By statute, Acting U.S. Attorney/SDNY Audrey Strauss' term will now last 120 days, unless a Presidentially appointed nominee is confirmed by the Senate in the meantime. That takes her into mid-October, effectively until the Election. Not what Barr was trying for, obviously.
However, Strauss can be expected to abide by the generally sensible rule (policy, not law) that no politically sensitive indictments should be issued within a 'quiet period' of 60 days prior to an election. That period starts Sept. 4th.
Therefore, in practice, the period in which any sensitive indictments might be issued by SDNY is from now until Sept. 4th: approximately 12 weeks.
Whether Barr's move against Berman was related to this timeline, i.e., anticipating that indictments might drop in the next 3 months, is unknown. Given the political cost implicit in the move, however, inferences can be drawn. Barr seems to have been 'motivated.'
That said, SDNY will *not* rush out indictments to hit a window. Indictments will be issued when ready. These are complex cases, and SDNY will cross every 't' and dot every 'i.' Whether we're now in an SDNY 'drop zone' for indictments therefore remains almost completely unknown.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
I’m under no illusions: a significant minority of our citizens are desperately unhappy with our system of government and our inclusive values of equality and justice for all. They make it plain, and I get it.
They include evangelicals who’ve always hated church/state separation. Racists pining for Jim Crow. Paternalists who want to re-establish the ‘traditional’ role of women and make decisions for them. Corporate chieftains eager to slip free of the ‘administrative state.’
Above all, they are people attracted by an authoritarian vision because they understand that none of the above will come to pass in a participatory, pluralist democracy. They’re *done* with democracy (see Project 2025 and Trump’s latest about voting becoming a thing of the past).
🧵 The Biden mantra, “building the economy from the middle out and the bottom up,” has borne fruit. It’s real. And it has implications for the distribution of wealth and resources in the country.
The Dem party’s current convulsions are directly related to these policies. Fervent support for Biden is rooted, I believe, in support for these policies and an understanding that Biden is ‘walking the Democratic talk’ like no other POTUS since FDR.
Opposition to Biden appears to have several strands (including career antagonisms and opportunism), but an important one is wealthy donors’ resistance to tax and other aspects of Biden economic policy.
🧵As a practical matter, taking campaign finance and ballot access laws and rules into account as well as everything else, I see only two plausible scenarios now:
1. Biden insists on running (for all the right reasons, not ‘ego’ or ‘obstinacy’) and doubters get on board, or
2. Biden stands aside, and annoints Harris. Any thoughts of a different candidate in the top spot are fanciful in my view. People pressuring Biden to withdraw should be ready for and supportive of this scenario. If they’re not, we’ll have chaos and will lose.
With regard to the 1st scenario, the issues are (i) will Biden re-think a decision he’s already firmly communicated, and (ii) if Biden is immovable (genuinely convinced he’s the best candidate), how long will it take doubters to swing into line ?
🧵Brief thoughts on speculation about Biden’s possible ‘cognitive impairment’ (as distinct from stuttering/cluttering etc.): (1) if he is ‘cognitively impaired’ to a degree that affects his job performance, it’s a relevant fact I’d like to know;
(2) I haven’t seen or read anything yet that persuades me that that is the case; (3) those in regular contact with him have offered their personal accounts to the contrary and I’d be surprised if they’re lying; and
(4) I’m confident Biden himself would make the appropriate call if he felt unable to do the job.
🧵A lot of history will get looked at in a new light after today’s immunity ruling. Interesting, for example, to look at Watergate under the new rubric. 22 henchmen, including the AG, were convicted on charges related to a break-in and coverup authorized and directed by Nixon.
When Mitchell, Haldeman, Erlichman, Krogh, Liddy and the rest did time, they at least had the small comfort of knowing that, but for the Ford pardon, their Individual-1 would have been right beside them (Nixon had been indicted by a GJ). “No man above the law.”
Same for the burglars Nixon ordered to break in to Dan Ellsberg’s psychiatrist’s office, seeking to discredit Ellsberg for leaking the Pentagon papers.
A D-Day related 🧵on one of my father’s closest friends, Lt. William (“Bill”) Hamilton Shaw, USN. Born to Methodist missionaries in Pyongyang in 1922, Bill finished high school there and spoke native Korean. He was exactly two years older than my father.
Bill enrolled at Ohio Wesleyan in 1939. When the U.S. entered the war, he enlisted in the Navy and was commissioned. He served as the XO of PT-518 in Operation Overlord. Two weeks after D-Day, Bill (at helm below) piloted Eisenhower on his first cross-Channel visit to Normandy.
After WWII ended, Bill went ‘home’ to Korea. There he met my father. In 1946-47, they served together as advisors helping to establish, more or less from scratch, what is now the ROK’s Naval Academy, at Jinhae-gu, Changwon, Korea.