Whisper Network

Many posts have discussed social media. 

Melanie Mason and Jeremy B. White at Politico:

Five months before Arielle Fodor, better known on social media as “Mrs. Frazzled,” helped set in motion the downfall of Rep. Eric Swalwell, she was singing his praises on Instagram.

“You know how I love to tell you when I meet a politician who acts like a normal human and not a robot!” she posted the day after the California Democrat launched his campaign for governor. “Eric is that.” 

It was a fairly anodyne post for Fodor, a prodigious professional poster. But it drew an unusual response: Three people privately warning her that Swalwell was no good.

Those messages were the embers of a firestorm that in short order incinerated Swalwell’s campaign, and is now engulfing what remains of his political career.

Swalwell suspended his campaign Sunday, days after multiple news outlets reported on allegations that he sexually harassed women, had sexual relationships with subordinate staff and, in two cases, committed sexual assault. Swalwell has denied accusations he had nonconsensual sex with anybody, though he acknowledged “personal failings.”

The broad contours of Swalwell’s alleged behavior, if not the specifics, did not come as a surprise to many working in and around politics, especially in Washington. The 45-year-old cable news darling and Trump antagonist had developed a reputation for unsavory and sometimes unwanted behavior toward women. Those warnings were shared in whisper networks but rarely traveled outside the circle of political insiders.

That is, until Swalwell sought a promotion to lead the nation’s most populous state and a pair of content creators worked to spill that open secret into public view. His breakneck undoing is a testament to the striking power of a new media ecosystem in which influencers with huge audiences can not only publicize politicians, but control the political conversation. Their growing clout has thrust campaigns into a new digital Wild West, where long-buried allegations and unsubstantiated rumors can find their earliest stages of vetting, a warning for politicians at all levels, including in the run-up to 2028.

On paper, it was a lopsided matchup. Swalwell had a national profile and support from many in the Democratic Party apparatus. Fodor and another content creator, Cheyenne Hunt — along with behind-the-scenes help from Hunt’s friend, a woman who alleged she had been personally harassed by Swalwell and still remains anonymous — had their keyboards and iPhone cameras.

"The Greatest Infrastructure Failure in the History of Our Country"

Many posts have discussed California's high-speed rail fiasco.

Lee Ohanian at Hoover:

In 2008, California voters approved $9.95 billion of state bond funding as seed money to build an 800-mile high-speed rail (HSR) network connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco, and the Central Valley to coastal cities, at speeds of up to 220 miles per hour, with an expected completion date of 2020.

But now, 15 years after the bond issue, three years after the expected completion date, not one train has left the station. Not one route has been completed, even though nearly all the $9.95 billion seed money has been spent. And the original budget of about $33 billion for the entire 800-mile system is now inadequate to build just one route (Bakersfield to Merced), whose cost pencils out to $207 million per mile—a cost that will almost certainly rise in the future, and for a route that may not be ready for ten years. Or more. Or perhaps ever.

California’s HSR is perhaps the greatest infrastructure failure in the history of the country. And the reason it failed is because of a gross failure of state governance, one on such a grand scale that it is nothing short of a betrayal of Californians.

The Train to Nowhere

 California's "high-speed" rail project is a fiasco.

Ashley Zavala at KCRA-TV:

California's bullet train project that is meant to link Los Angeles to San Francisco faces more cost increases and potential delays, according to an update from project leaders released this week.

High Speed Rail Authority officials on Thursday could not provide an estimated completion date for the original vision pitched to voters but said the price tag for the entire project is now up to $128 billion, a 13% increase from last year's projections.

Construction is currently focused on a segment in the Central Valley, a 170-mile stretch between Bakersfield and Merced. Project officials last year estimated that the route would be ready for riders in 2030. While that is still their goal, the latest update shows service could begin sometime between 2030 and 2033.

The Central Valley segment also faces 41% in cost increases compared to last year's estimates, now expected to cost up to $35.3 billion. Part of the scoping plan changed between this year and last, with this year's estimate including light maintenance facilities and new elements for the station in Bakersfield. Project leaders also pointed to the impacts of COVID-19, inflation and supply chain issues that have raised the prices of labor, concrete and steel.

