ overriding the recommendations, one has resigned from the DoJ completely in protest.

Four federal prosecutors dramatically quit the criminal case against Republican operative Roger Stone as the Department of Justice reduced their recommendation that a judge sentence the longtime ally of President Donald Trump to up to nine years in prison. 

In a revised sentencing memo filed Tuesday, Timothy Shea, U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C., said Stone deserves to be sentenced to “far less” time in prison than what the four prosecutors, who worked under Shea, proposed Monday.

Jonathan Kravis, who delivered the closing argument at Stone’s trial last fall, resigned as an assistant U.S. Attorney, according to a court filing in Washington federal court. 

Kravis, who did not give a reason in the filing, will no longer work as a prosecutor for the federal government. 

The other three prosecutors, Aaron Zelinsky, Adam Jed and Michael Marando, also withdrew from Stone’s case, according to their own separate filings, which did not explain their decision. 

But those three all will continue working for the federal government.

Marcy Wheeler believes this is being done to keep Stone from talking to the press.  It's not just helping a loyal lackey, it's self-preservation.  Trump doesn't just want to commute Stone's sentence or pardon Stone (or both!) but that he has to.
 

The trial itself provided ample evidence of what Mark Meadows considers “collusion” involving Donald Trump personally. It showed the campaign — and probably Trump personally — were working through Stone to optimize the WikiLeaks releases from the very day they came out on June 14, 2016. It showed that Stone was informing Trump personally about his efforts to optimize the releases. After some arm-twisting to adhere to his grand jury testimony, Steve Bannon testified he knew of all this, contrary to some of what he had said in earlier testimony that Trump would learn about. Erik Prince was in the loop. Gates testified that Stone was strategizing with Jared Kushner on all this. And it appears that Paul Manafort was in the loop, too.

But all that really damning evidence came out in a trial that only had to prove that Stone had lied to cover up the actions he took to optimize the release of the WikiLeaks emails. The trial did not need to explain what Stone’s actual back channel was, what he had to do to obtain it, and how involved Trump was in that process. And the trial did not explain it.

Indeed, there’s evidence I’ll lay out at more length in a follow-up that the government chose not to lay out all it knew. That is, it appears the government came to trial prepared to present evidence about the underlying “collusion,” but ultimately decided to hold it back for now.

At multiple times during the trial, however, the prosecution pointed to suspiciously timed phone calls, right before or after Stone discussed WikiLeaks with Gates, Manafort, or Jerome Corsi. Only Stone or Trump can tell us what happened between the two men, what Trump’s actual role in maximizing the degree to which his campaign benefitted from Russia’s theft of his opponent’s email.

Immediately after the trial, Stone made an intense effort to get Trump to pardon him, with his wife Nydia appearing on Tucker Carlson’s show to ask directly and a man with a vuvuzela inside the White House calling for a pardon gates.

Since that time, Stone was silent, until the time that the Probation Office provided the sentencing range for the crimes that was built in to the way that Mueller charged this just over a year ago. That is, by charging Stone with witness tampering, Mueller built in the possibility that Stone would be facing the steep sentence recommended yesterday. And that steep sentence may have been envisioned not as the sum of what Stone’s actual actions entailed — certainly every single warrant save the last four showed probable cause that Stone had done far more, but rather as leverage to get Stone to tell what he knows about Trump’s involvement in all this.

Bill Barr was brought in as AG to bury abundant evidence that Trump was personally involved in efforts to maximize the Russian operation, to deny all the ways that Trump did cheat to win. From his initial misleading claims in the wake of the report’s release, he was always suppressing the centrality of Roger Stone in all this.

So it’s fairly safe to conclude that DOJ’s reversal today is not just an effort to prevent a rich white man, Roger Stone, from facing the full consequences of his actions, but to prevent voters from learning what another rich white man did to cheat to get elected.

Yes, ultimately Trump will commute what is left of Roger Stone’s sentence, probably on November 4, just like he fired Jeff Sessions the day after the 2018 election. But I suspect that Roger Stone, rightly, isn’t going to leave anything to chance. And so neither can Bill Barr.

And some in Trumpland are saying that Dear Leader will pardon Stone even earlier, as soon as he is sentenced.

