We begin today’s roundup with the The Washington Post and its editorial on the need to protect special counsel Robert Mueller:
Now more than ever, the president must get the message: Hands off the special counsel.
The warning signs are there for anyone to see. Mr. Trump just fired Jeff Sessions as attorney general because Mr. Sessions recused himself from the Russia probe instead of protecting the president from it. Mr. Trump tapped — probably illegally — Matthew G. Whitaker to be an interim replacement. Mr. Whitaker is a partisan mediocrity whose appeal seems to be that he attacked Mr. Mueller’s investigation before joining the administration.
Elizabeth Drew, who covered Watergate for The New Yorker, says that Trump’s firing of Sessions and his approach to the investigation is worse than Watergate:
Each president tried to stir up public impatience with his perceived persecution and thus pressure investigators to hurry up, but Mr. Trump makes Nixon look like a pussycat. Nixon officials were prone to saying things like, “Enough wallowing in Watergate,” while, for example, in early August, Mr. Trump tweeted, “This is a terrible situation and Attorney General Jeff Sessions should stop this Rigged Witch Hunt right now.” Mr. Trump has done much more than Nixon did in trying to damage public trust in whatever their prosecutors might come up with.
Natasha Betrand at The Atlantic analyzes the latest, highly specific attacks on Mueller and his team:
Whereas Trump typically attacks Mueller’s investigation with the same perfunctory language—calling it a “witch hunt” and “rigged”—he was unusually specific in his accusation that Mueller’s investigators were “threatening” people “to come up with the answers they want.” He made a similar charge in August, claiming that Cohen, who is now cooperating with prosecutors in a separate investigation, “made up stories in order to get a ‘deal.’” [...]
Trump’s outburst “could just be another rant,” said Elie Honig, a former federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York who handled organized-crime cases. But on the other hand, it could signal action on the part of prosecutors that Trump registers as a threat. Honig explained that prosecutors sometimes get fed up with people they know are not being honest and threaten to bring charges against them. They may also threaten a person’s status as a potential cooperator, which typically comes with reduced charges. “My hunch is that prosecutors had some sort of ‘Time to get real’ conversation with someone implicated in the investigation, which was then relayed to Trump by defense attorneys,” Honig said.
Susan Glasser, meanwhile, brings us an interview with Rep. Schiff, who promises that at least in the House, the new majority will act like a co-equal branch rather than a lapdog of the president:
In an interview, Representative Adam Schiff, of California, described to me his evolving plan to act as Mueller’s congressional backstop, insuring that, even if Trump and Whitaker attempt to shut down the investigation, Mueller’s investigatory work and conclusions will not be covered up. Schiff, who is widely expected to be elected the incoming chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, also made it clear that he will revive and expand the committee’s investigation of the Russia allegations that Republicans on the panel abruptly shut down earlier this year, telling me he would like to recall Steve Bannon, Trump’s former strategist, and Michael Cohen, the President’s estranged former lawyer and fixer, among others, to get answers that the G.O.P. majority wouldn’t or couldn’t extract.
Meanwhile, at USA Today, Noah Bookbinder, Richard Painter and Norman Eisen explain why acting Attorney General Whitaker must recuse himself:
Whitaker’s background and public musings suggest he will be less than independent in his judgments. His recusal must be swift and public. He needs to make clear that he will fulfill his oath to serve the Constitution rather than the personal agenda of the president. Trump’s repeated attacks on the integrity of these investigations, and requests for Whitaker's predecessor to join him in these assaults, demand nothing less than the unequivocal assurance that Whitaker will play no part in undermining the rule of law that he is now sworn to uphold.
Damon Linker at The Week explains why Republicans are undermining the recount in Florida (hint: it’s not just about this election):
The fight over the Florida recount isn't about the precise size of the GOP majority in the Senate. It's about the electoral future of the Republican Party and the fate of President Trump in 2020. When the Democrat is pronounced the clear winner on the night of Election Day, there is little that Republicans can do. But when the outcome is very close, the final tally of mailed in and provisional ballots trends toward the Democrat, and/or a mandatory recount is triggered by the narrowness of the result, the GOP roars into action — hurling unsubstantiated accusations of voter fraud, insisting that the (incomplete) GOP-friendly count publicized a few hours after polls closed is somehow more legitimate than the final vote total, and insinuating that the outcome of a legally prescribed recount will invariably be marked by outright corruption that benefits the Democrat.
On the bombshell report of Facebook’s campaign to discredit critics and cover up Russian influence, The New York Times says Congress must investigate:
[F]amiliar questions remain unanswered: How much did Facebook know, and when?
The answers to those questions grow in size and seriousness as the breadth of the effort to befoul the democratic process becomes more and more apparent. [...] Facebook could have approached its civic duty head-on, but instead busied itself with damage control. Joel Kaplan, the company’s vice president for global public policy, objected to the public dissemination of internal findings on the grounds that it would offend conservatives. The company also chose to strengthen its ties with Definers Public Affairs, a consulting firm founded by Republican political operatives, which then sought to discredit anti-Facebook activists by linking them to George Soros, a wealthy liberal donor who is often the subject of conspiracy theories. Facebook said it cut ties with Definers on Wednesday night.
On a final note, don’t miss Ryan Cooper’s piece on the need for the media to stop playing Trump’s pre-election distraction game:
Tricking the media into flooding the zone on the caravan was absolutely a deliberate strategy on the part of Trump and the Republican Party. The tactics were extremely obvious: coordinated, hysterical lies about the refugees from Trump and most other Republicans; PR stunts like deploying the military to do pointless border security theater; and using right-wing agitprop organs (above all Fox News) to drive more coverage. The point was to whip base voters into a frenzy, and more importantly, push any coverage of substantive topics (like the multiple efforts to destroy protections for people with pre-existing conditions) off the agenda of national discussion.