Trump Does Not Want Robert Mueller to Testify before Congress

House Democrats want Robert Mueller to testify before one or more House committees and answer all kinds of interesting questions like:

• Did you find evidence that Donald Trump has committed crimes while in office?
• Do you personally believe that Trump violated campaign finance law?
• If a politician other than the president had done what Trump did, would you have indicted him?
• Did AG William Barr accurately summarize your finds when he spoke to the nation twice about your report?
• Was important information unnecessarily redacted from your report by Barr?

The list could be quite long. Not surprisingly, Trump doesn't want Mueller to appear before any House committee, so he tweeted:

After spending more than $35,000,000 over a two year period, interviewing 500 people, using 18 Trump Hating Angry Democrats & 49 FBI Agents - all culminating in a more than 400 page Report showing NO COLLUSION - why would the Democrats in Congress now need Robert Mueller.......

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 5, 2019

....to testify. Are they looking for a redo because they hated seeing the strong NO COLLUSION conclusion? There was no crime, except on the other side (incredibly not covered in the Report), and NO OBSTRUCTION. Bob Mueller should not testify. No redos for the Dems!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 5, 2019

Needless to say, if Congress issues a subpoena to Mueller, he is not going to defy it, absent a court order forbidding him from testifying. Since his boss, AG Barr, has already said (in public) that it is fine with him for his (former?) friend to testify, it is hard to see a court invalidating the subpoena.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) has tentatively scheduled Mueller to appear on May 15, but is willing to negotiate a different date if Mueller has more important things to do on that day. So far, Trump's opposition to Mueller testifying has only been via tweets. He hasn't gone to court to get an order forbidding Mueller from doing so. It is likely that the White House counsel has advised him that he would be sure to lose if he tried, and Trump hates to lose. (V)

Trump Threatens to Raise Tariffs on China

When he wasn't busy tweeting about Robert Mueller, Donald Trump somehow found some time to tweet about China:

For 10 months, China has been paying Tariffs to the USA of 25% on 50 Billion Dollars of High Tech, and 10% on 200 Billion Dollars of other goods. These payments are partially responsible for our great economic results. The 10% will go up to 25% on Friday. 325 Billions Dollars....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 5, 2019

Apparently all the nice talk the past few weeks about how swimmingly the talks with China were going was not quite what it appeared to be. Chinese President Xi Jinping understands that if he just holds out, he may be rid of Trump in less than 2 years, so why make concessions now that he may later regret? For a country that has been around for over 3,000 years, and has been willing to take on 200-year-long construction projects, 2 years is practically the blink of an eye. If Trump is reelected in 2020, Xi can either wait another 4 years or make a deal then.

On the other hand, Trump's tweet might just be a ploy to put pressure on China to make a last minute deal. While Trump knows nothing about Xi, Xi knows a huge amount about Trump. In particular, he knows that Trump is totally ignorant on everything relating to trade and just wants a "win." So one possible strategy for Xi is to make some small concession, like agreeing to import 10% more U.S. soybeans, and letting Trump tell American farmers what a great negotiator he is.

But two can play the threat game. China didn't like Trump's threats at all and has made clear that it won't negotiate with a gun pointed at its head. Both sides may just be posturing to gain advantage, but it is also possible they are serious.

If no deal can be made and Trump really does raise tariffs, it could have serious effects and possibly freak out the stock market, which is humming along nicely (although futures were down this morning). In turn, that could hurt Trump's reelection campaign. But Trump's genuine dislike for China may be so strong that he is willing to take the risk. (V)

House Democrats Are Trying to Decide What to Do about Barr

When AG William Barr appeared before the House Judiciary Committee last week, Rep. Charlie Crist (D-FL) asked him if he knew what was behind the media reports that members of Robert Mueller's team had objected to the way he summarized Mueller's report. Barr said he didn't have any idea. Now it turns out that Mueller himself sent Barr two letters objecting to his summaries, so Barr basically committed perjury (although he might try to weasel out of it by claiming that Mueller is not a "member" of Mueller's team, but the "leader" of it). In addition, Barr refuses to give the Committee the full, unredacted report. Democrats are stewing about both the refusal and the perjury and are likely to decide this week what to do.

