Walter Shapiro at The Guardian writes—Trump in the White House is a national security nightmare – and Mueller knows it:
A word of belated advice for dejected House Democrats: believe Robert Mueller next time he tells you in advance that he would be a terrible and reluctant public witness on legal matters. [...]
The predictable and sometimes tedious judiciary committee hearing proved that Mueller lacks both the prosecutorial zeal and the performance skills to star in a remake of Watergate. [...]
By the time the hearing ended at lunchtime, it was not safe for impeachment-minded Democrats to pass too close to an open window on a high floor.
But then in a dramatic rescue mission, reminiscent of the cavalry riding over the hill in an old-time western, Adam Schiff transformed the political equation as he convened the afternoon hearing of the House intelligence committee, which he chairs.
Jonathan Chait at New York magazine writes—How Republicans Used Mueller’s Conservatism to Discredit Him:
Mueller’s attempt to place himself above the fray, by refusing to call a crime a crime or to recommend impeachment, became the Republicans’ best evidence against him. His caution allowed a series of Republicans, beginning with William Barr, to mischaracterize his findings. And when he contradicted their lie, they accused him of smearing Trump.
Republicans used Mueller’s caution and occasional uncertainty to discredit all the damning facts he produced. In fact, it suggests the opposite point: Mueller did not chase down every possible lead or rule out every possible crime. He never got to the bottom of the nature of the contacts between the two Trump advisers, Stone and Manafort, who worked with Russian cutouts during the campaign.
Perhaps Mueller was outwitted, or at least outwilled, by Trump. What does that tell us? That Trump got away with even more than we think.
Dan Friedman at Mother Jones writes—Robert Mueller Is Human. But He Delivered For Democrats:
Robert Mueller, whose reputation reached mythic proportions amid his nearly two years of silence as special counsel, seemed notably human during roughly seven hours of testimony on Wednesday. He struggled to hear lawmakers’ questions, stumbled at times over his words, and repeatedly ducked queries by referring back to his 450-page report. But while Mueller may have disappointed as a performer, Democrats on the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees were surprisingly disciplined. And with an assist from some epically inept questioning by Republicans, the lawmakers led Mueller through a withering portrayal of President Donald Trump.
Freed of the brain-dead debate over whether or not Trump “colluded” with Russia, Democrats used the hearing to highlight what Mueller had said Trump and his cohorts clearly did do: Seek to benefit from Russia illegal actions, lie extensively about it, and then scramble to block investigations into those actions. Republicans used their questions largely to pursue far-right hobbyhorses—opposition research firm Fusion GPS remains a favorite—and to attack Mueller for writing a report at all. But they barely bothered to challenge the basic outline of events that emerged in the two hearings.[...]
Mueller exceeded Democratic hopes when Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) asked him to weigh in on Trump’s praise of WikiLeaks during the campaign. “Problematic is an understatement, in terms of what it displays, in terms of giving some hope or some boost to what is and should be illegal activity,” Mueller said. In this statement, Mueller offered a personal assessment that went beyond the measured tones of his report. Minutes later, Schiff asked if knowingly accepting foreign assistance during a presidential campaign was an “unethical thing to do.” Mueller agreed, adding, “And a crime.”
Dan Balz at The Washington Post writes—Democrats are now left with one option to end Trump’s presidency: The 2020 election:
Many Democrats long have considered Robert S. Mueller III a potential savior, as the agent of PresidentTrump’s eventual undoing. Wednesday’s hearings on Capitol Hill probably shattered those illusions once and for all. If Democrats hope to end the Trump presidency, they will have to do so by defeating him at the ballot box in November 2020. In reality, that has been the case for months. Still, scheduled testimony by the former special counsel before two House committees offered the possibility that he would say something that would suddenly change public perceptions and dramatically jump-start long-stalled prospects for an impeachment inquiry. That was certainly the Democrats’ goal. If anything, things could move in the opposite direction.
Regardless of the evidence of obstruction contained in Mueller’s report, impeachment is a fraught strategy for the Democrats, given public opinion and the dynamics in the Senate. After Wednesday, the prospects for impeachment appear more remote, which means it will be left to the eventual Democratic presidential nominee, with the help of the party, to develop a comprehensive case against the president, one that can win 270 electoral votes. To date, that hasn’t happened.
Karen Tumulty at The Washington Post writes—The real bombshell in Mueller’s testimony wasn’t about impeaching Trump:
Democrats had hoped that with the long-awaited testimony of former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, they would finally have a clarifying, cinematic moment, perhaps one that would persuade a reluctant public to rally behind impeaching President Trump. [...]
