Trump on the Law

  In Defying the Odds, we discuss Russian involvement in the 2016 campaign.

As has been stated by numerous legal scholars, I have the absolute right to PARDON myself, but why would I do that when I have done nothing wrong? In the meantime, the never ending Witch Hunt, led by 13 very Angry and Conflicted Democrats (& others) continues into the mid-terms!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 4, 2018

From the Office of Legal Counsel:

Under the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case, the President cannot pardon himself.

 

If I win-I am going to instruct my AG to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation bc there's never been anything like your lies.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 10, 2016

Trump Has Bad Lawyers

  In Defying the Odds, we discuss Russian involvement in the 2016 campaign.

In a letter to Mueller, Trump's lawyers said he "dictated a short but accurate response to the New York Times" about the infamous Trump Tower meeting with Russians. But here are FIVE TIMES @JaySekulow and @PressSec previously denied Trump's role in the misleading statement. pic.twitter.com/DINgjFdKvL

— Marshall Cohen (@MarshallCohen) June 2, 2018

Obstruction of Justice

 In  Defying the Odds, we discuss  Trump's record of scandal.

Michael S. Schmidt, Maggie Haberman, Charlie Savage and Matt Apuzzo report at NYT:

President Trump’s lawyers have for months quietly waged a campaign to keep the special counsel from trying to force him to answer questions in the investigation into whether he obstructed justice, asserting that he cannot be compelled to testify and arguing in a confidential letter that he could not possibly have committed obstruction because he has unfettered authority over all federal investigations.

In a brash assertion of presidential power, the 20-page letter — sent to the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, and obtained by The New York Times — contends that the president cannot illegally obstruct any aspect of the investigation into Russia’s election meddling because the Constitution empowers him to, “if he wished, terminate the inquiry, or even exercise his power to pardon.”

[Read the Trump lawyers’ confidential memo to Mr. Mueller here.]

...
“Of course, the president of the United States is not above the law, but just as obvious and equally as true is the fact that the president should not be subjected to strained readings and forced applications of clearly irrelevant statutes,” Mr. Dowd and Mr. Sekulow wrote.

But the lawyers based those arguments on an outdated statute, without mentioning that Congress passed a broader law in 2002 that makes it a crime to obstruct proceedings that have not yet started.

Samuel W. Buell, a Duke Law School professor and white-collar criminal law specialist who was a lead prosecutor for the Justice Department’s Enron task force, said the real issue was whether Mr. Trump obstructed a potential grand jury investigation or trial — which do count as proceedings — even if the F.B.I. investigation had not yet developed into one of those. He called it inexplicable why the president’s legal team was making arguments that were focused on the wrong obstruction-of-justice statute.

It's not exactly confidence inspiring on the part of @realDonaldTrump's lawyers that their statutory (as opposed to constitutional) analysis is focused on the _wrong_ federal obstruction-of-justice statute—18 U.S.C. § 1505 instead of 18 U.S.C. § 1512:https://t.co/4ZZ2jQ0Qrs https://t.co/EmKbvB25ES

— Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) June 2, 2018

Top Two DCCC Games

In Defying the Odds, we discuss state and congressional politics as well as the presidential race. 

California's top-two primary encourages gamesmanship.

Democrats are helping a California GOP House candidate in hopes that he will split up his party's vote and thus enable a Democrat to come in second. Jordan Graham at the Orange County Register:

National Democrats have spent $137,000 in recent days promoting an Orange County Republican congressional candidate in a complex strategy aimed at helping a Democrat survive the June 5 primary to make the November ballot.

The radio ads and robocalls supporting John Gabbard, a GOP candidate in the crowded 48th Congressional District contest, seem to be part of an unorthodox tactic to siphon votes away from the race’s top leading Republicans, incumbent Congressman Dana Rohrabacher and former Orange County GOP Chairman Scott Baugh.

Due to California’s jungle primary system, which advances the top two vote-getters regardless of party, it’s possible both Rohrabacher and Baugh could make it to November, leaving Democrats without a candidate in the race. The leading Democrats in the race for the 48th are businessman Harley Rouda and stem-cell biologist Hans Keirstead.

Fearing an all-GOP ballot, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) has spent $5.4 million in three Orange County congressional races in recent weeks, including some money that, on its face, might help Republican candidates. Until this week, the DCCC’s strategy has been to attack the contests’ second and third-place Republicans, including $1.7 million opposing Baugh, in an effort to consolidate GOP votes around one top candidate.

Trey Gowdy Sees Four Fingers

   In Defying the Odds, we discuss Russian involvement in the 2016 campaign.

Kyle Cheney at Politico:

Rep. Trey Gowdy has been a pitbull investigator for Republicans for years. Now, he’s is in President Donald Trump’s doghouse for daring to challenge the president’s unsupported claim that Democrats and their sympathizers in the FBI embedded a spy in his 2016 campaign.

