Background Briefing: April 24, 2019
Trump Defies Congress with Gangster-Like Tactics
We begin with the increasingly gangster-like attitude Trump is displaying as he defies congressional subpoenas and counter-sues House Committees investigating his financial records Roy Cohn-style. Jack Blum, a veteran Washington investigator who was a staff attorney with the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee joins us to discuss what tools House investigators have dealing with a president who is placing himself above the law and whether the legislative branch of government with the constitutional mandate to oversee the executive branch, can send the House Sergeant at Arms to the White House to drag a reluctant witness Trump has instructed not to cooperate out in cuffs to testify before a congressional committee. And since the Secretary of the Treasury has already defied the deadline set by the House Ways and Means Committee to have the IRS hand over Trump’s tax returns, we will examine Mnuchin’s legal jeopardy since the law is clear that he has to hand over any tax return the chair of the committee requests or face a felony conviction of 5 years in jail and a fine of $10,000. With very few subpoenas being issued by the House and only one hearing involving Michael Cohen with damaging testimony so far, how are the Democrats going to educate the electorate about the criminality and dereliction of the Trump Administration?
An Analysis of Mueller’s Obstruction of Justice Case Against Trump
Then with the president now claiming the Supreme Court will protect him from impeachment, we assess why Trump suddenly switched from claiming he has “never been happier or more content” to 72 hours later firing off angry, defensive tweets whining that “I DID NOTHING WRONG”. Jennifer Taub, a professor at Vermont Law School joins us for a legal analysis of the case made in the Mueller Report of Trump’s obstruction of justice and try to reconcile why Mueller did not find sufficient evidence to convict but at the same time laid out an extensive case against Trump involving multiple instances of obstruction. We will discuss the ample evidence against Trump and the warning by her fellow Vermonter Bernie Sanders that focusing on impeachment throughout the campaign will drown out important issues like healthcare and income inequality etc.
What Might Emerge from the Kim Jong-un-Putin Summit
Then finally we get an analysis of what might come out of tomorrow’s summit meeting in Vladivostok between North Korea’s Kim jong-Un and Russia’s President Putin. Ken Dekleva, a clinical psychiatrist who served as a Psychiatrist with the State Department and as Director of Mental Health Services in the Bureau of Medical Services in Washington D.C., joins us to discuss his article at The Cipher Daily Brief “What Could a Russia-North Korea Summit Mean?”