Former President George W. Bush remembers former President George H.W. Bush’s love for his country, his family and a good laugh during his eulogy for his dad. USA TODAY
As many Americans watched the funeral services for President George H.W. Bush this week, Isa Leshko found herself tuning out the coverage. Things were missing. Recent events glossed over. It left her feeling sickened, she said.
Shortly after news broke of Bush’s death, Leshko, 47, an artist and activist, took to Twitter.
“Many members of the LGBTQ community, people of color, and women have a hard time praising Bush’s memory today,” she wrote, launching a threaded series of tweets.
She touched on Bush’s handling of the AIDS crisis, his veto of the Civil Rights Act of 1990. Near the end of her thread, Leshko brought up a more recent controversy that she and other activists have found questionably absent from remembrances and discussions of Bush’s legacy: the groping allegations.
A little more than a year before his death, allegations emerged from eight women dating back to 1992. The details were similar: During a photo op with the former president, Bush touched or squeezed their butts without consent. Some of the women say he made a joke first.
Bush apologized last year through spokesman Jim McGrath, saying he “does not have it in his heart to knowingly cause anyone distress, and he again apologizes to anyone he offended during a photo op.”
With attention focused on other men who were still in office or high-powered jobs, involved in severe incidents, the allegations have received little mention since they first came to light in October 2017. USA TODAY, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press did not include the allegations in obituaries. Headlines praised his decency and character and called him a gentleman. Even in Twitter’s liberal bubbles, the topic has been cautiously broached.
I’m gonna get in a lot of trouble, but isn’t it a bit odd that people are now speaking so highly of George HW Bush when not long ago several allegations surfaced of him groping women?
Michelle Nickerson, an associate professor of history at Loyola University Chicago who specializes in women and gender and U.S. politics, says memorializations happen with every president.
“The purpose in this case is to recognize ourselves as a nation. So it’s almost like we keep quiet about the mistakes of the dead because we want to focus on the things that we appreciate and we value and the things that we want to honor,” Nickerson said. “There are going to be things that we recall and we chose to forget because we are honoring not just Bush but the presidency as an institution.”
Yale University history professor Joanne B. Freeman says these remembrances, and presidential legacies, are shaped by current political climates. And in this case, she says, the need for a retort to the increasingly caustic political landscape has been palpable in our eulogizing.
“It feels to me like a very emotionally needy moment that’s making use of Bush’s reputation to serve a purpose,” said Freeman. “It’s become a mourning for decency moment that really isn’t about Bush at all.”
Using a polished version of a president’s reputation for specific ends is “a tradition that goes back to the dawn of the republic,” Freeman says.
Anyone who has seen the musical Hamilton knows the story of the Federalist Party’s attempt to discredit Alexander Hamilton as a co-author of George Washington’s farewell address to make Washington, and in turn the party, look better.
But Freeman says this moment is unique in its near-total focus on Bush’s character as opposed to his political impact. A record that includes unwavering support for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Bush’s nominee who was accused of sexual harassment by Anita Hill in a grueling confirmation process that activists say paved the way for the similarly contentious confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
The problem, for activists and survivors of sexual assault, is that the exaltation of Bush as a “gentleman” and “America’s last great soldier-statesman” feels incomplete.
“Which part of him was ‘boy-next-door bonhomie’ when he groped numerous women?” says Elizabeth Xu Tang, an equal justice fellow with the National Women’s Law Center, referencing a New Yorker tribute.
“We’ve sanitized the history of so many things,” Tang says. “To start that process immediately, the second they die, is so irresponsible, it’s untruthful.”
Tang notes that Bush’s last tweet praised Sen. Susan Collins for her “political courage and class” following her vote to confirm Kavanaugh, who was accused of sexual assault; he denies any wrongdoing.
Bush “felt that it was necessary to publicly speak out about [someone accused of] serial sexual assault, and that it was commendable and courageous,” Tang says. “I think that tells you everything you need to know about his thoughts on #MeToo and sexual assault and women’s bodily autonomy.”
Leshko, too, noted the tweet.
“The fact that the Kavanaugh hearing and confirmation is still raw for so many women, and recognizing that his final tweet was in support of Kavanaugh, it just makes it really hard for me to hear people say he harkens back to a kinder and gentler time in our politics,” Leshko said. “If you actually look back on certain periods of history as kinder and gentler, odds are you benefit from privilege you’re not fully aware of.”
An overwhelming response to mentions of the groping allegations, as well as other Bush critiques, has been “not now.” Vox, one of the few media outlets to broach the allegations and Bush’s legacy, was met with derisive replies on Twitter, saying the decision to publish a day after his death was “disgusting” and “uncalled for.”
“We have this powerful cultural belief you’re not supposed to talk badly about people who have died,” said Mahri Irvine, an adjunct lecturer on race, gender and culture studies at American University. “Now that they’re dead we can’t bring up anything bad or shady about their past.”
This extends beyond presidents to celebrities but everyday Americans, as well. It’s why stigmatized issues, like suicide, remain rarely mentioned after someone dies and why candid obituaries about drug use go viral.
Part of the reason for glossing over, says Irvine, is that many people struggle with duality.
“You can have men, and you do, who genuinely are kind, compassionate, respectful, care for children and care for their spouses, who are very kind and good to most people,” and behave differently around others.
Nickerson said in terms of presidential legacy, it’s important to embrace complexity.
“It’s appropriate to do it as soon as possible lest we fail to recognize all of this as part of a collective legacy, the good and the bad, the warts and all,” she said.
Many people want to ignore complexity, but when that happens with someone as powerful as a president, historians say it can be problematic.
“When something becomes complicated, one rather useless response is ‘Oh, we’ll just not say anything about it at all.’ Which makes matters worse by erasing it,” said Freeman. “There are all kinds of populations and constituencies that get erased that way. Until recently, race was a non-issue for Thomas Jefferson, and … think of all the people who were thereby erased, all the people who were not included in history.”
Irvine says women’s voices are often erased.
“Women and girls are taught, even if they have a very valid complaint about something, they need to be polite and respectful,” Irvine said. “By telling Bush’s victims that they need to stay silent right now, or by complaining about reporters who are going to cover the topic, it’s reinforcing this patriarchal idea that women’s voices are less important and less valued than dead men’s.”
Women are told it’s never a good time for sexual allegations, Tang said: When a young woman accuses a young man, it’s not the right time because the boy has his whole life ahead of him. In middle age, it’ll ruin the man’s reputation at the height of his career. When men are old, it’s dismissed as having happened so long ago. And after death, it’s unacceptable to speak ill of the dead.
