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Authored by James Howard Kunstler via Kunstler.com,

That crusty ole rascal, Gov. Jerry Brown of California, seems to be enjoying his sunset journey into Civil War Two or maybe the destination is more like Blade Runner (since we know that history only rhymes but does not repeat). Anyway, it’s not a good place.

The once-golden state begins to look something like what one federal official recently called — dare I say it? — a shithole.

A mix of used hypodermic needles, human feces, and other trash litters the streets and sidewalks in a large section of downtown San Francisco, a local news outlet reported Sunday night.

It’s a problem that has grown by epic proportions in recent years and has many concerned for the health and safety of some the city’s youngest residents….
— The Blaze

Yes, quite literally. This particular failure of the political Left started in the 1970s when states began aggressively shuttering their large mental hospitals. Many of these institutions dated from the late 19th century — ghastly old gothic revival warehouses for the mentally ill, fraught with overtones of abuse and neglect, scenes out of Vincent Price movies… lightning flashes through the barred windows… a scream in the night… hysterical laughter echoing down the dark, tiled hallways….

They were an embarrassment, for sure, and certainly an affront to liberal sensibilities. But, of course, they fucked up the remedy for that. Instead of replacing the giant old state insane asylums with smaller, better-managed institutions, they just released the inmates under the rationale that they were a politically oppressed minority group. And there it ended.

And so here we are, going on a half-century later, with an economy that manufactures failure and immiseration at a greater volume than its other finished products, and many more lost souls out on the city streets, and now we are an even more ideologically inflamed society than we were in 1973, with the ranks of intersectional oppressed minorities and aggrieved victim groups grown into virtual armies-of-the-night — and the mentally ill just lost in the crowd.

It never seems to occur to anyone that a mental hospital can be run humanely, at an appropriate scale, and that these poor, sad creatures might, at least, be better off there with a bed, a bathroom, and somebody to check in on them daily than they are wallowing in the gutters of San Francisco and other cities. Surely there are up-to-date models in other lands for this kind of caretaking — if maybe we sent a few bureaucrats overseas to have a look.

But that’s not how we roll in this exceptionally greatest of great polities. After all these years, it’s hard to avoid concluding that Americans just prefer melodrama to any other form of behavior, including problem-solving. Melodrama is colorful, fun, and absorbing. It’s just another kind of show business for a people conditioned to see everyday life as a TV series they star in. So kick back and enjoy the homeless show, because its more entertaining than doing the right thing.

Likewise, the sanctuary city show, a shamelessly sentimental exercise in virtue-signaling at the grand scale, larded with little bits of dishonesty, such as the tag “undocumented” for people here illegally, as though their status was the result of some clerical error. Gov. Brown declared war, more or less, on the federal government last week after a fracas in Oakland where mayor Libby Schaaf rode through town like Paul Revere crying that the ICE teams were coming to make arrests. That riled Attorney General Jeff Sessions enough to start filing lawsuits against this nonsense.

But the Department of Justice faces a big quandary. How are they going to make a big stink over enforcing US immigration laws while they ignore US drug laws vis-à-vis the twenty-nine states that have legalized marijuana use in one way or another? In a number of these states, marijuana production is now a major industry, with substantial political influence. AG Sessions has made noises about cracking down on the marijuana trade, but he hasn’t done a damn thing about it because he can’t. The state tax revenue alone is too large to be meddled with, never mind popular opinion.

If the AG had a brain in his head instead of the CB radio that’s implanted there, he’d realize that the answer is to lean on congress to de-list marijuana as a Schedule 1 Controlled Substance. Or to write a simple law leaving the question to the states. Of course, the intelligent thing would be to put an end to the melodrama called “The War on Drugs.” Just like the intelligent thing would be to place the homeless mentally ill in caretaking sanctuaries, call them what you like.

I really don’t see how Mr. Sessions can assert federal jurisdiction over illegal immigration without resolving the marijuana question.

