Maine Had A Wave

Republicans in Maine did a lot of losing yesterday. Eric Brakey tried taking out Angus King and got 35.2% of the vote for his effort. Chellie Pingree was reelected to the House with 58.9% of the vote. Republican Mark Holbrook took just under a third of the vote-- 106,750 (32.3%). And in the second district, the race is too close to call, although it looks like Democrat Jared Golden may well replace Republican incumbent Bruce Poliquin. The Democrats also took control of the state Senate, winning at least 21 seats in the 35-seat chamber, and increased their majority in the state House, with at least 81 of the 151 seats. And... the day after termed out Governor Paul LePage announced he's had enough of Maine and is moving to Florida, the voters chose Democrat Janet Mills to replace him. She took 310,493 votes (51.1%) with Republican Shawn Moody, the Republican in the race, taking 261,353 votes (43.0%) In all, a very bad day for the GOP.

So no one should have been surprised today when she took one look at Trump's immediate steps to end the Mueller investigation and tweeted her disapproval:

Too late; the damage is down. She voted to confirm Kavanaugh and she cuddled up with Trump enough to make normal Mainers sick (literally and figuratively.

But now she's concerned? Was she not paying attention for the last coupla years? Who, oh, who could have guessed Trump would interfere with the investigation? Or that there is a single normal Trump would hesitate to break? Susan Collins is concerned. She's going to be a lot more concerned when she's on the ballot with him in 2020.

And what about Trump's threats today to "have" the Senate "investigate" Democratic members of Congress if any committees start investigating him, probably the top reason why millions of voters decided to replace Republicans with Democrats in the House. The New York Times reported that Trump said he would adopt a "warlike posture" towards the House Democrats if they did. "They can play that game, but we can play better because we have a thing called the United States Senate and a lot of questionable things were done between leaks of classified information and many other elements that should not have taken place... I could see it being extremely good for me politically because I think I’m better at that game than they are, actually, but we’ll find out."

It doesn't seem like any other Republicans are concerned about that or that Trump fired Sessions half a day after the midterms and replaced Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein with a stooge, Matthew Whitaker, to "oversee" Mueller and his team. Don't recall Whitaker? He was the one who wrote an OpEd last year claiming that if Mueller looked into the Trump crime family finances he would be "dangerously close to crossing" a red line.

Into the Swamp by Nancy Ohanian

Fealty At Trump Realty

Trump is the center of Trump-world. Everything else is just a revolving blip on his giant screen. And you better believe when he hires a cabinet secretary of an FBI head or a judge, he expects that person to remember their fealty to him and him alone. Like when Hitler insisted the German military pledge allegiance to him, not to the nation. This is the original Reichswehreid:

I swear loyalty to the Reich's constitution and pledge, that I as a courageous soldier always want to protect the German Reich and its legal institutions, (and) be obedient to the Reichspräsident and to my superiors.

By 1934 it has devolved and become much more personalized-- quite a bit so-- into the Führereid:

I swear by God this holy oath, that I want to offer unconditional obedience to the Führer of the German Reich and people, Adolf Hitler, the commander-in-chief of the Wehrmacht, and be prepared as a brave soldier to risk my life for this oath at any time.

Of course, this isn't the same as Trump's NDAs but it is the same as what he expects from the people he "gives" jobs. So, absolutely, in Trump-world, Omarosa is a "low-life," currently being turned into an arch-villain for the fans before being written out of the script entirely, if he has his way... which he won't since she's already volunteered to give Robert Mueller her trove of Trump-world audio tapes. But imagine how Señor Trumpanzee feels about Judge Dabney Friedrich, who he "gave" a plumb job on the U.S. District court for the District of Columbia, only to see her rule against "him" yesterday in the case nearest and dearest to his heart.

Actually, Dabney, a far right ideologue, ruled that the Russian company that is fronting for Trump, Concord Management and Consulting LLC, was incorrect in arguing that Mueller was unlawfully appointed and lacked authority. She's the forth judge to uphold Mueller's legitimacy. The Kremlin controls Concord Management through a nortorious Putin lackey, Evgeny Prigozhin.

She also slapped down Concord's argument that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had no authority to hire Mueller to investigate Kremlin interference in the 2016 presidential election. Dabney: "By investigating and prosecuting Concord, the Special Counsel did not exceed his authority."

Judges overseeing the two trials of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort-- D.C. judge Amy Berman Jackson and Eastern District of Virginia Judge T.S. Ellis-- rejected Manafort's bid to invalidate Mueller.

Earlier this month, the D.C. circuit's Chief Judge Beryl Howell issued a lengthy ruling rejecting similar legal arguments offered by Andrew Miller, a longtime associate of Trump confidant Roger Stone, who was attempting to beat back a subpoena to testify before Mueller's grand jury. Miller's lawyer, Paul Kamenar, told Politico on Monday morning that Miller still intends to appeal the decision. Last week, Miller was held in contempt of court for again ignoring the grand jury subpoena, a move Kamenar said was necessary in order to pursue his appeal.

Mueller indicted the Russian company, Concord Management, in February along with 13 individual Russians — including Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The indictment alleges that Concord, Prigozhin's firm, funded and organized an army of internet trolls, the purchase of social media ads and even directed operatives to travel to the United States to set up political rallies. Their goal, Mueller alleged, was to sow discord in the 2016 U.S. election and ultimately assist Donald Trump's candidacy.

Concord pleaded not guilty to the charges and though the indicted Russians aren't expected to participate in the proceedings, the firm tapped American attorneys to represent it in court, a move seen as an attempt to gain insight into the evidence Mueller has gathered.

Though Friedrich upheld Mueller's probe, she did offer a significant nod to his critics: that no laws "explicitly authorize" Mueller's appointment. Rather, she concluded that Watergate-era Supreme Court precedent -- as well as Howell's recent ruling-- found that the Justice Department had the authority. They concluded this "without analyzing specifically how any individual provision combination of provisions accomplished this," Friedrich wrote.

Concord's lawyers had argued that Mueller's appointment was flawed at multiple levels -- and at its core was unconstitutional. Mueller was appointed last year by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. But Mueller's power is so vast, Concord contended, that he should have been subject to presidential nomination and Senate confirmation, rather than treated as an "inferior" officer who may be appointed and supervised by the attorney general. Though Mueller, in theory, reports to Rosenstein, Concord contended that Justice Department regulations prevent Rosenstein from overturning many of Mueller's decisions, giving him an authority that should only be permitted for individuals appointed by the president.

Friedrich agreed that the regulations governing Mueller's probe are ambiguous enough to grant him some sweeping authority, but she found one fatal flaw in the argument: Justice Department leaders may rescind the special counsel regulations at any time. If Attorney General Jeff Sessions or Rosenstein decide to exert more control over Mueller, they can simply rewrite the rules, she noted.