It’s that frustration that inspired Leshko to speak out.
“I have total empathy for the Bush family. They had two major losses in seven months. I understand that,” she said. “But I think expressing these viewpoints is important, particularly while his legacy is being discussed in the public eye. Bush wasn’t my father, he wasn’t my uncle. He was my president and his actions had significant consequences for people in this country and abroad. It needs to be considered part of the legacy.”
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Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, second from left, with wife Columba, and former President George W. Bush, center, with wife Laura, and other family members, watch as the flag-draped casket of former President George H.W. Bush is carried by a joint services military honor guard after if arrived by train for burial at the George Bush Presidential Library, Thursday, Dec. 6, 2018, in College Station. Eric Gay, AP
President Donald Trump, first lady Melania Trump, former President Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, former President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former President Jimmy Carter and Rosalynn Carter, listen during a State Funeral for former President George H.W. Bush at the Washington National Cathedral, Dec. 5, 2018, in Washington. Jack Gruber, USA TODAY
Congressional leaders from left to right, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, R-Wis, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., watch as a U.S. military honor guard carries the flag-draped casket of former U.S. President George H. W. Bush from the U.S. Capitol Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2018, in Washington. Pool photo by Win McNamee
From right, former President George W. Bush, second from right, former first lady Laura Bush, Neil Bush, Sharon Bush, Bobby Koch, Doro Koch, Jeb Bush and Columba Bush, stand just prior to the flag-draped casket of former President George H.W. Bush being carried by a joint services military honor guard from the U.S. Capitol, Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2018, in Washington. Pool photo by Alex Brandon
Former Vice President Joe Biden, fourth from left, and his wife Jill Biden, second from left, speak with Ivanka Trump, the daughter of President Donald Trump, third from left, and her husband, President Donald Trump’s White House Senior Adviser Jared Kushner, third from right, as former Vice President Al Gore, second from right, speak to former President Jimmy Carter, right, and former first lady Rosalynn Carter, bottom center, before a State Funeral for former President George H.W. Bush at the National Cathedral, Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2018, in Washington. AP
Tiffany Utterson, right, and her children, from left to right, Ella, 11, Ian, 10 and Owen, 8, place a wreath outside the gated community entrance to the home of George H.W. Bush Sunday, Dec. 2, 2018, in Houston. David J. Phillip, AP
Caroline Cyboran, of Kingwood, Texas, looks at an exhibit while visting the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum Saturday, Dec. 1, 2018, in College Station. Bush has died at age 94. Family spokesman Jim McGrath says Bush died shortly after 10 p.m. Friday, Nov. 30, 2018, about eight months after the death of his wife, Barbara Bush. David J. Phillip, AP
Absence does not make the heart grow fonder when it comes to President Trump and his first secretary of state, Rex Tillerson.
Nine months after Trump summarily dismissed his top diplomat by tweet, Trump and Tillerson were back to bickering as they traded accusations in a relationship that at turns has been icy and blistering.
After Tillerson publicly said their encounters grew rocky over Trump’s directives to do things that were illegal, Trump hit back in a tweet in which he branded Tillerson “dumb as a rock” and “lazy as hell.”
The biting retort came after Tillerson made his first public remarks about Trump during an appearance Thursday night at a charity event in Texas, where Tillerson has retired to his ranch.
“So often, the president would say, ‘Here’s what I want you to do, and here’s how I want you to do it,’ ” Tillerson said at a fundraiser for the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
“And I would have to say to him, ‘Mr. President, I understand what you want to do. But you can’t do it that way. It violates the law,’ ” he said.
As if to confirm how toxic their interactions had become, Trump praised Tillerson’s successor, Mike Pompeo, and then dismissed the abilities of Tillerson, who ran Exxon Mobil before stepping down to work for Trump.
“Mike Pompeo is doing a great job, I am very proud of him. His predecessor, Rex Tillerson, didn’t have the mental capacity needed. He was dumb as a rock and I couldn’t get rid of him fast enough. He was lazy as hell. Now it is a whole new ballgame, great spirit at State!”
Trump’s judgment on Tillerson was the polar opposite when he nominated him, praising him in December 2016 as a “world-class player” who made “massive deals” while CEO of a mammoth oil company.
But the honeymoon was short-lived.
Tillerson privately fought against many of the budget cuts the White House enforced on him, writing letters in which he argued for more time to downsize and reform the department’s structure. But ultimately he slashed staffing, which contributed to low morale as veteran diplomats were shown the door or made to feel unwelcome and unvalued.
President Trump announced that he is nominating William Barr as attorney general to take the place of Jeff Sessions and Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker at the Justice Department.
Who is William Barr?
The job isn’t new to Barr, who served as attorney general for roughly 14 months under President George H. W. Bush. Prior to his nomination and confirmation, Barr worked in the Office of Legal Counsel as assistant attorney general and was then appointed to deputy attorney general. Suffice it to say that he’s experienced.
Why did Trump pick Barr?
Although Barr did not back Trump in the 2016 election, he did share the view that the DOJ should have done more to investigate Hillary Clinton’s use of a private server for government email. He told the New York Times in November 2017 that there was nothing “inherently wrong” with Trump calling for an investigation into Clinton. However, he did say that there should not necessarily be an investigation simply because a president calls for one.
Additionally, Barr was supportive of Trump firing James Comey as the FBI director, saying it was “quite understandable.” In relation to the FBI’s investigation into Clinton’s email server, Barr wrote in a Washington Post op-ed: “By unilaterally announcing his conclusions regarding how the matter should be resolved, Comey arrogated the attorney general’s authority to himself” instead of letting the deputy attorney general handle the case after then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch recused herself.
Finally, with respect to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump 2016 campaign, Barr was critical of Mueller’s hiring decisions, telling the Washington Post that they seemed to be mostly left-wing Democrats based on their political giving. “Prosecutors who make political contributions are identifying fairly strongly with a political party,” he said. “I would have liked to see him have more balance on this group.”
His comments have many liberals upset today.
What will Barr face in the Senate?
There’s a good chance that Barr will face the same level of skepticism from Senate Democrats as previous Trump nominees. However, he might have more bipartisan appeal.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., told the Washington Examiner, “I’ve always said the best thing the administration can do is get somebody who would have majority support from Republicans and Democrats.” And when he was asked if Barr could win such support, Leahy said, “Yes, he could.”