*  *  *

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As gunman Nikolas Cruz went on a rampage at Stoneman Douglas High School on February 14, firing on students and teachers until his semiautomatic AR-15 jammed, Broward Deputy Scot Peterson cowered outside behind the safety of cover, “pointing his gun at nothing.”

Peterson publicly stated that he thought gunfire was happening outside on campus, not inside the building – perhaps to justify not going in to stop the shooting which claimed 17 lives. 

He lied.

Internal radio dispatches released by the Broward County Sheriff’s Office Thursday reveal Peterson immediately focused on Building 12 and radioed that gunfire was happening “inside.” 

What’s more – Peterson warned his fellow officer to stay away – despite wounded students and staff inside who required assistance. Broward Sheriff’s Office (BSO) policy requires deputies to engage an active shooter and eliminate the threat. 

“Do not approach the 12 or 1300 building, stay at least 500 feet away,” shouted a panicked Peterson as people screamed in the background. 

The timeline of events and audio recording of police radio chatter shed new light on the response by the BSO. 

The records appear to support Broward Sheriff Scott Israel’s contention that Peterson, a longtime school resource officer, should have entered Building 12 to engage Cruz and try to prevent deaths. They also appear to show that other deputies may have refrained from rushing into the school at the direction of Peterson and a Parkland captain. The response by the agency has been the subject of national scrutiny, and is currently under review by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. –Miami Herald

BSO police union president Jeff Bell welcomed the release of the audio and timeline of events. 

“It certainly backs up that he never went into the school,” Bell said of Scot Peterson. “At one point he says to keep back 500 feet. Why would he say that?”

Timeline of events via the Miami Herald

Cruz was dropped off at the school by an Uber at 2:19 p.m. Two minutes later, he entered Building 12. He began firing within 15 seconds. Peterson, at the time, was near the administration building.

At 2:22 p.m. the fire alarm was triggered, blaring throughout the entire campus. The first 911 call also went out, via Coral Springs emergency dispatch center.

“Be advised we have possible, could be firecrackers. I think we have shots fired, possible shots fired —1200 building,” Peterson radioed at 2:23 p.m.

At that moment, according to the video, Peterson arrived at the southeast corner of Building 12, where he appeared to remain “for the duration of the incident.” “We’re talking about the 1200 building, it’s going to be the building off Holmberg Road,” Peterson said frantically seconds later.

“Get the school locked down, gentlemen!” he shouted.

As the shots intensified, other deputies began racing to the scene, radioing in. One believed he heard shots by the football field, something Peterson mentioned in a statement released last month by his attorney, arguing that the school resource deputy thought shots were coming from outside the 1200 building.

“BSO trains its officers that in the event of outdoor gunfire one is to seek cover and assess the situation in order to communicate what one observes with other law enforcement,” Peterson’s attorney said.

But Peterson, according to the timeline and radio dispatches reviewed by the Miami Herald, remained focused on Building 12.

“All right… We also heard it’s by, inside the 1200,” Peterson said at 2:25 p.m.

Joseph DiRuzzo, Peterson’s attorney, did not respond to an email and a call to his office. Peterson resigned eight days after the shooting rather than be suspended without pay pending an internal affairs investigation.

As the shooting progressed, calls began “blowing up” the 911 call centers. Students were spilling out of the campus. Peterson radioed to make sure “no one comes inside the school.”

At 2:27 p.m., six minutes after Cruz went into Building 12, the shooting stopped. Cruz ditched his AR-15 in the third-floor stairwell and left.

Five seconds later, Peterson radioed for officers to “stay at least 500 feet away at this point.” A dispatcher repeated, “Stay away from 12 and 1300 building.”

Coral Springs officer Tim Burton had just arrived at Douglas High. At 2:28 p.m., he radioed out the first description of Cruz: “White male with ROTC Uniform Burgundy Shirt” — exactly what the shooter was wearing when he was arrested later. How Burton obtained the information was unclear from the timeline.

At 2:29 p.m., as officers began encountering wounded students, Burton met with Peterson outside Building 12.

