Category Archives: Donald Trump

‘It’s every man for himself,’ says one target of Mueller investigation

CBS News reports: Less than a week after two top former Trump campaign officials were indicted and another adviser to the campaign had already pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, the pressure on others under scrutiny appears to be growing. One source whose actions during the 2016 election are being examined by the special counsel’s office and who is reluctant to talk publicly tells CBS News, “It’s every man for himself.”

That remark suggests that some of the former campaign officials and associates in legal jeopardy may be rushing to offer their cooperation in an effort to get a better deal from prosecutors. The source maintains that he is innocent and is frustrated that he has so far failed to clear his name in the ongoing probe. Over the last few months the source seems to have evolved in his thinking about Russian involvement in the presidential election.

Earlier this year this individual dismissed any suggestion that there was any coordination between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives.

Now, days after former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his deputy Rick Gates were indicted, the source acknowledged to CBS News something he’d been reluctant to admit in the past: “I do believe the Russians interfered or tried to interfere,” he said. But he pointed to others associated with the campaign, “I don’t know what they were doing” and “whatever those people did, that’s on them.” [Continue reading…]

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Trump leads the most corrupt administration in U.S. history

Newsweek reports: He’d promised to build the wall. To make America great again. To lock her up. Now, in the last weeks of his campaign for president, Donald J. Trump needed one more stirring slogan. And since he was badly trailing Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, it would have to be a marketing marvel worthy of Mad Men’s Don Draper, one that encapsulated the vague yet compelling promise of his candidacy—its worship of American ideals and its total break from them.

On October 17, 2016, the Trump-Pence campaign released a five-point plan for ethics reform that featured lobbying restrictions that would insulate Trump and his administration from corporate and interests. The plan was called “drain the swamp.

Trump tried out the phrase that day at a rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin. He used it the next day at a rally in Colorado Springs, Colorado. “We’re going to end the government corruption,” Trump vowed, “and we’re going to drain the swamp in Washington, D.C.” He then recited a litany of accusations regarding Clinton and her use of a private email server, calling her “the most corrupt person to ever run for the presidency.”

“Build the wall” had been the raw opening cry of the Trump campaign. “Make America great again” was its chorus. “Drain the swamp” was its closing number. But while talk of a border wall plainly thrilled Trump, he was apparently never too worked up about the festering bog that was the nation’s capital. He said as much in an October 26 rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, in one of his unsettling bouts of honesty: “I said that about a week ago, and I didn’t like it that much, didn’t sound that great. And the whole world picked it up.… Funny how things like that happen.… So ‘drain the swamp,’ I didn’t like it. Now, I love it, right?”

“Drain the swamp” fit perfectly with Trump’s constant complaints about the “rigged system,” thereby excusing what some said was going to be a historic defeat. As the campaign concluded, Trump turned himself into a martyr for the cause of American democracy, waging a principled but doomed campaign.

But a funny thing happened on the way to a third Obama term. Winning endowed the things Trump said during the campaign with an import they’d previously lacked. He was, back then, a hopeless renegade, troubling but not threatening. Then, the returns from Florida and Wisconsin came in on the evening of November 8. And while many understood that his “rigged system” was just an excuse, “drain the swamp” sure sounded like a promise.

So as the presidential inauguration approached, anticipation bubbled through the sulfurous nexus of Capitol Hill politicians, special interest groups and their K Street lobbyists, the media, the establishment and just about everyone else who had dismissed Trump and his slogans as a publicity stunt. There was now a question, rather urgently in need of an answer: Was he serious about all that “swamp” stuff?

Not really, revealed former House Speaker and loyal Trump supporter Newt Gingrich, admitting to NPR on December 21 that “drain the swamp” was never a genuine promise. “I’m told he now just disclaims that,” Gingrich said a month before Trump was to assume the Oval Office. “He now says it was cute, but he doesn’t want to use it anymore.”

Someone from Trump Tower must have placed an angry call, because the former speaker soon tweeted that he’d overstated the case. But that didn’t kill the story. That same day, Politico wondered if “drain the swamp” would be Trump’s “first broken promise.” It cited the access-peddling lobbying firm of Trump’s first campaign manager, Corey R. Lewandowski, as well as the consulting firm with troubling foreign ties run by his incoming national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn. “Trump and his allies have engaged in some of the same practices they accused Hillary Clinton of exploiting and vowed to change,” Politico wrote.