The Senate will go out of session in mid-December, and Republicans will come back with an expanded majority of 53 senators. Even if Democrats don’t come through for Barr, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell won’t have to worry as much about possible Republican defectors like Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, or Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., voting “no.”
A top Chinese telecommunications executive facing possible extradition to the United States appeared in court Friday as she sought bail in a case that has rattled markets and raised doubts about the US being able to reach a truce in its trade war with China.
A prosecutor for the Canadian government urged the court not to grant bail, saying the charges against Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer (CFO) for Chinese telecom giant Huawei, involve US allegations that Huawei used a sham shell company to access the Iran market in dealings that contravene US sanctions.
Meng was arrested in Vancouver on December 1 while transferring planes on a trip from Hong Kong to Mexico at the request of US authorities seeking her extradition. The arrest was made public on Wednesday.
If convicted, the 46-year-old daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei faces more than 30 years in prison, said the Canadian prosecutor.
The prosecutor said Meng had personally denied to US bankers any direct connections between Huawei and SkyCom, when in fact “SkyCom is Huawei”.
Hong Kong-based SkyCom’s alleged sanctions breaches occurred from 2009 to 2014.
The lawyer suggested that Meng has shown a pattern of avoiding the US since becoming aware of the investigation into the matter, has access to vast wealth and connections, and therefore could flee Canada.
Meng’s lawyer, David Martin, disputed the prosecutor’s call to deny bail, saying, “The fact a person has worked hard and has extraordinary resources cannot be a factor that would exclude them from bail.”
He said Meng’s personal integrity would not allow her to go against a court order, and that she would not embarrass her father and company founder by breaching such an order.
US-China trade thaw threatened
The arrest roiled global stock markets over fears the move could escalate the US-China trade war despite a truce between President Donald Trump and President Xi Jinping last week.
Canada denied that the arrest, which was made public on Wednesday, was politically motivated, while US officials on Thursday said Trump did not know about the arrest in advance.
Earlier on Friday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said neither Canada nor the US provided China any evidence that Meng had broken any law in the two countries, and demanded her release.
In a statement on Wednesday, Huawei said “the company has been provided very little information regarding the charges and is not aware of any wrongdoing by Ms Meng”.
Chinese state media slammed Meng’s arrest, accusing the US of trying to “stifle” Huawei and curb its global expansion.
Mr. Barr has a “generally mainstream G.O.P. and corporate” reputation, Norman L. Eisen, who served as special counsel for ethics and government overhaul under President Barack Obama, said on Thursday. But he predicted that Mr. Barr would be vigorously vetted because of what he saw as blots on Mr. Barr’s record, including his push for scrutiny of the mining deal, involving a company called Uranium One.
Mr. Barr “has put forward the discredited idea that Hillary Clinton’s role in the Uranium One deal is more worthy of investigation than collusion between Trump and Russia,” Mr. Eisen wrote in a text message. “That is bizarre. And he was involved in the dubious George H.W. Bush end of term pardons that may be a precedent for even more illegitimate ones by Trump.”
Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, said on Friday that Democrats would carefully vet him
“I will demand that Mr. Barr make a firm and specific commitment to protect the Mueller investigation, operate independently of the White House, and uphold the rule of law,” Mr. Blumental said in a statement. He deserved particular scrutiny, the senator said, “in light of past comments suggesting Mr. Barr was more interested in currying favor with President Trump than objectively and thoughtfully analyzing law and facts.”
A graduate of George Washington University’s law school, Mr. Barr, 68, got his start in the 1970s working for the C.I.A. and later worked in the Reagan White House before leaving for private practice. In 1989, President George Bush appointed him to lead the Justice Department’s powerful Office of Legal Counsel, and later elevated him to deputy attorney general and then attorney general.
After the Bush administration, Mr. Barr spent most of his postgovernment career as the top lawyer for the telecommunications company that became Verizon, from which he retired in 2008. He later joined the Kirkland & Ellis law firm.
In a November 1992 speech, Mr. Barr put forward the ideal of an attorney general whose primary loyalty is to the rule of law, not to the president who appointed him — saying that he must provide “unvarnished, straight-from-the-shoulder legal advice” with no regard to political considerations like what conclusions the White House might prefer.
Shrinking the US trade deficit has been a key goal of President Donald Trump’s trade war.
But the US Census Bureau announced Thursday that the US trade deficit grew to $55.5 billion in the month of October, the highest in exactly 10 years. That was a 1.7% jump from September, as imports rose by 0.2% and exports fell by 0.1%.
Trump has long been focused on the trade deficit as a signal that his administration’s tariffs on Chinese goods and metals are working, despite the fact that most economists discount the measure as a sign of effective trade policy.
Looking at the main target of the trade war, China, the trade deficit was similarly dismal. The unadjusted goods trade deficit hit $43.1 billion in October, the highest level ever.
The US economy is stronger, and US consumers’ appetite is outpacing the country’s ability to produce the goods they want.
This means the US needs goods from other countries to satisfy consumer demand, leading to import growth.
The increase in demand is in part because of the significant amount of fiscal stimulus injected into the economy by Trump’s tax cuts and the massive bipartisan budget deal.
Goosing the economy, while helping Trump claim victories on things like a stronger GDP, also means the president’s trade report card looks worse.
At the same time, exports are cooling because of retaliatory tariffs on US products:
The trade policy exacerbates the existing issues that were already causing weak export growth, Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, wrote Thursday.
“The stronger dollar and slower growth in China and Europe are hurting exports, and the tariffs are a real problem too; exports of soybeans fell by $0.8 billion to a four-year low, down 43% year-over-year,” Shepherson said.
Those existing drags on exports — the strong US dollar and slowing economic growth in foreign countries — and the tariffs combine to make the perfect recipe for weakness on that side of the deficit ledger.
“Moderating global momentum, the stronger dollar, and protectionist trade policies will keep weighing on exports in the near-term, while sturdy domestic demand and limited spare capacity keep import growth healthy — further widening the deficit,” said Jack McRobie and Gregory Daco, economists at Oxford Economics.
A few things could turn around the deficit situation. If the US economy were to cool off, as many economists expect, it could slow the pace of import growth. At the same time, if Trump is able to strike a trade deal with China, a prospect of which economists and experts are more skeptical, export growth could rebound and close the gap.
While making a series of major personnel announcements on the White House lawn, including new picks for attorney general and United Nations ambassador, Trump cryptically told reporters that “I have another one for tomorrow.”
