Meanwhile, In Trumplandia, It’s Subpoena Time…

Donald Trump should be happy right about now.

And if you measure happiness by the decibel level at last week’s shriek-a-thon in Grand Rapids, I suppose it’s possible to argue he’s elated.

That said, it’s important to remember that part and parcel of Trump’s shtick is insisting that there are still windmills that need tilting at – battles that still need fighting – foes yet to be vanquished.

Given that, it probably shouldn’t come as a complete surprise that the administration is going to war with Obamacare again, despite knowing the fight is fraught with political risk ahead of an election year. Republicans on Capitol Hill could scarcely be more clear when it comes to conveying a sense of palpable angst at the administration’s insistence that there’s a “plan” in the works for an ACA replacement.

“The cost of ObamaCare is far too high for our great citizens”, the president said Monday, before claiming that “the deductibles make it almost worthless or unusable.” He proceeded to promise that “good things are going to happen!”

Just to reiterate: Republicans on the Hill have no idea what “good things” he’s talking about and they have gone out of their way to say so.

Similarly, the decision to end assistance programs for Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador smacks of vindictiveness, ignorance (as to the root cause of mass migration) or, more likely, both.

But again, Trump likes conflict – and his base loves the idea of him “fighting the good fight”. It doesn’t really matter whether the cause is “just” or even if the “enemy” is real.

So, rather than simply sit back and enjoy the Mueller victory, the president is blazing new trails in pursuit of conflict and, somewhat amusingly, appears to be suggesting that the White House may eventually push back on the release of the special counsel report.

“No matter what information is given to the crazed Democrats from the No Collusion Mueller Report, it will never be good enough”, Trump tweeted today, on the way to insisting that “behind closed doors the Dems are laughing!” It wasn’t immediately clear what he meant.

House Democrats did announce on Monday that they are preparing to subpoena the full Mueller report, but I can assure you they don’t find the current state of affairs funny. The House Judiciary Committee will vote on Wednesday to authorize the subpoena in an effort to compel William Barr to produce the entire report and the underlying evidence.

“As I have made clear, Congress requires the full and complete special counsel report, without redactions, as well as access to the underlying evidence,” Jerry Nadler said, in a statement. “The attorney general should reconsider so that we can work together to ensure the maximum transparency of this important report to both Congress and the American people.”

This comes three days after Barr’s Friday letter, which indicated that the Department of Justice, in conjunction with Mueller himself, is working on a redacted version that will be released to Congress and, presumably, the public, by “mid-April”.

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Coming In ‘Mid-April’ To A Theater Near You: The Mueller Report

“Although the president would have the right to assert privilege over certain parts of the report, he has stated publicly that he intends to defer to me and, accordingly, there are no plans to submit the report to the White House for a privilege review”, Barr wrote late last week.

At the risk of speculating, some of Trump’s recent tweets (including the one cited above) seem to suggest the White House may ultimately decide to try and block certain parts of the report from being turned over, potentially making things worse.

Meanwhile, the security clearance debacle is back in the spotlight after whistleblower Tricia Newbold told the House Oversight Committee that more than two-dozen individuals whose security clearances were denied by career personnel were granted by senior administration officials.

In other words: It ain’t just Jared.

On Monday, the committee made public a memo documenting Newbold’s interview which, frankly, is disconcerting. Here’s what she said, according to the transcript (the full memo is embedded below):

I would not be doing a service to myself, my country, or my children if I sat back knowing that the issues that we have could impact national security.

I raised my concerns initially with [Director of Personnel Security] Carl Kline directly. There was no resolution. I raised it with his immediate supervisor, [Chief Operations Officer] Samuel Price. I raised my concerns to White House Counsel on numerous occasions. I raised my concerns to Marcia Kelly, who was the Assistant to the President at the time. I raised my time–or concerns to individuals within Employee Relations, and I raised my concerns to people within the EEO office. I have recently raised my concerns within the last 6 months to [Chief Security Officer] Mr. Crede Bailey directly. And I feel that right now this is my last hope to really bring the integrity back into our office.

Apparently, the committee requested interviews with Newbold and several other officials in the White House Security Office but those requests were “blocked” by the administration.

“In order to protect Ms. Newbold’s rights as a whistleblower, the Committee was forced to schedule her interview on a weekend, without much notice to Committee Members”, the memo reads. It also says that “other whistleblowers… corroborated Ms. Newbold’s account, but they were too afraid about the risk to their careers to come forward publicly.”

The above-mentioned Carl Kline will now receive a subpoena from Elijah Cummings.

“The committee respects the president’s authority to grant security clearances”, Cummings wrote, in a letter to White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, but warned that “the White House must respect Congress’ co-equal and independent authority to investigate who has been given access to our nation’s secrets, how they obtained that access, [and] the extent to which national security has been compromised.”

This of course comes just a month after The New York Times reported that Trump “ordered” John Kelly to grant Jared Kushner’s clearance over the objections of the CIA and Don McGahn.

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Turns Out Trump ‘Ordered’ John Kelly To Give Kushner Top-Secret Clearance, Ignoring The CIA

And so, Trump will have his battles, both because he insists on it (e.g., the border and Obamacare) and because his administration has, at best, run roughshod over decorum and, at worst, jeopardized national security.