Crooked Media - What A Day: Three-diManchinal chess

It is Donald Trump’s birthday, and what better way to celebrate than with a few more whacks at the piñata full of evidence that he tried to turn the Justice Department into his own personal revenge bureau? (Unless you’re his adoring son, in which case, definitely go with “#HappyBirthday” on a platform from which he is banned.)
 

• On Sunday, the New York Times reported that DOJ subpoenaed Apple for information on then-White House counsel Don McGahn and his wife in 2018, and barred the company from telling them about it. Apple notified McGahn about the subpoena just last month. That report followed last week’s revelations that prosecutors had subpoenaed both Apple and Microsoft for metadata of Democratic lawmakers and staffers, which followed earlier revelations that DOJ had targeted a number of journalists. 
   
• It’s a hefty piñata, and there’s no telling what’s still rattling around in there. In a conveniently-timed but apparently long-planned departure, John Demers, the head of DOJ’s National Security division, will resign from his role next week. Demers arrived a few weeks after the Trump Justice Department seized House Democrats’ records, but Democratic leaders have called on him to testify about what he knew about those efforts, alongside former Attorneys General Bill Barr and Jeff Sessions, and former deputy AG Rod Rosenstein. 
   
• Will any of that...happen? TBD! House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hasn’t said whether a congressional committee would issue subpoenas if Trump’s erstwhile henchmen refuse to stop by voluntarily, and the Senate subpoena that Democrats have threatened would require (here it comes) bipartisan support (hahaha). In the meantime, Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement that the department would “strengthen” its rules around seizing congressional records, and met with the leaders of news organizations to discuss a similar policy change to protect reporters.

If the emerging scope of Trump’s weaponization of the Justice Department wasn’t enough of a wake-up call for Senate Democrats, Mitch McConnell is, as always, here to help. 
 

• During a Monday interview with Hugh Hewitt, McConnell openly declared it “highly unlikely” that he would allow President Biden to fill a Supreme Court vacancy if Republican regain control of the Senate next year. First of all, and with tremendous respect, Justice Stephen Breyer, retire, you esteemed bitch! Second of all, McConnell is only announcing his (long obvious) democracy-subverting intentions on the radio because he feels comfortably assured that Democrats won’t use their current power to stop him, and it would be very tight if they would consider proving him wrong.
   
• To that end, the Texas Democrats who staged a walkout to kill a GOP voter-suppression bill will head to Capitol Hill this week to pressure lawmakers to pass the For The People Act—though it’s unclear if Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and/or Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) will agree to meet with them. Pelosi confirmed on Monday that while Manchin may feel bafflingly confident about finding ten Republicans to support the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, lawmakers need more time to make that bill’s language impenetrable to legal challenges, and Democrats will prioritize passing S.1 this month. Or will, you know, try.

Trump’s corrupt politicization of the Justice Department wasn’t an isolated whoopsy-daisy that’s now in the past: His erosion of institutions is mirrored in the GOP’s continuing assault on voting rights, past and future election results, the Supreme Court, and the basic principle of majority rule. Unless Democrats can find the will to fight back on all fronts, the birthday boy or his successor will be back in no time to pick up where he left off.

The G7 summit wrapped up on Sunday, and President Biden embarked on the next leg of his international American Reputation Restoration Tour at his first NATO summit on Monday. Biden reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to the alliance, condemned Donald Trump’s “phony populism,” and delivered what some anxiety-ridden observers might consider to be a worryingly sunny assessment of Trump’s grip on the GOP: “I think this is passing. I don’t mean easily passing. That’s why it’s so important that I succeed in my agenda.” NATO leaders jointly highlighted the “threat” presented by Russia’s aggression and the “challenges” posed by China’s growing influence, and agreed to support a new defense policy to address cyberattacks and ransomware. Biden also met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday, in talks that both leaders called productive but which didn’t seem to yield any major breakthroughs in the strained U.S.-Turkey relationship.

• Ahead of President Biden’s first face-to-face meeting with Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, Putin gave NBC an interview in which he did not guarantee that opposition leader Alexey Navalny would make it out of prison alive, and dismissed all U.S. allegations of Kremlin-backed election interference and cyberattacks. 
   
• The Supreme Court put off a decision on whether to hear a case on Harvard’s race-conscious admissions system, asking the Justice Department to weigh in first. 
   
• Back in 2018, Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg was already taking steps to avoid showing Trump Organization payroll documents to landlords who could later be subpoenaed, according to his ex-daughter-in-law.
   
• The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) has asked Texans to conserve energy this week so that the state’s unregulated grid doesn’t collapse (again). If you listen very closely, you can hear Ted Cruz booking a preemptive flight to a five-star hotel.
   
• The Senate is poised to overwhelmingly confirm Lina Khan to a commissioner’s seat on the Federal Trade Commission, after she rose to prominence as a proponent of updating how antitrust law should apply to Big Tech.
   
• Democratic strategists have set their sights on a key demographic ahead of the midterms: Centrist Democratic senators holding up redistricting reforms Suburban women who voted for Biden in 2020, but aren’t committed to backing Democrats (or voting at all) in 2022. 
   
• The Michigan GOP hasn’t made much progress on its plan to circumvent Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s (D-MI) expected veto of voter-suppression legislation with a petition drive, but Republicans still have time to get a bunch of fake signatures together.
   
• Get a load of this: Coronavirus cases have been dropping in areas with high vaccination rates, and rising in counties with fewer vaccinations. Vaccinations have been key in preventing a surge fueled by the more transmissible Delta variant, which already accounts for about 10 percent of U.S. coronavirus cases. 
   
• Reality Winner, the former NSA contractor who was sentenced to over five years in prison for leaking a document that detailed Russian efforts to interfere with the 2016 election, has been released from prison to home confinement. 
   
• Lumber prices posted their biggest-ever weekly drop last week, as sawmills started to catch up with the housing market.
   
• A sentient ball of wigs named Wasabi won Best in Show at the Westminster Dog Show, narrowly beating out several dogs.
   
• The royal family's image-rehabilitation campaign is coming along nicely.

If you slept just a little better on Sunday night than you have in, say, 12 years, you had good reason: Israel’s parliament approved a new coalition government in a 60-59 vote, officially ending Benjamin Netanyahu’s reign as prime minister. Naftali Bennett, Netanyahu’s far-right former protégé who sucks very much in his own right, was sworn in as Israel’s new prime minister, but under the terms of the coalition agreement, centrist Yair Lapid will take over in 2023. In his final speech ahead of the vote, Netanyahu railed against Bennett and the coalition’s proposed legislation to impose new term limits on prime ministers, and told his supporters, “I will lead you in a daily battle against this bad and dangerous left-wing government, and bring it down.” Seems like a lot to juggle while facing an ongoing corruption trial without one’s former power, but we will leave that to Bibi.

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Novavax announced that its coronavirus vaccine is 90 percent effective. 

The Senate has confirmed Ketanji Brown Jackson to the DC Circuit. For those keeping score at home, President Biden has already nominated as many minority women to the bench as Trump had confirmed in four years. 

The California Senate has passed a bill that would set up a guaranteed basic income for kids aging out of foster care. 

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland has recommended that Biden fully restore protections to three national monuments that Trump diminished.