“I’m going to be announcing at the Army-Navy game. I can give you a little hint: It will have to do with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and succession,” he said.
Trump is set to attend the coin toss at the annual game between the Army Black Knights and the Navy Midshipmen on Saturday afternoon in Philadelphia.
The comment set off speculation over who could be named to what position, as all of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are set reach the end of their terms in quick succession starting next summer.
Administration officials told The New York Times that Trump is expected to name Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley as Joint Chiefs chairman.
Current Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford’s second term will end in the summer of 2019, as will Vice Chairman Gen. Paul Selva’s.
Former President Obama nominated Dunford and Selva to the two-year term positions in 2015, and Trump re-upped them for their second terms last year.
Milley, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Robert Neller and Naval Chief of Operations Adm. John Richardson will all reach the end of their terms next year.
Predictably, however, some are scornfully attacking Nauert, a former journalist, as unqualified for the position. These critics are driven far more by their hatred for Fox News, where Nauert used to work, than their honest assessments of reality, and they are wrong.
First off, in her time as the State Department’s chief spokeswoman, Nauert has learned the ins and outs of the State Department bureaucracy. She’s also learned the three keys to being a successful U.N. ambassador: being a team player, understanding U.S. foreign policy interests, and understanding the interests and nuances of other international actors. In order to get the State Department operating effectively with united purpose, a senior leader must command the respect of State Department’s foreign and civil service officers and other employees. Standing up for her department, Nauert has earned that respect.
Moreover, in standing up for American foreign policy interests and allies, Nauert is ready to deliver that message at the U.N. And the the ambassador she replaces also had little foreign policy experience but was quite successful.
Nauert has shown another important facet of readiness: a willingness push back against U.S. adversaries. Here, Nauert stands out for her strong understanding of the Russian propaganda machine. In numerous exchanges at the State Department, Nauert has aggressively rebuked Russian agents from RT and other truly fake-news outlets. As shown in the video below, Nauert has even done so under pressure from U.S. journalists who lack the understanding of what RT actually is: which is to say, a de facto intelligence influencing operation.
This confidence will be absolutely critical at the U.N., where Russian diplomats spend every day attempting to deceive the international community and undercut U.S. policy interests. Outgoing ambassador Nikki Haley has excelled in defeating these Russian efforts. Nauert has shown she has the temperament, intellect, and eloquence to do the same.
I’ve long believed Nauert is an excellent choice for this job.
“His chief promises were that he would build the wall, de-fund Planned Parenthood and repeal Obamacare, and he hasn’t done any of those things,” said Carlson, per The Washington Post.
Robert Mueller and Leakin’ Lyin’ James Comey are Best Friends, just one of many Mueller Conflicts of Interest. And bye the way, wasn’t the woman in charge of prosecuting Jerome Corsi (who I do not know) in charge of “legal” at the corrupt Clinton Foundation? A total Witch Hunt…
“Will all of the substantial & many contributions made by the 17 Angry Democrats to the Campaign of Crooked Hillary be listed in top of Report. Will the people that worked for the Clinton Foundation be listed at the top of the Report?” he wrote.
….Will Robert Mueller’s big time conflicts of interest be listed at the top of his Republicans only Report. Will Andrew Weissman’s horrible and vicious prosecutorial past be listed in the Report. He wrongly destroyed people’s lives, took down great companies, only to be……..
…..overturned, 9-0, in the United States Supreme Court. Doing same thing to people now. Will all of the substantial & many contributions made by the 17 Angry Democrats to the Campaign of Crooked Hillary be listed in top of Report. Will the people that worked for the Clinton….
….Foundation be listed at the top of the Report? Will the scathing document written about Lyin’ James Comey, by the man in charge of the case, Rod Rosenstein (who also signed the FISA Warrant), be a big part of the Report? Isn’t Rod therefore totally conflicted? Will all of….
The tweets come on what is expected to be a momentous day in Mueller’s long-running investigation into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 election.
Trump’s tweets break a relatively brief period of silence on the Mueller probe during memorial services for former President George H.W. Bush.
For the second time in recent weeks, the president turned his fire on Rosenstein. He asked if the No. 2 Justice Department official’s “scathing document written about Lyin’ James Comey” will be included in Mueller’s final report on the probe.
Referring to a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant signed by Rosenstein against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, Trump asked, “isn’t Rod therefore totally conflicted?”
The debate over whether Rosenstein should recuse himself has long hung over the Russia probe, but the deputy attorney general said he has consulted with appropriate officials and that his position did not present a conflict.
The president last week retweeted a photoshopped image showing several Trump opponents in jail, including Rosenstein, suggesting they should be locked up for treason.
The president also took aim at top Mueller deputy Andrew Weissman, calling him a “horrible and vicious” prosecutor who “wrongly destroyed people’s lives, took down great companies.”
HOUSTON — George Herbert Walker Bush was laid to rest Thursday beneath the rich soil of Texas, where he arrived 70 years ago as a young New Englander looking to make a new life and ended up rising to the pinnacle of American political power.
After a formal funeral in Washington on Wednesday and a folksier one in Houston on Thursday, the 41st president’s body was taken by train to his presidential library in College Station, where he was buried on a cool and rainy afternoon.
Texans turned out all along the 70-mile route as the train rolled through the towns of Spring, Pinehurst, Magnolia and Navasota, paying tribute to Bush, whose flag-draped casket was borne in a glass-sided train car pulled by Union Pacific locomotive 4141, painted in the baby-blue and white of Air Force One.
For nearly three hours, crowds waved U.S. and Texas flags, placed their hands on their hearts, saluted and took photographs and video, while firetrucks hoisted large flags on bridges over the tracks.
White House sources told CNN on Friday that Kelly’s relationship with the president, often reported as tumultuous, is no longer seen as “sustainable” and will likely lead to Kelly’s ouster in the near future.
Nick Ayers, a longtime aide to Vice President Pence currently serving as Pence’s chief of staff, is being mentioned as a potential replacement, according to CNN.
Rumors of Kelly’s departure have been frequent, yet he has held on to his position.
Seeking to quell similar reports, the White House over the summer said tensions between Trump and Kelly has cleared and that the chief of staff had agreed to stay on through the 2020 presidential cycle.
In April, Kelly issued a public statement denying reports from NBC News that he referred to the president as an “idiot” during conversations with colleagues and mocked Trump’s lack of policy knowledge.