The Work of a House Member

Former Rep. Peter King (R-NY)  at NYT:

For a member of Congress to be effective, be it through legislation or committee work or deal-making or favor-trading or helping out a constituent, you have to have relationships. It’s very hard to get anything done alone. Meaningful achievement begins with some measure of cooperation with colleagues based on friendship, ideology, party affiliation, shared interests, previous collaboration or some combinations thereof. And almost always, mutual trust is a bedrock part of those relationships.
…
What’s it like to be shamed and shunned as a member of Congress, to be a walking outcast among your peers? We have so few examples — Mr. Santos takes us into new territory. New members of Congress get to know one another by sharing stories about where they come from and where they went to school and exploring areas of common interest; Mr. Santos apparently made almost all of this up. New members meet with senior members who can show them the ropes, help them get some early legislative wins; what senior members will want to work with this guy?

Typical House members have 100 things coming at them at any one time — calls to make and return, constituent services to prioritize and deliver, good news and bad news to deliver to your district, decisions decisions decisions. Your ability to do all of this often depends on getting people on the phone or into a meeting to get the answers or results you need. Who will pick up the phone when George Santos is calling or take him seriously when they do?

Crazy Train 2022

California's high-speed rail project is a fiasco -- predictable and predicted.

Ralph Vartabedian at NYT:

Building the nation’s first bullet train, which would connect Los Angeles and San Francisco, was always going to be a formidable technical challenge, pushing through the steep mountains and treacherous seismic faults of Southern California with a series of long tunnels and towering viaducts.

But the design for the nation’s most ambitious infrastructure project was never based on the easiest or most direct route. Instead, the train’s path out of Los Angeles was diverted across a second mountain range to the rapidly growing suburbs of the Mojave Desert — a route whose most salient advantage appeared to be that it ran through the district of a powerful Los Angeles county supervisor.

The dogleg through the desert was only one of several times over the years when the project fell victim to political forces that have added billions of dollars in costs and called into question whether the project can ever be finished.

Now, as the nation embarks on a historic, $1 trillion infrastructure building spree, the tortured effort to build the country’s first high-speed rail system is a case study in how ambitious public works projects can become perilously encumbered by political compromise, unrealistic cost estimates, flawed engineering and a determination to persist on projects that have become, like the crippled financial institutions of 2008, too big to fail.

Public Problems of the Secret Service

 David Graham at The Atlantic:

This week, an employee staffing Biden’s trip to Israel was sent home after a reported physical altercation with a woman there. (This isn’t the first time an employee has been shipped back to the States for bad behavior.) In April, the FBI alleged that two men impersonating federal agents had fooled the Secret Service. And earlier this month, Biden announced that the agency’s chief was leaving to join the social-media company Snap (where at least he won’t have to worry about preserving his messages).

These incidents are just part of a string of snafus dating back more than a decade. During the Obama administration, the Secret Service allowed people to fire shots at the White House, permitted an armed guard to ride an elevator with the president, got into trouble overseas, and had car accidents after drinking. Officials were repeatedly sacked—including one who was investigating agents visiting sex workers overseas, until he himself was arrested in a prositution investigation.

This sort of haplessness is entertaining when it’s the Keystone Kops doing it on celluloid. But when the issues involved are as serious as the life of the president or attempts to subvert an election, laughter doesn’t come so easily.

Bad Conditions at the Border

From the Office of Inspector General, Department of Homeland Security, Management Alert – DHS Needs to Address Dangerous Overcrowding and Prolonged Detention of Children and Adults in the Rio Grande Valley 

During our visits to five Border Patrol facilities and two ports of entry in the Rio Grande Valley,2 we reviewed compliance with CBP’s Transport, Escort, Detention and Search (TEDS) standards, which govern CBP’s interaction with detained individuals,3 and observed serious overcrowding and prolonged detention of unaccompanied alien children (UACs), families, and single adults that require immediate attention. Specifically, Border Patrol was holding about 8,000 detainees in custody at the time of our visit, with 3,400 held longer than the 72 hours generally permitted under the TEDS standards.Of those 3,400 detainees, Border Patrol held 1,500 for more than 10 days.

...
In addition to holding roughly 30 percent of minor detainees for longer than 72 hours, several Rio Grande Valley facilities struggled to meet other TEDS standards for UACs and families. For example, children at three of the five Border Patrol facilities we visited had no access to showers, despite the TEDS standards requiring that “reasonable efforts” be made to provide showers to children approaching 48 hours in detention. At these facilities, children had limited access to a change of clothes; Border Patrol had few spare clothes and no laundry facilities. While all facilities had infant formula, diapers, baby wipes, and juice and snacks for children, we observed that two facilities had not provided children access to hot meals — as is required by the TEDS standards — until the week we arrived. Instead, the children were fed sandwiches and snacks for their meals. Additionally, while Border Patrol tried to provide the least restrictive setting available for children (e.g., by leaving holding room doors open), the limited space for medical isolation resulted in some UACs and families being held in closed cells.

