The Justice League

ROBERT MUELLER’S JUSTICE LEAGUE

When Robert Mueller was appointed the Special Counselor for the Russia Investigation by the Deputy Attorney General back in May 2017, one of the first things that he did was assemble a team to help him with the day to day activities. Not only would these team members do the heavy lifting in the courtroom, but their expertise would shape the investigation. These hires also tell us who and what they know.

What do we know about this team?

They are some of the best prosecutors in the world, specializing in everything from white-collar crimes to cybersecurity to terrorism. Many of them gave up 6, 7, possibly 8 figure salaries and partnerships to work on the Russian Investigation at base government pay.

What does this mean?

This means that there is more than enough evidence to convince some of the greatest lawyers on Earth to leave their private practices representing the wealthiest clients in the world to take part in the largest case in history. At the least, they will take part in the prosecution of the President of the United States. At the most, their roles will be pivotal in securing the fate of Democracy as we know it.

Who’s on the team, and what do they do?

Robert Mueller, Special Counselor

Former FBI Director, Mueller took over the position one week before the 9/11 terror attacks. He became the longest serving FBI Director since J. Edgar Hoover. After his time there, he became a partner at WilmerHale law firm in Washington, D.C.

James Quarles, member of the Watergate Special Prosecution Force

James Quarles was a young man in the 1970’s, but already a skilled lawyer. He served as an Assistant Special Prosecutor in the Watergate scandal.

Andrew Weissmann, Fraud and Corruption

Weissmann headed up the Enron Task Force between 2002 and 2005. Before that he was a federal prosecutor in New York. He took down Enron Chariman Kenneth Lay, CEO Jeffery Skilling, and members and bosses in the Genovese, Colombo, and Gambino crime families.

Greg Andres, White-Collar Crimes

Andres brings foreign bribery experience to the team. He took down an $8 Billion Ponzi scheme in Texas.

Andrew D. Goldstein, Assistant US Attorney from Southern District New York

Goldstein worked for Preet Bharara in SDNY where he led the public corruption unit. He has experience in money laundering, fraud, and corruption cases. Before his boss was fired by Donald Trump, Goldstein and Preet were supposedly working on a RICO case against the Trump Organization. Rumor has it that he took the evidence against Trump with him down to Washington.

Elizabeth Prelogar, The Russian Expert

Prelogar is fluent in Russian, and clerked for Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan.

Rush Atkinson, Criminal Fraud

Atkinson is a prosecutor in the Criminal Division Securities & Financial Fraud Unit. He took down a mother and son team that orchestrated a $16 million medicare fraud scheme.

Aaron Zebley, former Chief of Staff to FBI Director Mueller

Zebley has expertise in Counterterrorism and National Security cases. He was prosecuting Al Qaeda before prosecuting Al Qaeda was cool. In recent years at WilmerHale, he focused on Cybersecurity cases.

Michael Dreeben, Supreme Court Expert

Less than 10 attorneys in history have argued more than 100 cases before the United States Supreme Court. Michael Dreeben is one of them.

Adam Jed, Civil Appeals Expert

Jed is an appellate lawyer in the civil division, not the criminal division. This implies that they’re preparing for civil cases, and expecting them them to challenged on appeal. His most famous case is United States v. Windsor, where he helped overturn the Defense of Marriage Act and brought about the legalization of gay marriage across the land.

Aaron Zelinsky, U.S. Attorney from Maryland

Zelinsky has worked for Rod Rosenstein, and was a hostage negotiator in the State Department under President Obama.

Kyle Freeny, Money Laundering and Asset Recovery

Freeny just wrapped up work on the “Wolf of Wall Street” money laundering case when she got the call to join the Mueller team.

Zainab Ahmad, Counterterrorism and Witness Flipping

Ahmad has singlehandedly crippled Al Qaeda in the United States. She has more convictions against terrorists in the United States than anyone else. How? She’s THE expert in flipping witnesses. If she can flip hardened terrorists against each other, what chance does a member of the Trump Family have against her?

Jeanie Rhee, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General

Rhee has two years of DOJ experience, and worked with Robert teller at WilmerHale. She represented the Clinton Foundation in a racketeering lawsuit in 2015.

