1. Robert De Niro: Robert Mueller, We Need to Hear More

You said that your investigation’s work “speaks for itself.” It doesn’t.

The country needs to hear your voice. Your actual voice. And not just because you don’t want them to think that your actual voice sounds like Robert De Niro reading from cue cards, but because this is the report your country asked you to do, and now you must give it authority and clarity without, if I may use the term, obstruction.

We’ve learned our lesson about what can happen to the perception of your work when interpreted in rabid tweets by the president, dissected by pundits all over the map, trumpeted in bizarre terms by the president’s absurd personal lawyer and distorted by the attorney general.

And if, in fact, you have nothing further to say about the investigation, for your public testimony, you could just read from the report in response to questions from members of Congress. Your life has been a shining example of bravely and selflessly doing things for the good of our country. I urge you to leave your comfort zone and do that again.

You are the voice of the Mueller report. Let the country hear that voice.

With great respect,

Robert De Niro https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/29/opinion/robert-de-niro-robert-mueller-we-need-to-hear-more.html

2.  Paul Krugman: Trump Makes America Irresponsible Again

Donald Trump’s plan to impose tariffs on Mexican exports unless our neighbor does something — he hasn’t specified what — to stop the flow of asylum-seekers is almost surely illegal: U.S. trade law gives presidents discretion to impose tariffs for a number of reasons, but curbing immigration isn’t one of them.

It’s also a clear violation of U.S. international agreements. And it will reduce the living standards of most Americans, destroy many jobs in U.S. manufacturing, and hurt farmers.

But there’s more. By deploying tariffs as a bludgeon against whatever he doesn’t like, Trump is returning America to the kind of irresponsibility it displayed after World War I — irresponsibility that, while obviously not the sole or even the main cause of the Great Depression, the rise of fascism and the eventual coming of World War II, helped create the environment for these disasters. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/03/opinion/trump-tariffs.html

3. David Brooks: The Coming G.O.P. Apocalypse

For much of the 20th century, young and old people voted pretty similarly. The defining gaps in our recent politics have been the gender gap (women preferring Democrats) and the education gap. But now the generation gap is back, with a vengeance.

This is most immediately evident in the way Democrats are sorting themselves in their early primary preferences. A Democratic voter’s race, sex or education level doesn’t predict which candidate he or she is leaning toward, but age does.

In one early New Hampshire poll, Joe Biden won 39 percent of the vote of those over 55, but just 22 percent of those under 35, trailing Bernie Sanders. Similarly, in an early Iowa poll, Biden won 41 percent of the oldster vote, but just 17 percent of the young adult vote, placing third, behind Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

As Ronald Brownstein pointed out in The Atlantic, older Democrats prefer a more moderate candidate who they think can win. Younger Democrats prefer a more progressive candidate who they think can bring systemic change.

The generation gap is even more powerful when it comes to Republicans. To put it bluntly, young adults hate them. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/03/opinion/republicans-generation-gap.html

4. Jonathan Chait: Conservatives Stunned by Mueller Suggesting Trump Is Not Innocent

Mueller produced massive evidence that President Trump committed Nixonian-scale obstruction of justice in office. But Department of Justice policy prevented him from charging a sitting president with a crime, and Mueller reportedly believes he can’t openly state that this policy prevented him from accusing Trump of crimes. Mueller views his job as sending his evidence to Congress without prejudice, where the impeachment mechanism serves as a substitute for the jury trial that such crimes would normally call for.

Trump, William Barr, and the Republican Party followed a strategy of systematically lying about this. Barr repeatedly suggested that Mueller, rather than being unable to charge Trump with crimes, simply didn’t have enough evidence of misconduct to make up his mind. By all indications, the conservative intelligentsia has failed to read the report and believes the misleading spin emanating from the president and his loyal attorney general.

Shortly after Mueller finished speaking, National Review’s Charles C.W. Cooke complained, “Investigators are supposed to look for evidence that a crime was committed, and, if they don’t find enough to contend that a crime was committed, they are supposed to say ‘We didn’t find enough to contend that a crime was committed’ … If a person doesn’t have enough evidence that someone committed a crime to contend that a crime was committed, he is obliged to presume his innocence.”

Of course. But the explanation for this apparent paradox, which apparently hasn’t crossed Cooke’s mind, is that Mueller does have evidence that Trump committed crimes. Pages and pages and pages of evidence, in fact.

