POLITICO Playbook: Bill Barr’s coalition of the willing


POLITICO Playbook: Bill Barr’s coalition of the willing

THE STORY EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT — “Trump Pressed Australian Leader to Help Barr Investigate Mueller Inquiry’s Origins,” by NYT’s Mark Mazzetti and Katie Benner: “President Trump pushed the Australian prime minister during a recent telephone call to help Attorney General William P. Barr gather information for a Justice Department inquiry that Mr. Trump hopes will discredit the Mueller investigation, according to two American officials with knowledge of the call.

“The White House curbed access to a transcript of the call — which the president made at Mr. Barr’s request — to a small group of aides, one of the officials said. The restriction was unusual and similar to the handling of a July call with the Ukrainian president that is at the heart of House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry.

“Like that call, Mr. Trump’s discussion with Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia shows the president using high-level diplomacy to advance his personal political interests.

“The discussion with Mr. Morrison shows the extent to which Mr. Trump views the attorney general as a crucial partner: The president is using federal law enforcement powers to aid his political prospects, settle scores with his perceived ‘deep state’ enemies and show that the Mueller investigation had corrupt, partisan origins.” NYT

— WAPO’S DEVLIN BARRETT, SHANE HARRIS and MATT ZAPOTOSKY: “Barr has already made overtures to British intelligence officials, and last week the attorney general traveled to Italy, where he and Durham met senior Italian government officials and Barr asked the Italians to assist Durham, according to one person familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue. It was not Barr’s first trip to Italy to meet intelligence officials, the person said.

“The Trump administration has made similar requests of Australia, said people who discussed the interactions on the condition of anonymity because they involve an ongoing investigation and sensitive talks between governments.” WaPo

— FLASHBACK: Barr was spotted in Playbook PM on Aug. 15 at the Rome Marriott Grand Flora Hotel. Barr, who was dressed in a suit, was accompanied by multiple staffers and had a significant security detail presence as he was whisked into the hotel.

HMM … “Pompeo Took Part in Ukraine Call, Official Says,” by WSJ’s Courtney McBride and Sadie Gurman: “Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was among the administration officials who listened in on the July 25 phone call between President Trump and Ukraine’s president, a senior State Department official said Monday, a disclosure that ties the State Department more closely to the House impeachment inquiry.” WSJ

SCOOP — ALEX ISENSTADT: “Trump grievance machine reaps millions off impeachment”: “Donald Trump’s campaign aides expected months ago that Democrats would try to impeach the president — and he needed a way to exploit it. So this summer, Trump 2020 officials spliced news clips of Democrats discussing impeachment into a 90-second video montage, punctuated by the president imploring supporters to help him ‘stop this nonsense.’

“Aides quietly filed the spot away until last week, when it was released it as part of an online counteroffensive to the impeachment push that brought in 50,000-plus new donors and raked in $8.5 million in two days — the campaign’s biggest digital haul since its June launch.

“The push demonstrates how Trump, in less than three years in office, has perfected a grievance machine that converts deep-seated outrage on the right into fundraising dollars and new support. As Trump confronts the gravest threat to his presidency yet, his campaign is stoking — and monetizing — the anger of a Republican base that has long seen the president as under siege.” POLITICO … The spot

— “Trump is using Facebook to run thousands of ads about impeachment,” by CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan and David Wright: “President Donald Trump is using his powerful social media presence to push back against the impeachment inquiry, tweeting and retweeting more than 100 times over the weekend and his reelection campaign has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on Facebook ads on the topic over the past week.

“More than 1,800 ads on Trump’s Facebook page mentioning ‘impeachment’ have run in the past seven days. The ads have been viewed between 16 and 18 million times on Facebook and the campaign has spent between $600,000 and $2,000,000 on the effort, according to data analyzed by Laura Edelson, a researcher at New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering. The President is using ads to enlist people in what his campaign is calling the ‘Official Impeachment Defense Task Force.’” CNN

WAR ROOM? WHAT WAR ROOM? — “Trump team battles over impeachment war room,” by Nancy Cook and Darren Samuelsohn: “A week after House Democrats jump-started their impeachment inquiry, the White House has yet to converge on any single plan, strategy or even unified messaging to fight back.