Brandon Van Grack, National Security Division Prosecutor

Van Grack is an expert in espionage, national security, and International Crime cases.

Ryan Dickey, Cybercrime Expert

Ryan K. Dickey is a United States Attorney who specializes in cyber crimes. He was the prosecutor who convicted the original Guccifer, and is the man behind the shutdown of MegaUpload. He is one of the best attorneys in the world for prosecuting computer crimes.

Scott Meisler, Appellate Lawyer

Scott has represented the government in appeals involving search warrants, seizures, motions to suppress wiretap evidence, mail fraud, wire fraud, as well as structuring financial transactions and money laundering. In other words, he knows how to “defend the technicalities.”

Brian Richardson, The New Guy

Richardson clerked for Supreme Court Justice Steven Breyer in October 2016 before joining the Mueller team in July 2017. He’s also worked in multiple district courts.

Heather Alpino, Counterintelligence and Export Control

Alpino is a Harvard Law graduate who has worked on cases against Iranian hackers, a British National and American who tried to get chemical weapons equipment into Syria, and prosecuted Hamza Kolsuz for trying to illegally export guns to Turkey.

Jonathan Kravis, Corruption

Kravis has experience in prosecuting public corruption cases. He helped take down former Congressman Chaka Fattah and DEA Agent Artemis Papadakis.

Uzo Asonye, Fraud and Financial Crimes

Asonye is the Deputy Chief of the Financial Crimes and Public Corruption Unit in Eastern District Virginia.

Kathryn Rakoczy, Street Crime

Rakoczy has spent most of the last decade specializing in misdemeanors and violent crime in Washington, D.C.

Deborah Curtis, Counterespionage

Curtis has worked on many cases of espionage, including busting Chinese companies trying to get around North Korean sanctions, nailing an American scientist spying for the Israelis, prosecuting former State Department contractor Stephen Jin-Woo Kim for leaking classified intelligence to an Fox News reporter, and Chelsea Manning.

What can we infer?

We have multiple experts in money laundering, fraud, bribery, mafia crimes, cyber crimes, espionage, counterterrorism, asset recovery, witness flipping, international crimes, and Russian culture. By the way, they also have one of the few people alive that prosecuted a White House for criminal charges.

Mueller is not fucking around.

So far, we’ve got two arrests on white-collar crimes, and two convictions on plea deals for lying to the FBI regarding contacts with Russians. Plus, there’s a ton of stuff still under seal.

Without hyperbole, this is one of the greatest collection of lawyers ever pulled together. They’ve been working on this case since May 2017, and the investigation began a year before that. Any one of these prosecutors coming after a person would cause sleepless nights and panic inducing anxiety. All of them coming after a person would cause them to seriously contemplate suicide.

They are not fucking around. People are going to jail, or worse.

Thanks to Reddit user PoppinKREAM and this post for making this post a lot easier to put together.

UPDATED FEBRUARY 25, 2018: From some new information from CNN, I made a few changes:

Kyle Freeney is a she, not a he. I also added Brian Richardson and Scott Meisler.

UPDATED APRIL 6, 2018: Corrected spelling of Elena Kagan.

UPDATED JULY 20, 2018: Based on this article from The Daily Beast, I added the following people:

Heather Alpino
Jonathan Kravis
Uzo Asonye
Kathryn Rakoczy
Deborah Curtis

UPDATED SEPTEMBER 3, 2018: According to reporting from this article from CNN, the following lawyers have left Mueller’s team.

Ryan Dickey
Brian Richardson

UPDATED OCTOBER 3, 2018: According to reporting from Politico, the following lawyers have left Mueller’s team.

Kyle Freeny
Brandon Van Grack

Daily Check-In 01/30/2018

It’s Tuesday. At 9PM EST, Trump will deliver his first, hopefully only, State of the Union Address. Here’s some of what happened today. A lot happened, so I’m hitting this up News Dump style. Also, I’m writing this before and during the SOTU, so if something crazy happens, I’ll talk about it here. Otherwise, I’ll assume it’s the standard issue Trump train wreck, and it’ll be covered here tomorrow. That, and I’d rather slam my dick in a car door than listen to Trump talk for an hour.

