Monday Reading

As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.

The Great Dismal Trump Swamp may have another endangered creature:

A federal grand jury in New York is investigating top Republican fundraiser Elliott Broidy, examining whether he used his position as vice chair of President Donald Trump’s inaugural committee to drum up business deals with foreign leaders, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press and people familiar with the matter.

A wide-ranging subpoena the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn recently sent to Trump’s inaugural committee seeks records relating to 20 individuals and businesses. All have connections to Broidy, his investment and defense contracting firms, and foreign officials he pursued deals with — including the current president of Angola and two politicians in Romania.

Prosecutors appear to be investigating whether Broidy exploited his access to Trump for personal gain and violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which makes it illegal for U.S. citizens to offer foreign officials “anything of value” to gain a business advantage. Things of value in this case could have been an invitation to the January 2017 inaugural events or access to Trump.

You may recall Broidy was embroiled in a scandal involving a mistress who got pregnant and needed to be paid hush money for an abortion by Trump's former fixer Michael Cohen. It's been speculated (it would be irresponsible not to) that the mistress and fetus were actually Trump's and not Broidy's.

The career DOJ lawyers who were humiliated by Trump's decision to press ahead with putting a citizenship question on the 2020 census form even after the Supreme Court said the assministration's rationale was "contrived" have decided they've had enough:

The Department of Justice switched up the team of lawyers representing the Trump administration in it push to get a citizenship question on the 2020 census, according to the Washington Post. 

The DOJ announced the decision in a statement after the Post asked the department about the move. A person familiar with the matter told the Post that some career lawyers within the department had concerns over how the case has been handled.

The Republican attorneys general in 18 states and a far- right Texas judge have now solidified the branding of their party as the "no health care for you" party, regardless of the outcome of this case:

On Tuesday, the Trump administration and 18 Republican-led states will face off against a score of Democratic-led states over the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act — the sprawling law the Supreme Court has upheld twice but a federal district judge in Texas ruled invalid late last year.

If the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit hearing these arguments agrees with the lower court, the “win” for Republicans, who have sought for nearly a decade to ditch the ACA, could perversely cause the GOP the greatest trouble, according to analysts from both parties.

A 5th Circuit ruling that the health-care law is unconstitutional would almost certainly catapult the issue back before the Supreme Court — and to the forefront of the 2020 presidential and congressional races, say legal and political analysts. Even if the high court were to decline the case, the drama would raise fresh uncertainties about the millions of Americans who could lose insurance coverage and consumer protections created under the law — especially those with preexisting medical conditions, whom President Trump has vowed to protect even as his administration tries to eliminate the law.

Of course, the best outcome would be for the law to stand and the rotted out Republican Party be further exposed as the sociopaths they are.

Burr Deming asks about Trump's hatred of immigrants,

What is the commonality that flows from the black kids in Central Park, through the Papers-Please campaign against America’s first black President, and finally to the deadly waters of the Rio Grande, where brown skinned bodies float downstream?

We think you know the answer, but read Deming's piece for the thread.

That post, by the way, we found in Infidel 753's invaluable link round- up.  If you haven't checked it out by now, you're missing a f*ckton of interesting topics, vids, threads and esoterica.

Massive Hypocrite Is Massively Hypocritical

There's this:

President Donald Trump urged attendees at a Tuesday night gala for a top anti-abortion organization to vote in November, issuing a stern warning about what might happen if they don’t. 

“If Democrats gained power, they will try to reverse these incredible gains, these are historic gains,” Trump told the audience at Susan B. Anthony List’s annual Campaign for Life event, referring to the strides made by his administration to defund abortion providers like Planned Parenthood and generally limit abortion services in the U.S.  

“Every day between now and November we must work together to elect more lawmakers who share our values, cherish our heritage, and proudly stand for life,” Trump said. [snip]

“For decades, American taxpayers have been wrongfully forced to subsidize the abortion industry through Title X federal funding, so today we have kept another promise,“ Trump said to a cheering crowd. “My administration has proposed a new rule to prohibit Title X funding from going to any clinic that performs abortions.” (our emphasis)

And then there's this:

Four days after after the raid on [Trump attorney Michael] Cohen’s office, on April 13, The Wall Street Journal published a story claiming that this David Dennison, in the NDA signed by [Playboy model] Shera Bechard, was none other than Elliott Broidy — despite its being precisely the same pseudonym Trump had used in the Stormy Daniels NDA. 

But as I argued at length and in detail in this space two weeks ago, Broidy’s account raises a lot of questions — and I believe a more plausible explanation of all the facts at hand is that he agreed to pay Bechard seven figures as a favor to Donald Trump, who actually impregnated Bechard, and then needed to hush her up about their affair and her subsequent abortion. 

Trump, I pointed out, is exactly the kind of man who has affairs with women like Shera Bechard, while Broidy has a history of bribing public officials to further his business interests — indeed, he had even made payments to the mistress of a politician he was bribing. And it was clear Broidy had spent much of 2017 touting his connections to Trump to various foreign officials.

The New York Magazine article by Paul Campos excerpted above is a must- read, and makes a compelling argument, based on further reporting by the Associated Press, for why Broidy did what he did =cough= quid pro quo =cough=.

Now, please raise your hand if you believe serial adulterer Donald "Rump" Trump was the one who impregnated Ms. Bechard and then paid hush money for her abortion.  Keep your hand raised if you think this epic hypocrisy won't matter one bit to the knuckle- dragging Rump base.  You can put your hands down now.

BONUS:  Susie Madrak at Crooks & Liars has more here.