It was a typical Trump week: So many items, so little time.
We will begin with Russia because all roads lead to Russia.
As part of his investigation into whether the Trump campaign conspired with Russia regarding the 2016 election, Special Counsel Robert Mueller asked to interview Trump on the record with his attorneys present. That has to terrify Trump’s attorneys. It’s expected that Mueller has already amassed a great deal of evidence and Trump, of course, is known to lie. Word was that Trump’s attorneys asked if Trump could answer written questions instead, but no prosecutor believed Mueller would accept that.
Mueller could have his grand jury issue a subpoena for Trump to testify – and Trump would not be allowed to have his attorneys present. Trump could reject the subpoena and the matter could go to the Supreme Court. There’s no guarantee what would happen, but it seems very unlikely that the Supreme Court would rule in Trump’s favor: Independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr subpoenaed President Bill Clinton to testify before a grand jury about his affair with Monica Lewinsky.
Mueller also asked the federal court to set May 14 trial dates for Paul Manafort and Rick Gates. Assuming the court agrees, that date might be a deadline for Manafort and Gates to cut deals with Mueller -- and for Trump to decide whether he is going to grant them pardons. If pardons were granted, Manafort and Gates would lose their right to claim a Fifth Amendment defense against self-incrimination and could be compelled to testify in other proceedings, such as against Trump.
Given that the Republicans have decided to back Trump and obstruct Congressional investigations into the Russia matter, the Democrats decided that they had to take matters into their own hands.
Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) released the transcript of the testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee of the co-founder of Fusion GPS. Fusion GPS had commissioned the Steele dossier, which contained allegations about the Trump team’s involvement with the Russians. Republican Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), the chair of the committee, had opposed making it public despite the testimony containing no classified information.
Among other things, the testimony was that Trump was doing business with the former Soviet states of Georgia and Azerbaijan, Steele reported his findings to the FBI because he believed there was “a crime in progress”, Steele found out that that FBI had an informant in the Trump network, and the FBI did not tell the public during the campaign what it had discovered regarding Trump.
Further, Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee released a 206-page report stating that the Trump administration’s failure to take action regarding Russian meddling in the 2016 Presidential election means that Russia likely will be interfering in the 2018 U.S. Senate elections. Republicans on the committee refused to sign the report, trying to cast it as partisan.
Trump, though, was indeed paying attention to the 2018 elections. After Trump announced that he was allowing offshore drilling for all states, suddenly Trump’s Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said that Florida would be exempt. Most thought this was due to Trump urging Florida’s Republican governor Rick Scott to run for a Florida U.S. Senate seat this year. It probably didn’t hurt that Trump’s Mar-A-Lago estate is located on the Florida coast and oil drilling rigs might spoil the view.
And coasts bring us to immigration. Trump administration officials announced that 200,000 people from El Salvador would be required to leave the U.S. after being allowed to live and work here since two devastating earthquakes there in 2001. They now have jobs and businesses here, have children born here who are U.S. citizens, and El Salvador’s economy has no way to absorb 200,000 people.
With a government shutdown looming on January 19, on Tuesday Trump told Congress to devise a plan to deal with the immigration issues that are involved and he would go along. On Thursday, a bipartisan group of Senators said that a deal had been reached. It was immediately rejected by the White House.
On Thursday Trump had a meeting with Congressional leaders in the Oval Office. When they discussed protecting immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and African countries as part of a bipartisan immigration deal, Trump asked “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” He used the expression several times. Trump then suggested the U.S. should attract more people from countries such as Norway.
Surely it was accidental that Haiti, El Salvador and Africa have primarily black and brown citizens and Norway has white ones. In addition to all the American citizens with roots in the Caribbean and Africa, Founding Father Alexander Hamilton was born out of wedlock in Nevis, a Caribbean island about 260 miles from Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory. Needless to say, there was criticism from Democrats, Republicans and the rest of the world.
As even Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said in response, “America is an idea, not a race.” Not, though, if you are Donald Trump.
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