memeorandum: ‘Whimsical, uninformed’: French ambassador's parting verdict on Trump (Julian Borger/The Guardian)

3:05 PM ET, April 19, 2019

Top Items:

Mueller Hints at a National-Security Nightmare — The missing piece of the report is a counterintelligence investigation that should set off alarm bells about our democracy and security. — Mr. Geltzer is the executive director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown Law.

Discussion: Washington Monthly, Just Security and Raw Story

Charlie Savage / New York Times:

Comparing Barr's Excerpts With Mueller's Report — Attorney General William P. Barr sent a letter to Congress last month citing brief fragments from the Mueller report. Now that the document is public, his selections are coming under scrutiny. — When Attorney General William P. Barr sent Congress …

Discussion: New Republic, Vox, Washington Post, Raw Story and Northeastern

ABC News:

5 key takeaways from special counsel Robert Mueller's report — The report is a trove of information about the current presidency. — While there will be no legal case brought against President Donald Trump by special counsel Robert Mueller's team, the much-anticipated redacted report …

George T. Conway III / Washington Post:

George Conway: Trump is a cancer on the presidency. Congress should remove him. — George T. Conway III is a lawyer in New York. — So it turns out that, indeed, President Trump was not exonerated at all, and certainly not “totally” or “completely,” as he claimed.

Discussion: Vox, Vanity Fair, Snopes.com, Boston Globe, IJR, Politico, The Hill, Fox News, Breitbart, The Gateway Pundit, Washingtonian, Splinter, Washington Times, CNN, Mediaite, Raw Story, The Nation, Little Green Footballs and New York Post

David French / National Review:

The Mueller Report Should Shock Our Conscience — I've finished reading the entire Mueller report, and I must confess that even as a longtime, quite open critic of Donald Trump, I was surprised at the sheer scope, scale, and brazenness of the lies, falsehoods, and misdirections detailed by the Special Counsel's Office.

Discussion: Townhall, Raw Story, Conservative Tribune, wabe.org, NPR, CNN, Quartz, The Week, Mediaite and Shakesville

New York Times:

A Portrait of the White House and Its Culture of Dishonesty — WASHINGTON — As President Trump met with advisers in the Oval Office in May 2017 to discuss replacements for the F.B.I. director he had just fired, Attorney General Jeff Sessions slipped out of the room to take a call.

Discussion: Washington Post, The Intercept, Hullabaloo, Mediaite, Daily Wire, Breitbart and Slate

Timothy O'Brien / Bloomberg:

Does Mueller Think Trump's Guilty? Read Closely … You wouldn't have known from Attorney General William Barr's succinct and misleading four-page summary that fully 21 pages of the 448-page report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller, released publicly on Thursday, are devoted to an important …

Jonathan Swan / Axios:

Scoop: Trump suspected that former White House counsel Don McGahn wore a wire — Late in Don McGahn's tenure as White House counsel, President Trump became so suspicious that he wondered aloud whether McGahn was wearing a wire, a source familiar with the president's private conversations told Axios.

Discussion: New York Times, Townhall, Law & Crime, Raw Story, Mediaite and DCReport.org

Lawfare:

What Mueller Found on Russia and on Obstruction: A First Analysis — “Really the best day since he got elected,” said Kellyanne Conway, the president's counselor, about a day on which 400 pages dropped into the public's lap describing relentless presidential misconduct and serial engagements between his campaign and a foreign actor.

Discussion: Salon, Washington Post, Hullabaloo, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Vox and Breitbart

Cheyenne Haslett / ABC News:
Sarah Sanders grilled on her contradictory statements highlighted in Mueller report

Discussion: USA Today, Sunlight Foundation, Breitbart, TIME, IJR, New York Times and The Guardian

Susan B. Glasser / New Yorker:
The Mueller Report Won't End Trump's Presidency, But It Sure Makes Him Look Bad

Discussion: New York Times, Vox, CNN, Outside the Beltway, Washington Post, Columbia Journalism Review, Politico and Wired, more at Mediagazer »

Tom Nichols / USA Today:
Mueller report: Donald Trump failed us as commander-in-chief

Discussion: Outside the Beltway and Politico

Renato Mariotti / Politico:
The Obstruction Case Against Trump that Barr Tried to Hide

Discussion: Washington Post, Raw Story, Vanity Fair, The Daily Beast and RedState

Yuval Levin / National Review:
Another Warning Sign

Discussion: Mother Jones

Ben Smith / BuzzFeed News:
How We Characterized Michael Cohen's Testimony

Discussion: Politico, Daily Mail, VICE News, Daily Wire, The Wrap, Vox, Mediaite and Breitbart, more at Mediagazer »

Kimberley A. Strassel / Wall Street Journal:
Mueller's Report Speaks Volumes

Discussion: RedState, Instapundit, Daily Wire, twitchy.com, Power Line, New York Times and The Gateway Pundit

Abe Greenwald / New York Post: The Mueller report just left egg on Democrats' faces

Byron York / Washington Examiner:
Mueller, Trump, and ‘two years of bullshit’

Discussion: Instapundit and Daily Wire

Ezra Klein / Vox:
The best defense of Trump is still a damning indictment

Discussion: LGBTQ Nation, Breitbart, IJR, USA Today and The Intercept

Eli Lake / Bloomberg: How Not to Obstruct Justice — Trump gave Mueller a steady stream of ammunition.

Edward-Isaac Dovere / The Atlantic:

Joe Biden Is Running for President — Joe Biden is running. The former vice president will make his candidacy official with a video announcement next Wednesday, according to people familiar with the discussions who have been told about them by top aides. — Seriously, he's actually made a decision.