In the Border Patrol facilities we visited, we also observed serious overcrowding and prolonged detention among adult detainees. TEDS provides that “under no circumstances should the maximum [cell] occupancy rate, as set by the fire marshal, be exceeded.” However, at one facility, some single adults were held in standing room only conditions for a week and at another, some single adults were held more than a month in overcrowded cells

The Elite College Premium

Many posts have discussed inequality in higher education. 

Christopher Ingraham at WP writes about the college admissions fraud scandal.

Federal data on post-collegiate earnings underscore why some people might be willing to risk a possible felony to get their children into the “right” schools: Graduates of the nation’s elite universities enjoy a significant wage premium relative to the typical college grad. This is particularly true at the top end of the income spectrum, where the richest graduates of the nation’s top-tier colleges can earn more than double what their peers at other schools typically make.

Graduates of the nation’s four-year colleges and universities can expect a median annual salary of about $44,000 by the 10th year after they first enrolled in college, according to a Washington Post analysis of data from the Department of Education. By comparison, that number jumps to $84,000 for the top 10 percent of college grads.

But if we look only at a select group of elite colleges — say, the eight schools reportedly targeted by the defendants in the Department of Justice’s Operation Varsity Blues investigation — those numbers change dramatically. The median graduate of those schools (which include Georgetown, Stanford, UCLA, the University of San Diego, the University of Southern California, the University of Texas at Austin, Wake Forest and Yale) can expect to earn about $73,000 a decade after they first enroll. And those who finish in the top 10 percent at those schools typically earn about $161,000 — nearly double the income of the top 10 percent of graduates of the rest of the nation’s colleges.

One important caveat is that the data are derived from students who received some form of federal financial aid during their undergraduate years. The roughly 15 percent of students who don’t need assistance aren’t included in the calculations. If those students were included, it would likely shift these distributions upward, although it’s unclear whether that would result in a larger or smaller earnings gap between graduates of top schools and everyone else.

Inequality in College Admissions, Continued

Rainesford Stauffer at NYT:

Anyone can see the kinds of things outlined in the indictment — bribes paid by wealthy parents in exchange for their children’s admission to top universities, and accompanying schemes to secure athletics scholarships for teens who didn’t even play high school sports — are unacceptable. But what about the standardized test prep industry, worth around $840 million, which involves parents forking over up to $200 an hour for Ivy League tutors tasked with increasing their children’s scores. That doesn’t include application essay writers, who coach students on what to write about, edit their writing and, in some cases, write for them. It doesn’t include college coaching firms, which charge up to $40,000 to strategize an applicant’s entire process.

Donations made to schools by the parents of legacy students can essentially buy acceptance letters. Meanwhile, there are some students who don’t have a parent to skim their essay for typos or can’t afford to pay to enroll in a prep course or to repeatedly take a standardized test until their score rises.

Corruption: International Data

From Transparency International:

The 2018 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) released today by Transparency International reveals the United States as a key country to watch in a global pattern of stagnating anti-corruption efforts and a worldwide crisis of democracy. With a score of 71, the US hasdropped four points since last year. This marks the first time since 2011 that the US falls outside of the top 20 countries on the CPI.

To view the results, visit: www.transparency.org/cpi2018

“A four point drop in the CPI score is a red flag and comes at a time when the US is experiencing threats to its system of checks and balances, as well as an erosion of ethical norms at the highest levels of power,” said Zoe Reiter, Acting Representative to the US at Transparency International. “If this trend continues, it would indicate a serious corruption problem in a country that has taken a lead on the issue globally. This is a bipartisan issue that requires a bipartisan solution.”

The 2018 CPI measures public sector corruption in 180 countries and territories, drawing on 13 expert assessments and surveys of business executives to give each country a score from zero (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean). Five of the nine sources used to compile the score for the US showed a noteworthy drop in score*. The other sources showed no improvement.