The chaos continued. Deputies tried getting into Building 13 next door, but it was locked. A fleeing student appeared to be stuck in a fence; a deputy asked for bolt cutters. One deputy called for a command post to be set up.

“We need to get units in here so we can try to find this guy,” a deputy radioed.

At 2:31 p.m., BSO Capt. Jan Jordan, whose supervision of the response has also been scrutinized amid questions about whether she slowed police response by ordering a perimeter, speaks for the first time: “Do we have a perimeter set up right now and everyone cleared out of the school?”

“That’s negative,” a dispatcher responds.

It was at 2:32 — 11 minutes after the shooting began — that four Coral Springs officers and two BSO deputies made the first police entrance into the building, helping to “extract a victim.”

Jordan is back on the radio one minute later: “I want to make sure that we have a perimeter set up (unintelligible), all the kids are getting out, but we need to shut down around this school.”

By 2:35 p.m., officers were seen transporting a victim on a golf cart. One minute after that, 10 officers burst into Building 12 through an east-side entrance.

Down the street, Cruz had entered a Walmart and bought a drink at the Subway inside. At 3:40 p.m., a Coconut Creek officer saw Cruz and arrested him without incident. Cruz was indicted Wednesday on 17 counts of first-degree murder and 17 counts of attempted murder.

The Broward Sheriff’s Office released the timeline Thursday following weeks of mounting pressure to make the details of its police response public. The Miami Herald, South Florida Sun-Sentinel and CNN sued the agency last month to force it to release surveillance video outside of the 1200 building, and their lawyers argued in court Thursday that it was in the public interest to release the footage.

Also Thursday, the sheriff’s office released 911 calls received by dispatchers and police documents related to its handling of calls to Cruz’s various addresses detailing his family’s troubled domestic life.

The sheriff’s office tweeted about the case Thursday evening.

“BSO agreed in court today with the media that surveillance video from outside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High should be released publicly. Legal exemptions block the release unless a judge approves. The judge took it under advisement and we hope for a ruling shortly.”

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Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

In a world dominated by mobile capital, mobile capital is the comparative advantage.

Defenders and critics of “free trade” and globalization tend to present the issue as either/or: it’s inherently good or bad. In the real world, it’s not that simple. The confusion starts with defining free trade (and by extension, globalization).

In the classical definition of free trade espoused by 18th century British economist David Ricardo, trade is generally thought of as goods being shipped from one nation to another to take advantage of what Ricardo termed comparative advantage: nations would benefit by exporting whatever they produced efficiently and importing what they did not produce efficiently. While Ricardo’s concept of free trade is intuitively appealing because it is win-win for importer and exporter, it doesn’t describe the consequences of the mobility of capital. Capital–cash, credit, tools and the intangible capital of expertise–moves freely around the globe seeking the highest possible return, pursuing the prime directive of capital: expand or die.

Capital that fails to expand will stagnate or shrink. If the contraction continues unchecked, the capital eventually vanishes.

The mobility of capital radically alters the simplistic 18th century view of free trade. In today’s world, trade can not be coherently measured as goods moving between nations, because capital from the importing nation owns the productive assets in the exporting nation. If Apple owns a factory (or joint venture) in China and collects virtually all the profits from the iGadgets produced there, this reality cannot be captured by the models of simple trade described by Ricardo.

In today’s globalized version of “free trade,” mobile capital can arbitrage labor, currencies, interest rates, regulatory burdens and political favors by shifting between nations and assets. Trying to account for trade in the 18th century manner of goods shipped between nations is nonsensical when components come from a number of nations and profits flow not to the nation of origin but to the owners of capital.

This was recently described in a Foreign Affairs article, (Mis)leading Indicators:

If trade numbers more accurately accounted for how products are made, it is possible that the United States would not have any trade deficit at all with China. The problem, in short, is that trade figures are currently calculated based on the assumption that each product has a single country of origin and that the declared value of that product goes to that country.

Thus, every time an iPhone or an iPad rolls off the factory floors of Foxconn (Apple’s main contractor in China) and travels to the port of Long Beach, California, it is counted as an import from China, since that is where it undergoes its final “substantial transformation,” which is the criterion the WTO uses to determine which goods to assign to which countries.