SHEARER DOSSIER, A SECOND MEMO HANDED TO FBI BY STEELE, UNDER SCRUTINY BY FBI

Cody Shearer, a long-time Clinton supporter who has the money and connections to do his own opposition research, did just that against Donald Trump last year, and came to many of the same conclusions that Christopher Steele did. His research uncovered that the Russians had sexual kompromat on him. His research also uncovered things that Steele didn’t.

Why am I talking about Cody Shearer? Isn’t he the guy who voiced Apu Nahasapeemmapetalion? No, that’s Hank Azaria. Harry Shearer voiced Ned Flanders and was in Spinal Tap.

The reason I’m mentioning Cody Shearer is that his memo ended up in Christopher Steele’s hands, and he handed that to the FBI.

And the FBI is still looking into some of it’s claims.

Yes, after more than 15 months, the FBI is still digging into some of its claims. They don’t do that if it didn’t have legs.

I think this memo, dossier, write-up, recipe for treason soufflé has something a lot more important than whether or not Trump likes getting spanked with his own face or enjoys golden showers. I go into more detail in the Rumor Mill section.

TRUMP ASKS SESSIONS TO PROSECUTE MUELLER

In a move that reeks of guilt, desperation, and autocracy, Trump allegedly asked the Keebler Nazi to look into prosecuting Special Counselor Robert Mueller.

Here’s the thought process, and I use that term loosely…

Trump knows the shitstorm he’ll cause by firing Mueller without cause. But, if Jeff Sessions can find something, ANYTHING to discredit Mueller, they could use that as just cause to fire Mueller.

I don’t have a date for this story, but if it’s like most things leaking out of the White House that incriminates Trump, this likely happened months ago. Or earlier today. But, I’d venture a guess that this was a few months ago.

Why?

This lines up with the general strategy that Team Trump brought up months ago with targeting the Comey Witnesses in the FBI. This is the kind of thing that makes sense for someone obsessed with protecting themselves. It almost feels like something leaked from a defense lawyer who’s trying to save their client’s ass.

PAUL RYAN: ‘CLEANSE THE FBI’

When the Speaker of the House uses language straight out of a Banana Republic or some other Fascist regime, we are on the precipice of dangerous times.

This isn’t the language of an innocent man or party. These are the actions of someone trying to save their ass from prison.

MSNBC ANALYST ASKS CONGRESSMAN IF NUNES IS COMPROMISED BY RUSSIANS

Dipshit Cowpoke’s actions don’t make any sense by themselves. All of his consistent, coordinated attacks against the IC and Law Enforcement communities ultimately make him a target, and Trump has no loyalty to anyone, so he’s putting himself out there as a target. This doesn’t make any sense.

Unless, he’s been compromised.

Someone’s got some shit on Devin Nunes. Whether it’s video of him screwing a little boy, or him taking part in planning a kidnapping, someone’s got the dirt on him.

Considering that he’s been Trump’s bitch this entire time, it’s either Trump, the Russians, or both.

5 QUESTIONS THE NUNES MEMO NEEDS TO ANSWER

Asha Rangappa asked 5 questions that must be answered in Devin’s 4 page memo for it to be anything other than a partisan PR stunt to try to say that Carter Page wasn’t a Russian Agent.

When did the FBI open their investigation on Carter Page?
Who in the DOJ conducted the Woods review to verify the FISA application?
Which judge approved the memo?
Was the FISA warrant extended?
Has Mueller used anything derived from this investigation?

If these questions aren’t answered, then this is nothing more than a glorified attempt to blow smoke up our asses.

SEAN HANNITY PARODY ACCOUNT CATFISHES JULIAN ASSANGE

Remember all of those times I said that Sean Hannity might be under an FBI Investigation? Well, looks like there’s some fire to that smoke, and it came out in the dumbest way possible.

Over the weekend, Sean Hannity’s twitter account disappeared. Twitter was purging some bots, and his verified account was removed. During that time, while the real Sean was fighting to get his account restored, several fakes arose. One of these fakes was so convincing, an old friend DM’ed the account.

That old friend was Julian Assange.

Julian sent the fake Hannity direct messages and offered some condolences, and offered our Fake Sean some dirt on Senator Mark Warner. He also said that if he wanted to talk, he knew how to get a hold of him through other channels.