And as silly and basic as his error may be, fellow conservatives followed the same fundamentally mistaken premise. “By implying that President Trump might have committed obstruction of justice, Mueller effectively invited Democrats to institute impeachment proceedings,” writes a stunned Alan Dershowitz. “Obstruction of justice is a ‘high crime and misdemeanor’ which, under the Constitution, authorizes impeachment and removal of the president.” http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/05/conservatives-stunned-by-mueller-implying-trump-not-innocent.html

5. William S. Cohen: When will the Republican silence on Trump end?

When one talks privately to some Republican members about a president who lurches from tweet to taunt; who, according to those who have worked closely beside him, is incapable of telling the truth even in mundane situations; who accepts the word of Vladimir Putin and rejects the unanimous judgment of our intelligence community that Russia launched a cyberattack at the very heart of our democracy; and whose toxic combination of egotism and insecurity distorts the basic process of governing, they express their disdain and even alarm at how he conducts the nation’s affairs.

Yet, the same members are reluctant to speak out publicly even in the face of behavior they would find intolerable by any previous occupant of the Oval Office.

Fear is a potent weapon. Today, Trump uses the accelerant of social media to rally and stir the passions of his supporters, even with information that is patently false. Technology’s ubiquity, speed and power, and other profound changes, make this a more complex time than the Watergate era was.

But Congress should not turn away from the central issue of whether Trump has, in word and deed, engaged in conduct that is fundamentally inconsistent with, and antithetical to, the highest office in the land.

If Congress cannot secure the cooperation of executive branch officials in the exercise of its oversight responsibilities, it will have no choice but to enter the temple and remove the fabled sword. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/05/29/when-will-republican-silence-trump-end/

6. Jonathan Chait: In Terrifying Interview, William Barr Goes Full MAGA

After the legal Establishment had granted him the benefit of the doubt, Attorney General William Barr has shocked his erstwhile supporters with his aggressive and frequently dishonest interventions on behalf of President Trump. The spectacle of an esteemed lawyer abetting his would-be strongman boss’s every authoritarian instinct has left Barr’s critics grasping for explanations. Some have seized on the darker threads of his history in the Reagan and Bush administrations, when he misled the public about a secret Department of Justice memo and helped cover up the Iran-Contra scandal.

But Barr’s long, detailed interview with Jan Crawford suggests the rot goes much deeper than a simple mania for untrammeled Executive power. Barr has drunk deep from the Fox News worldview of Trumpian paranoia.

As far as Barr is concerned, Trump has done nothing wrong, and all the shredding of norms has been done against him, not by him. Trump’s calls to jail all his opponents, his non-stop lies, his demands to punish independent media and satirists, his open conviction that law enforcement should operate at his personal command and follow him loyally, not to mention the repeated obstruction of justice detailed by Mueller — none of it concerns Barr even slightly.

Everything Barr has said and done during this investigation tells us he is not lying about this belief. The terrifying truth is that he all but surely believes every word. http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/05/william-barr-interview-cbs-mueller-coup-trump.html

7. Catherine Rampell: Just a few of the reasons that Trump’s Mexico tariffs are deeply stupid

Amid calls for impeachment, a persistently underwater approval rating, subpoenas for financial records and an ever-growing list of scandals, the strong economy is pretty much the only thing President Trump has going for him right now. It’s his best shot at reelection.

And for some reason he seems keen on destroying it.

On Thursday evening the Trump administration announced that it would impose a new 5 percent tariff on Mexican imports, ratcheting up in increments to 25 percent by Oct. 1. This is allegedly to pressure Mexico to stop the flow of immigrants coming to the United States.

This decision is so mind-bogglingly stupid, it’s hard to keep track of all the reasons it’s dumb. For a few go to https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/05/31/just-few-reasons-that-trumps-mexico-tariffs-are-deeply-stupid/

8. Michael Bloomberg: Stop Trump on Trade

President Donald Trump’s approach to trade policy had set new benchmarks of incoherence and irresponsibility even before his threat to impose escalating tariffs on imports from Mexico  — but this latest maneuver takes the cake. The administration plans to harm businesses north and south of the border, and to impose additional new taxes on U.S. consumers, not to remedy a real or imagined trade grievance but to force Mexico to curb migration to the U.S.

This is a radical and disturbing development. The administration is invoking a law that allows it to impose emergency economic sanctions. It’s safe to say that Congress never envisaged that those powers would be used in a case like this.

Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, who has supported many of Trump’s previous moves on immigration, said it plainly: “This is a misuse of presidential tariff authority and counter to congressional intent.” It’s also, by the way, a straightforward violation of U.S. commitments under existing trade treaties. In effect, even the pretense that the U.S. is adhering to a legitimate, rule-bound trade policy has been all but abandoned.