“I spend more time with the president than anyone else and we have an incredibly candid and strong relationship,” Kelly said at the time.
Ayers, who joined Pence’s White House team last year, has long been considered a potential successor to Kelly and previously served as Pence’s chief political strategist when Pence was governor of Indiana.
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert speaks during a briefing on Aug. 9, 2017. President Trump is expected to announce Friday his nomination of Nauert as the next ambassador to the United Nations.
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State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert speaks during a briefing on Aug. 9, 2017. President Trump is expected to announce Friday his nomination of Nauert as the next ambassador to the United Nations.
Alex Brandon/AP
From Fox & Friends to the State Department, and now likely to the United Nations.
President Trump is expected to announce Friday that he has chosen Heather Nauert, the State Department spokeswoman and a former Fox News host, to become the next ambassador to the U.N., a senior administration official tells NPR’s Tamara Keith.
If confirmed, Nauert would replace Nikki Haley, who is leaving the post at the end of the year.
Nauert was camera-ready when she came to the State Department in April 2017, having worked at ABC and Fox. She never traveled with and was not close to her first boss at the department, former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. With Mike Pompeo in charge of State, Nauert has been on the road much more.
Yetshe faced some criticism for a tourist-like Instagram post from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on a trip that was meant to focus on the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
Nauert (left) and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speak with reporters while flying from Panama to Mexico on Oct. 18.
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Nauert (left) and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speak with reporters while flying from Panama to Mexico on Oct. 18.
Brendan Smialowski/Pool/AP
There have been other missteps, including the time when she cited D-Day — the Allied invasion of Normandy against the Nazis — as an example of America’s strong relationship with Germany.
She’s been a strong defender of Trump’s at the podium, something he has clearly noticed.
“She’s excellent, she’s been with us a long time, she’s been a supporter for a long time,” Trump told reporters on Nov. 1.
The State Department used to hold daily briefings. That has been scaled backto two a week, at most.
Nauert, 48, has been back and forth between her husband and two sons in New York and her job in Washington, D.C.
Before joining the Trump administration, she had no government or foreign policy experience, though she did work on some overseas assignments for ABC, including in Baghdad.
Donald Trump comes out and says, “Well, if you say something wrong about the weather you’re going to be charged with perjury.” That’s not true. It has to be a material fact, number one. Number two, often prosecutors will give you opportunities to give full, complete and honest testimony. It is not the first recourse of any federal prosecutor to charge someone with perjury. You are only trying to charge someone who has deliberately, repeatedly given up any chance to correct themselves in regard to lying about a material fact. In doing so, by the way, they usually have hindered some federal criminal prosecution that is of great importance.
Now, in this case, you have Donald Trump through the media and apparently through his attorneys, dangling a pardon to Paul Manafort and getting that communicated to through Manafort’s attorney. That in and of itself is an act of obstruction. Even if we say that Donald Trump, under the Constitution, can pardon Paul Manafort, Trump could still be charged with an impeachable offense for a pardon that was an act of obstruction of justice.
Manafort’s behavior is also what one would see in the mafia, where the underlings are willing to do anything to protect the boss.
Absolutely. The former director of the FBI, Jim Comey — someone who knows the patterns of organized crime quite well — said that in his very first conversations with Donald Trump, the ethos, the philosophy of living and working in the world that he sensed in the man, was that of someone in the mafia.
We need to trust Comey’s opinion based on his experience. But frankly, any of us who have worked in the legal field can see the criminal bent that Donald Trump has. Trump attempts to infuse and inject those values into those who are his lackeys so they will be willing to commit crimes for him.
The total number of lies that Michael Cohen appears to have told to protect Donald Trump cannot be counted on one hand. Each one is prosecutable as an offense that could put Cohen in prison.
What I am amazed at is that Trump somehow manages to raise up this level of loyalty among his cronies, but it’s obvious that he would never show that loyalty to them. Again, we see that same pattern in the mafia.
Manafort seems willing to take the fall because Trump will pardon him. But could it also be that given the parties involved, such as Vladimir Putin, Russia oligarchs and the Russian intelligence agencies, Manafort may be afraid of what could happen to him and his family if he were to tell the truth?
That is certainly something that people have speculated on. There’s no question that Paul Manafort was in bed, business-wise with some of the most dangerous people on earth. There’s no question, based upon how Vladimir Putin and some of his chief allies among the Russian oligarchs have conducted themselves, that these are individuals who are not above harming innocents. Paul Manafort could be concerned about that.
Unfortunately, it all becomes speculation at this point. I’d say this: None of the possibilities are anything that one can feel sanguine about. Either Paul Manafort is absolutely sure of an obstruction-of-justice-enabled pardon by Donald Trump or he was in bed with some of the most dangerous people in the world or he is of such a criminal bent that he somehow believes that he can get away with virtually anything, commit as many crimes as he wants and never be caught. In which case it’s really terrifying, because he ran a presidential campaign.
What would you tell Donald Trump if you were his attorney?
First of all, that’s a position I would never want to be in. As I mentioned before, this is the first case I’ve really ever come across where I can’t find any exculpatory evidence. Keep in mind, as a defense attorney, that’s what you’re trained to look for. I’m not coming from the prosecution end of this. I’ve represented thousands of people, read thousands of police reports, was trained both in law school and thereafter in practice to look for exculpatory evidence, and I can’t find it. That is why you see Donald Trump’s attorneys doing the most they can with what they have.
They have two particular things they have to think about. One is that Trump’s attorneys will never have what you call client control, and they know that. They will never be able to tell their client what to do, stop him from hurting himself, stop him from committing crimes, stop him from making his situation worse, no matter what they say. It’s clear that they don’t even try. I should tell you that client control is a must in any course of criminal representation and if you don’t have any of it, you try to find a way to withdraw from the case because you can’t adequately represent that client. Clearly, his attorneys have given up on that altogether.
The second consideration that Trump’s attorneys clearly committed to is that because you can’t indict and try Donald Trump while he’s a sitting president — and Rudy Giuliani has said this before — their attitude is that this is a purely political case. They’re going to represent Donald Trump as though this is simply a political matter of whether there are 67 votes for conviction in the U.S. Senate.
So many of the decisions Trump’s attorneys are making, so many of the things that they are saying publicly, are things no attorney would ever do or say who has any self-respect and doesn’t want to face professional discipline from the American Bar Association.
There is another dimension to consider as well. People say to me, “Well, sometimes you seem to present Trump as a criminal mastermind. Other times you seem to be presenting him as someone who’s stupid.”