There are three main options:

• Hold Barr in criminal contempt of Congress
• Hold Barr in civil contempt of Congress
• Impeach him

Using the first option would require a vote of the full House. If it is successful, the House would then refer Barr to the attorney general (who happens to be Barr) for prosecution. Insiders believe that Barr is not likely to prosecute himself. This circumstance shows that there is a bug in the system. The AG can lie to Congress all he wants to and not be held criminally liable for it.

The second option is civil contempt, presumably with referral to a federal judge. If the judge agrees with Congress that Barr is in contempt, he could be fined, although he could appeal and the process could take months or years.

The third option is impeachment. That could be done in a jiffy, but would simply result in a Senate trial, with a two-thirds majority needed to remove Barr from office. It is doubtful that 20 Republican senators would join the 47 Democrats to get to 67 votes to convict.

The second option is probably the most promising for the Democrats, but putting the chief law enforcement officer on trial for breaking the law also has its supporters, even if he is unlikely to be convicted. It would certainly be an embarrassment and would force Republican senators to go on record defending someone who clearly lied to Congress. Of course, Congress being Congress, a fourth option is do nothing. Congress is especially good at that one and has done it before. (V)

Ohio Court Tosses Out State's Congressional Map

A three-judge panel in the U.S. District Court in Cincinnati threw out the state's congressional map on Friday, saying that Republicans in the state legislature had drawn it to preordain the results of the elections, without giving the voters any meaningful choice. Courts have also thrown out maps in Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Maryland for the same reason. The Wisconsin and North Carolina maps were drawn by Republicans; the Maryland map was drawn by Democrats.

How long this ruling holds remains to be seen. The Supreme Court took a gerrymandering case last year and then punted it back to the lower courts. It is going to work its way up again fairly soon. At that point, the Court may take all four cases at once. The argument the states are going to make is that the Constitution allows the state legislatures to draw the congressional district maps, and does not provide any standard for how they should do it. If the voters don't like how they are doing their jobs, the voters can replace them.

The other side is going to argue that it is nearly impossible for the voters to replace the state legislators because the state legislature map is just as gerrymandered as the congressional one. The case has clear implications for power for years to come. Republicans control a majority of the state legislatures. In fact, they have the full trifecta (governor's mansion, both chambers of the legislature) in 17 states, while Democrats hold it in only 11. So a court decision to allow states to gerrymander to their hearts' content de facto helps the Republicans, even though on its face such a decision is nonpartisan. This is the kind of case in which Chief Justice John Roberts can vote with the four other Republican appointees and claim he is just calling balls and strikes, not taking sides, since such a call would also uphold Maryland's right to gerrymander the state in favor of the Democrats. (V)

Sanders Goes after the Rural Vote in Iowa

Many of the Democratic presidential candidates would love to get rural voters to vote for them, but have no plausible plan for achieving this. Besides, how believable would, say, the former mayor of Newark, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), be on rural issues, anyway? One Democrat who does have a plan, and one consistent with his oft-stated beliefs, is Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who is barnstorming Iowa with a plan to break up "Big Ag," large corporations that can basically dictate what farmers have to pay for seed and fertilizer and what they get for their crops. Such a promise might well work with farmers because his hatred of large corporations is so well known and clearly so genuine as to be quite believable. Literally, Sanders said: "In rural America, we are seeing giant agribusiness conglomerates extract as much wealth out of small communities as they can, while family farmers are going bankrupt and, in many cases, treated like modern-day indentured servants."