Trump talks to Hannity. Hannity talks to Assange. Assange talks to Go-Betweens like Nigel Farage, and those Go-Betweens talk to Russia.

CIA DIRECTOR POMPEO MET WITH SANCTIONED SVR DIRECTOR ON UNITED STATES NO FLY LIST

There’s a few questions that need answering, like “Who the fuck let this guy in the country?” and “Why are the heads of the CIA and DNI meeting with him?”

POMPEO: RUSSIA WILL INTERFERE IN MID-TERM ELECTIONS

I’m hoping the above story about the meeting was a warning to the Russians to not even try anything, but Trump is a god damned Russian Asset.

Any inaction this year is being complicit in an attack on this country.

RUSSIA ANGRY ABOUT TREASURY LIST OF OLIGARCHS

Putin is angry at the United States because the Oligarchs are angry at Putin because they showed up on a list of potential targets for sanctions.

Before too long, sanctions will be the least of their problems.

AMAZON, JP MORGAN, BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY TO JOIN FORCES AND CREATE HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANY

Just the news of these three giants getting together caused the stocks of several existing insurance companies to drop.

Granted, if the United States had Universal Health Care, we wouldn’t need another health insurance company, but more competition is needed.

NYT OP-ED: IS IT TIME FOR REPUBLICANS TO FORM A THIRD PARTY?

This is something that I’ve talked about before in The Multi-Party System. There isn’t any room in the modern Republican Party for the Trump supporters and the true conservatives. The only question I have is who will leave first.

RICK WILSON: A CONSPIRACY OF DUNCES

This article is definitely worth a read. Rick Wilson has a way with words that I wish to get to one day. If I could stay on topic for a few thousand words while dropping a new insult every 10 words, I’d still have a long way to go.

HARLEY-DAVISON TO CLOSE KANSAS CITY PLANT

H-D has been coasting for years, and their “loyal fan base” wouldn’t let them innovate and move forward. Any time they would try to expand the lineup or come out with something new and exciting, the “Loud Pipes Save Lives” crowd would bitch and cry about how these new bikes weren’t “true” Harley’s.

Harley-Davidson made their fortunes in the last 30 years by being a symbol of the counterculture of the Baby Boomer youth, which was 20 years before that. They pared down their lineup of almost everything sporty, fast, and nimble, and concentrated on selling rolling sofas to Grandma and Grandpa.

They’ve kept this up for the last 15 years, and have milked the Baby Boomers for all their worth. Meanwhile, younger people see these bikes less as a symbol of rebellion and more as a symbol of a dentist playing weekend warrior.

Harley-Davidson is exhausting their base, and they aren’t bringing new riders to the tent. Most young people that do ride like sport bikes, enduros, adventure bikes, or smaller, cheaper cruisers. By the time a rider has enough money to buy a Harley, they have other things to spend that money on like day care and a mortgage.

There’s an allegory here to be made about the current state of the Republican Party. Two long-term brands that started off as the symbol of rebellion, falling on hard times in the 1970’s, and had to reinvent themselves by committing themselves to their true believers. Now, they’ve committed so hard to their ideals that they’ve painted themselves into a corner. If they don’t change their ways, neither will be around in 20 years.

WRAP-UP AND RUMOR MILL: BUT IT GOES TO 11

So, back to the Shearer Dossier.

It hasn’t been released to the public, and likely won’t be for a long time, so there’s no way of knowing what’s in it, but based off of some rumors that I’ve heard, I want to make a couple suppositions about what’s in it.

Cody Shearer is a long-time political insider, but is deep enough in the background that a basic Google search doesn’t pull much up. So, he’s not out there hogging the spotlight, and he doesn’t have so many enemies that a search for his is overwhelmed.

It looks like he has money and connections. That means he likely has connections to other people with money, and money people. People who handle money, and know who else is handling money.

So, what does his memo have in it that Christopher Steele couldn’t verify on his own?

Campaign money laundering.

Something missing from the Steele Dossier that was part of the original corruption rumors was that the GOP had coordinated with the Russians to launder money into the elections, and this was caught on tape by the FBI at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Part of that rumor was that it had been independently confirmed by opposition research, and that was widely believed to be the Steele Dossier. Only problem with that hypothesis is that Steele never mentions Cleveland, or the Republican Convention.

