Of all people, Fox News’ Judge Andrew Napolitano penned an op-ed supporting Mueller and objecting to Barr’s handling of the report. It strikes me here that the Mueller report lists 127 interactions between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives, and not one person involved didn’t lie about them. Anyway, Napolitano says what anyone who read the Mueller report knows—Bill Barr was wrong to try to absolve Trump of obstruction of justice. Napolitano also says what Trump did was “unlawful, defenseless and condemnable” and it’s up to House Democrats to decide whether to impeach.

Here’s what else happened last week in politics…

Russia:

1. Someone leaks a letter that Robert Mueller sent to Attorney General William Barr at the end of March objecting to the letter Barr released outlining his own summary of the Mueller report. The letter said:

• • Barr misrepresented Mueller’s findings.
  • Mueller wanted more of the report to come out.
  • Mueller had already provided Barr with redacted summaries of each of the report’s volumes, which were ready in March to be released to the public.
  • Barr’s summary didn’t capture the context, nature, and substance of Mueller’s findings.
  • Barr’s summary caused public confusion.

2. As for Barr himself, he dismisses the letter in his congressional testimony by saying, “The letter’s a bit snitty and I think it was probably written by one of his staff people.”
3. The letter also shows that Barr lied to Congress when he previously told them that he didn’t know whether Mueller had taken issue with his summary and subsequent public comments on the report.
4. Barr testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee. At the start, Lindsey Graham has to be reminded to swear him in, and then right off the bat, Barr contradicts what was in Mueller’s letter to him.

• • Committee Chair Lindsey Graham admits he hasn’t read the full report.
  • When pressed on Mueller accusing Barr of failing to capture context and substance in his summary, Barr tries to focus blame on the media.
  • Barr says (despite Mueller’s letter) that he didn’t know Mueller or his staff disagreed with his summary.
  • Barr defends Trump’s attempts to obstruct justice, despite the evidence laid out by Mueller.
  • Republicans on the committee weren’t really concerned about the nearly dozen instances of attempted obstruction detailed in the Mueller report. They mostly asked questions about investigating the investigators and about Hillary Clinton’s emails.
  • That’s OK, though, because Barr’s with them. He confirms he’s already started a review of how the FBI handled the Russia and Clinton email investigations.
  • Barr says he didn’t review Mueller’s underlying evidence before making a decision on obstruction charged. He didn’t look at the underlying evidence of possible coordination either.
  • And that totally explains why he doesn’t understand why Mueller would investigate obstruction of justice if he knew he couldn’t charge Trump under DOJ rules.
  • Barr says he hasn’t seen the report that launched the FBI investigation (the one provided by an Australian diplomat about George Papadopoulos). Despite calling for an investigation into the FISA warrant, Barr has not yet looked at the underlying evidence here. Earlier in his testimony, Barr told Lindsey Graham that he had concerns about how the investigation started (though apparently not enough concern to review the existing evidence).
  • Barr doesn’t even know what data Paul Manafort shared with a Russian operative nor who the Russian is, so as it turns out, Barr hasn’t read the full Mueller report either.
    • Hint: It was campaign polling data, and Manafort shared it with Konstantin Kilimnik. This is a large section in the Mueller report, and I’m not sure how it’s possible Barr didn’t know this.
  • Barr defends Trump’s attempts to fire Mueller, saying that a president can fire Special Counsel for conflict of interest. But he couldn’t come up with any specific conflicts of interest that might’ve existed.
  • Barr defends his use of the word “spying” for the FBI obtaining a FISA warrant on Carter Page.
  • Barr continues to say Trump fully cooperated, though Trump said he didn’t recall over 30 times in his written answers to Mueller.
  • Barr disputes Trump’s claim of being totally exonerated. Barr says he didn’t exonerate him either.
  • Barr says he “can’t fathom” why the FBI didn’t give the Trump campaign a defense briefing to let them know that Russia was targeting them in 2016. Both the Trump and Clinton campaigns received a security briefing in August of 2016. A security briefing is a step down from a defense briefing, but it’s not like both campaigns weren’t very aware of what was going on.
    • During those briefings, both campaigns were told to let the FBI know of any “suspicious overtures” from Russia to their campaigns.
  • Barr says that Mueller left the decision of whether to pursue obstruction up to Barr, and that the decision not to indict wasn’t influenced by DOJ guidelines. In the report, Mueller talks extensively about Congress’s duty here (so the decision of whether to pursue was left up to them), and talks about DOJ guidelines being one reason he didn’t indict.