There is a very particular type of intelligence that someone who is pathologically criminal possesses. That is that they have an incredible instinct for their own self-preservation. They have an incredible instinct for their own gain that overwhelms everything else and can make them seem smart in certain respects because they’re able to nose out whatever is in their best interest in terms of making money or benefiting in some other way.
Donald Trump clearly has lived his whole life with that particular type of intelligence. I don’t think he’s a very sophisticated or smart man. I don’t even think he knows very much about business, even though he’s been in business for 30 years. He is smart in the same way, and I’ll only use this analogy because I have dogs that are hounds. Hounds are particularly good at understanding their own self-interest when they want to get food, for instance. They can become the smartest dogs you’ve ever seen in your life if there is food in the offing.
Otherwise, and I say this regrettably regarding my own dogs, they’re not that smart necessarily. They become smart in the right circumstance. That’s Donald Trump in a nutshell.
Why doesn’t Trump just resign, take all his money, go somewhere that he can’t be extradited from, and walk away from it all?
Look at it this way. While this is not going to end well for President Trump, he did become president of the United States. Up until a certain point, he would have been able to make the case to someone that he had, for all his past crimes and malfeasance, lived life in a way that allowed him to at least appear successful, have a certain amount of wealth, win the first-ever election that he ran in and become essentially the most powerful man on Earth.
That’s a lot of positive reinforcement for Donald Trump to get. It likewise encouraged his feeling that he will get away with everything he’s been doing for years and everything he did during the campaign. As the old saying goes, “Pride goeth before the fall.” That’s exactly the situation here. He has flown far too high for his skills. He is now exposed in the international sphere for what he is. Again, the end of Donald Trump’s story will be that he will be a new paradigm for treachery to the United States.
As a defense attorney, at what point do you sit down with your client and say, “They’ve got you dead to rights and now it’s damage control time.” Will somebody ever sit down with Trump and tell him, “Hey, they got you. Now we’ve got to figure out how to get out of this.”
If you’re a good attorney, those conversations do happen. This is something a lot of people don’t understand about being a criminal defense attorney. You can only adequately represent someone if you know the truth about everything. You can’t conduct a competent direct examination or cross-examination at trial. You can’t give competent advice about whether someone should plead guilty or go to trial. You can’t give them advice on anything if you are working off lies.
There are some attorneys, who I consider to be less skilled, who believe that the less they know, the more they are not drawn into whatever is going on. They can perhaps go out and give public statements that they would know were false if they had more information. That “hear no evil, see no evil” attitude seems to be what all of Trump’s attorneys are doing.
None of Trump’s attorneys, I would say, seem to be very skilled. I don’t know whether they know the truth or simply suspect the truth, but I will tell you this is the advice Trump’s attorneys are likely giving him: “You need to stay in the Oval Office for as long as you possibly can, because the moment you leave the Oval Office, you are going to be indicted. If you can find a way to hold on to 2020 and stay in office another four years after that, then that is what you need to do, because once you leave office you’ll be indicted.”
That case can be stretched out to a number of years with appeals and so on and so forth. The hope is for Donald Trump to simply — and I’m going to try to say this as delicately as I can — he is advanced in years and just in terms of his natural lifespan, there are only so many years that he has left. As his attorney, you would say, “Let’s try to run out the clock essentially on your natural lifespan without you ever having to go inside a prison cell.” That’s the advice you’d be giving Donald Trump right now.
Some observers have suggested that Mueller knew that Manafort was lying, and basically used those lies as a way of later proving Trump’s guilt. Is that a viable scenario?
It’s possible. But one thing that I am always wary of is turning anyone in any case into either a superhero or a supervillain, a mastermind for good or a mastermind for evil. Most of the people involved in this case are quite good at what they do. Robert Mueller is a very good prosecutor. The investigators are good investigators. Donald Trump is a very good criminal, or at least he has been up until this point.
Suggesting that each side is hatching these plots to stay six steps ahead is a dangerous game to get into. Yes, it’s possible that Robert Mueller knew that Paul Manafort was lying to him, at least after a certain point following his cooperation plea deal, and made a strategic decision to try to get answers from Donald Trump that would put him in legal jeopardy.
Here’s why I’m not so enamored with that particular plot line. It is very clear to Robert Mueller that he can indict Donald Trump right now for a host of offenses that would put him in prison for the rest of his natural life. I don’t think he’s desperate to get answers from Donald Trump that will add a few additional charges to what he previously had. Mueller probably knew that no matter what happened, Paul Manafort or not, Donald Trump was going to lie in his answers.
Therefore, just getting those answers in writing — and if they are lies, leading to criminal liability for Donald Trump — was what Mueller was after.
Thinking about Robert Mueller and his team: You’re going down this rabbit hole, you have a set of tasks, you have to get the evidence, you’re going to follow it where it may lead. What is that moment like when you start to see the connections and what is revealed is truly horrible?
My book “Proof of Collusion” establishes that it’s far worse than we previously imagined. There have been so many moments during the course of this investigation that I, even as someone who has seen a lot from when I practiced law, was deeply surprised by the level of graft and corruption and criminality and just the sheer scope of it.
Frankly, in some cases, just the sheer scope of the stupidity of some of those involved.
I’m sure that each time Mueller and his team discovered something new, there was a realization that they were involved in a case that will be talked about hundreds of years from now and will absolutely go down in American history as one of the most infamous scandals in any sphere of American life since the founding of the country.
There are a good number of Americans who feel that Mueller is taking too long, and this is all a big controversy over nothing. Others may feel like all politicians are crooks, so who cares? How would you explain the seriousness of the situation to them?
This situation is scary because the president of the United States is fully compromised by multiple hostile foreign nations. What that means is that, at this point, the foreign policy of the United States, at least as it comes out of the executive branch, is effectively an ideological vassal state of our enemies. There is no reason for us to be confident that any decision made by Donald Trump on the question of foreign policy is being made with the best interest of you and your family in mind.
Moreover, I would say that many of his decisions on the domestic front, for instance, his refusal to protect our elections, are being made for the benefit of himself in a corrupt way and those to whom he is clearly beholden overseas. Every American, whether you’re Republican or Democrat, it does not matter to him.
