Month: December 2018

Mystery Mueller grand jury subpoena appealed to SCOTUS

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A foreign-government-owned company that appears to be locked in a subpoena fight with Special Counsel Robert Mueller is taking the battle to the Supreme Court. Mystery firm takes Mueller-linked subpoena fight to Supreme Court:

The identity of the firm and the foreign country at issue remain closely guarded secrets, but POLITICO first reported earlier this year that the dispute appeared to involve Mueller’s prosecutors.

When the case was argued at the D.C. Circuit last week, the courtroom was closed to the public. Court personnel went to unusual lengths to preserve the secrecy, ordering journalists to leave the floor where lawyers were presenting their positions.

The public docket in the appeal offers only bare-bones information about the dispute, containing no identification of the parties or their lawyers. However, on Tuesday, the panel considering the appeal filed a three-page order revealing that the witness fighting the subpoena is a corporation owned by a foreign state.

The three-judge D.C. Circuit panel rejected the firm’s argument that its status as an extension of a foreign government makes it immune from grand jury subpoenas. The judges also said they were not persuaded by the firm’s claims that complying with the subpoena would be violating the law in the company’s home country.

After the order was filed Tuesday, sealed filings continued in the appeals court in what appeared to be a bid to stay the D.C. Circuit’s ruling or appeal it further. On Friday, the appeals court denied a motion from the company. The precise nature of the motion was not disclosed.

The foreign-government-owned company filed an application Saturday to Chief Justice John Roberts asking for a stay of the federal appeals court ruling turning down the company’s effort to block the grand jury subpoena for records.

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POLITICO on 2020 Arizona special election for U.S. Senate

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POLITICO has a lengthy Christmas day speculation post on the Crowd of Democrats jockeying over the Arizona Senate special election in 2020:

Arizona Democrats like their chances to beat Martha McSally again in 2020. But they may have to settle a long and crowded Senate primary first.

Four Democrats have already started laying the groundwork for Senate special election campaigns, meeting with party leaders and even sparring over their credentials — even before McSally was appointed to fill the next two years of the late Sen. John McCain’s term. The party believes McSally will be vulnerable after losing a tough campaign to Sen.-elect Kyrsten Sinema in 2018.

It’s possible the Democratic field would clear if Democrats land a candidate they have coveted for years: Mark Kelly, the former astronaut and Navy veteran married to former Rep. Gabby Giffords, who is laying the foundation for a potential campaign. But if not, a big primary could put the Democratic nominee in the same position as McSally was in 2018: trading intraparty attacks until the end of August 2020, just weeks before mail voting starts in the general election, in one of the most important states in the fight for the Senate majority. Two potential candidates are already criticizing each other’s credentials before even entering the race.

Since Giffords resigned from Congress a year after surviving a 2011 shooting, Democratic leaders have tried in vain to recruit Kelly to run for office in Arizona. But he is now taking active steps to consider a 2020 Senate campaign, including a sit-down meeting earlier this month with Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), the incoming chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, according to a person familiar with the meeting.

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Donald Trump celebrates Festivus while ruining Christmas for children

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President Donald Trump is extending his Festivus celebration by continuing to engage in the “Airing of Grievances,” his opportunity to tell others how they have disappointed him in the past year, and by wallowing in a pity party. On Christmas Eve, Trump airs more grievances:

The president is making a list, and checking it twice: Those who have wronged him.

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It was the 10th tweet in a steady stream — mostly complaints — that he aired on the day before Christmas: Democrats oppose his border wall plans but supported border fencing in the past, he wrote in his first tweet.American allies “take advantage of their friendship with the United States, both in military Protection and trade,” he complained. Defense Secretary General James Mattis didn’t understand how “these countries take total advantage of the U.S.,” he said in a third tweet.

Brett McGurk, the U.S. special envoy for the coalition to defeat ISIS who resigned this week in protest of the president’s removal of troops from Syria, “was the Obama appointee” involved in the “horrific Iran Nuclear Deal” that was approved by “Little Bob Corker,” the president said in a fourth tweet.

The president said in another tweet Sunday that Mattis would leave his position two months earlier than planned, after Mattis wrote a critical resignation letter.

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Christmas message 2018

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As we celebrate Christmas 2018, let us reflect upon the wabi-sabi of life. This is a Japanese term about accepting and celebrating the imperfect and temporariness of life.  From Wikipedia:
“In traditional Japanese aesthetics, wabi-sabi (侘寂) is a world view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection.[2] The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is “imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete”.[3] It is a concept derived from the Buddhist teaching…”
The reason I am urging this concept is that as the years go by, we all age (and physically deteriorate as we become elderly). I feel the impermanence due to the recent deaths of Tucson activists whom I knew along the campaign trail, Claudia Ellquist and Dave Ewoldt, Green Party members who ran (respectively) for Pima County Attorney and  State Senate. It’s hard to believe both are gone, as well as strong Democratic educator Georgia Cole Brousseau, formerly on the PCC Governing Board. Their powerful voices for social justice, education, and the environment will be missed.

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Political Calendar: Week of December 23, 2018

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The Political Calendar is posted on Sundays. Please send us notice of your political events prior to the Sunday before your event (7 days would be most helpful). See the calendar icon in the right-hand column of the blog page for easy access to the calendar.

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Political Calendar for the Week of December 23, 2018:

Monday, December 24, Noon: Democrats of Greater Tucson luncheon, Dragon’s View Restaurant (400 N. Bonita, South of St. Mary’s Road between the Freeway and Grande Avenue, turn South at Furr’s Cafeteria). New price: buffet lunch is $10.00 cash, $12 credit; just a drink is $3.50. NOTE: DGT will be taking the holidays off and will return on January 14, 2019.

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