5. After his first hearing, Barr refuses to appear before the House Judiciary Committee due to the format of the questioning (the committee wants a lawyer to handle the questions). The committee threatens to hold him in contempt.
6. DOJ prosecutors want to prevent Roger Stone from reviewing any parts of the Mueller report that are redacted due to his ongoing court case. They also subpoena Randy Credico to testify against Stone.
7. A federal appeals court refuses to re-examine a case that claimed Mueller’s appointment was unconstitutional.
8. Rod Rosenstein tenders his resignation. He’ll leave on May 11.
9. White House lawyer Emmet Flood sends Barr a letter accusing Mueller of politicizing his report because the report explicitly says it doesn’t exonerate Trump. He also criticizes Mueller for not making a decision on prosecution, though Mueller says he couldn’t make that decision because DOJ guidelines say a sitting president can’t be indicted and therefore Trump would be denied due process because he wouldn’t get a chance to defend himself in a court of law. He’s pretty specific about leaving the next steps to Congress, as specified in the rules of impeachment.
10. Nancy Pelosi says Barr did not tell the truth to Congress, and that’s a crime.
11. Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirms that Trump and Putin spoke this week and that they agreed there was no collusion. Well, I guess we can put this whole thing to bed now, right?
12. Lindsey Graham sends Bob Mueller a letter asking if he wants to testify to the Senate Judiciary Committee over his dissatisfaction with Barr misrepresenting his report.
13. Trump doesn’t want Mueller to testify before Congress, but says he’ll leave that up to Barr.

Legal Fallout:

1. Trump and Trump Organization, along with Donald Jr., Eric, and Ivanka, sue Deutsche Bank and Capital One over those companies complying with subpoenas for their financial records.They want to prevent the banks from releasing any private materials.
2. The White House won’t release the documents requested by the House Oversight Committee related to security clearance overrides.
3. A federal judge allows an emoluments case against Trump to move forward, refusing Trump’s lawyers’ request to dismiss the case. The suit was brought by congressional Democrats.
4. After being convicted of jumping bail, Julian Assange receives a 50-week prison sentence in the UK. The judge says Assange has cost the UK $21 million, and that he could’ve left the embassy at any time (Assange was claiming he was like a prisoner).
5. The House Intelligence Committee plans to make a criminal referral to the DOJ for Erik Prince. They say he might have given false testimony to Congress based on information contained in the Mueller report.

Courts/Justice:

1. The Wisconsin Supreme Court restores the 82 people appointed by outgoing Governor Scott Walker whose appointments were previously invalidated based on a lower court ruling. This only affects the 15 people who weren’t reappointed by the new governor. The lower court ruling is still going through appeals.

Healthcare:

1. The Trump administration submits a court filing claiming that the entire Affordable Care Act (ACA) should be struck down.

• • If the court agrees, an estimated 21 million Americans will lose healthcare coverage.
  • Many millions more will be affected if we lose requirements for covering pre-existing conditions, pregnancy, prescription drugs, and mental health services.
  • Just a reminder, Republicans might want to strike this down, but they have no plan to replace it with.

2. Trump announces a new rule that allows healthcare providers to refuse to provide services based on their religious beliefs. This includes abortions, sterilization, assisted suicide, and advance directives. The rule also lets parents refuse certain types of care for their children.