Trump allies have been pummeling Gowdy in recent days, branding him a gullible or clueless backer of the intelligence community. Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, labeled him “uninformed.” Another Trump-tied attorney, Victoria Toensing, said Gowdy “doesn’t know diddly-squat” about the particulars of federal investigations. And Fox News host Lou Dobbs tagged him a “RINO” — a term for a fake Republican.

...

The comments soon earned him punishing rebukes from Trump’s most vocal allies. Fox’s Sean Hannity said Wednesday that “Trey Gowdy doesn’t get it.” Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, father of White House press secretary Sarah Sanders, distributed a 950-word treatise Friday questioning Gowdy’s position. And Dobbs said Gowdy appeared to be auditioning for a job after he leaves Congress.

 From Orwell's 1984:

‘How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?’

‘Four.’

‘And if the party says that it is not four but five — then how many?’

‘Four.’

The word ended in a gasp of pain. The needle of the dial had shot up to fifty-five. The sweat had sprung out all over Winston’s body. The air tore into his lungs and issued again in deep groans which even by clenching his teeth he could not stop. O’Brien watched him, the four fingers still extended. He drew back the lever. This time the pain was only slightly eased.

‘How many fingers, Winston?’

‘Four.’

The needle went up to sixty.

‘How many fingers, Winston?’

‘Four! Four! What else can I say? Four!’

Cohen on Audio

In  Defying the Odds, we discuss the people surrounding Trump.

The choice of servants is of no little importance to a prince, and they are good or not according to the discrimination of the prince. And the first opinion which one forms of a prince, and of his understanding, is by observing the men he has around him; and when they are capable and faithful he may always be considered wise, because he has known how to recognize the capable and to keep them faithful. But when they are otherwise one cannot form a good opinion of him, for the prime error which he made was in choosing them.

Tim Mak at NPR:

Donald Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen is facing legal peril, including an FBI raid of his home and office — and involvement in a civil lawsuit with adult film star Stormy Daniels.

But in the past, it was Cohen who sought to put legal pressure on others to solve problems for his boss.

For the first time, audio recordings of Cohen's legal threats, from a 2015 Daily Beast interview, are being published.

From the original story:

Cohen added that there is no such thing, legally, as a man raping his wife. “You cannot rape your spouse,” he said. “There’s very clear case law.”

That is not true. In New York, there used to be a so-called marital rape exemption to the law. It was struck down in 1984.

Trump’s lawyer then changed tactics, lobbing insults and threatening a lawsuit if a story was published.

“I will make sure that you and I meet one day while we’re in the courthouse. And I will take you for every penny you still don’t have. And I will come after your Daily Beast and everybody else that you possibly know,” Cohen said. “So I’m warning you, tread very fucking lightly, because what I’m going to do to you is going to be fucking disgusting. You understand me?”

“You write a story that has Mr. Trump’s name in it, with the word ‘rape,’ and I’m going to mess your life up… for as long as you’re on this frickin’ planet… you’re going to have judgments against you, so much money, you’ll never know how to get out from underneath it,” he added.

Trump Breaks Another Rule

  In  Defying the Odds, we discuss  Trump's ethics.   

Looking forward to seeing the employment numbers at 8:30 this morning.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 1, 2018

From OMB Statistical Policy Directive No. 3:

Except for the authorized distribution described in this section, agencies shall ensure that no information or data estimates are released before the official release time. The agency will provide prerelease information to the President, through the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, as soon as it is available. The agency may grant others prerelease access only under the following conditions: (a) The agency head must establish whatever security arrangements are necessary and impose whatever conditions on the granting of access are necessary to ensure that there is no unauthorized dissemination or use. (b) The agency head shall ensure that any person granted access has been fully informed of and agreed to these conditions. (c) Any prerelease of information under an embargo shall not precede the official release time by more than 30 minutes. (d) In all cases, prerelease access shall precede the official release time only to the extent necessary for an orderly review of the data. All employees of the Executive Branch who receive prerelease distribution of information and data estimates as authorized above are responsible for assuring that there is no release prior to the official release time. Except for members of the staff of the agency issuing the principal economic indicator who have been designated by the agency head to provide technical explanations of the data, employees of the Executive Branch shall not comment publicly on the data until at least one hour after the official release time.

Jim Tankersley at NYT:

Even before the numbers were released on Friday, economists said they were stunned at the prospect that Mr. Trump was giving hints about the report’s content, which fast-acting traders in financial markets could seize on to place bets on an optimism-fueled market surge.

Other economists went further, raising the possibility that if Mr. Trump was willing to give Twitter users a premature hint at the strength of report, he could also have shared the numbers with a more select group even earlier.

“President Trump was sent the jobs numbers in advance,” said Jason Furman, an economist at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government who was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in Obama administration. “Sharing them with the public is destabilizing and inappropriate. A bigger concern is if he was bragging about them privately to his friends last night — friends who could make millions on the information.”

Mr. Trump has celebrated strong jobs reports in the past, after they were issued. He also, before he took office, often dismissed the reports as “fiction.”

So I guess the new rule is, no preview by POTUS = weak jobs report.

— David M. Drucker (@DavidMDrucker) June 1, 2018