So, if Steele didn’t mention it, but it was attributed to him, how does that happen?

That’s where Shearer’s Dossier comes in. My guess is that his sources in the campaign finance world saw that something was up and clued him in on it. He followed up with a few more sources, and heard some rumors about the Russians in Cleveland. At some point, this got into Steele’s hands, who then handed it over to the FBI.

This memo or dossier has been talked about and alluded to for a while, but it didn’t break into the press until today. Angry White House Staffer was surprised it stayed hidden for as long as it has. He also claims that the information in it is the reason the GOP is losing their shit right now.

I’m putting a few pieces of this puzzle together, and making more than a few connections, but if Angry is right about this dossier, and that the GOP is going into full panic over the contents of it, and the FBI has spent a year following up on it, then the claim has to be big. Big in impact and scope. Big enough to cause the entire party leadership to go full, complete, desperate, self-preservation mode. Big enough to cause most of the House and several Senators to panic.

What ties them together?

Money.

Cody Shearer knows the money people.

That’s it for today. Like I said earlier, tonight is the State of the Union. It’s late, and I didn’t hear about the Dotard taking a dump on the floor or anything like that, so I’ll cover it tomorrow.

Thank you, and have a good one.

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

Daily Check-In 01/26/2018

Friday and the weekend.

DETAILS EMERGE IN DUTCH INFILTRATION OF RUSSIAN HACKER CELL COZY BEAR

Here’s what we learned…

Cozy Bear, a.k.a. APT29, is located in a University building across the street FROM THE MOTHER FUCKING KREMLIN.
The Dutch had access to their security cameras.
The Dutch helped the United States State Department fend off an attack from the Russians in 2014.
The Russians managed to get a phishing mail into the White House.
The Dutch helped the NSA get on the PHONES OF RUSSIAN INTELLIGENCE.
Every time the Russians began an attack, they’d Google it to see if anyone was talking about it before they did it.

Article 5, mother fucker.

TRUMP TRIED TO FIRE DEPUTY AG ROSENSTEIN

This was reported before, part of the Mueller story from 1-25-18, but Trump thought about firing the Deputy AG as well.

Trump wants to fire Mueller, and realizes that as long as Rosenstein is in his position, he can’t fire Mueller. One option that was talked about earlier was firing the Deputy Attorney General, then ordering the replacement to fire Mueller. Problem is, there’s no guarantee that would work, and we’d enter into a replay of the Saturday Night Massacre. I think I covered that in Lateral Movement.

MUELLER INTERVIEWED FACEBOOK EMPLOYEE ABOUT HELPING TRUMP AND TIES TO RUSSIA

SCO Mueller interviewed employees of Facebook and asked them about how they helped Trump in the election, and how the Russians were involved.

TRUMP TARGETED FBI WITNESSES

Trump ordered a strategy of attacking several witnesses to his crimes of Obstruction of Justice in an attempt to discredit them.

Here’s a list of some of the laws that he broke…

18 U.S. Code § 1503 – Influencing or injuring officer or juror generally

18 U.S. Code § 1505 – Obstruction of proceedings before departments, agencies, and committees

18 U.S. Code § 1509 – Obstruction of court orders

18 U.S. Code § 1510 – Obstruction of criminal investigations

18 U.S. Code § 1512 – Tampering with a witness, victim, or an informant

18 U.S. Code § 1516 – Obstruction of Federal audit

KUSHNER MUST DISCLOSE BUSINESS PARTNERS

A Federal Judge has ordered Jared Kushner to release the names of his business partners in several Maryland corporations that he’s connected to.

For those not familiar, Maryland has very lax requirements when creating a company, and very low taxes. For a few hundred dollars, one could create an LLC in Maryland on LegalZoom.com and have a fully legal business in a lickety-split.

The reason I think this is big is that once news comes out of who his businesses are connected to, he’ll be even further up shit creek than he already is.

STEVE WYNN RESIGNED AS GOP FINANCE CHAIR

Steve Wynn, a casino owner in Las Vegas who was appointed as the Finance Chair of the GOP by Donald Trump, resigned this weekend after news broke on Friday of him pulling a Weinstein.

Pulling a Weinstein: Abusing a position of money and power for sexual favors, up to and including rape, then using said money and power to force their victims into silence.

