Attention to the Unseen

The New York Times reports: President Trump lashed out at a leading African-American congressman on Saturday, calling him “a brutal bully” who represents a Baltimore-based district that has become a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess” where “no human being would want to live.” Mr. Trump’s attack on Representative Elijah E. Cummings, a Democrat from Maryland and leading critic of the president, parroted a segment that aired earlier in the morning on “Fox & Friends.” The president suggested that the…

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The Washington Post reports: As lawmakers drew closer to the August recess and realized it was now or never to subpoena Mueller, some committee members struggled with whether it was a good idea to bring him in. They talked among themselves about the rumors [that Robert Mueller might not be as sharp as he once was] and whether they could glean any insight from his news conference. There were possible warning signs, some Democrats say privately. For a time, Mueller’s…

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Dana Milbank writes: Mitch McConnell is a Russian asset. This doesn’t mean he’s a spy, but neither is it a flip accusation. Russia attacked our country in 2016. It is attacking us today. Its attacks will intensify in 2020. Yet each time we try to raise our defenses to repel the attack, McConnell, the Senate majority leader, blocks us from defending ourselves. Let’s call this what it is: unpatriotic. The Kentucky Republican is, arguably more than any other American, doing…

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Judge Andrew Napolitano, a Fox News analyst, writes: I have known President Trump personally since 1986. The private Trump I have known is funny, charming and embracing. That is not the public Trump of today. When he loudly called for four members of Congress – women of color who oppose nearly all his initiatives and who have questioned his fitness for office – to go back to the places from which they came, he unleashed a torrent of hatred. The…

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The New York Times reports: Robert S. Mueller III’s long-awaited testimony has inflamed divisions among Democrats over impeachment, with some senior lawmakers pushing on Thursday to begin formal impeachment hearings soon, and vulnerable moderates pleading that the party needed to rest its case against President Trump. Liberal House members who have been agitating for impeachment were buoyed by Mr. Mueller’s nearly seven hours of testimony, asserting, despite modest viewership numbers and no dramatic revelations, that the former special counsel’s words…

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The New York Times reports: The Senate Intelligence Committee concluded Thursday that election systems in all 50 states were targeted by Russia in 2016, an effort more far-reaching than previously acknowledged and one largely undetected by the states and federal officials at the time. But while the bipartisan report’s warning that the United States remains vulnerable in the next election is clear, its findings were so heavily redacted at the insistence of American intelligence agencies that even some key recommendations…

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Cass R. Sunstein writes: Mueller made it clear that his largest concern is with Russia’s extraordinary effort to disrupt U.S. democratic processes. As he put it, “The Russian government interfered in our election in sweeping and systematic fashion.” On one of the rare occasions when he went beyond his role as a lawyer and showed flashes of emotion, he said this: Over the course of my career, I have seen a number of challenges to our democracy. The Russian government’s…

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Laurence Tribe writes: We are eye witnesses to the unraveling of the American project. Watching the old war hero stumble on the stage of history as he tried valiantly to overcome the limitations that his obviously ailing condition imposed on him was painful in itself. Watching the pitiless Republican vultures pick at his bones was even more so. But watching the ugly truth of what our nation threatens to become was worst of all. That we are governed by a…

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Russell Berman writes: Democrats can’t say Robert Mueller didn’t warn them. For months, the former special counsel told them in every way he could—in private negotiations, in his sole public statement on his investigation, through letters from the Justice Department—that he did not want to testify before Congress, and that if he did, his appearance would be a dud. Today, Mueller fully delivered on that promise. Over the course of more than six hours of testimony before two House committees,…

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Chase Madar writes: When House Rep. Ilhan Omar’s comments about the Israel lobby took over the news cycle earlier this year, they struck some as innocuously accurate, others as impolitic, while for others they were outrageous and inflammatory. Omar apologized for any offense and pledged to be more diplomatic. End of story, right? Of course not. The rabidly anti-Semitic comments that Omar never made — along with the equally fictitious Jew hatred of her allies in the so-called Squad —…

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