As countless pundits put it in recent weeks, Americans needed to “see the movie.” Hours of back-and-forth across a witness table could produce clips that would play in a loop on cable news and over social media, penetrating the public consciousness in a way that a 400-plus-page report could not.
It did not happen. [...]
But to focus on Trump, and whether his actions constitute impeachable offenses, is to miss the real bombshell in Mueller’s testimony — the scandal that could be unfolding right there in front of us.
That was Mueller’s warning that what happened in 2016 could happen again. Asked by Rep. Will Hurd (R-Tex.) whether Russia might be planning another attack on the integrity of U.S. elections, Mueller replied: “They’re doing it as we sit here, and they expect to do it in the next campaign.” He said “many more countries” are developing the capability to do so as well.
Charles M. Blow at The New York Times writes—Mueller Testified. Now What?
This is the hearing the Democratic leadership seemed to suggest they were waiting for and needed to determine whether or not to move forward to open an impeachment.
Even though they knew that Mueller would not go beyond the finding and scope of his report — he said as much before being summoned to the hill — they made Americans believe that the mere act of him saying out loud and on television what most Americans refused to take the time to read would massively move public attention.
I’m not sure how or to what degree Wednesday’s theater will sway the public. I suspect that the impact will be negligible. Republicans are fully in the tank for Trump. There are a sizable group of people who identify as independent but in fact are not.
E.J. Dionne Jr. at The Washington Post writes—Mueller’s hearing proves that Trump and his apologists are lying:
[...] Republicans’ behavior at Wednesday’s hearings, not to mention Mueller’s own words, prove they have been lying.
Because the report does not and never did say what Trump and his band of servile attendants claim it says, Trump himself started sending out his nuke-Mueller marching orders to Republicans at 6:50 a.m. Wednesday. He assailed “this illegal and treasonous attack on our Country” — meaning the effort to hold him accountable — accused Mueller of being “Highly conflicted” and referred to Mueller’s “many Democrat Never Trumper lawyers.”
GOP committee members slavishly fell in behind the disinformation effort with shameless, reckless and conspiracy-minded assertions against Mueller, even as he observed the gag order issued by Attorney General William P. Barr’s Justice Department that he not discuss matters outside the confines of his report.
It was a heads-we-win, tails-Mueller-loses setup: Mueller is limited in what he can say, and then House Republicans attack him for failing to answer questions he’s barred from answering.
But as the day wore on, the outrageousness of the Republicans’ strategy became ever clearer and their core fear ever more obvious: If Americans take seriously what Mueller and his team found, Trump is in a lot of trouble.
Matt Ford at The New Republic writes—The Media Missed Mueller’s Clear Case for Impeaching Trump:
Chuck Todd, the moderator of NBC’s Meet the Press, concluded that Mueller’s low-key, constrained testimony was a “disaster” because House Democrats were looking for a “dramatic moment that would capture the imagination.”
The focus on congressional theatrics and his demeanor misses the point. In substantive terms, the former special counsel in the Russia investigation affirmed several key interpretations of his report and its findings. He also said nothing that diminished his reputation for impartiality and professionalism, hewing instead to his legally defined role. While the political press was busy lamenting that Mueller didn’t break character and accuse the president of impeachable crimes, it missed the news: Mueller, in his own way, underscored the case for Trump’s impeachment.[...]
It’s no surprise that those who view impeachment as a cable-news narrative saw little of value in Mueller’s hearing. There were no bombshells to be found, but that’s largely because the bombs have already gone off. Maybe that’s why some pundits decided that speculation about Mueller’s health was more salient to the American public than evidence of criminal wrongdoing by a sitting president. But those who view impeachment as a basic civic question—and one that’s infinitely more urgent, at this critical juncture in American democracy, than whether Democrats or Republicans “won” the day—likely drew a much different conclusion.
David Leonhardt at The New York Times writes—Mueller’s Failure. In the end, he didn’t quite do his job:
Based on his report and testimony, I think he should have said that he found no evidence of several of the accusations that Trump’s critics have made: that Russia has salacious compromising material on him; that an aide held a secret meeting in Prague; that Trump was a Russian intelligence asset.
At the same time, Mueller should have stated that the evidence strongly suggested that Trump committed obstruction of justice and campaign-finance crimes. Because Justice Department policy holds that sitting presidents can’t be indicted, Mueller could have explained that the right place to hear these cases was Congress. In the congressional proceeding, Trump could have defended himself, and the members could have made a decision about his guilt and the appropriate sanction, it any.