Democrats were quick to respond:

Schumer calls for IG probe into DOJ overruling prosecutors to give Roger Stone lighter sentence. Nadler says his panel will “get to the bottom” of it. Schiff says Trump administration represents “the gravest threat” to rule of law “in a generation.” McConnell declines to comment

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) February 11, 2020

We'll see.  The one thing that isn't in doubt is the obvious interference in Stone's case by the Trump regime, but that no longer matters in America, does it?

Retribution Execution, Con't

If the Trump regime can fabricate a scandal for Joe Biden to sink his 2020 chances and to threaten him with investigations and worse and get away with it, they can do the same to the one Republican who stood up and said no to these thugs, Mitt Romney.

And they are doing exactly that as we speak.

The MAGA machine is attempting to turn President Donald Trump’s latest nemesis — Sen. Mitt Romney — into the next Hunter Biden.

Trump in recent days took a new turn in his attacks on the Utah senator, veering from assailing his character and loyalty and tossing him into the wilds of Ukraine.

Trump over the weekend retweeted several conservative personalities and stories attempting to connect the Republican senator to the Ukrainian energy company Burisma and its former board member Hunter Biden, two parties at the center of Trump’s attempted quid pro quo. The allegation was featured in several far-right blog posts: A senior advisor from Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign was on Burisma’s board of directors, and that by voting to impeach Trump last week, Romney was covering for his fellow swamp crony. 

While Trump’s campaign had highlighted the allegation earlier, the post-impeachment flurry of tweets was the first time that Trump himself acknowledged the theory. At one point, the president retweeted a random follower’s newfound suspicion: “Romney is covering up his part in corruption in Ukraine. This has nothing to do with truth or God. He is a desperate man. The truth will come out.”

Prior to Sunday, Trump and the GOP’s first anti-Mitt salvo centered on a familiar set of name-calling: Romney is a “failed presidential candidate” jealous that Trump won the presidency; Romney craves the attention of the liberal media; Romney, a sanctimonious do-gooder, is a coward who wears mom jeans.

The Burisma attack signaled a new front in Trump world’s attempts to punish Romney, as well as keep the Burisma narrative alive. After all, Trump’s attempted quid pro quo centered around his obsession with launching an investigation into whether Joe Biden, his ostensible rival in the 2020 election, illegally leaned on the Ukrainian government to protect his son’s board seat — a storyline Trump adamantly clung onto during his impeachment trial. Should Romney look complicit, then so much the better for explaining his vote.

“It’s a fact. Why shouldn’t they know?” Matt Wolking, the Trump campaign’s deputy communications director, said when asked why the official account retweeted a story about Romney’s adviser. He did not respond when asked whether this fact provided adequate context for Romney’s vote.

Romney is also facing trouble back home in Utah, where the state Republican party is looking to make an example of him.

Some conservative leaders of the Utah GOP have readied a resolution censuring Sen. Mitt Romney for voting to remove President Donald Trump from office and urging him to “vigorously support” Trump’s agenda or vacate his seat.

The draft resolution submitted Friday is expected to come up for discussion and a possible vote during the Feb. 29 Republican Party state central committee meeting.

Orem Republican Brandon Beckham, who submitted the resolution, said he “thought it was pretty obvious” that Trump was innocent of the charges leveled against him in the impeachment trial. Rather than sticking up for the president, Beckham argues, Romney sided with the Democrats.

"A lot of us feel that it's sort of an embarrassment to our party," Beckham said.

The resolution, co-sponsored by nine other state central committee members, notes that Trump endorsed Romney in his 2018 Senate race. It also notes that Romney used a covert Twitter account — under the alias “Pierre Delecto” — to like critical tweets about the president and alleges that this activity displayed a “pre-impeachment bias.”

Furthermore, Beckham contends, Romney’s decisions were at odds with the position of the Utah GOP, which in December passed a resolution that expressed full support of the president and called on congressional Republicans to stand by him.

“On February 5, 2020, despite zero evidence of a federal crime committed or any wrongdoing that rises to the level of removal of office, Senator Romney voted with Democrats to remove President Trump from office and as a direct result received praise and applause from Democrats on nationally televised interviews and the Democrat presidential debate,” Beckham’s resolution states.

While nine of the 187 central committee members have co-sponsored the resolution, Beckham said he expects most to vote in favor of the measure, given the president’s popularity.

