“There’s a conspiracy, we know from what’s come out of the executive sessions, generally, where this is going,” [Nixon White House counsel John] Dean said. “What struck me today in listening to these two witnesses is they already have more than they had against Richard Nixon to impeach him. Just on all accounts.”
Mediaite
...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.House judiciary committee chair Jerry Nadler announced that an agreement had been reached for the DoJ to start turning over “key” materials from the special counsel Robert Mueller (who stepped down as an employee of the DoJ last month) Trump-Russia investigation. This put his plans (whether real or not) to hold attorney general Bill Barr (top dog at the DoJ) in criminal contempt of Congress “in abeyance for now”.
[...]
Chairman Nadler made the following statement: “I am pleased to announce that the Department of Justice has agreed to begin complying with our committee’s subpoena by opening Robert Mueller’s most important files to us, providing us with key evidence that the Special Counsel used to assess whether the President and others obstructed justice or were engaged in other misconduct. The Department will share the first of these documents with us later today. All members of the Judiciary Committee—Democrats and Republicans alike—will be able to view them. These documents will allow us to perform our constitutional duties and decide how to respond to the allegations laid out against the President by the Special Counsel.
“Given our conversations with the Department, I will hold the criminal contempt process in abeyance for now. We have agreed to allow the Department time to demonstrate compliance with this agreement. If the Department proceeds in good faith and we are able to obtain everything that we need, then there will be no need to take further steps. If important information is held back, then we will have no choice but to enforce our subpoena in court and consider other remedies. It is critical that Congress is able to obtain the information we need to do our jobs, ensuring no one is above the law and bringing the American public the transparency they deserve.”
[...]
On April 19, the House judiciary committee issued a subpoena for the unredacted Mueller report and key underlying evidence. The Department of Justice refused to comply with the May 1 deadline for production of those materials.
Although the Committee made repeated attempts to negotiate for the materials responsive to the subpoena, the Department cut off negotiations on the evening of May 7.
On May 8, the committee voted to recommend that the House hold Attorney General [William] Barr in contempt of Congress.
[...]
That coincides with an important hearing where former White House counsel under Richard Nixon, John Dean, and other former US attorneys of more recent vintage, will testify to explain how prosecutors go through the process [of] investigating and taking action over obstruction of justice and abuse of power.
The Guardian
You'll get no argument from me.There simply was nothing about the Trump campaign that wasn’t rotten at its core. The candidate himself and most of his advisers had a positive gift for finding the most rancid operatives available to do the most rancid kind of work. By the time the election rolled around, the whole Trump operation had rats in its brains and poisonous spiders in its blood. It produced not a presidency, but a wart-ridden golem of a presidency, wandering and staggering around the landscape with bits of its pestiferous flesh falling into the public prints every day. Good Christ, what has this country done?
Charles P Pierce
My fear is that we'll finally see proof, but we still won't get rid of the snake. (And even if we do, we're left with Pence, unless he's in the indictment, too.)Former White House counsel John Dean is warning that former Trump campaign adviser Richard Gates's testimony could be the "end" of the Trump presidency.
"Mueller is throwing everything he can against Manafort, including Gates who can nail him. Increasingly it appears Manafort is the link to Russian collusion," Dean, who served in the Nixon administration, tweeted.
"If Gates can testify that Manafort was acting with Trump’s blessings, it’s the end of his presidency. That’s substantial."
The Hill
Dean said in a subsequent tweet that people have "expressed concern in this Manafort thread that Trump will pardon him."
"Many of the counts in both the VA and DC indictments have state law counterparts that can be charged in NY and VA, where Trump had no pardon power. Checkmate is coming for Paul Manafort," he tweeted.
Oscar Brown Jr.'s daughters are criticizing President Trump for his interpretation of their father's song "The Snake."
During an interview on CNN, the late performer's daughters were asked to explain the message of the song.
[...]
"It's an African tradition to use stories to impart wisdom and that's exactly what that was, teaching us about that."
Oscar Brown Jr., a singer, songwriter, poet and activist who died in 2005, wrote "The Snake" in the early 1960s. It is a tale of a woman taking in a snake to nurse it back to health and care for it, only for the snake to bite her.
Trump frequently read "The Snake" at rallies during his 2016 presidential campaign, refashioning it as an argument for tougher immigration laws.
He again read the tale during his speech last week at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
[...]
"The elephant in the room is that Trump is the living embodiment of the snake that my father wrote about in that song," Africa Brown said.
The Hill