And the message it sends to Canada, China, the European Union and other U.S. trading partners is wholly counterproductive. Negotiations on the deal Trump proposed as a successor to Nafta have only recently concluded; his earlier tariffs on Mexican steel were lifted just days ago. This new threat has nothing to do with those matters, U.S. officials explained: It’s about immigration, not trade. What are other governments to make of such a claim? They’re bound to wonder why they should ever enter into good-faith commitments with such an erratic and unreliable administration. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-05-31/mexico-tariffs-trump-s-latest-move-on-trade-is-dangerous

9. Robert J. Samuelson: There is a sheer nastiness to Trump’s Mexico tariffs

President Trump’s latest foray into trade policy is notable for its economic recklessness (it could tip Mexico into a recession, followed perhaps by the United States), its gratuitous insults of a close ally (Mexico) and its rank opportunism. (It would shift power to the White House from Congress.)

For anyone who missed Trump’s announcement, here’s a summary. The president said he would impose a 5 percent tariff on all imports from Mexico ($372 billion in 2018) unless it halted illegal immigration by June 10. It would add another 5 percent every month that the demand was not met until the tariff hit 25 percent.

The timing of Trump’s policy is especially offensive. Earlier, Mexico, Canada and the United States had negotiated a successor to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA); the new arrangement is called the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). Mexico and Canada were preparing to ratify their agreements; the Trump administration was trying to assemble the necessary support.

The betrayal resembles a marriage in which one of the betrothed doesn’t show up for the wedding. “Unless the Congress intervenes or Trump changes his mind, the new USMCA is dead,” wrote Edward Alden, a trade expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, in a blog post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/there-is-a-sheer-nastiness-to-trumps-mexico-tariffs/2019/06/05/4cdfa6fa-87ab-11e9-a870-b9c411dc4312_story.html

10. David Ignatius: Mueller went out like a lamb when the country needed a lion

What happens when one side in a dispute plays carefully by the rules and the other side repeatedly lies, threatens and intimidates? Too often, we know, the tough guys win.

That’s what troubles me most at the end of this week, when Robert S. Mueller III resigned from the Justice Department and ended his mission as special counsel investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. Mueller was a supremely responsible public servant — to a fault — and he’s getting trashed by President Trump anyway.

Mueller went out like a lamb in his remarks Wednesday, when the country needed a lion. He was so polite and deferential, so insistent on following Justice Department rules limiting his actions that, in practical terms, he ceded the ground to Trump and his apologists.

In addressing questions central to how the United States will maintain the rule of law during Trump’s presidency, Mueller was coy. His language was maddeningly indirect — almost deliberately obtuse.

On the evidence he had gathered about obstruction of justice: “If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so.” On the path of impeachment (as opposed to the criminal indictment that Mueller felt was proscribed by DOJ policy):

“The Constitution requires a process other than the criminal-justice system to formally accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing.”

What could Mueller have said instead? Based on his report, he could have stated: In at least four instances, Trump’s conduct appeared to meet the three-level standard that prosecutors use in weighing whether an obstruction of justice charge is warranted.

Based on his reading of the Constitution, he could have said: Because a president cannot be indicted, the special counsel’s evidence should be referred to the House of Representatives, which under the Constitution is charged with weighing evidence of presidential “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

At a minimum, Mueller could in his farewell have paraphrased this memorable statement from his report: “The President’s efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the President declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests.”

But he didn’t say anything so clear or direct. Historians will puzzle over why. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/05/31/mueller-went-out-like-lamb-when-country-needed-lion/

11.  Toluse Olorunnipa: Shutdowns, emergencies and tariffs: Trump’s frenetic immigration approach has become central to his 2020 bid

Trump has shut down the government, declared a national emergency over his proposed border wall, threatened to close the U.S.-Mexico border, cut off funding for Northern Triangle countries, sent additional troops to the border, fired his top immigration officials, selected an immigration “czar,” pitched an overhaul of the legal immigration system and called for releasing immigrant detainees into so-called sanctuary cities.

On Thursday, he ratcheted up the pressure again by threatening to slap tariffs as high as 25 percent on all goods imported from Mexico — a move that risks harming the economy and undermining a trade deal he had been championing as a potential legislative achievement under divided government.

The wave of border policies flowing from the White House offers a clear signal that Trump’s reelection bid is likely to focus on immigration more than any other topic — a cause that animates his base but also highlights his failure to contain the flow of Central American migrants coming to the United States in record numbers. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/shutdowns-emergencies-and-tariffs-trumps-frenetic-immigration-approach-has-become-central-to-his-2020-bid/2019/06/02/23384870-83d7-11e9-95a9-e2c830afe24f_story.html

12. Ian Prasad Philbrick: The Articles of Impeachment Against Donald J. Trump: A Draft

Calls for President Trump’s impeachment are getting louder. Since the release of Robert Mueller’s report, White House stonewalling of congressional subpoenas and Mr. Mueller’s first public comments, almost 60 House Democrats, a quarter of the caucus, have said they support an impeachment inquiry.