The Disasters of 2017

BREAKING: What may be millions of water bottles. meant for victims of Hurricane Maria, have been sitting on a runway in Ceiba, Puerto Rico, since last year, according to @FEMA, which confirmed the news to me, late tonight, after pictures, posted today on social media, went viral. pic.twitter.com/jidGJAvCyJ

— David Begnaud (@DavidBegnaud) September 12, 2018

From the Government Accountability Office:

The federal government provided significant support to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands in response to Hurricanes Irma and Maria, but faced numerous challenges that complicated response efforts. FEMA efforts in Puerto Rico alone were the largest and longest single response in the agency's history. As of April 2018, FEMA had obligated over $12 billion for response and recovery for Hurricane Maria (see figure below) reflecting the scale and complexity of efforts given the widespread damage. FEMA tasked federal agencies with over 1,000 response mission assignments for Hurricanes Maria and Irma in the territories at a cost of over $5 billion, compared to about 400 such assignments for Hurricanes Harvey and Irma and the California wildfires combined. For example, FEMA assigned the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers the mission to install over 1,700 emergency electricity generators in Puerto Rico, compared to the 310 for the response to Hurricane Katrina.

Nevertheless, GAO found that FEMA faced a number of challenges that slowed and complicated its response efforts to Hurricane Maria, particularly in Puerto Rico. Many of these challenges were also highlighted in FEMA's own 2017 hurricane after action report, including:

• the sequential and overlapping timing of the three hurricanes—with Maria being the last of the three—caused staffing shortages and required FEMA to shift staff to the territories that were already deployed to other disasters;

• logistical challenges complicated efforts to deploy federal resources and personnel quickly given the remote distance of both territories; and

• limited preparedness by the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico for a Category 5 hurricane and incapacitation of local response functions due to widespread devastation and loss of power and communications led FEMA to assume response functions that territories would usually perform themselves.

The 2017 hurricanes and wildfires highlighted some longstanding issues and revealed other emerging response and recovery challenges. For example, the concurrent timing and scale of the disaster damages nationwide caused shortages in available debris removal contractors and delays in removing disaster debris—a key first step in recovery. In addition, FEMA's available workforce was overwhelmed by the response needs. For example, at the height of FEMA workforce deployments in October 2017, 54 percent of staff were serving in a capacity in which they did not hold the title of “Qualified”—according to FEMA's qualification system standards—a past challenge GAO has identified. FEMA officials noted that staff shortages, and lack of trained personnel with program expertise led to complications in its response efforts, particularly after Hurricane Maria.

The Constitution and the Pardon Power

Previous posts have discussed the president's pardon power.

From the Congressional Research Service:

Can the President issue a so-called “prospective pardon”?

With respect to crimes committed prior to the issuance of the pardon, it appears the President can issue a pardon before any criminal proceeding against the pardon recipient has been initiated. In the1866 case ex parte Garland, the Supreme Court announced that the pardon power “extends to every offence known to the law, and may be exercised at any time after its commission, either before legal proceedings are taken or during their pendency, or after conviction and judgment.” Put another way, for the President to issue a pardon, the crime must have already been committed, but the President need not wait for an indictment or other information before granting the pardon. Take, for example, President Gerald Ford’s pardon for former President Richard Nixon, which granted Nixon “a full, free, and absolute pardon . . . for all offenses against the United States which he . . . has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969 through August 9, 1974.” Although no indictment had been brought against Nixon, his pardon shielded him from any future federal prosecution based upon any criminal acts he may have committed during the time period stated. A 1995 memo from the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) confirms this understanding by the executive branch, noting that “throughout the Nation’s history, Presidents have asserted the power to issue pardons prior to conviction, and the consistent view of the Attorneys General has been that such pardons have as full an effect as pardons issued after conviction.”

Can the President pardon himself?

The text of the Pardon Clause does not speak to whether the President can pardon himself. The Framers did not debate this question at the Convention, and it unclear whether they considered whether the pardon power could be applied in this manner. No President has attempted to pardon himself. In a memorandum issued several days before President Nixon resigned, the OLC concluded that the President could not issue a self-pardon, positing that “under the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case, the President cannot pardon himself.” This general legal assertion closely echoes Federalist No. 10, in which James Madison declared that “[n]o man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity.” However, Madison’s comments were not made in the context of pardons, and appear to be a general assertion about the rule of law, rather than an opinion on the constitutionality of self-pardons. While some legal scholars have contended that the President cannot pardon himself (see, e.g., here and here), others contend (see, e.g., here) that a good-faith argument, at least, could be made to support a self-pardon’s constitutional validity given the lack of textual restrictions against self-pardons within the Constitution. Accordingly, this is an unsettled constitutional question, unlikely to be resolved unless a President acts to pardon himself for a criminal offense

"This glass was dropped on a very thick carpet" -- Kremlingate and Equal Justice

Alex van der Zwaan, Dutch attorney and son-in-law of a Russian oligarch close to Putin, lied to federal agents investigating Manafort. In sentencing him, US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson spoke of equal justice before the law:

Lying would be wrong in any criminal investigation but this investigation also involves important questions of great national and international interest. It involves our country`s and probably other countries'  national security and the prospect of potential foreign interference and the democratic processes that are fundamental to our freedoms.