Now, a year after the election—and more than a year after Trump first made that pledge to the American people—many observers believe the swamp has grown into a sinkhole that threatens to swallow the entire Trump administration. The number of White House officials currently facing questions, lawsuits or investigation is astonishing: Trump, being sued for violating the “emoluments clause” of the U.S. Constitution by running his Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.; Paul J. Manafort, the second Trump campaign manager, indicted on money laundering charges in late October; Flynn, for undisclosed lobbying work done on behalf of the Turkish government; son-in-law and consigliere Jared Kushner, for failing to disclose $1 billion in loans tied to his real-estate company; and at least six Cabinet heads being investigated for or asked about exorbitant travel expenses, security details or business dealings. [Continue reading…]

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Climate change driven almost entirely by human action, dire report released by Trump administration finds

The Washington Post reports: The Trump administration released a dire scientific report Friday detailing the growing threats of climate change. The report stands in stark contrast to the administration’s efforts to downplay humans’ role in global warming, withdraw from an international climate accord and reverse Obama-era policies aimed at curbing U.S. greenhouse-gas output.

The White House did not seek to prevent the release of the government’s National Climate Assessment, which is mandated by law, despite the fact that its findings sharply contradict the administration’s policies. The report affirms that climate change is driven almost entirely by human action, warns of potential sea-level rise as high as eight feet by the year 2100, and enumerates climate-related damage across the United States that is already occurring as a result of 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit of global warming since 1900.

“It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century,” the document reports. “For the warming over the last century, there is no convincing alternative explanation supported by the extent of the observational evidence.”

The report’s release underscores the extent to which the machinery of the federal scientific establishment, operating in multiple agencies across the government, continues to grind on even as top administration officials have minimized or disparaged its findings. Federal scientists have continued to author papers and issue reports on climate change, for example, even as political appointees have altered the wording of news releases or blocked civil servants from speaking about their conclusions in public forums. The climate assessment process is dictated by a 1990 law that Democratic and Republican administrations have followed.

The White House on Friday sought to downplay the significance of the study and its findings. [Continue reading…]

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Female lawmakers allege harassment by colleagues in House

The Associated Press reports: For years, Republican Rep. Mary Bono endured increasingly suggestive comments from a fellow lawmaker in the House of Representatives. But when the congressman approached her on the House floor and told her he’d been thinking about her in the shower, she’d had enough.

She confronted the man, who she said still serves in Congress, telling him his comments were demeaning and wrong. And he backed off.

Bono, who served 15 years before being defeated in 2012, is not alone.

As reports pile up of harassment or worse by men in entertainment, business and the media, one current and three former female lawmakers tell The Associated Press that they, too, have been harassed or subjected to hostile sexual comments — by fellow members of Congress. [Continue reading…]

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Conservatives introduce measure demanding Mueller’s resignation

Politico reports: Three House Republicans on Friday moved to pressure special counsel Robert Mueller to resign over what they contend are “obvious conflicts of interest,” the latest instance of rising GOP resistance to his Russia probe.

Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) and Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), introduced a measure that, while nonbinding, would put the House on record describing Mueller, a former FBI director, as unfit to lead the probe because of his relationship with James Comey, his successor at the bureau.

“[B]e it Resolved, That House of Representatives expresses its sense that Robert Mueller is compromised and should resign from his special counsel position immediately,” the resolution states. [Continue reading…]

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Trump and Sessions denied knowing about Russian contacts. Records suggest otherwise

The New York Times reports: Standing before reporters in February, President Trump said unequivocally that he knew of nobody from his campaign who was in contact with Russians during the election. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has told the Senate the same thing.

Court documents unsealed this week cast doubt on both statements and raised the possibility that Mr. Sessions could be called back to Congress for further questioning.

The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, unsealed his first charges Monday in a wide-ranging investigation into Russian attempts to disrupt the presidential election and whether anyone close to Mr. Trump was involved. Records in that case show that George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy adviser, had frequent discussions with Russians in 2016 and trumpeted his connections in front of Mr. Trump and Mr. Sessions.