You want to be safe. You want your kids to be safe. You want America to have a rule of law. You want us to be a democracy. You want our foreign policy and our values to mean something. Right now, our foreign policy is entirely phony. It was written by people overseas. It was paid for through corruption and graft and payments to the Trump family. That is terrifying to any American. It doesn’t matter what your position is on a climate change or on abortion, you have to think of the country first. This is a national emergency and people should act that way.
I have a theory about how this all plays out. At the end of this scandal Donald Trump may very well end up saying, “Yeah, I did it. I’m a patriot and I did it to stop Hillary Clinton. I dare you to do anything about it.” Do you think that’s far-fetched?
You’re half right, because at least as far as Donald Trump is concerned, this isn’t so much a legal case or a legal investigation as it is a political situation. If Trump can stay in office, keep his base and build on it slightly in 2020 — should he make it that far — he would be able to save himself from indictment and prosecution until at least 2025. Thus there could be a time when Donald Trump admits, and maybe even is forced to admit, because of all the cooperation deals and all the public evidence that comes out from Robert Mueller and his report, “Yes, I did everything.”
I don’t think his justification would be Hillary Clinton. If you look very carefully at some of these internal communications involving the Russians and Middle Eastern nations, what is consistently referred to is the concept of peace. Donald Trump will attempt to justify his actions by saying that he wanted peace with the Russians, he wanted peace in the Middle East. He took these actions and, sure, they may have benefited him in some way or another because he happens to be a businessman, but ultimately, these were the right foreign policy decisions for him to make. He might make that claim. Hatred of Hillary Clinton is only going to bring along 40 or so percent of the American voting public who hate her.
To survive this, Trump is going to need something much closer to 50 percent of people saying, “Yes, I see now that this is the most treacherous course of conduct any of us have ever heard of in our lifetimes, but he was justified because he was ‘promoting peace.'” There are letters in which Felix Sater, Trump’s business associate, explicitly tells him to make that case.
What did you miss or underestimate in “Proof of Collusion,” given what we’re now learning about the investigation, that could come into play later on with indictments or impeachment?
There’s a section in Chapter 11 of “Proof of Collusion” that lays out what I’ve called the “grand bargain.” I expect that some of Mueller’s forthcoming indictments — or perhaps other, less dire law enforcement encounters and entanglements — will include Jared Kushner, Steve Bannon, Erik Prince, Elliott Broidy, Thomas Barrack, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr., all of whom would feature prominently in any future book on Donald Trump’s multi-state pre-election collusion.
Given all that we have discussed, is there anything that gives you hope?
As an attorney, as someone who swore an oath to uphold the Constitution, I believe in the rule of law and I believe in American democracy. I am confident that nothing Mr. Trump does or any of his allies, in Congress or in business, in politics or his voters, can stop this federal criminal investigation from reaching a just result.
It might take longer than it should. It will certainly be messier than it should be. But everything I see from the Mueller investigation is that it does not leak, it is thoroughly professional. It will be studied, I can tell you, for decades as one of the most effective and professional federal investigative operations anyone has ever seen. Robert Mueller and his team will ultimately be victorious in upholding our rule of law and holding to account those who violated our federal statutes.
What we’re witnessing in Wisconsin, Michigan and elsewhere is undemocratic and clearly at odds with the will the public. Why do we allow it?
Lame-duck legislative sessions—when outgoing lawmakers convene to enact new policy after an election but before their replacements have been sworn in—are a horse-and-buggy political arrangement that somehow survived into the 21st century. Designed for a time when new elected officials had to travel long distances to make it to the capitol, they are mostly harmless, like an antique shotgun hanging on the wall—at least until recently. Today, Republicans in Wisconsin, Michigan and North Carolina are weaponizing lame duck sessions to thwart the will of the public as newly elected officials sit on the sidelines, watching their predecessors straitjacket their mandates to govern.
What is the case against lame-duck legislatures? In essence, policymakers are acting without the traditional backdrop of public accountability—a looming election—to govern their behavior. Freed of that pressure, legislators may behave differently. In some cases, we might welcome legislators feeling freer to follow their instincts, and there is some evidence that congressional lame duck sessions are more productive than at other times of the year.
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But the soon-to-be-exiting politicians may also adopt policy positions that are clearly at odds with the will of the people. Sore losers make for bad lame ducks.
Such is the case now in Wisconsin and Michigan, where Republicans are using the window before the new legislature arrives to kneecap their successors. Gerrymandered legislatures are pushing through a hodgepodge of policies they have no mandate for, and which have, in some cases, been expressly rejected by the public.
Let’s take Wisconsin, where I lived and worked as a professor of public affairs in Madison for 13 years. Incumbent Republican Governor Scott Walker lost to Democrat Tony Evers in the 2018 election, breaking up the unified control of government that the GOP has enjoyed since 2010. In aggregate, Republicans had fewer votes for their State Assembly candidates than Democrats in 2018,but thanks to the magic of extreme gerrymandering, retain comfortable majorities. Now, having lost the governorship, they set out to win the lame duck session.
Republicans responded to their losses by rejecting both the choice of the public and restricting its input. Having decided that early voting helped more people to vote in liberal cities, they’ve cut it down so that it can occur a maximum of only two weeks before an election, instead of the six weeks previously allowed. On Tuesday, they confirmed 82 new appointees made by Walker to various positions in the state government. They’ve voted to restrict the powers of the new governor in sweeping changes that apply not only to whom he can appoint, but also to his ability to negotiate directly with the federal government on intergovernmental policies. What this means in practice is that Evers will be shackled to the policies of his Republican predecessor, such as maintaining work requirements on Medicaid recipients.
Michigan Republicans have similar plans. The state Legislature is currently considering bills that would eliminate the ability of newly elected Governor Gretchen Whitmer to appoint key officials in the state government and make it more difficult for her to shut down a controversial oil pipeline that figured heavily in the November election. Likewise, the Michigan Senate is moving forward with a plan to strip the incoming Democratic secretary of state of the ability to enforce campaign finance laws. Before the election, under the threat of a statewide ballot initiative that would’ve raised the minimum wage and required paid sick leave—and likely would’ve increased Democratic turnout in the election—legislators pre-emptively passed a bill to do those two things and get the proposal off the ballot; now that the election is over, the Legislature is gutting the wage and sick leave law it passed mere months ago. They’re even going so far as to try and override a ballot measure that won in November with more than 60 percent of the vote: Whereas Michigan voters passed a referendum that created a new nonpartisan redistricting commission, the Legislature now aims to neuter the influence of that commission so that Republicans can control Michigan’s redistricting process for the fourth consecutive time.
