We begin today’s roundup with The New York Times and its editorial on Donald Trump’s denial of thousands of deaths in Puerto Rico:
[T]here is little question that things could have been handled much better — Mr. Trump’s memorable chucking of paper towels at devastated islanders notwithstanding. Even the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Government Accountability Office have found as much. [...]
Mr. Trump seems incapable of processing new information or learning from mistakes. Instead, he did what he always does: reject inconvenient data in favor of a story in which he is the hero. In the president’s view, increases in the official death toll cannot possibly stem from a more comprehensive analysis. They must stem from yet another conspiracy by his political enemies. The 3,000 lives lost, in other words, are all about him.
Democrats don’t need to lift a finger to make him look bad. He is managing that all on his own.
Here’s Van Newkirk’s take at The Atlantic:
I’ve talked to people in Puerto Rico who lost loved ones during Hurricane Maria. I’ve interviewed whole extended families struggling to locate one another and fearing for the worst, clinging to sporadic WhatsApp updates and making daily pilgrimages across the island to tiny archipelagos of cellphone service. I’ve heard stories of cousins who disappeared and people in nursing homes or on dialysis for whom the shock of the storm and the attrition of life without electricity proved deadly. I talked to doctors who were overwhelmed with critical and dying patients, and who soldiered on through darkness. There are pictures in the papers of the deceased, and as I’ve written about here, a slew of studies has attempted to capture just how many people did die. The exact number has been in contention, and no amount of exactness can quantify the exact scale of human loss. But what researchers, the Puerto Rican government, the Puerto Rican people, and people of any level of discernment agree on is that the number is large, and the scale is truly tragic.
The president of the United States is not one of those people of discernment.
Michael Avenatti makes the case for indicting the president:
The fact that Mr. Trump is a sitting president should not derail a process that applies to all Americans, regardless of stature or station. He would still have the post-indictment relief available to all citizens, including the ability to challenge the constitutionality of the indictment. Some also argue that indicting the president would critically impair his ability to lead the country. But this is a White House already engulfed in chaos and daily distractions. And if the House were to initiate impeachment proceedings, it is hard to see how that process would be any less distracting than a criminal indictment.
[...] Which brings us to the question of who on the Supreme Court should be allowed to review an indictment against the president. Last week, during his confirmation hearing, Judge Brett Kavanaugh refused to commit to recusing himself in the event he was confirmed and a case involving the investigation of Mr. Trump were to reach the Supreme Court. He took this position despite the fact that his strong views in favor of presidential immunity are outside the legal mainstream and he was chosen by Mr. Trump during known inquiries into the conduct of the president and his campaign. This is wrong.
Speaking of Kavanaugh, Senator Patrick Leahy lays out exactly how Kavanaugh mislead the committee:
Last week, I uncovered new evidence that Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh misled the Senate during his earlier hearings for the D.C. Circuit Court by minimizing and even denying his involvement in Bush-era controversies. I gave him the opportunity to correct his testimony at his hearing last week; he chose instead to double down.
I make no claim that Kavanaugh is a bad person. But when his prior confirmation to our nation’s “second highest court” was in jeopardy, he repeatedly misled the Senate when the truth might have placed that job out of reach.
On a final note, take a few minutes and make sure to read Natasha Bertrand at The Atlantic as she dives into the details on the Trump-Manafort joint defense agreement:
Trump’s and Manafort’s legal interests may be more aligned than either of them have let on.
According to Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, Manafort and Trump are part of a joint-defense agreement that allows them to share confidential information about the Russia investigation under the protection of attorney-client privilege. [...]
Former federal prosecutors turned defense attorneys told me that such agreements are indeed common in multi-defendant cases like Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, which has embroiled dozens of White House staffers, Trump-campaign advisers, and associates of the president. Essentially, they said, these agreements allow defendants to get their stories straight—and could help Manafort if he’s looking for an eventual pardon.