The Weekly List

This week a leaked letter sent from special  counsel Robert Mueller to Attorney General William Barr days after Barr  released his four-page “summary” indicated Mueller did not believe that  Barr captured the “context, nature, and substance” of his work.  Mueller’s letter, leaked in part to the Post  the day before Barr was set to testify before the Senate, shook the  country and set off a firestorm, including allegations Barr had lied in  previous Congressional testimony. His demeanor at his Senate testimony  did little to mollify concern that Barr had acted in concert with  Trump’s team to shape the narrative ahead of the redacted report’s  release, and was continuing to protect Trump from its contents and  repercussions.

House Democrats sounded the alarms and escalated  matters as Trump, his family, and regime all continued to stonewall  Congressional demands, including a lawsuit to block Deutsche Bank from  cooperating with House subpoenas and Barr being a no-show for House  testimony. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wore the gravity of the situation  in her demeanor at her weekly press conference, admitting she had  trouble sleeping after watching the top law enforcement officer’s  performance. Pelosi, who has been committed to avoiding impeachment, was  reported to be losing patience.

Read the full list here: https://theweeklylist.org/weekly-list/week-129/

This week Trump’s White House refused all requests by House Democrats  to interview current or former members of the regime, or to turn over  records, including those requested by subpoena. The NYT  Editorial Board noted Trump “is effectively declaring lawmakers  powerless over him. This, warn the experts, puts the nation in uncharted  territory and threatens to erode its democratic foundations.” With  Congress out of town for a second holiday week, the feeling of Trump’s  omnipotence was all the more palpable.

This week while the country grappled with the contents of the  redacted Mueller report, Trump and his allies invoked a failed “coup”  and threatened to investigate the investigator. They also sought to  downplay Russian interference and its impact in 2016 — with Jared  Kushner dismissing Russian efforts as “some Facebook ads.” Alarming  reporting indicated Trump is refusing to work to safeguard the 2020  election, nor would his campaign pledge not to take stolen information  again, even as FBI director Christopher Wray said Moscow’s interference  in the past has been a “dress rehearsal” for the 2020 presidential  contest.

Read the full list here: https://theweeklylist.org/weekly-list/week-128/

This week Attorney General William Barr publicly  released a redacted version of the Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s  report, almost a month after he delivered it to Barr. The redacted  report differed substantially from Barr’s March 24 letter, as well as  from statements delivered by Barr at a press conference hours before the  report’s release — casting Barr more as a defense attorney for Trump  than an attorney general. Concerns grew further when it was revealed  Trump’s White House attorneys had previewed the report in consultation  with the Justice Department days earlier.

On Thursday, as the redacted report was  released, Trump, who had expressed no interest in reading the report,  seemed confident he had turned the corner and was in the clear. As the  press and public finally dug into the contents of the redacted report  and statements by current and former White House official witnesses, by  Friday, Trump shifted back to anger and attack mode, starting by  retaliating against former White House counsel Don McGahn. After reading  the report, Senator Elizabeth Warren became the first 2020 contender to  call for impeachment hearings.

Read the full list here: https://theweeklylist.org/weekly-list/week-127/

This week, Trump’s frustration with migrants coming to the southern  border boiled over, as he purged the Department of Homeland Security,  and empowered immigrant hardliner Stephen Miller to be in charge of the  regime’s immigration policy. As the week ended, 12 of the 30 senior  roles at DHS were either vacant or filled with “acting” leaders.  Departures of senior officials at the cabinet level and below are at  record levels. Meanwhile, Trump continues to consolidate power, act  unilaterally, and welcome the “flexibility” of using “acting” directors  whom he can hire and fire at will — without needing the oversight of the  Senate to confirm them.

Troubling reporting this week indicated Trump instructed his incoming  Secretary of DHS to break the law, assuring him he would be pardoned.  Reporting also indicated Trump and Miller had contemplated releasing  migrant detainees into sanctuary cities as a means to punish political  enemies. When confronted with the story, the White House pushed back,  only to have Trump say indeed that was his plan. Trump also looked for  ways to increasingly use military troops at the border, including in  ways that violate the law.

Read the full list here: https://theweeklylist.org/weekly-list/week-126/

This week, two weeks after Mueller had sent his final report to  Attorney General William Barr, members of the special counsel  anonymously broke their silence, indicating to the Times and the Post  that their findings were more troubling than Barr’s letter had  indicated. Meanwhile Trump changed his position on public release of the  report, as he and his surrogates went into attack mode against the  Democrats and Mueller’s team.

Republicans rebuked Trump this week, failing to stand with him on his  threat to close the U.S.-Mexico border and to come up with an  alternative to Obamacare ahead of the 2020 election. The House joined  the Senate, voting to end U.S. involvement in Yemen, marking the first  time both chambers of Congress have voted to invoke the war-powers  resolution to end U.S. military engagement in a foreign conflict.

