This week, the White House directs a former security official not to appear before Congress and blocks Don McGahn from testifying. The DOJ ignores a Congressional subpoena, the Treasury ignores the House deadline to turn in Trump’s tax returns, and Trump sues to block a subpoena of his accounting firm. So House Democrats have started floating ways to get them to comply, including pursuing them in the courts (which would take a really long time) or changing the rules so they can fine them. Rep. Gerry Connolly says he’ll enforce House subpoenas in the courts, even if that means jail time. Rep. Jerrold Nadler proposes fining people who won’t comply. This is not politics as usual.

Here’s what else happened last week in politics…

Russia:

1. As Secretary of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen tried to ramp up efforts to fight Russian meddling in the 2020 election. Mick Mulvaney told her not to talk to Trump about it pretty much because it makes him feel bad (it questions the legitimacy of his presidency).

• • As a result, we are not likely aware of nor prepared for the meddling to come.

2. Trump calls the Russia investigation an attempted coup.
3. The House Judiciary Committee issues a subpoena to Don McGahn, Trump’s former White House counsel who refused to carry out Trump’s instructions to obstruct justice.

• • Trump wants to stop McGahn from complying with the subpoena, but executive privilege went out the window when he allowed McGahn to be interviewed by Mueller.
  • McGahn told Mueller that Trump pressured him to have Mueller fired and then pressured him to deny that ever happened.
  • The Trump campaign hires a new attorney for 2020 to replace McGahn’s law firm.

4. Trump opposes any current and former White House staff giving testimony to Congress. He plans to assert executive privilege, and says, “We’re fighting all the subpoenas” (because he thinks subpoenas are ridiculous).
5. Trump doesn’t appear to have learned from the Mueller investigation, because he continues to threaten witnesses and refuses to cooperate with ongoing investigations, setting him up for more potential obstruction cases.
6. Contradicting the Mueller report, Trump says, “Nobody disobeys my orders.” According to the report, the only thing that prevented Trump from succeeding in some of his attempts to commit obstruction of justice was that his staff disobeyed his orders.
7. Trump says that he can’t be impeached because he didn’t commit any high crimes or misdemeanors. Mueller’s report lays out legal cases for obstruction, and how and why it’s now the responsibility of Congress to handle it.
8. Democrats are still split on whether to move forward with impeachment proceedings.
9. Attorney General William Barr is scheduled to testify before the House Judiciary Committee, but he threatens not to because a lawyer would be doing the questioning. Committee Chair Jerrold Nadler threatens to subpoena him.
10. Jared Kushner tries to minimize Russia’s interference in the 2016 and 2018 elections, saying it was just a few Facebook ads. The Mueller report and court filings describe interference efforts too numerous to describe here.

• • Meanwhile, FBI Director Christopher Wray says that Russia poses a significant counterintelligence threat. Rod Rosenstein says that hacking and social media manipulation are the tip of the iceberg.

11. Over 5,000 Twitter bots push the idea that Mueller’s investigation was a Russiagate hoax. You’d think this would be a Russian effort, but no, it came from Saudi Arabia.
12. Trump says he’ll take it to the Supreme Court if Democrats try to impeach him. A 1993 Supreme Court ruling says the House has the sole power of impeachment and the Senate has the sole power to try impeachments.
13. Two prosecutors who worked on Mueller’s investigation say they found sufficient evidence to indict Trump on obstruction charges.
14. On the same day that Maria Butina is sentenced to 18 months in prison, Trump speaks at the NRA convention. Butina took a plea deal last year for conspiring to act as a Russian agent by infiltrating the NRA.
15. A new study of Russian troll tweets shows that the Russians were trying to use Bernie Sanders to drive a wedge between Democratic voters (good job on that, btw!).

• • Part of that effort was to get Sanders voters to vote for Trump or third-party candidates; another part was to simply discourage them from voting at all. The trolls also pushed the narrative that the party didn’t treat Sanders fairly.
  • Specifically, trolls were told to “use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest (except Sanders and Trump — we support them).”

16. Do these disinformation campaigns work? Consider these survey results: 25% believe Clinton was in very poor health, 10% believe the pope endorsed Trump, and 35% believe Clinton approved weapons sales to Islamic militants, including ISIS. None of these stories are true.

Legal Fallout:

1. Trump sues his own accounting firm and House Oversight Committee Chair Elijah Cummings over House subpoenas for his financial records.

• • The House Oversight Committee agrees to postpone the deadline on the subpoena until a court rules on it.