In addition to saying he wants to break up agricultural monopolies, Sanders also wants to change subsidy programs to benefit small farmers rather than giant agricultural corporations. This is likely to resonate with many farmers. It is perhaps ironic that the most left-wing of the Democrats may be the one with the most credibility in some of the red states. That said, the left-right spectrum has always worked poorly when it comes to accounting for the various flavors of populism. However, it's worth remembering that some of Sanders' most devoted supporters in 2016, once their hero was out of the race, jumped ship to the only other populist available, namely Donald Trump. If the Senator can actually make inroads with small farmers, that should scare the President even more than it does the Democratic field. (V)

The Democrats' New Weapon: Podcasts

With so many Democrats running for president, each one is looking for ways to talk to the voters directly without having to meet them all. A popular new approach is to use podcasts (downloadable audio recordings). In contrast to conventional interviews, candidates have total control over podcasts, which can be as long or as short as they want, and can cover whatever topics the candidate—rather than the interviewer—wants to talk about. Podcasts can be linked to the candidate's home page for easy downloading.

One of the pioneers in the podcasting explosion is Pete Buttigieg, who has already recorded 30 of them and is still going strong. The nice thing about podcasts is that each one can cover a different topic and potential voters can listen to the ones on topics they are most interested in. Buttigieg's campaign adviser, Lis Smith, says that when someone downloads a podcast, it is like "letting a person into your home." Listening to the candidate actually speak to you is a more intimate experience than reading a position paper, which may have been written by a staffer (although the script of a podcast may also have been written by a staffer, but at least it is the candidate's own voice).

Buttigieg is not alone in his love of podcasting. All 21 of the major Democrats have done at least one of them so far, and most are planning on doing more. That is not surprising since podcasting is becoming more common. In 2016, only 36% of Americans had listened to even one podcast in their lives. Now the figure is 51%. Listening to podcasts is something younger people do, but older people don't. Forty percent of Americans in the 25-54 range have listened to one in the past month, vs. only 17% of the over 55 set. Still, even if not everyone is on board with podcasts, they do reach part of the electorate and are very easy and cheap to make, so they are sure to grow in popularity over time.

While the rise of the politician podcast is a new development (on some level), it is worth noting that there isn't actually all that much new under the sun. In nearly all ways, the podcasts are just the modern equivalent of Franklin D. Roosevelt's Fireside Chats. That is to say, they are a way of taking a mass media platform, and using it to somehow create a message and a conversation that feel personal. This worked quite well for FDR, and there's every reason to think they can work well today. (V)

Democrats Plan to Eat Their Own

Well, not exactly, but almost. The ACLU is training hundreds of volunteers to go find Democratic candidates on the campaign trail and ask them if they agree with the idea that felons currently in prison (including, in particular, the Boston Marathon bomber) should be allowed to vote while incarcerated. Most states allow former felons to vote after they have served their sentences, but only a handful of states (including Vermont) allow felons to vote while in prison.

The question is likely to be very painful for most Democratic candidates. They know that felons skew minority and that minorities skew Democratic. But they also know that the idea of reenfranchising a convicted felon who intentionally brought a bomb to a large public event with the intention of killing and maiming as many people as possible is going to put the candidates in a tough place. Some Democratic voters support the idea, but most Republicans will be appalled by it. If the candidates say "yes," videos of them agreeing with the idea could easily go viral and hurt them badly in the election. And to make it worse, it isn't the late Lee Atwater or Roger Stone who came up with this plan. It is the ACLU, which is nominally nonpartisan, but usually supports positions that Democrats agree with and Republicans don't. (V)

Mike Enzi Will Not Run for a Fifth Term

Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) has announced that four terms are enough and he will not run for reelection in 2020, despite a 99.99% chance of winning if he ran. Furthermore, it is not as if he has no power in the Senate. He chairs the powerful Senate Budget Committee, a position for which he is qualified (he worked as an accountant before entering politics) and which he seems to enjoy. But at 75, he has apparently had his fill (in part, no doubt, because he is a traditional conservative Republican and not a Trumpist).

Enzi's departure paves the way for the Equality State's only representative, Liz Cheney (R-WY), to run for his seat. She is a very heavy favorite both to get the Republican nomination and to win the general election. Dick never made it to the Senate, but it looks like his daughter will. Once she gets there, expect her to start thinking about her next promotion, especially if another man is elected president in 2020.