That approach would have been consistent with Mueller’s role as a prosecutor in this case. It would have been fair to Trump, and it would have been fair to the country.
Mueller chose an easier path, though.
Julie Hollar at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting writes—Media Can’t Quit ‘Trump Supporters Support Trump’ Stories:
As we hurtle into coverage of a presidential election that is still over a year away, media have returned to their timeworn tradition of going to rural, white communities to take the pulse of the nation.
Under the web headline “These Michigan Voters Show How Trump’s ‘Go Back’ Attack May Help Him,” The New York Times (7/22/19) ventured to a Trump stronghold in [St. Clair County] Michigan to bring readers the front-page news that people who supported Trump in 2016 despite his racist attacks still support him despite his racist attacks. [...]
The article went on to talk a great deal about the importance of Michigan to the presidential election as a swing state, about counties that had swung from Obama to Trump, and about how close polls are in those counties right now. This would seem to imply that St. Clair County is one of those, where people were more ambivalent about Trump, and therefore informative about which way Michigan might go this time around. But no, St. Clair County went for Romney by 7 points in 2012—and for Trump by 31 points.
Since this fact is disguised, and the “people” in this story seem to be exclusively of a Trumpian persuasion, it’s hard to escape the conclusion that the point of these person-in-the-street interviews was to give Trump supporters a platform, rather than to take a real look at what “Michigan voters” think. (Indeed, in Michigan as a whole, Trump’s approval rating stands at a net -15, according to Morning Consult polling—down 23 points since January 2017.)
Malaika Jabali at The Guardian writes—Trump's racist attacks will make it easier for ‘the Squad’ to recruit more members:
There are white Americans who think the country only belongs to them; that it is their birthright and theirs alone. For some, people of color are barely citizens. They want to keep us constantly teetering on the edge of citizenship that is not constitutionally provided but, rather, temporarily licensed, revocable upon any mention of the country’s white supremacist practices at home and abroad.
But that “peculiar sensation” of knowing America has never been entirely for us has also been a gift. It has given the marginalized, and our allies, a sense of shared struggle. What scares people like Trump is that “the Squad”, as the freshmen progressive congresswomen have become known, is increasing in number. The louder he gets, the easier it will be for them to recruit team-mates in this struggle for justice and basic human dignity. We may never escape that peculiarity of being othered in America, but the Squad is bound to become so deep that it won’t even matter.
Natasha Geiling at The New Republic writes—The Democrats’ New Climate Plan Can’t Be Serious:
On Tuesday afternoon, the top three Democratic members of the House Energy Committee unveiled what they called a “bold new initiative” to tackle the climate crisis. Meant as a more moderate alternative to Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal—which calls for a carbon-free economy by 2030—the new plan calls for the United States to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. It’s called the “100 by ’50” plan.
The Democrats’ new plan comes days after an oppressive heatwave covered much of the United States in 100-plus-degree temperatures, affecting 150 million people and killing six. It also comes a week after Tropical Storm Barry inundated the already-flooded Mississippi river, overtopping three river levees and causing devastating flooding in four states.
But the timing is perhaps all the plan gets right, because its ultimate goal of net-zero emissions by 2050 is neither bold nor new. Instead, it represents the very edge of what most climate scientists say is necessary to prevent catastrophic warming of the planet. And overall, the so-called plan illustrates the kind of rhetoric-without-action that has come to typify the much of the Democratic mainstream’s approach to climate change in the era of Donald Trump.
Nancy LeTourneau at The Washington Monthly writes—Don’t Trust Barr to Investigate Big Tech Monopolies:
On Tuesday, the Department of Justice announced that it would open an antitrust investigation into the big tech companies. [...]
On its face, this is the kind of antitrust action that the Washington Monthly has been promoting for years. In addition, several 2020 Democratic presidential candidates have discussed plans to break up big tech firms. [...]
To summarize, what we’ve heard from Republicans is that, contrary to the concerns expressed by those on the left, their intent in opening this investigation has more to do with turning tech companies into replicas of Fox News rather than invigorating competition. In the case of Amazon, Trump has made it clear that his antipathy is more about the fact that the owner, Jeff Bezos, also owns the Washington Post.
Robert Litan, former deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s antitrust division who helped prosecute Microsoft, clearly addressed what is going on with this announcement.
