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We’ve discussed John Durham’s crooked and parodic investigation into the “origins” of the Russia probe a number of times before. It’s shaping up to have the outlines of the notorious special counsel investigations (technically office of independent counsel investigations) that led to the old independent counsel law being allowed to lapse in the late 1990s. Durham’s probe into the “origins” of the Russia probe has now gone almost a year longer than the Mueller probe itself.

As Josh Kovensky notes here, last week Durham revealed in a court filing that he had obtained new documents he’d never seen before relevant to his prosecution of Michael Sussman, who he indicted last year for lying to to the FBI. Then on Sunday Durham dropped a new filing in which he admitted that in fact he’d been told about the documents back in 2018.

SNIPPETS FROM A POLITICO interview with European Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow Kadri Liik.

Does Putin see Biden as weak — after Afghanistan? “I don’t think so. I think people in Moscow, at least people who matter and who are influential in foreign policy debates, their thinking was rather that Biden is smart. He’s trying to limit his frontlines. He’s not fighting each and every battle. Plus, Biden is someone who can speak on behalf of the West. During the whole Trump period, there was no one like that.”

A few weeks ago I got onto one of the genealogy kicks I get on every few years in response to a new family history revelation. Since genealogy was in the air my wife decided to follow up on some information she’d discovered a few years ago about a relative who died in the Holocaust. My lineal ancestors were all living in the United States no later than 1920. Others arrived in the late 19th century; some arrived in North America as far back as the 1630s. My wife’s background is quite different. Her grandparents immigrated to Palestine in the 1920s and 1930s. Much of her family three generations back were murdered in Hitler’s Final Solution.

The most important thing about the federal judiciary today is that it has been thoroughly corrupted by the judicial right. But there are other important things. And one of them is the capture of the federal judiciary by the elite legal academy. There was a time in our history when it was expected and frequent for elected politicians to be placed on the Supreme Court. Indeed, some of the best and most influential justices came out of the political world.

I confess I’m as much entertained as surprised that Madison Cawthorn’s lawyer is taking this tack to defend his standing to serve in the House of Representatives. James Bopp Jr., a storied right-wing power lawyer, argues that Congress already issued a blanket amnesty to all insurrectionists back in 1872. So Madison is good to go in terms of serving in Congress. Bopp is granting — at least for the sake of argument — that Cawthorn did commit insurrection. It amounts to saying: ‘Congress already absolved young Mr. Cawthorn back during the Grant administration for any insurrections he might do. So whether he committed a rebellion against the United States last January is moot.’

“I know we all have fatigue, but we have to get through this and right now in Butler County, it’s off the hook. My attitude has changed immensely. I’ve had three employees in the sheriff’s office in the last few months die of COVID.” – Butler County (Ohio) Sheriff Richard Jones.

ACCORDING TO AXIOS, THE Emir of Qatar will meet with President Biden Monday at the White House in part to discuss contingency plans to supply natural gas to Europe in the event of a Russian invasion of Ukraine. Russia provides 40% of Europe’s natural gas needs. In addition to whatever possible interruption of supply might be caused by actual hostilities, gas supplies are a key lever Russia could use in any tit for tat of sanctions or economic hostilities that could follow a land invasion. The global economy is already struggling with pandemic driven supply chain woes and inflation which is driven in significant part by high energy prices. A cut off of fuel supply to Europe or more likely just a major price shock could wreak havoc on the global economy when it is already highly strained and vulnerable. Qatar is one of the world’s top producers of natural gas. So it’s uniquely positioned to ramp up supply to ward off or cushion any supply shocks.