Background Briefing: April 7, 2019

 

Why Not Release Mueller Team’s Summaries Now?

We begin with the redactions underway on the 400-plus page Mueller Report in the hands of William Barr who has wide discretion over what is revealed and what is blacked out. With Barr scheduled to appear before the House and Senate Appropriations Committees on Tuesday and Wednesday, no doubt Democrats will press for an immediate public release while Barr intends to release his edited version of the report in mid-April or sooner. Harry Litman, a former United States Attorney and Deputy Attorney General in the Justice Department joins us to discuss his article at The Washington Post “Release the Mueller team’s summaries. Now” and how competing camps inside the DOJ of unnamed Mueller and Barr loyalists are airing their positions to the media as Barr, Mueller and Rosenstein work on redacting the report. After 22 months of disciplined silence from Mueller, now amid leaks and counter-leaks, we will try to determine whether or not Barr was chagrined that Mueller did not reach a conclusion on Trump’s guilt or innocence on obstruction of justice, and if so, why then did Barr not instruct Mueller to follow DOJ regulations and return a judgement? With one of the most consequential investigations in American political history now in the hands of someone who many see as having already put his spin on the report’s main finding to exonerate Trump, we will assess this muddled moment when much of the public is demanding clarity.

 

 Trump Vows Democrats Will Never See His Tax Returns

Then, with the President’s Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney saying Democrats will never see Donald Trump’s tax returns, we speak David Cay Johnston, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter who co-founded DC Report.org and is the author of “It’s Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration is Doing to America”. He joins us to discuss the escalating battle between the Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee who has asked the IRS for Trump’s tax returns under and existing law that grants him that authority, and a defiant and determined Trump Administration.

 

Are Democrats Forming a Circular Firing Squad?

Then finally we look into how Joe Biden is stumbling before he is even out of the gate entering the presidential race, due to charges by a Nevada State lawmaker Biden was campaigning for who claims he kissed the top of her head inappropriately but she added, it was not sexual. We assess the apparent double standard in which Democrats are quick to jettison Biden and Franken for minor transgressions compared to the head of the Grab Our Pussy Party, Donald Trump, who has paid off porn stars and Playmates and has 16 women accusing him of sexual harassment and sexual assault. An expert on feminist ethics, Frances Kissling, joins us to discuss Obama’s warning that the Democrats are forming a circular firing squad as progressive purity endangers their electoral chances in 2020.