As an aside, Wyoming's official nickname is indeed the "Equality State." We didn't make that up. It was the first U.S. jurisdiction to grant women the right to vote (in 1869), 51 years before most of the rest of the country got around to it with the passage of the 19th Amendment. The decision to move to universal suffrage wasn't entirely because the locals thought cowboys and cowgirls were equals, though. At the time, there were 6,000 men and 1,000 women in the Wyoming territory and the guys running the show realized that some of the cowpokes were lonely and that by granting women the right to vote, they might come a flockin' to Wyoming. Another factor was the argument of the territorial secretary, Edward Lee, who felt it was unfair that white women (including his mother) could not vote whereas black men could. That ranked his mother below all the black men in the territory, in a sense, and he didn't like that. (V)

Monday Q&A

One wonders what this section would be about, most days, if Hillary Clinton had won the 2016 election. The questions would be very different, that we can be sure of.

What are the chances Donald Trump might dump Mike Pence in favor of another VP candidate? Given there were rumors at one time that Pence may have been associated with 25th Amendment talk, isn't that the kind of thing a paranoid Trump would never forget or forgive? If he replaced Pence, what sort of VP person would be most helpful to his election campaign? Any chance he would want a family member as VP? If he wanted, say, Ivanka, would the party actually support that sort of nepotism? M.L.B., El Dorado, KS

It is unlikely that Trump will dump Pence. First, because he needs Pence in order to make sure the evangelical vote stays on board. Second, because Trump is risk averse and, famous catchphrase notwithstanding, afraid to fire people. Third, because while Pence may or may not have been a part of such discussions, at least Trump knows for sure that the VP didn't move forward. Can he be certain of that with a Pence replacement?

That said, if Trump does dump Pence, he would probably go with someone who has a similar profile: evangelical, rust belter, experienced politician. The person who probably best fits that description and who would be willing to join the ticket, is former senator Rick Santorum. Or, if Trump decided to pick someone "outside the box" in order to show what a rebel he is, maybe he goes with someone like former Milwaukee County sheriff David Clarke. Clarke has so many skeletons in his closet that he could singlehandedly mount a production of "The Nightmare Before Christmas." However, he's a Midwesterner, and as a black man who is registered as a Democrat, it would allow Trump and his supporters to make the (dubious) claim that the President is not a racist, and loves bipartisanship.

Though a party can theoretically nominate anyone (eligible) who it wants to for the top two slots on the ticket, it is unlikely the GOP would be ok with a Trump-Trump 2020 ticket, because it would look very, very bad for someone who has already shown authoritarian impulses to set things up so his child would be his legal successor. It's also the case that both Trumps are residents of New York, which means New York electors could not vote for both of them. However, that's not an issue, since the Trumps will not be winning the Empire State in 2020.

---

Why would it be a problem for Trump if states like California that he has no chance of winning in November pass laws requiring the release of tax returns to get on the state's ballot? I would think the Republicans could simply declare the primary to be a meaningless "beauty contest" and select delegates to the national convention in some other manner, such as having the state convention elect them or the state committee pick them. Is that correct, or am I missing something? D.R., Elizabethtown, PA

That is certainly a possibility, but it would mean telling millions of Republican voters in those states that they don't get a primary vote. And since their vote in the general election is already moot, they would effectively be disenfranchised from the 2020 presidential election. Some GOP voters might not be thrilled by that, particularly when the disenfranchisement would be to protect tax returns that Trump specifically promised to release once his alleged audit was complete.

---

I understand that California 27 applies only to the primary, but what stops a state from passing a law that applies to the general as well? T.J., Miami, FL

Probably nothing. The Constitution gives states wide latitude in how they choose their electors. In fact, it used to be done primarily by the state legislatures, not directly by voters. And if state legislatures were (and are) allowed to just do the job themselves, then surely they can do something less severe, like making additional requirements for who can and cannot be voted upon by the people. So, any challenge to such a law would likely fail.