For months, journalists have revealed evidence that associates of Mr. Trump met with Russians during the campaign and the presidential transition. But the court documents represent the first concrete evidence that Mr. Trump was personally told about ties between a campaign adviser and Russian officials.

At a March 31, 2016, meeting between Mr. Trump and his foreign policy team, Mr. Papadopoulos introduced himself and said “that he had connections that could help arrange a meeting between then-candidate Trump and President Putin,” according to court records.

“He went into the pitch right away,” said J. D. Gordon, a campaign adviser who attended the meeting. “He said he had a friend in London, the Russian ambassador, who could help set up a meeting with Putin.”

Mr. Trump listened with interest. Mr. Sessions vehemently opposed the idea, Mr. Gordon recalled. “And he said that no one should talk about it,” because Mr. Sessions thought it was a bad idea that he did not want associated with the campaign, he said.

Several of Mr. Trump’s campaign advisers attended the March 2016 meeting, and at least two of those advisers are now in the White House: Hope Hicks, the communications director, and Stephen Miller, a senior policy adviser. [Continue reading…]

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Are Bannon’s ongoing contacts with Trump illegal?

Norman Eisen, Richard W. Painter, and Virginia Canter write: The latest news in the saga of Steve Bannon is that the former White House senior adviser has reportedly been pushing President Donald Trump to be more forceful against Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Bannon’s ideas allegedly include urging Trump to cut funding for the probe, telling Trump to withhold documents and pressing Trump to bring in more aggressive lawyers. These latest alleged Bannon-Trump communications come on top of other reported contacts between the two since Bannon left the White House. And it all raises serious questions as to whether Bannon is violating federal ethics laws and perhaps other statutes, including those concerning obstruction of justice.

Former White House staff members—whether encamped at Breitbart News or anywhere else—are constrained by 18 USC 207, which governs “restrictions on former officers, employees, and elected officials of the executive and legislative branches.” One provision of this statute prohibits former senior executive branch officials from communicating with their former agency for one year on behalf of other persons, whether their current employers, persons who are targets of a government investigation or anyone else. And former very senior White House officials, such as Bannon, are subject to a two-year cooling off period, which bars them not only from making such communications on behalf of others back to White House staff, but also to other very senior people in the government, such as the attorney general—and also the president.

Another provision of the same statute prohibits former executive branch employees from contacting any part of the executive branch, including the president, with the intent to influence official decisions in any particular party matter in which the former official participated personally and substantially while in the government—all on behalf of others. The Russia investigation is such a party matter, and this means that any former government official who participated in deliberations or a decision about the Russia investigation—for example the White House decision to fire FBI Director James Comey because of the Russia investigation—may not represent back to the government on behalf of anyone else with intent to influence a government decision about the Russia investigation. The press has reported that when Bannon served in the White House he was involved in deliberations regarding the Comey firing and the Russia investigation.

None of these provisions prohibit a former government official from expressing an opinion in an op-ed or similar public forum. A former government official is also permitted to represent back to the government on behalf of himself, provided that is all he is doing and he is not acting on behalf of any other person. A former official who is being paid by someone else for work that includes communicating with government officials, however, can violate the statute. [Continue reading…]

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Ongoing Trump migraine: His initial foreign policy team

The New York Times reports: One lasted only 24 days as President Trump’s national security adviser, done in by his lack of candor about conversations he had with the Russian ambassador. Another has been hauled in front of a federal grand jury investigating Russia’s interference in the election.

A third has pleaded guilty to lying to federal agents about his own contacts with Russians.

Such is the fate of some of the earliest foreign policy advisers that Donald J. Trump announced with great fanfare in early 2016, a time when he was closing in on the Republican presidential nomination. It was a team born out of a political problem: Mr. Trump’s surprise march to the nomination had left the party’s establishment openly questioning whether he had the foreign policy experience and was too much of a loose cannon to be entrusted with the presidency.

Mr. Trump’s solution was to cobble together a list of men who were almost immediately written off as a collection of fringe thinkers and has-beens and unknowns in Washington foreign policy circles. Some from that group have now created far deeper problems for Mr. Trump, providing federal and congressional investigators with evidence of suspicious interactions with Russian officials and their emissaries.