So, there is not much good you can say about the nature and circumstance of the offense. And to be fair, the defense doesn`t talk about them much at all.

The defense has asked for a sentence that consists of a fine so that you, the defendant, can return to your wife and start visiting your mother again. Those facts that I`ve been asked to consider really don`t differentiate this defendant significantly from the people who stand before me every day. There are people who are forced to accept severe, sometimes mandatory consequences of non-violent criminal activity, activity that
didn`t involve dishonesty, and they have been prompted by greater financial process or the lack of opportunities and upbringing that this man enjoyed.

I often find myself sentencing individuals with ailing parents, pregnant wives and needy children but few if any have the resources this family has to sustain itself. I`ve been told that this defendant has been punished enough because his life has been shattered, but this glass was dropped on a very thick carpet and it`s cushioned the blow.

 I just can`t say pay your fine at the door and go, especially given the facts and the pre-sentence report concerning this defendant`s assets and assistance he`s being provided now. I`m not sure it would be felt.

Even if every dollar were you own, we`re not talking about a traffic ticket here. This was lying during the course of a criminal investigation. Being able to write a check and walk away would not fulfill the function of deterring others and it would send the exact wrong message.

To impose a fine or probation sentence alone would be contrary to the policies and principles that led to the creation of the sentencing guidelines in the first place, that people with your advantages were getting probation and others weren`t. This criminal justice system isn`t supposed to favor those with means and while it`s true that you did plead guilty and it would not be fair to treat this defendant more harshly because it`s a high profile investigation, the judge says, I have come to the conclusion the offense warrants a period of some incarceration.

Green Light to Emoluments Clause Suit

Dahlia Lithwick at Slate:

On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Peter J. Messitte gave an unexpected green light to the attorneys general of Maryland and the District of Columbia, who had claimed in a lawsuit that payments to properties owned by Donald Trump violate the Constitution’s arcane foreign and domestic Emoluments Clauses. Messitte, who works out of the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, found that the plaintiffs have standing to proceed with their case, at least with respect to the Trump International Hotel in D.C., but not properties in other states.

In a similar case in December, a judge in New York ruled against a different set of plaintiffs, finding they had not shown they were directly harmed by domestic and foreign officials making payments to Trump properties. But in his 47-page ruling, Messitte denied the Justice Department’s motion to dismiss with respect to Trump properties in the District of Columbia but not Maryland. The court made no other decisions beyond finding that the plaintiffs have standing to move forward with their case.

Of particular note, wrote the judge, was the Trump International Hotel D.C., “a five-star, luxury hotel located on Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., in Washington, near the White House.” He noted that “[d]irectly or indirectly, the President shares in the revenues that the Hotel and its appurtenant restaurant, bar, and event spaces generate.” Messitte noted that “[s]ince the President’s election, a number of foreign governments have patronized or expressed a definite intention to patronize the Hotel, some of which have indicated that they are doing so precisely because of the President’s association with it” and made special mention of the fact that “at least one State—the State of Maine—patronized the Hotel when its Governor, Paul LePage, visited Washington to discuss official business with the Federal Government.”

Mueller Thread

Trump might fire Mueller. Former FBI agent Asha Rangappa has a thread on Russiagate:

@AshaRangappa_

MUELLER THREAD. We should all (obviously) be concerned if Trump fires Mueller. But, in my opinion, we should be even MORE concerned if he fires DAG Rod Rosenstein. Here's why:

9:17 AM - 16 Dec 2017

• 4,952 Retweets
• 8,622 Likes
• 

280 replies4,952 retweets8,622 likes

Tweet text

1. New conversation
   
   Asha Rangappa‏Verified account @AshaRangappa_ 21h21 hours ago
   
   Replying to @AshaRangappa_
   2. The investigation into Russia's election interference began well before Mueller came on the scene, in June 2016. It is an investigation that existed independent of him. He didn't "start" it.
   17 replies521 retweets1,883 likes
   