That said, the reason that California and other states are focusing on the primaries is that Trump actually needs the delegates he will collect in those places. In the general, California (and Washington, and New Jersey, and other blue states) are irrelevant to him, since their electoral votes are a lost cause. Ergo, making rules for the primaries is hitting the Donald where it actually hurts.

---

I have a semantic quibble with the comment in your latest Q&A that "Muslim" and "Jewish" are not races. The problem with this assertion is that "races" are just arbitrary categories for large groups of people, and those categories change. For example, "Jewish" was clearly considered a "race" in 1930s Germany; it was all over their racial-purity laws. In Apartheid-era South Africa, "Coloured" was effectively a race with distinct legal rights (or lack thereof). Wikipedia describes a race as "a grouping of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into categories generally viewed as distinct by society." Jewish, Muslim, Latino, and Indian all fit that description. It isn't just that they're "different" (xenos); they're members of groups that adherents of racism believe are meaningful. The idea that it's only racism if it's based on the archaic red/yellow/black/white model ignores the fact that racists themselves have moved on from that. But that doesn't make them any less racist. T.V., Holland, MI

You're right that race is, to a large extent, an arbitrary construct. That said, the Wikipedia definition you quote is clearly very broad, and does not fully capture the reality of the situation. Physicists share a social quality, and nobody calls physicists a race. Tall people share a physical quality, and nobody calls tall people a race.

Anyhow, the imprecision inherent in the concept of race is exactly what Adolf Hitler (and, to a lesser extent, the pro-apartheid forces) took advantage of. He wanted to create the perception that Jews were an "other" and were fundamentally "different," and so he stretched the meaning of "race" to its breaking point, lumping together members of a religion who are often very different from one another in terms of appearance, background, etc. At the same time, the folks he was primarily interested in targeting—German and Eastern European Jews—had much in common with the Germans. The absurdity of the situation is perhaps best captured by this famous Nazi propaganda photo:

This image was chosen in 1935, winner of a "perfect Aryan baby" picture contest. It was reprinted widely (millions of times), to show German couples the type of child they should have. Of course, the Nazis were not the brightest bulbs. And apparently they never realized that their "ideal Aryan baby" is actually Jewish. Her name is Hessy Levinsons Taft, and she's still alive, having escaped Germany in 1938.

Anyhow, this is why we are happy to describe anti-Jewish sentiment as xenophobia, or as anti-Semitism, or as bigotry. We will not call it racism, however, not only because that is imprecise, it also means adopting the worldview of the Nazis. If we had written anything that said or implied that Jewish people are a race, we would have (deservedly) gotten a hundred angry e-mails. It's true that modern day white supremacists refer to the "Jewish race" or the "Muslim race," because they are happy to embrace Nazi thinking, and because they are also not the brighest bulbs in the room. But whatever they choose to do, think, or say, we certainly don't have to play along.

---

In the last few days there's been a lot of discussion about the lawsuits the President and his family have filed blocking subpoenas and investigations. This seems to be a common practice for Trump: Using the normal judicial process against itself. You've even echoed the oft repeated refrain that, although doomed to ultimate failure, this approach is likely to succeed in its objective of delaying legal actions for a very long time. Which brings me to my question: Why? If this is such a well known flaw in our judicial system, why does it persist? Aren't there steps that the courts could take, especially in a time-sensitive case like this, to speed up the typically glacial process? M.W., St. Paul, MN

There are at least two issues here. The first is that pretty much every court in the land is overloaded and understaffed, the product of a litigious society, policy decisions like the three-strikes law, and budget cuts. So, this is part of the reason for the slow pace, although the courts do try to juggle dockets to move important matters to the front of the line, when necessary.