So far, the Republicans have not returned the money that he donated or raised for them.

TRUMP BOOED BY FOREIGN PRESS IN DAVOS

Thanks to Dallas for this story.

Following news broke of Trump trying to fire Mueller broke, The Dotard pulled the same “Fake News” bullshit that he does every single time a story breaks that he doesn’t like. This time, the Foreign Press at Davos booed him. Just like he deserves.

DIVORCE PUTIN DAUGHTER, LOSE A BILLION DOLLARS

Another example of Russian Kleptocracy at work.

Putin is a thief and a dictator. This is not the first time that someone who crossed Vladimir. I wouldn’t be surprised if he “slipped on some tea.”

Or, just a good, old fashioned Russian Heart Attack.

ALEXEI NALVANY ARRESTED IN RUSSIAN PROTESTS

And here’s another example of Russian Corruption.

The people, especially the young people in Russia, are sick and tired of Putin’s regime. In a clear and free election, Nalvany would win in a landslide. But Russia doesn’t have free and open elections. They rig them to let Putin hold on to power.

After we clean house in America and get our shit under control, we’re coming after the regimes that attacked the United States. Putin’s Russia, Xi’s China, Erdogan’s Turkey, and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Don’t think we forgot about you.

TRUMP SEEKS RELEASE OF NUNES MEMO

In a surprise to absolutely no one, Trump is siding with his stooge Devin Nunes over the Department of Justice and the FBI.

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times, Trump has no respect for the rule of law, and thinks he’s above it. I can’t wait for him to get smashed with the Hammer of Justice.

VINNY MAC RAPE ACCUSATIONS FROM 2006

Following the announced restart of the XFL, The Daily Beast released a story reminding us all that Vince McMahon, owner of WWE and a long time friend of Donald Trump, was accused of attempted rape and sexual assault back in 2006.

I’ve heard rumors about some kind of shady connection between Trump and McMahon going back for years, possibly including their friend Jeffrey Epstien.

Vince’s wife Linda is a member of Trump’s Cabinet.

That’s it for today. I might write something else tonight, but if I do, it’ll be short and/or light-hearted. Then again, I could use a bit of a break. It’s been a long weekend, and I’m watching wrestling tonight…

Hey, that’s an idea. How this political situation would work out if it were a wrestling angle. Angle is wrestling-speak for story.

Thank you, and have a good one.

“Without Journalists, it’s just propaganda.”

– Katy Tur

It’s A Feature, Not A Bug

“It’s not broken, it’s supposed to do that.”

“It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.”

“The system’s working fine, you’re just using it wrong.”

“The only problem here is user-related.”

I’ve heard many phrases like this in my life-long association with technology, but the phrase “It’s a feature, not a bug” didn’t really come into the lexicon until sometime in the early 2000’s, when some higher-up from Microsoft was quoted saying that in response to customer complaints about error screens they were getting in Windows. Since then, it’s become an inside joke within the IT world to describe a feature, device, program, or system that doesn’t work for the end user, but part of it, usually the error checking, is working normally.

Why am I talking about an IT inside joke? Because I feel that it’s relevant to the current situation.

Today is January 22, 2018. Monday. And Day 3 of the United States Government Shutdown. A shutdown that was completely avoidable, and 95% the fault of the Republican Party. I reserve 5% for the Democrats involved, but this is the same level of blame one would give to the owner of a dog that chewed a hole through the fence at the boarding kennel, broke out of the yard, and dug up the neighbors flowerbed. Sure, they could have done more to make sure the dog wasn’t left at a neglectful kennel, but they’re about fourth or fifth down the chain of responsibility.

Anyway, on Friday, I watched the Senate vote and fail to pass a spending bill. I sat back, had a couple glasses of wine, and heckled the television as Mitch McConnell blamed the Democrats for not passing the cloture threshold on the spending bill. While asking which one of the Ninja Turtles turned to evil and grew up to become a Senator from Kentucky, I realized a few things.

