I’m at #TribFest18 in Austin, an incredible speaker fest you should google if you haven’t heard about. Later this morning @amyklobuchar is speaking. I’ll be here all day & on a couple of panels. I’ll keep it all in this thread so you can mute it if this isn’t your cup of tea.
I met this incredibly nice man on the way in who tells me Texas will have record voter registration for the midterms including young people & formerly incarcerated people who have regained the right to vote.
1/ I have a few thoughts about Mitchell’s letter that I wanted to share. Random order. Mitchell says no rational prosecutor would bring a cases based on the evidence before the Committee, but that’s not really the issue here.
2/ I have never, as a prosecutor, concluded I would not move forward because the victim’s statement was uncorroborated, BEFORE investigators had the chance to investigate. That’s not how it works. Decisions about whether to prosecute are made after investigation is complete.
3/ Even if you agree with Mitchell’s assessment that Dr. Ford’s version of events is uncorroborated (& I don’t) it makes no sense to decide against prosecution before you know all the facts.
Asked by Senator Leahy whether Mark Judge should testify, Kavanaugh won’t say yes. He complains about delays & says Judge submitted an affidavit, but refuses to agree he should testify & be subjected to cross examination. This damages his credibility, perhaps irrevocably.
Leahy asks whether Kavanaugh is the drunken Bart O’Kavanaugh character in Judge’s book. Kavanaugh says Leahy will have to ask Judge. The look on Leahy’s face says that’s the whole point here.
Kavanaugh refusing to answer Senator Leahy’s questions & arguing belligerently with him does not enhance his credibility. He asserts the truth in a prepared statement but can’t seem to handle questions he has to have known were coming.
1/ Trump isn't a fan of the FBI, but the truth is, the men & women who make up the Bureau work day in & day out to keep the American people safe. There are Joint Terrorism Task Forces across the country that bring federal, state & local law enforcement together to keep us safe.
2/ There are cases of national prominence, like the AbdulMutallab, who tried to take down a plane flying into Detroit with a shoe bomb on my good friend @BarbMcQuade's 1st day on board as US Attorney. cnn.com/2012/02/16/jus…
3/ But there are scores more cases every year, across the country, that you've never heard about. And they are very important. The FBI's vigilance & commitment has prevented & prosecuted support of terrorism that could have endangered us if undetected.
I got to wondering just how many Russian Oligarchs attended the Trump inauguration in light of Sam Patten's (he's Manafort's buddy & former GRU Agent Kilimnik's business partner) plea deal, in which he acknowledged illegally funneling foreign money to the inauguration. 1 of ?
There's a lot of information out there. I don't have a headcount, but, there is a lot of reporting that mentions Russian Oligarchs who attended inaugural festivities. This June 2018 story reports that Mueller was investigating them. thehill.com/homenews/admin…
"One Trump guest, oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, who has close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, has even been sanctioned by the Treasury Department in response to what U.S. officials called Moscow’s broad destabilizing activities during the presidential race."
1. Here's a little public service announcement about your vote & the November elections. If you live in a state that is pruning its voter rolls or moving people to inactive status & you want to make sure you can vote on 11/6, what should you do? Read on, the time to act is now.
2. The Nat'l Voter Registration Action, also called the Motor Voter Act, provides that list maintenance programs cannot be undertaken within 90 days of a federal election. What is list maintenance & why should you care?
3. You may have heard about states where eligible voters were mysteriously "pruned" from voting rolls or moved to ineligible status? Despite concerns this was done to suppress Democratic votes, SCOTUS upheld these roll maintenance programs, so states can continue to do this.
1/ Collusion has become a short hand term that is widely used for the entire range of conduct Trump & people in his orbit have engaged in, that makes us suspicious about his relationship with Russia.
2/ Today, in the face of mounting evidence that Trump may have had advance notice of the Trump Tower meeting with Russians, Rudy Giuliani engaged in his most recent goal post-moving exercise, maintaining that even if there was collusion, it's not a crime.
3/ Technically that's true, in the sense there is no crime titled "Collusion." There is, however, the crime of conspiracy–an agreement between 2 or more people to defraud the US. One of the coconspirators must take a step towards the crime, called committing an "overt act."