Romney will have a lot more than just censure in his future.  Dear Leader Trump has to crush him utterly or he risks others defying his rule.  There are things Romney can do, but if he ends up persona non grata then he's just a ghost.

On the other hand, "Mitt Romney (UT-I)" could be...amusing.

The GOP's Race To The Bottom, Con't

There's a non-zero chance that raging Islamophobic bigot Laura Loomer ends up a Republican Congresswoman from (where else) Florida in January, because the party of Trump isn't ever going to back down from being the party of white supremacist inchoate hatred.  Dean Obeidallah explains:

Donald Trump wants to be president forever. He made that clear again with his tweet on Wednesday that featured campaign signs of Trump for President extending from 2020 to 2048. But that scenario is not going to happen, barring Trump being able to somehow suspend the 22nd Amendment of our Constitution.

It’s clear though that regardless of how long Trump remains in the White House, he and many in his base want Trumpism—a celebration of cruelty, bigotry, and sexism—to continue long after he’s gone. That helps explain Trump’s support for anti-Muslim bigot Laura Loomer, who is running for Congress in Florida’s 21st District—and, incredibly, is increasingly the likely GOP nominee. After all, anti-Muslim bigotry is one of the cornerstones of Trumpism.

Before we talk how Trump, Rep. Jim Jordan, GOP Florida officials, and even a Trump Fox News ally are promoting Loomer, let me give you a Loomer primer. First, she’s not the least bit bashful about her efforts to stoke hate against Muslims.

In 2017, she bragged on Twitter about being a “#ProudIslamophobe,” as she called Muslims “savages,” calling for a ban on allowing Muslims into America “EVER AGAIN.” She has called Islam a “cancer,” and worse, she wrote that there’s “no such thing as a moderate Muslim. They’re ALL the same.” Loomer dangerously wants you to believe that a Muslim American like myself is no different than a person in ISIS.

Loomer, who once worked for the right-wing group Project Veritas, seems to especially despise immigrant Muslims, tweeting in 2017, “Someone needs to create a non-Islamic version of Uber or Lyft because I never want to support another Islamic immigrant driver.” That resulted in her being banned from Uber and Lyft for violating its community standards, which prompted Loomer to tweet, “Uber will literally hire an Islamic terrorist, but they will ban a conservative journalist for addressing legitimate safety concerns.”

In 2019, Loomer took to Instagram, where she made a video attacking Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) in vile terms, blaming all Muslims including Omar for 9/11, and adding, “Muslims should not even be allowed to seek positions of political office in this country.”

Beyond social media, in October 2018 Loomer praised and appeared with self-professed Canadian white nationalist Faith Goldy, who has claimed in the past that homosexuality facilitated the Holocaust and openly recited and defended the “14 word” mantra used by white supremacists. Loomer also trespassed on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s property in January 2019 along with her colleague, Charlottesville Unite the Right marcher Antonio Foreman, to denounce her refusal to support Trump’s wall. While on Pelosi’s property, Loomer reportedly made racist comments about Latinos.

Loomer’s history of spewing hate online resulted in her being banned in the past year from just about every social media platform out there. In November 2018 Twitter banned Loomer for violating its rules against hateful conduct. In May 2019 Loomer was banned by both Facebook and Instagram, along with others who had used these platforms to promote haters, such as Louis Farrakhan for repeated anti-Semitic statements, and Paul Nehlen, the Wisconsin businessman who ran for Congress and continually spewed white supremacist garbage.

I think you get the idea. Loomer is someone who, in the times before Trump, would’ve been marginalized to the fringes of society along with other bigots and racists. But these aren’t normal times. This is the time of Trump, and Loomer is Trumpism personified. She fits perfectly in today’s party of Trump which is why in August 2019 she announced her run for Congress as a Republican to take on Democratic Rep. Lois Frankel in the Palm Beach-area district. Loomer describes Frankel as “a staunch obstructionist and critic of President Donald J. Trump.”

Now, the good news is Lois Frankel has a solidly Democratic district (D+9 on the Cook PVI) and multiple signs point to Loomer being so toxic that she loses.  But let's remember that Illinois Republicans ran Actual Nazi Art Jones in 2018, and ran raging Islamophobic bigot Duncan Hunter who actually won (before being indicted and taking a plea deal for his corruption).