Every iPhone that Apple sells in the United States adds roughly $200 to the U.S.-Chinese trade deficit, according to the calculations of three economists who looked at the issue in 2010. That means that by 2013, Apple’s U.S. iPhone sales alone were adding $6-$8 billion to the trade deficit with China every year, if not more.

A more reasonable standard, of course, would recognize that iPhones and iPads do not have a single country of origin. More than a dozen companies from at least five countries supply parts for them. Infineon Technologies, in Germany, makes the wireless chip; Toshiba, in Japan, manufactures the touchscreen; and Broadcom, in the United States, makes the Bluetooth chips that let the devices connect to wireless headsets or keyboards.

Analysts differ over how much of the final price of an iPhone or an iPad should be assigned to what country, but no one disputes that the largest slice should go not to China but to the United States. That intellectual property, along with the marketing, is the largest source of the iPhone’s value.

Taking these facts into account would leave China, the supposed country of origin, with a paltry piece of the pie. Analysts estimate that as little as $10 of the value of every iPhone or iPad actually ends up in the Chinese economy, in the form of income paid directly to Foxconn or other contractors.

In a world dominated by mobile capital, mobile capital is the comparative advantage. Mobile capital can borrow billions of dollars (or equivalent) in one nation at low rates of interest and then use that money to outbid domestic capital for assets in another nation with few sources of credit.

Mobile capital can overwhelm the local political system, buying favors and cutting deals, all with cash borrowed at near-zero interest rates. Mobile capital can buy up and exploit resources and cheap labor until the resource is depleted or competition cuts profit margins. At that point, mobile capital closes the factories, fires the employees and moves on.

Where is the “free trade” in a world in which the comparative advantage is held by mobile capital? And what gives mobile capital its essentially unlimited leverage? Central banks issuing trillions of dollars in nearly-free money to banks and other financial institutions that funnel the free cash to corporations and financiers, who can then roam the world snapping up assets and arbitraging global imbalances with nearly-free money.

There’s nothing remotely “free” about trade based not on Ricardo’s simple concept of comparative advantage but on capital flows unleashed by central bank liquidity.

The gains reaped by mobile capital flow to those who control mobile capital: global corporations, financiers and banks. No wonder labor’s share of the economy is stagnating across the globe while corporate profits reach unprecedented heights.

*  *  *

My new book Money and Work Unchained is $9.95 for the Kindle ebook and $20 for the print edition. Read the first section for free in PDF format. If you found value in this content, please join me in seeking solutions by becoming a $1/month patron of my work via patreon.com.

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President Trump has pardoned former U.S. Navy sailor Kristian Saucier, who served a year in jail for a felony conviction after taking six photos of classified areas inside the USS Alexandria (SSN-757) nuclear attack submarine, including the vessel’s nuclear reactor.

Saucier’s case was often invoked by President Trump on the campaign trail, who said the sailor’s life was “ruined” for doing “nothing” compared to Hillary Clinton, while Saucier’s attorneys used the Hillary Clinton “lack of intent” defense – requesting little to no punishment, to no avail.

As we reported back in August 2016, Saucier’s legal team claimed that “most recently, Democratic Presidential Candidate and former Secretary of State Hilary [sic] Clinton … has come under scrutiny for engaging in acts similar to Mr. Saucier.” The FBI has criticized Clinton’s “homebrew” setup, attorney Derrick Hogan noted, “however, the FBI recently recommended Mrs. Clinton not be brought up on any charges as she lacked ‘intent.’”

Therefore, Hogan claimed, the jury must acquit.

Saucier, who acknowledged that he was aware that the pictures he took were classified (Clinton, recall, has maintained that she did not believe any of the information she receive via email ought to have been protected) argued that the photos were keepsakes, pointing to photos taken by two co-workers inside the sub who were not prosecuted.

“That’s an old submarine; they’ve got plenty of pictures, if the enemy wants them, they’ve got plenty of them. He wanted to take a couple of pictures. They put him in jail for a year,” said Trump said at one event on the campaign trail.

