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A gaffe is when a politician recklessly tells the truth, Michael Kinsley once said.
Sir Kim Darroch is not a politician. He is a diplomat. And the truth he spoke was not a gaffe. It was a leak. But it functions like a gaffe, a truth blurted out in a context in which it wasn’t supposed to be uttered.
There is no reason to doubt that in seeking reelection, President Trump will consider once more breaking or skirting laws or ethical limits to win. He has already proclaimed a willingness to accept campaign support from a foreign government, retreating only somewhat under public pressure.
The president’s statements on Iran represent a dramatic improvement in the quality of his argument.
Consider the affirmative dismay with which lawyers are likely to view the actions of Attorney General Bill Barr. Even leaving aside the atmospherics of his recent performances (for example, the almost palpable disdain with which he treated the press at his press conference and the almost cloying way in which he defended Trump's actions as the product of "frustration and anger"), Barr's actions over the past month have left any reasonable observer with a number of questions about the quality of his legal performance.
Editor’s Note: Below are the executive summaries of the two volumes of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's final report. Volume I deals with links between Russia and the Trump campaign, while Volume II deals with potential obstruction of justice by President Trump. This article is available in audio format on the Lawfare Podcast: Special Edition:
Barr’s letter contains good news for the president, but it also raises ominous questions that only Mueller’s report can answer.
There is a tendency to think of impeachable offenses as like landmines. If the president accidentally or purposefully steps on one, then it explodes and he must suffer the consequences. Constitutional lawyers might find this line of thinking particularly attractive because it would allow them to get to work on identifying a finite set of actions as high crimes and misdemeanors and to set Congress about the business of determining whether the president has actually committed such offenses.
According to this prepared statement of former Trump lawyer and confidant Michael Cohen released by Politico and other news outlets, Cohen is prepared to testify before Congress today under oath that Donald Trump: “[W]as a presidential candidate who knew that Roger Stone was talking with Julian Assange
Does the Senate have an obligation to conduct a trial of the president if the House impeaches him? With the increased prospects for an impeachment inquiry now that the Democrats have taken control of the House of Representatives, most discussions of impeachment have assumed that, should the House vote to impeachment, the Senate will then hold a trial. This is the logical construction of the Constitution’s provisions setting out the impeachment process: If the House impeaches, then it would follow that the Senate tries the case.
Like everyone else on Lawfare, I was struck by the recent New York Times story about the FBI opening a counterintelligence investigation into President Trump after he fired former FBI Director Jim Comey. It adds to my unease, not about President Trump but about the FBI.