2. Deutsche Bank starts providing the New York state’s attorney general with documents related to loans they made to Trump and to the Trump Organization.
3. Carl Kline, the former White House personnel security director who overrode several security clearance recommendations, fails to appear before the House Oversight Committee after the White House tells him to ignore his subpoena. The committee moves to hold him in contempt of Congress. Before they do, though, the White House says he can give limited testimony.
4. Steve Mnuchin once more delays his decision on whether to turn over Trump’s tax returns as requested by the House Ways and Means Committee.
5. Not only is Trump’s pick to lead the Interior Department under ethics investigations, but the agency’s inspector general also opened investigations into six other of Trump’s appointees in the department, largely for unethical lobbying activities.
6. Michael Cohen now says he isn’t guilty of tax evasion, even though he pleaded guilty to five counts of it.

Courts/Justice:

1. New York’s attorney general launches an investigation into the finances of both the NRA and its foundation. There are reports that the NRA foundation transferred more than $100 million from its charitable foundation, and there are allegations of extortion in their leadership fight.

• • Trump accuses the attorney general of opening an “illegal investigation” into the NRA.

2. Gabrielle Giffords’ organization files a lawsuit against the FEC for not doing anything about the NRA’s alleged campaign finance violations, including using shell companies to donate to several GOP campaigns and coordinating with campaigns.
3. The Supreme Court hears arguments about whether to add a citizenship question to the census. The question was previously blocked by three federal judges, partly based on Census Bureau experts saying that it would negatively affect the accuracy of the count.

• • This is a big deal because the census results determine many things, like representation at the state and local level and funding for programs.
  • Conservative judges on SCOTUS indicate support for the question. Some are the same judges who didn’t think we needed the Voting Rights Act anymore because we live in a post-discrimination society.
  • The question would likely discourage immigrants, both here legally and illegally, from completing the census.

4. Outgoing deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein defends his handling of the Russia investigation while criticizing Congress, politics, and media (even though the media got most things right, according to the Mueller report). He also criticizes the Obama administration for not revealing more information about Russia sooner, apparently forgetting that Mitch McConnell refused to join a bipartisan statement and threatened Obama if he released it.

Healthcare:

1. The World Health Organization begins administering the first ever malaria vaccine in several African nations.
2. The U.S. threatens to veto a UN resolution on sexual violence in global conflicts because it includes giving timely “sexual and reproductive health” help to survivors of assault. The Trump administration translates that as “abortion” and forces the UN to water down their language on the resolution.
3. The Kansas Supreme Court rules that the state constitution protects the “right of personal autonomy.” This means a woman has a right to make decisions about her own body. The ruling blocks previous restrictions.
4. As of this week, three different federal judges have blocked Trump’s Title X “gag rule,” which eliminates federal funding for medical practitioners if they do or say anything that assists a patient in getting an abortion.
5. In 2015, Trump linked vaccines to autism. Now he says children have to get their shots because it’s so important. I guess I applaud his evolution on the topic.

International:

1. Now that Trump wants to recognize Golan Heights as being under the sovereignty of Israel, Netanyahu wants to name a neighborhood in Golan Heights after Trump.
2. The U.S. charges an American engineer and a Chinese business person with espionage for trying to steal turbine technology for the Chinese government.
3. Kim Jong Un travels to Russia where he has his first meeting with Putin. Kim wants to save face after the breakdown in denuclearization talks with the U.S. and Putin gets to intervene in our negotiations.
4. A new report says that the Trump administration agreed to pay North Korea $2 million for Otto Warmbier’s healthcare. Both Trump and John Bolton deny it was ever paid, though.
5. The head of the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan meets with Taliban leaders to start full peace negotiations.
6. Saudi Arabia beheads 37 people convicted of offenses related to terrorism. It’s the largest mass execution in three years, when they executed 47 people. It also brings the total executed this year to 105.
7. During his NRA speech, Trump not only announces he’s ending support for the Arms Trade Treaty, he signs a document asking the Senate to return the pact to the White House.

• • The treaty was agreed upon under the George W. Bush administration, and was later signed by Obama. It regulates international sales of all kinds of weaponry.
  • It’s meant to prevent illicit arms sales that escalate armed conflicts.
  • Congress never ratified the pact, but 100 countries did. An additional 30 countries have signed on but not ratified.
  • Again we’re joining exemplary global leaders like Russia, North Korea, and Syria to oppose global agreements.