Read the full list:  https://theweeklylist.org/weekly-list/week-125/

This week was dominated by news of the Mueller report, which was  delivered to Attorney General William Barr last Friday, but has yet to  be given to Congress or the American people. On Sunday, AG Barr sent a  four-page letter to Congress, which he characterized as a “summary” of  the Mueller report, but later in the week, in a second letter, wrote it  “did not purport to be, an exhaustive recounting of the Special  Counsel’s investigation or report” which was revealed to be nearly 400  pages long.

Barr’s Sunday letter said that Mueller did not find evidence Trump or  his campaign knowingly colluded with Russia, but on obstruction of  justice charges, Mueller did not render an opinion. Barr and deputy  attorney general Rod Rosenstein however concluded not to proceed with  criminal charges, and Trump instantly weaponized the information to  falsely claim he was fully exonerated, and pivot to attacking Democrats  and the media, with the help of his allies. The media was caught on its  heels, as some of the initial reporting incorrectly cited the Mueller  report, including the front page of Monday’s New York Times.  Trump aides who had been jailed or investigated by Mueller’s team were  given media opportunities to declare themselves as victims of an  overaggressive prosecutor. By Friday, bowing to public pressure, Barr in  a second letter said he would release a redacted version of the Mueller  report by mid-April or sooner.

Read the full list here: https://theweeklylist.org/weekly-list/week-124/

This week started with maniacal tweeting by Trump: more than 50 tweets  over the weekend on a variety of unrelated topics, including multiple  retweets of conspiracy theorists. The week’s news was overshadowed by  Trump’s daily attacks against deceased Senator John McCain and George  Conway, husband of senior White House adviser Kellyanne Conway. The  off-kilter — even by his standards — behavior by Trump seemed  foreboding, and sure enough, on Friday, Mueller’s final report was  delivered to Attorney General William Barr.

Among the subjects of his ire on Twitter this week, Trump continued  to focus on alleged and unsubstantiated bias of social media companies,  as his ally Rep. Devin Nunes filed a $250 million defamation lawsuit  against Twitter and three Twitter accounts. Congressional probes moved  ahead, including new revelations that Jared Kushner used WhatsApp to  communicate on official White House business, including with foreign  officials, and in possible violations of the Presidential Records  Act — as did Ivanka Trump for White House business with her use of a  personal email account. Meanwhile the White House refused to cooperate  with Congressional document requests, as Rep. Elijah Cummings accused  them of “stonewalling.”

Read the full list here: https://theweeklylist.org/weekly-list/week-123/

Trump issued his first veto after the House and Senate voted to block  his emergency declaration. The veto followed Trump’s declaration of a  national emergency after Congress refused to fund his wall, which was  unprecedented. Taken together, Trump irreverently thumbed his nose at  the separations of power.

Trump also continued his record pace of appointments to the judicial  branch, this week with the aid of newly installed ally Sen. Lindsey  Graham as Judiciary Committee Chair. Graham discarded a century old norm  of allowing in-state senators to submit a “blue slip” to oppose  nominations, allowing Trump to appoint two judges to the 9th Circuit  Court.

Read the full list here: https://theweeklylist.org/weekly-list/week-122/

This week a bombshell exposé by Jane Mayer on the ties between Trump and Fox News sparked questions of whether America had its first version of state TV. The piece had broad fallout, and sparked a renewed conversation on the line between journalism and propaganda.

This week Democrats ramped up investigations, while Trump hit back and escalated his pace of daily lies and misleading statements. With Congressional hearings finally underway, Trump and his regime continued a pattern of irreverent corruption and kleptocracy, as well as continued efforts to limit transparency and hide information.

A shocking story by an NBC affiliate revealed U.S. Customs and Border Patrol has been keeping a database of journalists and other activists involved at the Southern border, the second list by the Trump regime targeting U.S. journalists that has been uncovered since Trump came into power. The regime also reportedly revoked an award from a journalist who had been critical of Trump on social media.

Read the full list here: https://theweeklylist.org/weekly-list/week-121/

This week the country was riveted by the public testimony of Michael  Cohen, Trump’s long-time attorney and fixer, before the House Oversight  Committee — the first public testimony in the new Democrat-controlled  Congress. Cohen’s testimony overwhelmed the spectacle of Trump’s second  summit with North Korea dictator Kim Jong Un in Hanoi — which produced  no concrete results, despite a pre-planned joint signing ceremony.  Cohen, who said he is now in “constant contact” with federal  prosecutors, gave seven hours of testimony, offering an insider’s  perspective and many new details which, by week’s end, were already  leading Congressional investigators to call more witnesses and open new  areas of inquiry.

As Cohen was testifying and Trump meeting with Kim, Jared Kushner met  with the Saudi King Salman and Crown Prince MBS, then Turkish President  Recep Erdogan. Just as Kushner stayed silent during his Saudi visit on  the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, Trump sided with another dictator, saying  he believed Kim played no part of the brutal torture and death of  American college student Otto Warmbier, before trying to reverse himself  the next day. During Kushner’s trip, the Times reported Trump  had ordered officials to grant his son-in-law top-secret security  clearance, overruling concerns by U.S. intelligence and former White  House Counsel Don McGahn.

Read the full list here: https://theweeklylist.org/weekly-list/week-120/