Court documents and interviews with some of the advisers themselves revealed that many on the team embraced a common view: that the United States ought to seek a rapprochement with Russia after years of worsening relations during the Obama administration. Now, however, their suspected links to Russia have put them under legal scrutiny and cast a shadow over the Trump presidency.

White House officials and former campaign aides insist that two of the three foreign policy advisers now under scrutiny by federal authorities had very little influence on Mr. Trump’s campaign. They say that George Papadopoulos, who secretly pleaded guilty to charges of lying to federal agents in early October, was a young, low-level volunteer who served the campaign for only a few months.

They have described Carter Page, an energy executive who F.B.I. agents suspected had once been marked for recruitment by Russian spies, as a gadfly who had been “put on notice” by the campaign and whom Mr. Trump “does not know.” Mr. Page’s trip to Moscow in July 2016 was one of the triggers leading the F.B.I. to open a counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign, and he has appeared before a grand jury in the investigation led by Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel.

It is harder for the White House to distance itself from Michael T. Flynn, a retired military intelligence officer who was forced out in February after less than a month as Mr. Trump’s national security adviser. The White House has said Mr. Flynn resigned after it became clear he had not been forthright about conversations he had in late December with Sergey I. Kislyak, who was then the Russian ambassador.

The fact that so many of Mr. Trump’s foreign policy aides from that period have now acknowledged contacts with Russian officials or their intermediaries hints at Moscow’s eagerness to establish links to his campaign. [Continue reading…]

Politico reports: Former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page invoked his Fifth Amendment rights Thursday when asked by House Intelligence Committee members why he hadn’t turned over documents for their probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, lawmakers said.

“I’m helping to the greatest extent I can,” Page told reporters after exiting his interview, which was held in a secure Capitol hearing room. The committee is slated to release a transcript of his testimony in three days at Page’s request. [Continue reading…]

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Jared Kushner’s team turned over documents to special counsel in Russia investigation

CNN reports: Jared Kushner has turned over documents in recent weeks to special counsel Robert Mueller as investigators have begun asking in witness interviews about Kushner’s role in the firing of FBI Director James Comey, CNN has learned.

Mueller’s investigators have expressed interest in Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and a White House senior adviser, as part of its probe into Russian meddling, including potential obstruction of justice in Comey’s firing, sources familiar with the matter said.

Their questions about Kushner signal that Mueller’s investigators are reaching the President’s inner circle and have extended beyond the 2016 campaign to actions taken at the White House by high-level officials. It is not clear how Kushner’s advice to the President might relate to the overall Russia investigation or potential obstruction of justice. [Continue reading…]

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Hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer will step down as CEO of his company following BuzzFeed exposé

BuzzFeed reports: Robert Mercer, the hedge fund billionaire who has come under media scrutiny for his role in helping elect Donald Trump, announced today he would step down from his role as co-CEO of Renaissance Technologies. The decision, announced in a memo to Renaissance employees, followed a BuzzFeed News exposé revealing the connections of Breitbart — partially owned by Mercer — to white nationalists and neo-Nazis.

Sources familiar with Renaissance informed BuzzFeed News in recent days of significant anger within the company about the report, which revealed that former Breitbart tech editor Milo Yiannopoulos had cultivated white nationalists and used them to generate ideas and help edit stories on the site.

Mercer’s statement specifically denounces Yiannopoulos and states that “I was mistaken to have supported him, and for several weeks have been in the process of severing all ties with him.” He also announced his intention to sell his stake in Breitbart to his daughters. [Continue reading…]

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Sam Clovis withdraws his nomination for USDA’s top scientist post after being linked to Russia probe

The Washington Post reports: The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s chief scientist nominee, Sam Clovis withdrew his name from consideration Wednesday amid revelations that he was among top officials on the Trump campaign who was aware of efforts by foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos to broker a relationship between the campaign and Russian officials.