Legislation/Congress:

1. Florida’s Senate passes a bill that would allow teachers to be armed. The House still needs to vote on the bill.
2. Florida’s House passes a bill that restores felon’s voting rights only after they’ve paid any fees, fines, and court costs. Florida voters voted overwhelmingly to restore voting rights for all but the most heinous felons, regardless of ability to pay.
3. Irony alert. In an op-ed, Mitch McConnell accuses Democrats of histrionic obstruction. And then at a rally he says that if he’s in power after 2020, he won’t let any Democratic bills pass the Senate. He also poses with someone holding a t-shirt celebrating the expiration of Merrick Garland’s nomination to SCOTUS. He’s a master obstructor.

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

1. The House files a motion in court to block Trump’s plan to use Department of Defense funds to build his wall.
2. Last week, Mexican troops pulled their weapons on two of our National Guard at the border. It turned out to be a geographical error, but Trump says (with no proof) it was just a diversionary tactic to allow drug smugglers through the border.

Family Separation:

1. A federal judge gives Trump’s administration six months to identify and reunite the remaining migrant children they separated from their parents who were seeking asylum at the southern border. The administration says it might take longer than that, because they didn’t keep track of them.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

1. The Supreme Court says it will hear two cases about whether the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prevents discrimination against members of the LGBTQ community.
2. The National Guard in five states will continue to allow transgender troops to serve, in opposition to Trump’s transgender ban in the military.
3. Brunei defends their new policy of stoning people for having gay sex by saying it’s rarely prosecuted. So no big, right?
4. Sri Lankan officials have arrested 60 people for the Easter Sunday bombings. Their president orders two top security officials to step down over the government’s handling of advance warning of the attacks. They also face coverings. The death toll from the attacks is over 320.
5. The leader of the militia that’s been detaining migrants crossing the southern border says that his militia was training to assassinate Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and George Soros.

• • The FBI has known about this since October 2017, but didn’t do anything about it until the New York Times reported it.

6. Remember that Coast Guard officer who was arrested with a stash of weapons and was planning a terrorist attack on liberal politicians and journalists? Prosecutors now allege that he was driven by his views on race. He had searched the internet for the best gun to kill black people with, “white homeland,” and “please god let there be a race war.”

• • A federal judge orders him released from detention. They‘re working on options for supervised release.

7. An Alabama sheriff is placed on leave after he mocks a teen who committed suicide over being bullied over his sexuality. In his anti-LGBTQ post, the sheriff says it stands for Liberty Guns Bible Trump BBQ.
8. The Department of Justice refuses to comply with a subpoena from the House Oversight and Reform Committee over the addition of a citizenship question to the 2020 Census. Attorney General Barr directs John Gore to defy the subpoena and won’t let him testify unless he can have a DOJ attorney present.

• • The census hasn’t asked a citizenship question since 1950.

9. In keeping with Trump’s threats, the White House refuses to allow Stephen Miller to testify before the House Oversight Committee about immigration policies.
10. The Pentagon prepares to expand the military’s role at the border, and is changing the rules about how troops can interact with immigrants.
11. A driver intentionally drives his car into a group of pedestrians in Sunnyvale, CA. Police say the driver thought he was targeting a Muslim family. None were killed, but a young girl is in a coma.
12. The FBI thwarts a terrorist attack planned to hit Huntington Beach, CA, a white power rally in Long Beach, and the Santa Monica Pier. The potential terrorist is a vet looking for retribution for the attacks on the mosques in New Zealand.
13. A 19-year-old man shoots worshipers at a synagogue in Poway, CA. He kills one person, and people say he would’ve shot more but it seems like his gun jammed.

• • He posted an antisemitic and anti-Muslim manifesto online and took credit for a mosque fire a few weeks ago.

• • According to the manifesto, he was radicalized over a period of 18 months on 8Chan, an online discussion board.

14. A small white nationalist group storms a bookstore in protest of an event on racial politics. The far-right group is linked to Identity Evropa.
15. Joe Biden puts out a video pointing out that there were not “very fine people on both sides” of the clashes in Charlottesville during the “Unite the Right” rally, reigniting the “Charlottesville Hoax” cries from the right.

• • Trump defends his words by saying he was talking about people who were protesting the removal of a confederate statue.
  • Context: It was a white nationalist rally sponsored by hate groups and neo-Nazis. Attendees wore swastikas and chanted antisemitic slogans, like “Jews will not replace us!” If there were very fine people among that group, you would think they would’ve distanced themselves fairly quickly.