Another way to read this is that the administration doesn’t like any of these tech firms because they think they all lean Democratic and stifle conservative voices, and this is just pure, raw-knuckles payback.
Given all of that, combined with the fact that the attorney general has made it clear that, ultimately, he is this president’s personal attorney and fixer, Democrats should be wary of trusting the department he oversees to conduct an antitrust investigation of big tech.
Rachel Cohen at In These Times writes—The Just Transition for Coal Workers Can Start Now. Colorado Is Showing How:
In February 2018, Colorado activists launched a state-based affiliate of the Peoples Climate Movement, a coalition of community, faith, youth and environmental groups focused on promoting an equitable response to climate change. [...]
What followed were a series of organized talks between unions and environmental groups. [...] The work culminated in a Climate, Jobs and Justice Summit last September.
Democrats won a majority of seats in the state Senate after the 2018 midterms, giving them trifecta control over Colorado politics, and the ability to pass many climate-related bills this year. Those bills included two pieces of legislation advocates hope can serve as a model for climate, jobs and justice organizing in other states.
One is HB-1314, which establishes a Just Transition Office in the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment. The first-of-its-kind office, which will have both a dedicated staff and an advisory committee of diverse stakeholders, is charged with creating a equitable plan for coal-dependent communities and workers as the state transitions away from fossil fuels. The goal is to mitigate the economic hardship that will accompany this energy transition. A draft plan is due by July 2020, and by 2025, the state will start administering benefits to displaced coal workers, and provide workforce retraining grants to coal-transitioning communities like Pueblo, Larimer, Delta, Morgan and others. [...]
The second bill, SB-236, includes language to authorize the so-called securitization of coal plants, as a way to hasten their retirement and to bring additional funds to coal-dependent communities. The idea is to allow a utility company to swap its remaining coal plant debt for a ratepayer-backed bond. Twenty other states have bond securitization laws, and they have been used by governments to close a nuclear plant in Florida and a coal plant in Michigan. The twist in Colorado is to use some of the millions of dollars in savings from securitization to reinvest back in workers and vulnerable communities.
Steve Simon and Jonathan Stevenson at The New York Review of Books write—Iran: The Case Against War:
The similarities between the current situation and the prelude to the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2002–2003 are unmistakable. A pugnacious and insecure US president obsessed with a government he has demonized is unconstrained due to a disrupted interagency process and a Congress paralyzed by a cowed and craven Republican Party. On June 28, the Republican-controlled Senate voted down a bipartisan bill that would have required Trump to get Congress’s permission before striking Iran. Although on July 12 the House approved a defense bill that included the requirement, it is not likely to survive reconciliation in the Senate. Sycophantic advisers and inordinately influential foreign powers insist that he can remake a region purportedly forsaken by his despised liberal predecessor. It is probably lost on Bolton and Pompeo—and certainly on Trump—that the US intervention in Iraq ended up increasing Iranian influence there and elsewhere in the region. It may also be lost on them that a war with Iran could be even more disastrous than the war in Iraq.
One of the sycophants, Senator Tom Cotton, has compared developments in the Gulf to the 1984–1988 tanker war, in which Iran picked off Kuwaiti ships ferrying Iraq’s oil to market, while Iraq bombarded Iranian cities and oil terminals and gassed Iranian troops. Kuwait cajoled the Reagan administration into reflagging and escorting its vessels in 1987. The following spring, an Iranian mine disabled and nearly sank the USS Samuel B. Roberts. This precipitated a US–Iran shooting match in which American attacks disabled several Iranian warships. It also led to the inadvertent destruction in 1988 of an Iranian airliner by a confused US missile crew aboard the USS Vincennes, killing 290 civilians. The most strategically significant aspect of this confrontation, however, was Reagan’s self-control. Even when a US warship was attacked, resulting in US casualties, he refrained from striking Iranian territory and even forced out a high-ranking US commander for planning to do so. Restraint is the real lesson of the tanker war, but Republican hawks are unlikely to heed it.
The administration appears to be dusting off the tanker war concept and pressuring European allies to join the US Navy in protecting oil tankers from attack, though maritime operations would fall short of close individual escorts. If the administration were to take a harder look at the tanker war, it might observe that Iran, while still vastly weaker than the United States, is in a better position to resist now than it was thirty years ago, when it had been drained by the long war of attrition with Iraq. Although economically anemic today, it is not bankrupt. And thanks to the Trump administration’s abrupt withdrawal from the JCPOA and its humiliations of European allies, Tehran is less isolated diplomatically.