Hello TPM Members,
This week saw us, and much of the rest of the news media, in a holding pattern, waiting for the Mueller report. On Friday afternoon, we got the news: The report was in Attorney General Bill Barr’s hands.
Through the weekend, we’ll be very interested in the contents of the Mueller report, if any, that leak from the DOJ, or that members of Congress reveal if and when Barr delivers the report or a summary of it to them. In a letter to Congress, Barr wrote “I am reviewing the report and anticipate that I may be in a position to advise you of the Special Counsel’s principal conclusions as soon as this weekend.”
With Josh on vacation, prolific tweeter and New Republic writer Jeet Heer has taken over the Ed Blog.
Here’s what happened in Prime this week.
- What will Congress get to see? In his confirmation hearings, Barr promised to be as a transparent as possible, but in written follow-up questions, he included strong qualifiers to the promise.
- The Pentagon’s inspector general is looking into allegations that acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, who spent more than 30 years at Boeing before joining the Trump administration, improperly boosted the company as a government official.
- Now it’s Pete Buttigieg’s turn to have a moment.
- Are state lawmakers in Florida trying to undermine Amendment 4?
- Josh Kovensky runs through what was going on when the feds raided Michael Cohen associate Elliot Broidy’s office last year.
- The conservative fixation with “shadow banning” predates Devin Nunes’ weird lawsuit.
- Does Nunes’ suit have anything to do with Trump’s calls to relax libel laws?
- Scott Walker has a new job, in which he’s claiming to be a needed counterweight to Democrats’ focus on redistricting. That doesn’t make sense.
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