Three days before Election Day in Georgia the GOP candidate for governor, who is also Secretary of State, without any evidence opened an investigation into the Democrats for trying to hack the state’s voter rolls. The statement from his spokesman: “This was a 4th quarter Hail Mary pass that was intercepted in the end zone. Thanks to the systems and protocols established by Secretary of State Brian Kemp, no personal information was breached. These power-hungry radicals should be held accountable for their criminal behavior.” Kemp has done this before, in 2016: “An independent investigation by the department’s inspector general, which operates independently from the department’s chain of command, found that the activity Mr. Kemp believed was suspicious was, in fact, normal behavior between computer systems.”
The question in the coverage just before Election Day focuses on whether Trump-style politics can help the party win as a whole without Trump on the ballot, and what it will mean for American politics if the answer is yes. This Washington Post article lists some of examples of race-bating campaign tactics GOP candidates have used, and then states: “By running so overtly on racially tinged messages, the GOP is putting that explosive form of politics on the ballot. If Republicans maintain control of the House, the notion of running a campaign built on blunt, race-based attacks on immigrants and minorities will have been validated. A loss, on the other hand, might prompt a number of Republicans to call for a rethinking of the party’s direction — but that would collide with a sitting president who, if anything, relishes over-the-edge rhetoric.”
On Election Day, the Democrats won control of the House, while Republicans maintained control of the Senate. Democrats flipped seven governor seats, six state legislatures, and over 300 state-level seats. (By the end of the week, several races had yet to be called. Florida and Arizona senate races are going into a recount. The Florida governor’s race is also going into a recount, and the Georgia governor’s race is uncalled.)
On the day after, Sessions was asked by John Kelly to submit his resignation. He did so, and was replaced by his chief of staff Mathew Whitaker, who has expressed criticism of the Muller investigation repeatedly over the past year.
The first sentence of Session’s letter proves he was forced out, which is not much of a surprise: “As your request, I am submitting my resignation.”
There are potentially grave consequences for the Russia investigation. Whitaker will take over supervision of Mueller, will get the final decision on indictments, or what is in the final report, and the investigation’s budget. However, if he overrules Mueller, Whitaker must notify Congress that he has done so, but not until the conclusion of the entire investigation.
According to Marty Ederman of Just Security, Whitaker can control Mueller’s budget, however his budget may be locked in through the fiscal year until October 2019. Whitaker will have the final say on Mueller’s final report, and whether it can be made public or sent to Congress. The regulations say that Whitaker must be consulted by Muller about next steps in the investigation, and he may “conclude that the [planned] action is so inappropriate or unwarranted under established Departmental practices that it should not be pursued.”
This Lawfare post contains a list of all the evidence Whitaker is not a fan of the Mueller investigation based on his public comments over the last year. They also write that Whitaker is obligated to request DOJ ethics lawyers to determine if he should recuse: “If Whitaker either does not obtain an ethics opinion from career officials or if he departs from that guidance, that would be a serious red flag.” Lawfare submitted and FOIA request to prove whether or not the ethics request have been made.
The Lawfare writers are clear on this point: “The president fired the attorney general, as he once fired the FBI director, for plainly illegitimate reasons: because the attorney general acted appropriately on an investigative matter in which Trump himself has the deepest of personal interests. Trump does not even pretend there are other reasons. He removed the attorney general because the attorney general did not protect him from investigation. Yes, the president has the raw power to do this. But as was the case with the firing of James Comey, it is an abuse of the power he wields.”
George Conway argues that Whitaker’s appointment is invalid because the Attorney General must be senate-confirmed: “President Trump’s installation of Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general of the United States after forcing the resignation of Jeff Sessions is unconstitutional. It’s illegal. And it means that anything Mr. Whitaker does, or tries to do, in that position is invalid.”
The Wall Street Journal reports: “The Federal Bureau of Investigation is conducting a criminal investigation of a Florida company accused of scamming millions from customers during the period that Matthew Whitaker, the acting U.S. attorney general, served as a paid advisory-board member.”
Adam Schiff, the incoming chair of the House Intelligence Committee, is giving multiple interviews the day after the election in which he is talking about how the House will pursue the Russia investigation. In these interviews he mentions Russia money laundering through Trump business deals, and the suspicion that Don Jr. was calling Trump’s blocked number while he was talking to Russian businessmen about the upcoming Trump Tower meeting. Crafting a political argument for his work he says, “we need to be able to look into it and be able to tell the country, ‘Yes, this is true,’ or ‘No, this is not.’ But I think it would be negligent not to find out.””
Trump gave an East Room press conference the day after the election. Here are the highlights. He says Republicans won an “almost complete victory.” Of note is how he deflects the House losses by arguing that the candidates who asked him to stay away are the ones who lost: “On the other hand, you had some that decided to stay away. “Let’s stay away.” They did very poorly. I’m not sure that I should be happy or sad, but I feel just fine about it.”
Trump explained how he is thinking the dynamic will be between his administration and the Democratic House should it choose to aggressively investigate: “They can play that game, but we can play it better, because we have a thing called the United States Senate. They can look at us, then we can look at them and it’ll go back and forth. And it’ll probably be very good for me politically . . . because I think I’m better at that game than they are, actually.” McConnell is not publicly agreeing with Trump to use the Senate to counter-investigate Democrats, but he is repeating the talking point that the Democrats would be unwise to engage in “presidential harassment.”
In Immigration News:
The day after the election the DOD dropped the name of the 5,000 active duty troop border operation. Instead of call it Operation Faithful Patriot they will “merely referring to it as border support.”
The Trump Administration rushed through a new regulation this week that will not allow anyone who crosses the US-Mexico border between ports of entry–ie, illegally–to apply for asylum.
—
Trump’s Job Approval: 42.2%