• • In the past, issues for some medical providers have included AIDS treatments, gender reassignment, and birth control.

3. The Alabama House passes a bill that would criminalize abortions at any stage of pregnancy unless the mother’s life is threatened or if the fetus has a lethal anomaly. The woman wouldn’t be held criminally liable, but doctors would face a felony charge and up to 99 years in prison.
4. Just a note here: Whether or not the mother’s life is threatened can be argued in court, so doctors are caught in a catch-22. They can save the fetus and let the mother die and NOT be criminally charged, or they can save the mother and abort the fetus and go to jail for the rest of their lives.

• • Several state legislatures are pushing this issue, hoping to get a case in front of the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.

5. A U.S. District Court jury finds the founder and four executives of Insys Therapeutics guilty of federal racketeering conspiracy. They bribed doctors to prescribe powerful opioids to patients who shouldn’t be using them and tricked providers into paying for them.

International:

1. In Venezuela, self-declared president Juan Guaidó calls for an uprising against President Nicolás Maduro. Guaidó doesn’t have enough military defectors, the clashes turn violent, and five people are killed.
2. More than 50 countries support Guaidó, including the U.S., UK, and most Latin American countries. Maduro is backed by Russia and China, among others.
3. The Senate can’t muster enough votes to overturn Trump’s veto of a bill withdrawing U.S. support for the war in Yemen. So we’re still fighting there.
4. Under the personal supervision of Kim Jong Un, North Korea tests rocket launchers and guided weapons off its east coast. (It’s OK, though, because they can’t reach the U.S. Forget about all the troops we have deployed in the area.)
5. Trump deploys a carrier and bombers to the Middle East as a warning to Iran, claiming there have been troubling “indications and warnings” from Iran.
6. Trump wants to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization.

Legislation/Congress:

1. The Florida House passes a bill to let teachers carry weapons (with training, of course). Frankly, just from my limited and sometimes exasperating experience with teenagers, it’s rarely a good idea for adults to have weapons around them. But seriously, the group that will bear the brunt of this is young males of color.

Family Separation:

1. The Trump administration promises to reunite thousands of migrant families they separated at the border, but at the same time they send each other private internal emails acknowledging that they only have information for about 60 parents and their kids. This highlights the fact that they were never planning on allowing the children to see their parents again (known in most circles as kidnapping).

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

1. Two men found guilty of rape will do no jail time (and yes, they’re both white).

• • The first is a 25-year-old school bus driver who pleaded guilty to raping a 14-year-old girl. He has to register as a level 1 offender, so he won’t be on offender databases. Ya know, because there was only one victim and he’d never done it before. So yay justice.
  • The second guy kidnapped a 16-year-old girl, forced her to have sex, and kept her in a dog cage. He received a 10-year sentence, but got time served for the eight months he was in custody and nine years and four months of probation. He also has to register as a sex offender.

2. A New York man who threatened to hang Barack Obama and kill Maxine Waters gets a four-year prison sentence. He called various offices making the threats and using racist slurs.
3. Brunei says they won’t impose the death penalty for gay sex after all. They only reversed their initial decision after severe international backlash.
4. The White House makes an emergency request to Congress for $4.5 billion for the southern border. $3.3 billion is for humanitarian assistance and $1.1 billion is to shore up the border. This is on top of the $8 billion they’re requesting for the border in Trump’s 2020 budget.
5. Trump restricts asylum seekers by banning them from getting work permits if they cross outside a port of entry, imposing application fees, and limiting their access to relief. Trump also orders that all current asylum claims be settled within 180 days; the current time to settle is around two years.

• • This isn’t something we should rush. A team that followed several asylum seekers who were denied found 60 who had been killed upon their return home.