“All the talk about setting up a so-called war room inside the West Wing, similar to the approach of the Clinton White House, has gone nowhere. Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, other top aides, lawyers and Trump advisers have been jockeying among their own internal factions for control of the approach or messaging. And President Donald Trump has expressed little interest in responding to House Democrats in such a conventional manner, preferring to deploy his own messaging on Twitter.” POLITICO

— WAPO: “Trump amps up attacks on whistleblower as some Republicans call for more strategic response to impeachment”

— MEL ZANONA: “GOP maps out impeachment defense amid messaging stumbles”: “House Republicans are scrambling to hash out a unified strategy to defend President Donald Trump as the GOP struggles to respond to the rapidly-moving impeachment probe. With Democrats aggressively pushing ahead with their impeachment inquiry, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) convened a conference call on Monday afternoon where he urged members of his leadership team and GOP committee leaders to get on the same messaging page, according to multiple lawmakers and aides.

“McCarthy implored his troops to stay focused on communicating that there is nothing that rises to the level of impeachment in the president’s July phone call with Ukraine, when Trump urged the Ukrainian president to investigate the Biden family. … But the party has more broadly faced some messaging stumbles over the last week, fueling anxiety among Republicans that they don’t have a clear vision to guard against impeachment.” POLITICO

Good Tuesday morning.

RACE TO WATCH — Dan Feehan is launching his campaign against GOP Rep. Jim Hagedorn in Minnesota’s 1st District. The race will be a rematch between the two, who battled in 2018 for an open seat that had been held by Democratic Rep. Tim Walz. Hagedorn took in 50.2% of the vote, compared to Feehan with 49.8%. Campaign video launch

NEW POLLS — “American support for impeaching Trump rises to 45% amid Ukraine matter: Reuters/Ipsos poll,” by Reuters’ Chris Kahn: “The number of Americans who believe President Donald Trump should be impeached rose by 8 percentage points over the past week as more people learned about allegations that Trump pressured Ukraine to smear his top Democratic political rival Joe Biden, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Monday.

“The Sept. 26-30 opinion poll found that 45% of adults believe Republican Trump ‘should be impeached,’ compared with 37% in a similar poll that ran last week. Another 41% said that Trump should not be impeached and 15% said they ‘don’t know.’” Reuters

— “Support for impeaching Trump rises among independents and Republicans,” by CNN’s Jennifer Agiesta: “Americans are about evenly split over impeaching President Donald Trump and removing him from office, as support for that move has risen among independents and Republicans, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS after the announcement of a formal impeachment inquiry by House Democrats last week.

“About half, 47%, support impeaching the president and removing him from office, up from 41% who felt that way in a CNN poll in May. The current level matches the high point for impeaching Trump in previous CNN polling — 47% said they felt that way in September 2018.” CNN … The full poll

— BUT, BUT, BUT: “How A Big Enough News Story — Like Impeachment — Could Warp The Polls,” by “Mystery Pollster” Mark Blumenthal for FiveThirtyEight

NEXT UP: “Democrats subpoena Giuliani as Trump lashes out,” by Andrew Desiderio: “The House Intelligence Committee on Monday issued a subpoena to Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, as part of House Democrats’ rapidly intensifying impeachment inquiry.

“The subpoena, issued in consultation with the House Foreign Affairs and Oversight panels, seeks documents related to Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate 2020 contender and former Vice President Joe Biden. The committees demanded details about Giuliani’s interactions with Trump administration officials regarding his activities in the eastern European nation as a potential intermediary between the American and Ukrainian governments.” POLITICO

2020 WATCH — CHRIS CADELAGO: “Kamala Harris shakes up flailing campaign”

— “Democrats plead for campaign cash as third quarter closes,” by AP’s Brian Slodysko: “With the Iowa caucuses approaching in February, there’s a growing sense of urgency as the primary becomes a fierce battle for a limited pool of cash that could make the difference between staying in the race and heading for the exits.

“Those who continue to muddle along in the lower tier will not only face challenges paying for advertising to amplify their message, but they are also likely to struggle reaching fundraising thresholds set by the Democratic National Committee to qualify for future debates.” AP

TRUMP’S TUESDAY — The president will meet with Defense Secretary Mike Esper at 4 p.m. in the Oval Office.