Court documents unsealed Monday revealed that Papadopoulos pleaded guilty in early October to making false statement to FBI investigators about his contacts with foreigners claiming to have high-level Russian connections. In August 2016, Clovis encouraged Papadopoulos to organize an “off the record” meeting with Russian officials, according to court documents. “I would encourage you” and another foreign policy adviser to the campaign to “make the trip, if it is feasible,” Clovis wrote. The meeting did not ultimately take place.

In a letter to the president Wednesday, Clovis explained that he did not think he could get a fair consideration from the Senate, which was slated to hold a hearing on his appointment on Nov. 9.

“The political climate inside Washington has made it impossible for me to receive balanced and fair consideration for this position,” wrote Clovis, who currently serves as USDA’s senior White House adviser. “The relentless assaults on you and your team seem to be a blood sport that only increases with intensity each day.” [Continue reading…]

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White House was unaware top adviser testified before grand jury

ABC News reports: The White House first learned one of its senior staffers met with the grand jury hearing the case presented by the special counsel into alleged Russian meddling into the 2016 election not from the staffer but from media reports, sources with knowledge of the investigation tell ABC News.

Former Trump campaign co-chairman Sam Clovis recently testified before that grand jury into his role on President Donald Trump’s campaign. Clovis currently serves as the senior White House adviser to the Department of Agriculture.

Clovis’ testimony comes on the heels of another Trump campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos, pleading guilty to lying to federal authorities. As part of Papadopoulos’ admission of guilt, details of emails were disclosed that showed him describing to top Trump campaign officials communications he had with contacts in Russia. [Continue reading…]

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A note of caution for Robert Mueller: The attacks on the special counsel are working

Mieke Eoyang, Ben Freeman, and Benjamin Wittes write: The announcement that three Trump campaign-connected figures have been prosecuted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller have captivated the D.C. press corps and elites. “Capitol Hill is Reeling,” reads a CNN headline. An NPR headline called it “A Day of Legal Shock and Awe.”

But over the very weekend that generated this frenzy, we generated some data that should be of concern to the special prosecutor and those of us who want an objective investigation into Russian interference. As part of an ongoing polling project, from Oct. 25-31 we asked six public opinion questions concerning Mueller and foreign influence in U.S. politics using Google Surveys. The bottom line? The general public actually doesn’t trust Mueller all that much. The continuing attacks on him by the President’s allies and conservative media outlets seem to be taking a toll. [Continue reading…]

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Hackers with possible Russian ties compromised the Trump Organization 4 years ago — and the company never noticed

Mother Jones reports: Four years ago, the Trump Organization experienced a major cyber breach that could have allowed the perpetrator (or perpetrators) to mount malware attacks from the company’s web domains and may have enabled the intruders to gain access to the company’s computer network. Up until this week, this penetration had gone undetected by President Donald Trump’s company, according to several internet security researchers.

In 2013, a hacker (or hackers) apparently obtained access to the Trump Organization’s domain registration account and created at least 250 website subdomains that cybersecurity experts refer to as “shadow” subdomains. Each one of these shadow Trump subdomains pointed to a Russian IP address, meaning that they were hosted at these Russian addresses. (Every website domain is associated with one or more IP addresses. These addresses allow the internet to find the server that hosts the website. Authentic Trump Organization domains point to IP addresses that are hosted in the United States or countries where the company operates.) The creation of these shadow subdomains within the Trump Organization network was visible in the publicly available records of the company’s domains. [Continue reading…]

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Michael Flynn followed Russian troll accounts, pushed their messages in days before election

The Daily Beast reports: Former White House National Security Adviser Michael Flynn followed five Twitter accounts based out of the Russian-backed “troll factory” in St. Petersburg—and pushed their messages at least three times in the month before the 2016 election.

Over 2,750 troll accounts based out of the Kremlin-backed Internet Research Agency were made public by House investigators on Wednesday. The accounts, some of which had previously been identified by The Daily Beast as Russian-generated, were pulled from Twitter due to their ties to the troll factory over the past three months.

The Daily Beast had previously discovered Flynn, Donald Trump Jr., Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, and Trump campaign digital director Brad Parscale retweeted Ten_GOP several times in the month before the election.