The second problem, and the one that is much harder to overcome, is that lawyers who want to drag things out are very good at doing so. They can say they need more time for prep, or for additional discovery, or for more depositions, or because their client's schedule is hectic, or because they have to fly to outer Siberia to care for their critically ill great granny. Judges try to rein this in as much as they can, but if they go overboard, they can set the stage for a mistrial and/or a successful appeal on technical grounds. Neither of those things results in justice being done, or at least in justice being done more swiftly. So, for judges to allow a fair bit of leeway is ultimately more efficient, even if it still produces pretty slow results.

---

I have heard very little about disbarment as a punishment for lawbreaking lawyers in respect to refusing a lawful subpoena. How does this work? It seems like something that would bring the fear of god into any attorney. L.B., Boise, ID

As we often point out, we are not lawyers. And we are certainly not experts in the nuances of Bar-imposed discipline. That said, we do know two things. The first is that you can be disbarred in one jurisdiction even if the problematic behavior took place in another jurisdiction. In other words, bad actions in Washington, D.C., can lead to disbarment in, say, New York. The second thing we know is that the American Bar Association's rules of conduct include, in their list of disbarment-worthy offenses, "commit[ing] a criminal act that reflects adversely on the lawyer's honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a lawyer in other respects" and "engag[ing] in conduct that is prejudicial to the administration of justice." So, it appears to us that disbarment is a possible risk for those folks who defy Congressional subpoena (though we will update this answer if we are advised otherwise by the lawyers in the audience).

If our understanding is indeed correct, there are two likely reasons you don't hear this threat being made. The first is that a lot of the people who Congress wants to talk to are not lawyers, or else are lawyers who don't expect to actually practice again. For example, Bill Barr doesn't need to have a law license to be AG, and he probably doesn't need a law license to return to his previous work, which was primarily advisory (and not doing actual casework). The second reason is that while the question of the subpoenas' validity is being litigated, there is no criminal offense, and so no basis for disbarment. The offense only comes if the subpoena is upheld, and then is defied, in much the same way that a lawyer doesn't get disbarred for being charged with murder, only for being convicted. Once the validity of the subpoenas is litigated (and presumably upheld), the lawyers who are under subpoenas will likely abide by them, since the real goal is just to buy as much time as possible.

---

If the purpose of Russian interference in the elections is to cause division, what are the pros and cons of them supporting the Democratic Presidential candidate and attempting to 'collude" with people in that campaign? S.L., Longview, WA

Only Vlad Putin knows what Vlad Putin is thinking for sure, but there are probably two main goals that he would have in 2020. The first is to secure election of a candidate who would be as hands-off with Russia as is possible, and who wouldn't complain much about the annexation of Crimea. Someone whose focus is almost entirely on domestic policy, and who feels warmly enough about the Soviet Union that they honeymooned there—like Bernie Sanders—might be a good pick for the Russian. Alternatively, someone who is younger, and didn't grow up at a time when all kids were being indoctrinated in the evils of the Russians/Communism, might work out well, particularly if that person is leery of using military force. In other words, he might be pretty happy with the election of Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI). Alternatively, Putin's least favorite choices would presumably be folks who are a bit hawkish, like Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA), or who have firsthand experience with Russian machinations, like Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D-South Bend). Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), who serves on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and so knows dirt that the rest of us don't, would also be suboptimal for Vlad.

Putin's second goal, beyond getting a president he can work with (or work over), is to generally disrupt the American government as best he can. He did awfully well with that in 2016; the democracy is under strains and pressures right now that it hasn't witnessed in more than a century, if ever. Probably the best thing for the Russians on this front is a very close election, with the Democrat barely winning. That would set the stage for a potentially ugly election night, plus four years of Trump supporters claiming that Trump was cheated, and that the Democrat only won because of illegal votes, or whatever. Trump would encourage all of this via Twitter, of course, so it could get pretty nasty.

---

If you have a question about politics, civics, history, etc. you would like us to answer, click here for submission instructions and previous Q & A's. If you spot any typos or other errors on the site that we should fix, please let us know at corrections@electoral-vote.com.

Email a link to a friend or share:

---The Votemaster and Zenger