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Where Things Stand: An Anti-Climactic End? 
The Justice Department and the House Judiciary Committee reached a settlement on how to proceed with the panel’s years-old subpoena of former White House counsel Don McGahn for testimony related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe and President Trump’s alleged efforts to obstruct it.
Will Liz Cheney Ride Fame to the Presidency?
I hear a backdraft of warnings that Rep. Liz Cheney, recently defenestrated from the clown house which is the House GOP caucus, could ride her fame and adulation with the center and the left all the way to the White House. So stop with all the wild praise of Liz Cheney! Because it could in fact saddle us with a dyed-in-the-wool reactionary as President.
First of all, I don’t see anyone wildly praising Liz Cheney, white washing her record of deeply awful policies or really anything else. Some folks, who shall remain nameless, seem to have a great desire to manufacture this deeply frivolous caricature person for their own ends. But as far as I can see that person does not exist.
What I see are a lot of people who have a clear sense of who Cheney is but are giving her grudging credit for making a stand, at an apparently high political and professional cost, not even so much for what is “right” but simply for what is reality. The election was not stolen. Donald Trump is not the rightful President. The insurrection did in fact happen and insurrections are bad. Very bad. When the republic is in imminent peril we shouldn’t be creating litmus tests for who is allowed to defend it. Roosevelt and Churchill made common cause with Stalin to defeat Hitler. None of this is complicated.
But could Cheney ride her newfound political celebrity to the presidency, with all her odious politics and policies in tow? The short answer is no. Unfortunately for Cheney the long answer is also no. And in fact the very long and long-term answer is also no.
Let’s discuss this.
I agree with TPM Reader JL about McConnell’s “red line” …
So McConnell says that GOP won’t revisit the 2017 corporate tax cuts. It seems to me that would be a perfect exit ramp for the negotiations. Biden can say he tried to negotiate with Republicans but they won’t revisit an unpopular tax cut that only benefit corporations and the rich and didn’t deliver the promised boom in capital expenditures.
Of course, Manchin still holds a lot of the cards so it’s more complicated than that. But still …
Is the DOJ Trying to Protect a Big Lie Investigation?
One of the hearings today on Capitol Hill was with former Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen. This was another Big Lie/January 6th hearing. And Rosen caught a lot of grief for refusing to discuss what happened during his January 3rd meeting with President Trump. Rosen seemed to be hinting at assertions of privilege but wouldn’t quite say why he was refusing. A logical read is that Rosen – who after all got the acting gig because Trump thought he was reliable – was still covering for Trump. But it’s not the only possible explanation, nor the most interesting one.
Let’s recall that ex-Presidents have zero privileges to assert as President. They still have lawyer-client privilege for communications in their personal capacity during their presidency. But they have zero power to assert any of the privileges unique to presidents. Only the current President can do that, i.e., Joe Biden. In practice, President’s have long deferred to former Presidents in decisions over privilege for a variety of reasons. But it is entirely the current President’s call. Rosen said he was operating under the guidance of the current DOJ. So let’s pull that thread and see where it might lead.
Where Things Stand: Cheney Ousted For Refusing To Whitewash The Insurrection
Today in Congress we’re seeing a pseudo reckoning for the Jan. 6 insurrection playing out in real time.
The Real Story on Cheney’s Ouster
The big story is that Liz Cheney was ousted from her leadership position for not supporting the Big Lie of the stolen election and for not endorsing the insurrection. But we knew that was coming. The big story today had to do with how the vote was held. These are usually recorded votes and secret ballots. That was the case last month when Cheney retained her position by a decisive margin. Today it was a voice vote. After the vote, as Tierney Sneed notes here, a request for a recorded vote was denied.
This tells you the real story of what happened here.
Perverse Incentives
As you’ve likely seen, what began as civil disturbances in East Jerusalem has cycled into a full scale military engagement between Israel and the Hamas quasi-state in Gaza. Every level of these issues trace back more than a century, or decades, depending on which dimension of the interlocking stalemates you look at. But we shouldn’t ignore the way this particular conflagration has been spurred and accelerated by the protracted crisis of government within Israel itself. Having helped drive the crisis, Benjamin Netanyahu, now acting as the caretaker Prime Minister, has little incentive to deescalate it.
Where Things Stand: Hawley’s Been Defending Extremism Since His Teen Years
Sen. Josh Hawley’s (R-MO) raised fist — coupled with his vote against the Electoral College certification and various other instances of stolen-election fearmongering — has earned him accolades with the Trump true believers and made him one of the most prominent faces of insurrection incitement, aside from Trump himself and, perhaps, Ted Cruz.