The news that Flynn also pushed Russian propaganda comes at an unwelcome time for the former three-star general and head of the Defense Intelligence Agency. Flynn is one of the people under investigation by Robert Mueller’s widespread probe into Russian influence in the 2016 campaign. [Continue reading…]

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Is civil war breaking out in the Wall Street Journal over the editorial board’s coverage of Mueller?

Joe Pompeo writes: The editorial page has been doing crazy shit for a long time,” a former long-serving Wall Street Journal editor told me this week. This person was referencing the time-honored divide in most journalistic organizations between the newsroom and the opinion desk. At the Journal, that divide can be particularly fraught. While the paper has long been a leading bastion of conservative thinking, its editorial writers are known to take positions that are more extreme than many of their colleagues in the newsroom can stomach.

The friction is, in some ways, a hallmark of the institution. A decade ago, an editorial-page columnist attacked a 2006 Journal series about the practice of backdating stock-option awards that went on to win a Pulitzer Prize. The page also once defended billionaire junk-bond king Michael Milken, who got a 10-year sentence for securities fraud in 1990 based in part on exposés by Journal reporters. Nevertheless, several Journal veterans I spoke with described the current rift as among the more fractious they’ve witnessed. “It does feel like this is a different level of crazy,” the veteran editor said. [Continue reading…]

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How the 25th Amendment actually works — and what nobody’s ever figured out

Chris Geidner reports: Before he agreed to become White House chief of staff in 1987, Howard Baker Jr. had a request for a longtime aide of his. Baker, a retired senator, asked James Cannon to assess the state of affairs inside the White House.

The presidency of Ronald Reagan was in “chaos,” Cannon wrote to Baker. Aides told him that Reagan was “inattentive and inept.”

Cannon’s first recommendation, as reported in a 1988 book and confirmed by Cannon himself soon after, was shocking.

“Consider the possibility that section four of the 25th Amendment might be applied,” wrote the aide, who had worked previously as a senior policy adviser to President Gerald Ford.

The 25th Amendment was added to the US Constitution in 1967. Compared to some amendments, it might seem a little obvious or procedural, but the 25th Amendment was the long-belated response to more than a century of crises, and some of America’s darkest and most chaotic moments, dealing with one simple question: What do we do if something is wrong with the president? The amendment has four parts. The first two codify what happens if the president or vice president die or otherwise leave office (the vice president becomes president, and the president can nominate a new vice president, respectively). The third outlines how the president can temporarily hand over power to the vice president.

The fourth section — never used in the 50 years since it was adopted — gives the vice president and cabinet the power to declare that the president is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” It is heavily weighted in favor of the president’s ability to serve, enabling the president to force a congressional vote on the issue — a vote that would take two-thirds of both houses of Congress to keep the president out of power. In short, it’s a complicated and rigorous process that would require many elected and appointed officials to agree the president was unfit. [Continue reading…]

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Inside the West Wing, Trump is apoplectic as allies fear impeachment

Gabriel Sherman writes: Until now, Robert Mueller has haunted Donald Trump’s White House as a hovering, mostly unseen menace. But by securing indictments of Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, and a surprise guilty plea from foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, Mueller announced loudly that the Russia investigation poses an existential threat to the president. “Here’s what Manafort’s indictment tells me: Mueller is going to go over every financial dealing of Jared Kushner and the Trump Organization,” said former Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg. “Trump is at 33 percent in Gallup. You can’t go any lower. He’s fucked.”

The first charges in the Mueller probe have kindled talk of what the endgame for Trump looks like, according to conversations with a half-dozen advisers and friends of the president. For the first time since the investigation began, the prospect of impeachment is being considered as a realistic outcome and not just a liberal fever dream. According to a source, advisers in the West Wing are on edge and doing whatever they can not to be ensnared. One person close to Dina Powell and Gary Cohn said they’re making sure to leave rooms if the subject of Russia comes up.

The consensus among the advisers I spoke to is that Trump faces few good options to thwart Mueller. For one, firing Mueller would cross a red line, analogous to Nixon’s firing of Archibald Cox during Watergate, pushing establishment Republicans to entertain the possibility of impeachment. “His options are limited, and his instinct is to come out swinging, which won’t help things,” said a prominent Republican close to the White House. [Continue reading…]

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