KNOWING RACHEL MADDOW — “This Is the Moment Rachel Maddow Has Been Waiting For,” by NYT Magazine’s Amanda Hess: “How the MSNBC host staked her show on Trump — and won the largest and most obsessive audience of her career.” NYT Magazine

THE INVESTIGATIONS …

— “Trump may have lied to Mueller, House Democrats say,” by Andrew Desiderio: “Lawyers for the House of Representatives revealed on Monday that they have reason to believe that the grand-jury redactions in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report show that President Donald Trump lied about his knowledge of his campaign’s contacts with WikiLeaks.

“The attorneys made the stunning suggestion in a court filing as part of the House Judiciary Committee’s bid for Mueller’s grand-jury materials, which have remained secret by law. ‘Not only could those materials demonstrate the president’s motives for obstructing the special counsel’s investigation, they also could reveal that Trump was aware of his campaign’s contacts with WikiLeaks,’ the lawyers wrote in the filing, which was in response to the Justice Department’s opposition to the disclosure of the grand-jury information.

“To back up their claim, the House’s legal team — led by House General Counsel Douglas Letter — cited a passage in Mueller’s report about former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort’s testimony that he ‘recalled’ Trump asking to be kept ‘updated’ about WikiLeaks’ disclosures of Democratic National Committee emails. There is a grand-jury redaction in that passage, the lawyers note.” POLITICO

— JOSH GERSTEIN: “Michael Flynn’s lawyers dismiss his Turkey lobbying admissions as ‘meaningless’”: “The defense team for former national security adviser Michael Flynn is entirely dismissing admissions he made as part of his guilty plea two years ago that he provided false information to the Justice Department about work he did for Turkish interests while serving as a top adviser to the Trump presidential campaign in 2016.

Flynn’s attorneys argued in a court filing Monday that a judge’s decision last week overturning a jury’s guilty verdicts on related charges against Flynn’s business partner Bijan Rafiekian ‘renders meaniningless’ the concessions Flynn made under oath during his December 2017 guilty plea.” POLITICO

— “U.S. to Join Trump Lawsuit Seeking to Block Disclosure of Tax Returns,” by WSJ’s Corinne Ramey: “The U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan said Monday that the U.S. would participate in a lawsuit filed by President Trump that seeks to block a subpoena for eight years of his tax returns.

“In a brief letter to the judge, U.S. Attorney for Manhattan Geoffrey Berman and Jeffrey Oestericher, chief of the office’s civil division, said the U.S. would file a submission in the case by Wednesday.

“The letter comes in a dispute over a subpoena that the office of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. sent to accounting firm Mazars USA LLP requesting the president’s personal and business tax returns dating to 2011.” WSJ

BACKSTORY — “How Iran’s President Left Trump Hanging, and Macron in the Hall,” by NYT’s Farnaz Fassihi and Rick Gladstone: “The telephone line had been secretly set up. President Trump waited on the other end. All President Hassan Rouhani of Iran had to do was come out of his hotel suite and walk into a secure room where Mr. Trump’s voice would be piped in via speaker.

“Mr. Rouhani and his aides were blindsided by the offer, presented to them by President Emmanuel Macron of France on an unannounced visit last Tuesday night to their quarters at the Millenium Hilton Hotel near the United Nations, where world leaders had converged for the annual General Assembly.” NYT

— MORE from Robin Wright, who broke the story in The New Yorker: “The call to Trump’s line came through at nine-thirty, according to sources familiar with events that evening. Macron took the call. But Rouhani never emerged from his room.”

GORKA’S BACK … JOSH LEDERMAN (@JoshNBCNews): “Just in: Sebastian Gorka is traveling with @SecPompeo to Europe, @Abs_NBC reports. He was seen getting into a State Department van headed to Joint Base Andrews for departure.”

— @SebGorka: “With the @FoxNews Away Team, on the tarmac at @Andrews_JBA waiting for @SecPompeo to arrive so we can get wheels up for Italy. Caffé affogato awaits!”

