Pelosi went on record on Monday with the Washington Post saying she will not bring impeachment charges against Trump, saying “he’s not worth it” and that it would be inappropriate to do a partisan impeachment if the Republican Senate won’t go along.
In what appears to be a new investigation stemming from Cohen’s recent hearings and cooperation, “The New York attorney general has subpoenaed records from Deutsche Bank related to three large loans the bank extended to President Trump’s company in recent years — and a fourth loan that Trump sought to buy the NFL’s Buffalo Bills.”
On Wednesday Manafort was sentenced in his second and final trial. Judge Jackson added over three years to last week’s verdict, to bring his prison term to seven and a half years.
Wheeler on Manafort’s bad day, and on the pardon dynamic: “Immediately after the sentencing ended, Cy Vance announced a 16-count indictment in New York State, on charges that Trump cannot pardon. Whatever you think of Vance’s grandstanding, the NY indictment immediately shifts Manafort’s incentives for a pardon, because prison in NY State would be significantly less comfortable than FCI Cumberland, where Manafort will serve his federal charges. So any pardon might just hasten a move to less comfortable surroundings.”
The House voted 420-0 in support of a bill that calls on the DOJ to release the Mueller report to Congress. Graham said the Senate will not take up the bill.
On Thursday 12 GOP Senators joined with Democrats to overturn Trump’s emergency declaration. Trump vetoed it on Friday, and there are not enough votes to overturn the veto. It marks the third bipartisan rebuke of Trump this week, the other being a vote that ended our war effort in Yemen.
Personal Log: There is a palatable sense of waiting for Mueller’s next move, and subtle frustration that everyone keeps saying it will be soon but no one really knows what will happen. We are now three weeks out from reports that Mueller would release his report within days. This week felt like something might happens because Rosenstein was reported to have set his last day at DOJ as March 15. Well, it’s March 17 and reporting on Rosenstein’s exit has not been updated since February.
Here is what some important Mueller watchers were writing this week:
- “Multiple other details suggest that Mueller expects to be able to share things in a month that he’s unable to share today. ”
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Trump’s Job Approval: 41.5%