Budget/Economy:

1. The Trump administration pushes Republicans in Congress to act quickly to raise the debt ceiling and avoid another standoff.
2. The S&P 500 hits an all-time high of 2,943, likely on optimism over trade talks with China. Nasdaq also hit an all-time high of 8,161.85.
3. The U.S. economy far exceeds economist expectations by posting a GDP growth rate of 3.2%. Drivers include companies stockpiling their inventory and higher U.S. exports. These aren’t expected to last, but the fears of a recession are slightly eased.
4. Trump is working hard to wind down the trade wars so he can remove tariffs before the 2020 elections. With the tariffs came higher prices for imported goods, so domestic manufacturers raised their prices to match. Trade wars are easy to win, right?
5. The Trump administration tried to pre-empt an independent report showing minimal improvements in the renegotiated NAFTA by releasing their own, more flattering report first.
6. The GOP tax reform forced some Gold Star families to spend thousands more in taxes by changing the way survivor benefits are taxed.
7. After the White House decides to stop renewing waivers for countries to buy oil from Iran, oil prices hit a six-month high.
8. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has spent decades courting members of the GOP. Now they’re working to become less aligned with the right. The GOP has moved toward nativism, isolationism, and protectionism, contrary to the Chamber’s support for legal immigration, infrastructure investment, and free trade.

• • According to the president and CEO, they don’t want to play to the extremes on either side and they want to fill in the gaping hole in the political middle.

9. Likewise, the Koch political network is moving away from the GOP, despite being probably the largest benefactor of Republicans in power.
10. She gets it. Disney heiress Abigail Disney calls on the company to give 50% of executive bonuses to their lowest-paid employees.
11. Trump’s pick for the Federal Reserve Board, Stephen Moore, says his enemies are “pulling a Kavanaugh against” him. We have it in his own writings, though, that women shouldn’t be allowed to referee men’s sports (unless they’re attractive), that female athletes want equal pay for inferior work, and that his own wife is a “loss leader” who doesn’t have a job. He’s mocked AIDS, objectified women, and has been held in contempt of court for failing to pay alimony and child support to the woman who, not surprisingly, divorced him.
12. Herman Cain, another Trump nominee for the Federal Reserve Board, withdraws after accusations of sexual harassment arise. Trump calls the accusations a witch hunt.

Elections:

1. Tampa elects Jane Castor as mayor, the first openly gay women to be mayor in a major city in the Southeast.
2. As part of the FBI’s investigation into Trump’s re-election effort, a Malaysian development company is under investigation for money laundering. Attorney General Barr gets a waiver to participate in the investigation even though his former employer represents a party in the investigation.
3. The DNC makes a pledge not to use stolen or hacked material in the 2020 presidential election, and they challenge the RNC to do the same. So far, the Trump campaign has refused to make the pledge.
4. Federal judges order Michigan state lawmakers to redraw their gerrymandered districts. They rule that 34 state and federal legislative districts are unconstitutionally gerrymandered to favor Republicans. Last year, private emails showed that Republicans drew the district lines with bias, contradicting their own defense.

Miscellaneous:

1. A NASA subcontractor who falsified test results in aluminum manufacturing for nearly 20 years has to pay a $46 million fine. NASA says their parts caused two rocket launches to fail.
2. Trump wants people who went through a criminal diversion program instead of serving time to divulge that information on federal job applications, making it harder for former offenders to get jobs.
3. A bipartisan group of lawmakers oppose this move, saying it contradicts the First Step Act that Trump signed into law last year.
4. Trump orders his administration to boycott the White House Correspondents’s Association dinner. This year, instead of being roasted by a comedian, the association hired a historian to speak.
5. In a meeting with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Trump accuses them of messing with his follower count (apparently he’s a little alarmed that he lost followers). Trump says a bunch of conservatives have lost followers. Dorsey says followers fluctuate, especially right now while they’re trying to keep fake accounts and bots off the platform. Dorsey, himself, has lost followers.
6. Sonny Perdue is relocating two scientific agencies currently located in downtown Washington D.C. This will likely lead to some brain drain, as scientists and experts might not move with those agencies.
7. Kentucky’s governor blames teachers’ “sick outs” for the shooting death of a seven-year-old girl. She was accidentally shot by her brother with their uncle’s weapon. They were home because of a sick out, but no teacher put a gun in his hands.
8. In the midst of their national convention (at which Trump spoke), the NRA seems to have a midlife crisis. They suspend their lawyer, and Ollie North steps down as leader after just six months and accuses CEO Wayne LaPierre of financial misconduct and suggests they could lose their nonprofit status. New York launches an investigation into them and a lawsuit is filed over the handling of their election activities.

Polls:

1. Gallup polled over 150,000 people globally and found Americans to be the most stressed out. 55% of us reported experiencing a lot of stress the previous day, compared with 35% globally.
2. 43% of Americans feel like they’ve benefited from recent economic growth; 54% say they haven’t.