The photos Saucier took were deemed “confidential” – the lowest level of classification, while Hillary Clinton was storing “Special Access Program” (SAP) documents on her unsecured private server. Of note, SAP documents are classified above top secret, which are subject to exceptionally stringent safeguards – including non-electronic copies which require physical access some cases.

Intelligence is allocated to a special-access program when “the vulnerability of, or threat to, specific information is exceptional,” according to Executive Order 13526, which was signed by US President Barack Obama in late 2009 and details how to properly handle and protect classified national-security information. –Business Insider

“To date, I have received two sworn declarations from one [intelligence community] element. These declarations cover several dozen emails containing classified information determined by the IC element to be at the confidential, secret, and top secret/sap levels,” wrote Intelligence Community Inspector Gen. I. Charles McCullough III in a January 2016 letter.

Of note, the mere existence of SAP level documents on Clinton’s server constituted an “unauthorized disclosure,” which Clinton and her team would have been trained to avoid, along with the “criminal, civil, and administrative sanctions” that applied. 

(b) Every person who has met the standards for access to classified information in paragraph (a) of this section shall receive contemporaneous training on the proper safeguarding of classified information and on the criminal, civil, and administrative sanctions that may be imposed on an individual who fails to protect classified information from unauthorized disclosure. –EO 13526, Sec 4.1

Saucier, now 31, took cellphone photos in 2009 when he was 22-years-old.

Since his release, Saucier told the Washington Examiner he’s had trouble finding work – taking a job as a garbage man in Vermont where he worked up to 70 hours a week to support his wife and two-year-old daughter. His cars were repossessed while he was in prison, debt collectors have been hounding his family, and they had to go on a payment program to handle the electricity bill.

“We’re struggling,” he said. “No one will hire me because I’m a felon … All the skills I worked so hard for in the military are useless.”

Because he was given an “other-than-honorable” discharge from the Navy, Saucier will receive no veteran benefits – including disability payments for injuries received while serving two tours in the Middle East. 

Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, was allowed to run for president, lost, and has been protected by the specter of a Russian witch hunt ever since, courtesy of America’s “Deep State”. 

“I think my family and I have been punished enough,” Saucier told the Examiner in January. 

In January, President Trump tweeted “Crooked Hillary Clinton’s top aid, Huma Abedin, has been accused of disregarding basic security protocols. She put Classified Passwords into the hands of foreign agents. Remember sailors pictures on submarine? Jail!”

Crooked Hillary Clinton’s top aid, Huma Abedin, has been accused of disregarding basic security protocols. She put Classified Passwords into the hands of foreign agents. Remember sailors pictures on submarine? Jail! Deep State Justice Dept must finally act? Also on Comey & others

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 2, 2018

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton was exonerated by the FBI, after the agency’s top brass including former Director James Comey and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe conspired with top counterintelligence special agent Peter Strzok and others to “decriminalize” Hillary Clinton’s mishandling of classified material – by changing their assessment from the legally consequential charge of “grossly negligent,” to the phrase “extremely careless.” 

Notably, “Gross negligence” is a legal term of art in criminal law often associated with recklessness. According to Black’s Law Dictionary, it is defined as “A severe degree of negligence taken as reckless disregard,” and “Blatant indifference to one’s legal duty, other’s safety, or their rights.” “Extremely careless,” on the other hand, is not a legal term of art.

18 U.S. Code § 793 “Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information” specifically uses the phrase “gross negligence.” Had Comey used the phrase, he would have essentially declared that Hillary had broken the law.

Moreover, we learned this week that Peter Strzok ignored evidence that Clinton’s server – with SAP level classified documents on it – was breached.  Strzok still collects a taxpayer funded paycheck after being stuffed in the FBI’s HR department.

Finally, Hillary Clinton just received the Radcliffe Medal and is tweeting about #MeToo from her multi-million dollar compound. Kristian Saucier’s life is in shambles as he tries to provide for his wife and two-year-old. With any luck, today’s presidential pardon will help strengthen his resume. 