Discussion: Associated Press, Vanity Fair, Daily Wire, Fox News, Townhall, LifeNews.com, Politico, Trending Home, Breitbart, Splinter, Washington Times and Mediaite

Philip Elliott / TIME: Joe Biden Will Announce His Presidential Campaign Next Week, Unless He Doesn't, But He Probably Will

Brian Schwartz / CNBC: Biden hires over a dozen senior advisors from Obama administration for 2020 campaign: Sources

Jerry Iannelli / Miami New Times:

South Florida Man Arrested for Threatening to Kill Democratic Lawmakers, Including Ilhan Omar … Lately, Donald Trump fans have enjoyed attacking left-leaning Americans. Last year, for instance, Miami-area resident Cesar Sayoc sent pipe bombs to prominent liberals around the country and went to jail.

Discussion: Raw Story, Joe.My.God. and Mediaite

Nicole Lafond / Talking Points Memo: FL Man Arrested For Threatening To Murder Several Dems, Including Omar And Tlaib

Michael Hirsh / Foreign Policy:

How Trump Practices ‘Escalation Dominance’ — “You have restraint on your side. He has no restraint. So you lose,” says outgoing French Ambassador Gérard Araud. — Following in the footsteps of Alexis de Tocqueville, Gérard Araud has made a study of the United States …

Discussion: Fox News, Shareblue Media, Raw Story, Joe.My.God. and Mediaite

Julian Borger / The Guardian:

‘Whimsical, uninformed’: French ambassador's parting verdict on Trump — Gérard Araud compares regime to court of Louis XIV and warns UK over post-Brexit trade — The outgoing French ambassador to the US has compared the Trump administration to the court of King Louis XIV …

Discussion: IJR and The Local

Yara Bayoumy / The Atlantic: The French Ambassador Is Retiring Today. Here's What He Really Thinks About Washington.

Alex Pareene / New Republic:

Democrats Are Hoping You Don't Understand What “Impeachment” Entails — The 1974 vote in the House of Representatives to give the Judiciary Committee broad subpoena power for its investigation into whether or not President Richard Nixon committed any impeachable offenses passed 410-4.

Discussion: The Federalist, Vox, Raw Story, Daily Kos and The Daily Caller

Greg Sargent / Washington Post:
Democratic equivocation over impeachment is a moral and political disaster

Discussion: Vox, Crooked Media, No More Mister Nice Blog, Rolling Stone and Roll Call

Washington Post:
Mueller report updates: Nadler subpoenas full findings; White House calls it ‘political grandstanding’

Discussion: Breitbart, Politico, Axios, Media Matters for America and IndieWire

Kevin Poulsen / The Daily Beast:

Mueller Report: Assange Smeared Seth Rich to Cover for Russians — Julian Assange repeatedly blamed Seth Rich, the murdered DNC staffer, for Russia's leaks. The Mueller report shows that Assange was lying from the start. — Julian Assange not only knew that a murdered Democratic National …

Discussion: TheBlaze, Lawyers, Guns & Money and NBC News

Scott Jennings / CNN:
Mueller's report looks bad for Obama

Discussion: USA Today, Conservative Tribune and Mediaite

Jonathan Chait / New York Magazine: Trump Beat the Rap, but Mueller Uncovered a Historic Scandal

Griffin Connolly / Roll Call:

Rep. Hunter pretends to cross the Mexico border and gets called out for violating his parole — Rep. Duncan Hunter and his Democratic challenger Ammar Campa-Najjar traded Twitter barbs Thursday over a video Hunter posted where he appeared to suggest he was crossing the southern border into Mexico.

Ken Stone / Times of San Diego:
Rep. Hunter Hops Border Barrier — But Not Into Mexico as Video Suggests

Discussion: Talking Points Memo

Tim Dickinson / Rolling Stone:

Re-Read Bill Barr's Infamous Letter With Full Quotes From the Mueller Report — Context is everything. Trump's attorney general is a partisan hack — Attorney General William Barr released a letter to Congress on March 24, 2019, purporting to summarize the top-line conclusion of the Mueller report.

Claire Spellberg / Decider: Stephen Colbert Slams Trump After Mueller Report: “That's Not How an Innocent Person Reacts”

New York Times:

Pete Buttigieg Fired South Bend's Black Police Chief. It Still Stings. — SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Pete Buttigieg had been mayor just 13 weeks when he faced a leadership crisis. — It was March 2012, and 300 residents of South Bend, Ind., solemnly marched to the Martin Luther King Center …

Leigh Ann Caldwell / NBC News:

Possible 2020 contender Michael Bennet gets clean bill of health after cancer treatment — Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, who is contemplating jumping in the crowded 2020 Democratic presidential race, has been given a clean bill of health after undergoing surgery to remove cancer, his office said in a statement.

Discussion: Axios

John Wagner / Washington Post:
Sen. Michael Bennet's cancer surgery was ‘completely successful,’ spokeswoman says

Discussion: Politico

The Daily Beast:

Matt Gaetz Hires Speechwriter Fired From White House Over White Nationalist Conference — Dr. Darren Beattie was pushed out of the administration over his appearance alongside alt-right figures. Less than a year later, he has a new gig on the Hill. — One of President Donald Trump's top …

Discussion: Raw Story, Politico, Axios and Mediaite

Brian Stelter / CNN:

Sarah Sanders admitted she lied to the White House press. Does she have any credibility left? — New York (CNN Business)"Not founded on anything" is the new “alternative facts.” — The term applies to White House press secretary Sarah Sanders and her misleading statements from the press briefing room podium.

Discussion: IJR