MEDIAWATCH — Marie Harf is back on Fox News after a brief stint on the Seth Moulton campaign. Mediaite

— NYT’S CHARLIE WURZEL: “Why Trump Tweeted About Civil War”

— Susannah Luthi will be a health care reporter for POLITICO Pro. She previously was a congressional health care reporter for Modern Healthcare. … Kellie Mejdrich will be a financial services reporter covering capital markets for POLITICO Pro. She previously was a budget and appropriations reporter for CQ Roll Call.

Send tips to Eli Okun and Garrett Ross at [email protected].

FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — WHITE HOUSE ARRIVAL LOUNGE: Austin Cantrell is now assistant press secretary at the White House. He previously was a White House press assistant and is a Greg Gianforte alum.

WEDDING — Blake Androff, EVP at Signal Group and a Nancy Pelosi alum, and Kerry McNellis, who owns her own events business and is an Axios alum, got married Labor Day weekend at the Androff family cabin in northern Minnesota. They first met on a flight from D.C. to Delaware while traveling with former VP Joe Biden and former Interior Secretary Ken Salazar for a celebration of the 400th national park unit and Delaware’s first national park. Pic Another picSPOTTED: Liz Allen, Bill Russo, Kate Berner, Alex Hornbrook, Christina Iskandar, Abbey Watson, Dan Watson, Ben Shannon, Megan Shannon, Liz Klein, Francis Iacobucci, Katie Rupp, Steven Avila, Ryan Price, Eileen DeParrie, Erin Frautschy, Clare Gallagher, Doug Landry and Alice Muglia.

WELCOME TO THE WORLD — Audrey Gelman, a former Hillary Clinton staffer and CEO and founder of the Wing, and Ilan Zechory, co-founder of Genius, welcomed Sidney Allen Zechory on Sept. 24.

BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: Rep. Grace Meng (D-N.Y.) is 44. A trend she thinks doesn’t get enough attention: “Discussing menstruation has been a topic viewed as taboo. But addressing the issue and the fight for menstrual equity has become more mainstream and continues to pick up steam. I’m proud to have worked to make menstrual products more accessible and affordable to women and girls, and I’m confident that the issue will garner even more attention and acceptance in the months and years ahead.” Playbook Q&A

BIRTHWEEK (was Monday): Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.) turned 43

BIRTHDAYS: Former President Jimmy Carter is 95 … Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) is 46 … Rep. Jimmy Panetta (D-Calif.) is 5-0 … former British PM Theresa May is 63 … Tommy Andrews, special assistant to the president for legislative affairs, is 33 … WSJ politics editor Ben Pershing is 44 … NYT’s Jose Del Real … Jennifer Storipan, executive director of the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration, is 4-0 (hat tip: girlfriend Jess Vaughn) … Kenny Cunningham, executive director of Maverick PAC, is 3-0 … Tim Hannegan of HLP&R Advocacy is 56 (h/t Jennifer Poersch) … Rob Seidman, SVP at Glover Park Group … Brook Hougesen … CNN correspondent Brian Todd … Joanne Peters … Alex Gleason … AEI’s Joe Antos … POLITICO’s Evan Semones, Andy Goodwin and Marie French …

… Michael Knopf, VP at MediaLink … P.G. Sittenfeld is 35 … Scott Eckart (h/t Sol Ross) … Daniel Clifton … Heather Reams, executive director of Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions (h/t Gretchen Andersen) … Cammie Croft, chief community officer at FWD.us … Nayyera Haq, SiriusXM Progress host and Obama alum (h/t Ben Chang) … Nikolai Wenzel … Sharon Yang, Iowa press secretary for Kamala Harris’ campaign … Rose Lichtenfels … Scott Rosenthal … David Kerr … Robert Rosen of the Gates Foundation … CRC Public Relations SVP Mike Thompson … Eric London (h/t Tim Burger) … Catherine Dennig … Theo Yedinsky … Jeremy Lott … Candice Rogers … Gretel Truong … Susan Peacock … Jennifer Lenhart … Lorraine Adams … Vinh Nguyen … Chris Berg … IBM’s Vera Rhoads … Justin Hunter, SVP at Encompass Health, is 51 … Charlie Rose (h/t Teresa Vilmain)




Source link