In both states, Republicans seek to significantly weaken the discretion of elected attorneys general, making them creatures of the Legislature when it comes to representing the state in court. Both Republican legislatures want to force their states’ new Democratic attorneys general to defend positions they actually campaigned against. Even as Democrats in Wisconsin won an election while pledging to withdraw from a lawsuit that seeks to eliminate the Affordable Care Act, Republicans will force the new administration to abandon that promise.
The model for all of this is North Carolina. Two years ago, a Democratic gubernatorial candidate won, breaking up the GOP’s unilateral control of the state government. The Republican Legislature then set about removing some of the governor’s crucial powers, giving him only one-fifth of the appointments of his predecessor, including restrictions on Cabinet appointments. Now they are at it again, planning to use a lame-duck session to control election oversight, amid growing evidence of GOP election fraud in the state.
Lame-duck sessions make for bad policymaking. In general, good policy involves incorporating the insights of experts and stakeholders, consulting and listening with the public, and at least trying to find some middle ground with the opposing party to ensure the longevity of the policy. By contrast, the Wisconsin Legislature released hundreds of pages of proposed legislation late on a Friday evening and was voting on it by the following Tuesday night. No meaningful consultation or hearings took place. Legislative leaders then rewrote the bills in the early hours of Wednesday morning, and told their members to vote for them without a chance to closely scrutinize the text. This was no accident; it reflects the rushed nature of lame-duck policymaking.
Policies passed in the dark of night, with little to no debate, are rarely good for the public. Expect the usual outcomes of sloppily written legislation: unanticipated consequences, unclear directives—and lawsuits, lots of lawsuits.
What are some alternatives to lame-duck sessions? One option is the parliamentary model: Once the election is over, the old parliament is disbanded and cannot execute new policies. If there is a delay in seating the new parliament, a caretaker government maintains existing policy. If a state still wants its legislature to be in session in November and December, that state could change the timing that a new legislature takes over to, say, mid-November, rather than waiting until January. We don’t even have to look overseas to pursue this option. Alabama, Indiana and Nevada all swear in their new legislators on the day after the general election. And in Florida, state law requires that “the term of office of each member of the Legislature shall begin upon election,” meaning new legislators take office immediately once the votes are tallied.
Another option is the supermajority approach: Any new legislation passed in a lame-duck session would have to be passed by a large enough majority to prevent one party from adopting changes that don’t have widespread support. The transition period would stay the same, but only issues that have broad consensus—for instance, responding to some sort of emergency—would survive.
Of course, such changes may be difficult to achieve, since they will require changes to state constitutions. But that they are needed is telling of a deeper problem.
We run our democracies based on a mixture of rules and norms. Rules are often unwieldy and overly constrictive, but they become necessary when norms of good behavior collapse. This is what is happening now within the Republican Party, as its members thumb their noses at the most fundamental norm for elected officials: to honor the will of the people. There appears to be a growing belief within the GOP that elections are advisory, and subservient to elected officials’ wishes. Nationally, Republican Party leaders have been notably silent on what is happening in Michigan and Wisconsin, effectively communicating to party members that such tactics will be accepted.
Unless rules or norms change, it is only a matter of time until such undemocratic practices become standard.
President Trump speaks to reporters before departing the White House for California in November.
Jim Lo Scalzo/Pool/Getty Images
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Jim Lo Scalzo/Pool/Getty Images
President Trump speaks to reporters before departing the White House for California in November.
Jim Lo Scalzo/Pool/Getty Images
President Trump continues to rail against special counsel Robert Mueller and his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign. Trump has, for example, used the words “witch hunt” in tweets nearly a dozen times in the month since Election Day.
The phrase appears to have stuck with his base, according to a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll, but not with others beyond that. Seven in 10 Republicans agree with him, while a majority of independents and 4 in 5 Democrats see the investigation as “fair.”
“The base is solidified, but that doesn’t get you more than that,” said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, which conducted the poll.
The polarized views on the special counsel persist amid a recent flurry of developments in the Russia probe, following relative quiet around the midterms. In federal courts on Friday, Mueller’s team is expected to detail how former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort allegedly breached his plea deal and to provide sentencing recommendations for ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who admitted last week to lying to Congress.
In the poll, for the first time, more Americans said they view Mueller more negatively than positively, 29 percent favorable, 33 percent unfavorable. That’s a net 7-point decline from the summer, when Mueller was 33 percent positive and 30 percent negative.
Mueller’s decline is fueled by Republicans — 58 percent have an unfavorable view of him in the most recent polling, up from 46 percent in July. (Just 8 percent have a favorable opinion of him, down from 15 percent in July.)
(The slight bump in March 2018 in the chart above followed several developments in late February in the Mueller investigation timeline. They included financial charges against Manafort and a guilty plea from Manafort’s former business partner Rick Gates.)
The overall movement on views of Mueller, however, is within the poll’s margin of error, and — perhaps more remarkably — the former FBI director remains not very well known or defined. Despite withering attacks from Trump, the plurality of Americans (39 percent) continue to say they are unsure of their feelings toward Mueller or have never heard of him.
That’s very different from views of Kenneth Starr, the special prosecutor who investigated former President Bill Clinton in the 1990s. Back then, almost 6 in 10 Americans (56 percent) had an unfavorable view of Starr, according to a Time/CNN Poll in September 1998. Only 13 percent said they were either not familiar or not sure.
“Trump does very well when he has a target that he can put characteristics on, that he can make it clear in terms of why they should like or dislike someone,” Miringoff said. “When it comes to Mueller, that’s not occurring. [Mueller is] largely unknown, but the investigation is known. … That stymies the president and his handlers in terms of how they like to deal with an opponent.”
The investigation is also insulated to a degree — 67 percent said they think Mueller should be allowed to finish, including 51 percent of Republicans and 70 percent of independents; and three-quarters (76 percent) believe that Mueller’s final report should be made public in its entirety. That includes 68 percent of Republicans.
“The issue of transparency is big,” Miringoff said. “The only thing that’s stuck with the base is the notion of the ‘witch hunt,’ but people are supportive of letting the investigation go to its conclusion. … And they want to see the results. If you don’t get to see the sausage at the end, people are not going to be very happy about that.”
Trump’s approval rating in the poll remains essentially unchanged at 42 percent, and fewer — just 36 percent — think the country is headed in the right direction.
The poll was conducted from Nov. 28-Dec. 4, includes interviews with 1,075 adults and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.
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