I have absolutely no social life whatsoever at this point, and I’m happy with that.
This shutdown was completely avoidable.
I really like sweet red wine.
This was put into motion last year when Trump rescinded the DACA protections.
The White House has no interest in negotiating in good faith.
The Republican Party Leadership is complicit in this mess.
At any point in the last 4 months, since CHIP funding ran out, they could have reauthorized it, but decided to use it as a bargaining chip.
At any point since October, Congress could have passed bipartisan legislation to codify DACA.
This shutdown is a feature, not a bug.

That last one struck me. Not as hard as the headache the next morning when I woke up, but it still struck me. This shutdown was planned out since last year when Congress refused to give Trump even a penny for his border wall. Okay, “planned” is a little strong for these people. They can’t plan a lunch without screwing it up. But, the option of a shutdown was put into place.

I think that the Trump White House thought a Government Shutdown would be beneficial for them for a few reasons.

It would force Congress to push their agenda.
It fits with Trump’s “negotiating style.”
It would make the Democrats look bad for standing against them.
It would make the Democrats look bad for agreeing with them.
It would shut down the Congressional Investigations into Trump.
It would shut down the Special Counselor’s Investigation.

Congress doesn’t want to pay for a Mexican Border Wall, or a Muslim Immigration Ban. Congress doesn’t want to screw up all of the trade agreements, or mess with the treaties in place. They want to keep the lights on, keep things running, and lower taxes for their donors. Anything else is window dressing.

As far at “The Great Dealmaker” goes, a shutdown is the only way that he can fall back on his traditional methods of negotiation. From looking at Trump’s history in business, here’s how a typical business deal goes down…

Engage in negotiations with someone in a lower position than you, like a small company or someone desperate for business.
Demand onerous terms from the other party, while agreeing to give very little.
Fail to deliver on even the pittance that you agreed to give in the first place.
Fight your partner now opponent at every step of the way, until they’re no longer capable of defending themselves.
Continue to attack your opponent and blame them for the eventual failure of the business while you run it into the ground to squeeze it for every spare penny possible.
Shut the business down in an attempt to shift the blame, liquidate the assets, and move on to the next deal.

Any halfway competent President would have avoided a shutdown at the last minute when Chuck Schumer was willing to negotiate funding for the Border Wall in exchange for DACA. That right there should have been the end of the game. They could have walked out of the White House, shaking hands, high-fiving, and carried that bill proposal to the House and Senate for a vote. Instead, Trump is a terrible dealmaker. He wants everything, is unwilling to compromise, and is either too stupid to see a great deal, or is working for other means.

As far as the Democrats go, there’s no way they would come out of this in a good position. If they agree to the spending bill, they lose any chance of getting DACA on the floor for a vote before the March deadline. If they don’t agree, they’re stuck in the middle of a shutdown, and they actually realize how that’s a bad thing.

But, what if this is all part of some master plan by Trump and his Russian allies to shut down the government and the investigations into him? Well, that’s something to think about. Congress will be too busy arguing with each other to engage any committee work, and all of their pages and assistants are temporarily sort-of unemployed. The only work that Congress is doing now is restoring funding so that the government can work.

As far as Mueller goes, his investigation continues. Special Counselor investigations are funded by a special permanent indefinite appropriation, not an annual one like the standard budget. So, while the parks are closed and soldiers don’t get paid, Mueller’s team keeps showing up to work.

By the way, Senator Claire MacCaskill proposed an amendment to a bill that would allow the military to still be paid during the shutdown, but it would require unanimous consent. Mitch McConnell objected.

CLOTURE THRESHOLD

I mentioned earlier about the Cloture Threshold. Cloture, sometimes called a super majority, is the vote threshold that is required in the Senate to break a filibuster. A filibuster is an action or speech where a Senator can take the floor and not yield to anyone or anything. Currently, that threshold is 60. Unless special rules are enforced, like the reconciliation process used for the Tax Bill and the attempted Obamacare repeal, all Senate votes are treated as though they need to break a filibuster. This is because the filibuster has been relegated to a procedural tool to clog up work in the Senate.

The vote was 50-49 in favor of the last ditch spending bill. John McCain was in Arizona getting medical care. 5 Democrats, all from conservative states and facing reelection, voted for the bill. 4 Republicans, none of which are facing reelection in 2018, voted against it.

That’s it for now. I’ll be back later with some updates that happened over the weekend, including a story about several Russians attending Trump’s inauguration.

Thank you, and have a good one.