Climate/EPA:

1. The White House lobbied to remove the words “climate change” from the Arctic Council’s declaration, refusing to sign on with the wording included. Other members refused to sign on without it. In the end, the declaration is watered down.
2. South Dakota’s Oglala Sioux Tribal Council votes to ban Governor Kristi Noem from tribal land unless she rescinds her support for two state bills aimed at curbing and punishing protestors (specifically around the Keystone pipelines).
3. In April, renewable energy sources provided more megawatt hours in the U.S. than coal for the first time ever.
4. A court in Ecuador rules that the government must consult with an indigenous tribe, the Waorani, before opening up their land to oil exploration.
5. Trump rolls back the safety rules that the Obama administration added after the 2010 BP oil spill. The rollback eases restrictions on offshore drilling and reduces testing of safety equipment like blowout preventers.
6. The House passes a bill that requires Trump to create a plan for the U.S. to meet the goals of the Paris agreement, even though he’s withdrawing from it. Mitch McConnell says the Senate won’t take the bill up.

Budget/Economy:

1. Trump’s nominee Stephen Moore withdraws his name from consideration for the Federal Reserve Board. He was a horrible choice partly because he’s so frequently wrong about economic happenings and partly because he’s a raging misogynist.
2. In the middle of all the contention, Trump and Democratic leaders agree to pursue a $2 trillion infrastructure plan that will include improvements to highways, railroads, bridges, and broadband.
3. On top of good GDP news, we also added 263,000 jobs in April and the unemployment rate dropped to 3.6%.
4. Trump says he’ll raise tariffs on Chinese goods from 10% to 25% because talks between the U.S. and China aren’t moving fast enough. Just a reminder, a recent study showed that the existing tariffs raised the costs of both domestic and imported goods.

• • Soon after, stock futures fall sharply.

Elections:

1. Jack Burman and Jacob Wohl (right-wing lobbyist and internet troll, respectively) try to enact a social media scheme to smear presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg with fake sexual assault charges. They tried recruited young Republican men to make the accusations, and far-right news sources ran with the story. Just a reminder to not believe what you hear about any of the candidates. Check them out yourselves.
2. The California Senate passes a bill requiring presidential candidates to release their taxes in order to be on the ballot. Several states have already proposed such bills.
3. A three-judge panel in Ohio rules that the state’s congressional maps are partisan and unconstitutional. The judges say this partisan gerrymander was drawn with intent and that it can’t be justified. The lines were drawn to favor the GOP.
4. After Joe Biden receives the endorsement of the largest firefighter union for his presidential run, Trump retweets 60 other Twitter users in under an hour to show he, too, has support from firefighters.
5. The Trump campaign is resurrecting their “Lock her up!” slogan but with a new target. Trump wants Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, to be investigated for their actions around Ukraine. Biden’s son worked for a company called Burisma that was being investigated by a prosecutor that Biden was pressuring the Ukraine to remove from office as part of an anti-corruption campaign.

• • That prosecutor has been criticized around the globe for his corruption.
  • Rudy Giuliani says he wants Ukraine investigated because that’ll give us the origins of the Steele Dossier. Don’t we already know the origin?
  • Off topic, Hunter Biden seems to be a hot mess.

Miscellaneous:

1. Trump says the Johnson Amendment (which prevents religious leaders and organizations from endorsing candidates) is effectively eliminated. Actually, it would take an act of Congress for that to happen.
2. There’s another mass shooting, this time at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. Two people are dead and four more are injured.
3. Facebook announces a major purge, banning extremist figures like Alex Jones, Milo Yiannopoulos, Laura Loomer, Paul Nehlen, and Louis Farrakhan. Their reasoning is that these people violate Facebook’s rules about promoting or engaging in violence and hate.
4. When Democrats start walking out of Tennessee’s House chambers after Republican leadership appointed only Republican members to a committee, the Republican Speaker of the House, Glen Casada, orders the doors locked so they can’t leave. Their departure would’ve left the House without enough members to proceed.
5. Trump retweets Jerry Falwell’s suggestion that he should get two extra years added to his term since his first two were stolen by a “failed coup.”