President Donald Trump announced this morning that he plans to nominate former Attorney General William Barr as the replacement for Jeff Sessions.
It’s a clever choice: Barr passes far more easily than Jeff Sessions or Matthew Whitaker for a reasonable, conservative option for AG. In reality, it’s clear that he was chosen for the same reason Sessions was fired and Whitaker was hired—Trump’s panic over the Mueller investigation.
- In November 2017, the New York Times reported that Barr said “he sees more basis for investigating the [Clinton] uranium deal than any supposed collusion between Mr. Trump and Russia.”
- He’s a Trump apologist. Barr wrote an op-ed arguing that Trump “made the right call” and did nothing wrong in his firing of FBI Director James Comey.
- When President George H.W. Bush pardoned several people involved in the Iran-contra scandal, then-attorney general Barr “took the legs out from beneath the independent prosecutor investigating the matter.”
There’s no mystery here: Barr’s coming nomination is another desperate attack on Special Counsel Robert Mueller, whose investigation is clearly terrifying Trump more than ever (judging by his increasingly-unhinged Twitter rants).
THE REAL VICTIMS OF THE GOP TAX SCAM.
The same companies that promised that the #GOPTaxScam would “boost jobs” are laying off their employees. Shocker.
The Reforming America’s Taxes Equitably (RATE) coalition, “dozens of companies and trade groups that all insisted lowering corporate taxes would mean more jobs,” was instrumental in lobbying lawmakers to pass the massive tax cuts.
A new ThinkProgress investigation reveals that about half of the RATE coalition groups—in contrast to their insistence that the tax scam would “boost jobs”—have actually made layoffs since the law went into effect.
As ThinkProgress reporter Josh Israel puts it, “In other words, not only did the expensive tax cut not bring more jobs, it couldn’t even forestall significant job losses.”
As we approach the one-year anniversary of the tax scam, this morning saw a mediocre jobs report, and a stock market increasingly spooked by Trump’s erratic behavior, with some in the White House even raising the prospect of a recession. Doesn’t seem like $2 trillion well spent, does it?
OFF-KILTER: IS A FARM BILL DEAL IN SIGHT?
Here’s what’s happening this week on Off-Kilter Podcast:
- A Farm Bill deal looms on the horizon. Will it cross the finish line?
- The team debates the pros and cons of Opportunity Zones.
- The news of the week, in case you missed it.
Listen to the episode here.