   
   
   
   Asha Rangappa‏Verified account @AshaRangappa_ 21h21 hours ago
   
   3. Likewise, if he leaves, it won't "end" it. Mueller was appointed mainly to insulate an ongoing investigation from conflicts of interest that arose from Comey's firing. If he leaves, some of that insulation is gone. BUT:
   7 replies413 retweets1,660 likes
   
   
   
   
   Asha Rangappa‏Verified account @AshaRangappa_ 21h21 hours ago
   
   4. The FBI has a statutory mandate to investigate potential violations of federal law and threats to national security. Just because Mueller leaves doesn't mean that those cases just get dumped in the trash. They are obligated to continue investigation them to their resolution.
   31 replies588 retweets1,993 likes
   
   
   
   
   Asha Rangappa‏Verified account @AshaRangappa_ 21h21 hours ago
   
   5. It's also useful to think of FBI investigations as fractals. Each case can spawn a new case, depending on what's uncovered. In other words, if during an investigation of one violation, you uncover another, that's a new case.
   18 replies436 retweets1,772 likes
   
   
   
   
   Asha Rangappa‏Verified account @AshaRangappa_ 21h21 hours ago
   
   6. So while we talk about the "Russia investigation," that is really an umbrella for what is likely *many* cases involving both criminal and counterintelligence threads. Those don't just disappear.
   11 replies437 retweets1,819 likes
   
   
   
   
   Asha Rangappa‏Verified account @AshaRangappa_ 21h21 hours ago
   
   7. Further, some of these -- like the indictments and plea deals we've seen -- are already in the judicial system. And no doubt there are outstanding subpoenas and other investigative leads that are already out. In other words, this train has left the station, big time.
   10 replies460 retweets1,936 likes
   
   
   
   
   Asha Rangappa‏Verified account @AshaRangappa_ 21h21 hours ago
   
   8. They key, however, is that there needs to be a prosecutor at DOJ who is willing to facilitate and approve many parts of the investigation. Right now that's Mueller. In his absence, who is it? DAG Rod Rosenstein (because AG Sessions would still be recused).
   13 replies417 retweets1,597 likes
   
   
   
   
   Asha Rangappa‏Verified account @AshaRangappa_ 21h21 hours ago
   
   9. Under the Special Counsel regulations, Mueller has been reporting to Rosenstein every 90 days about the status of his investigation. He's also had to seek approval for an expansion of his mandate, or for any charges he's brought so far.
   6 replies389 retweets1,532 likes
   
   
   
   
   Asha Rangappa‏Verified account @AshaRangappa_ 21h21 hours ago
   
   10. We can conclude that so far Rosenstein has approved of the progress and requests that have been made -- if he hadn't, he would have had to report this to Congress and explain why. That hasn't happened. He's also explicitly stated that he believes Mueller is doing his job.
   8 replies423 retweets1,712 likes
   
   
   
   
   Asha Rangappa‏Verified account @AshaRangappa_ 21h21 hours ago
   
   11. Rosenstein, therefore, has basically seen everything that Mueller has. And he's on board. Presumably, if he is put "back in charge," he'd continue to move the investigation forward (if he didn't, it would raise the question why he had been approving Mueller until now).
   9 replies388 retweets1,585 likes
   
   
   
   
   Asha Rangappa‏Verified account @AshaRangappa_ 20h20 hours ago
   
   12. If Trump fires, Rosenstein, however, he can appoint someone new to be the DAG. Which means he can preemptively choose someone who is going to stonewall the investigation from moving forward. Even a new DAG overseeing Mueller could do this.
   39 replies539 retweets1,586 likes
   
   
   
   
   Asha Rangappa‏Verified account @AshaRangappa_ 20h20 hours ago
   
   13. So, IMO, that's the bigger threat. Rosenstein, not Mueller, is really the buffer right now between POTUS (and Congress) and a full investigation of all aspects of "the Russia investigation," incl the counterintelligence part, the various criminal threads, and OoJ. /END
   34 replies564 retweets1,874 likes
   
   
   
   
   Asha Rangappa‏Verified account @AshaRangappa_ 20h20 hours ago
   
   14. P.S. And ppl are right that in general, Trump has to fire Rosenstein to fire Mueller. But part of my point is that he could replace DAG, *not* fire Mueller and still achieve same effect if that DAG is willing to block Mueller's efforts and "spin" the reasons why to Congress.
   181 replies678 retweets2,076 likes