If Democrats do move to impeach Mr. Trump, the articles of impeachment drafted against past presidents will probably guide them. The Constitution leaves “high crimes and misdemeanors,” the term that describes impeachable offenses, vague, notes the historian Timothy Naftali, a co-writer of a recent book on impeachment. “So if you are doing your constitutional duty as an elected member of Congress, how do you define high crimes and misdemeanors?” he asked. “One of the ways you do it is by looking at past practice.”

What might impeachment articles against Mr. Trump look like? To find out, we reviewed the articles of impeachment drawn up against Richard Nixon in 1974 and Bill Clinton in 1998. Then we edited them — by removing and adding passages — to match the president’s conduct as described in the Mueller report and elsewhere.

Impeachment is often said to be a political process. But when you assess Mr. Trump’s conduct by the bar for impeachment set by past Democratic and Republican lawmakers for past presidents of both parties, the results are striking. The pathway to a possible Trump impeachment is already mapped out in these historical documents. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/05/opinion/impeachment-trump-democrats-nixon-clinton.html

13. Andrew Kaczynski and Em Steck: How Donald Trump for years used the royal family to gin up publicity for his properties

President Donald Trump was all smiles on Monday as he attended a state dinner at Buckingham Palace hosted by Queen Elizabeth II. But the royal family has for years batted back stories that its members were looking into or joining Trump's properties -- stories that, according to multiple biographies of Trump, were spread by the real-estate developer himself.

Between 1981 and 1995, multiple claims that members of the British Royal family were joining Trump properties filled New York tabloids and national papers according to a CNN K File review of archival papers, audio, and books about the then-real estate developer. All of them were unequivocally shot down by Buckingham Palace.

One such instance occurred in the lead up to the Trump Tower's February 1983 opening, when a persistent rumor kept appearing that Prince Charles and his then-new wife Diana were looking at buying an apartment in the building.

The claim generated significant publicity for Trump Tower, which the then-36-year-old real estate developer Trump hoped would be his signature building. But it wasn't true, and the source of the misinformation, according to four biographies, was Trump himself. https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/05/politics/kfile-royals-trump/

14. Amanda Marcotte: Censure rather than impeach? Hell no, Democrats — that's inexcusable cowardice

Let's cut to the chase: Censure is a uniquely stupid idea. Censuring Trump instead of impeaching him might actually be worse than doing nothing at all to hold him accountable.

It's beyond me how anyone could have watched Trump's public antics for the past decade and think he's concerned about his "permanent record." He is definitely obsessed with fame and glory, but he obviously has no interest in being venerated for his strong moral character. Like most hardcore narcissists, he appears to have little interest in the question of how he'll be perceived once he's gone.

The two main reasons to impeach, in other words, are these: 1) It will make the Democrats look like they are boldly holding Trump accountable while Republicans continue to cover up for his crimes. 2) It will help Americans outside the Trump fan base — who largely did not read the Mueller report but might well watch impeachment hearings — understand how serious Trump's likely crimes are.

Censure, on the other hand, will accomplish neither of these things, while still giving Trump opportunities to play the victim to his Republican base.

On the contrary, the president — who obsesses constantly over "winners" and "losers" — has been quite clear that he would like to be seen as ruthless in his quest for domination. He glories in cheating and breaking the law, proud to demonstrate that he is untouched by the petty moral and legal concerns of mere mortals. https://www.salon.com/2019/06/04/censure-rather-than-impeach-hell-no-democrats-thats-inexcusable-cowardice/

15. Eric Lutz: Trump EPA’s New Climate-Change Proposal: Just Stop Talking About It

Dire times call for acts of courage, even from the notoriously skittish Democrats. The time for half-measures is over. It's time to impeach or go home. https://www.salon.com/2019/06/04/censure-rather-than-impeach-hell-no-democrats-thats-inexcusable-cowardice/

A new report released last week suggested climate change could put the world on a path toward “outright chaos” that would bring about the end of human civilization as we know it. The analysis, by Australia’s Breakthrough Centre for Climate Restoration, presents a doomsday scenario, to be sure. But its central point—that the human-caused global climate crisis will continue to worsen unless drastic action is taken—is at this point scientific consensus.

For Andrew Wheeler, Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency Chief, the solution to climate change is much simpler: just stop talking about it!

Context is also important here. Wheeler’s remarks may not be damning on their own, but he happens to work for an administration that’s preparing to intensify its rollback of environmental regulations, and to further challenge the scientific consensus on the issue. He also works for a president who routinely casts doubt on climate change, which he’s called a “hoax created by and for the Chinese.” https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/06/trump-epa-new-climate-change-proposal-just-stop-talking-about-it-andrew-wheeler