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Heading into this morning’s payrolls data, a few traders noted the sudden plunge in liquidity (which is normal) but chaotic noise in equity futures trading and even more so in VIX.

As soon as the data hit, VIX suddenly flash-crashed from 16.75 to 13.31…

Which just happens to be the 100-day moving average…

Bloomberg notes that it appears an options trader dubbed the “Elephant” has returned to close out a portion of a March three-way trade.

As a reminder, there are a number of infamous ‘traders’ that keep popping up in the volatility complex as Macro Risk Advisers’ Pravit Chintawongvanich has detailed in the past:

About 121.6k March $25 calls were bought for 25 cents, potentially closing a portion of a trade from Feb. 2 when ~526k were sold for 62 cents.

Separately, 60k May $60 calls appear to have been bought for 15 cents vs open interest of ~6.1k.

VIX options were the most active among all U.S. listed contracts on Friday.

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Spot the odd one out: Dow +700pts, USD Index unchanged, 30Y Yield unchanged, Gold unchanged.

Here’s one way to look at this week…

or another…

– Brought about world peace
– Saved the US steel and aluminium sector
– 313k NFP

…not a bad week for The Donald pic.twitter.com/KiWJH37s5K

— RANsquawk (@RANsquawk) March 9, 2018

No matter which you prefer, the stock market overwhelmingly endorsed a lack of wage growth, the start of a global trade war, and the exit of the last globalist from The White House…

From last Friday’s open, it’s been one way…

Who could have seen that coming?

Fresh record highs for the Nasdaq.

As Bloomberg  points out though, don’t be fooled by Saturday newspaper headlines which scream: “Booming Job Growth Sends Nasdaq to Record High.” Back in the financial pages there will also be a story worrying about the narrowness of the rally. An equal-weighted version of the Nasdaq 100 is not making a record high today, which only widens the gap with the modified cap-weighted index since Donald Trump’s election.

Just five stocks account for half of the 7.4% rally from the February 8 low to today’s all-time high in the Nasdaq 100. The five – in order of point contributions: Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet and Intel. Another way to look at it, 25% of companies in the index fell since the trough.

Investors rushed into safe-haven FANG Stocks (up 6.9% on the week)…

This chart from BofAML might suggest why – 2018 has started with the fastest inflows into tech stocks since the crisis…

It seems bank stocks don’t care about rates not moving or about Gary Cohn leaving The White House!!

 

The Dow closed at its Fib 61.8% retrace of the Feb-Flop… NOTE how The Dow is finding serious support/resistance at these key levels…

 

Today did not appear to be a short-squeeze as “Most Shorted” stocks flatlined as indices ripped higher…

 

VIX flash-crashed to a 13 handle intraday, perfectly tagging the 100DMA at 13.31, before bouncing back but still closing notably lower on the week…

Bloomberg notes that it appears an options trader dubbed the “Elephant” is responsible for the flash-crash as he returned to close out a portion of a March three-way trade. About 121.6k March $25 calls were bought for 25 cents, potentially closing a portion of a trade from Feb. 2 when ~526k were sold for 62 cents. Separately, 60k May $60 calls appear to have been bought for 15 cents vs open interest of ~6.1k.

Treasury yields ended marginally higher on the week with the long-end outperforming…very narrow range for the week.

This is the 11th day in a row that the 10Y yield has closed with a 2.8x% handle.

 

Despite all the exuberance in stocks this week, the dollar index ended unchanged…

 

While the dollar was unchanged, cryptocurrencies collapsed on the week with Bitcoin down 20% – one of its worst weeks in years…

 

Bitcoin ended back below $9k… but NOTE the heavy-volume dumps at the European close each of the last three days…

 

Gold ended the week unchanged, crude was lagging into this morning but ripped higher to close green…

NOTE – WTI’s big moves were all around the 11ET time (EU close)

 

Bonus Chart: No one should be surprised by today’s disappointing-wage-growth-driven rally – it is the norm!!

Bad news is good news again… oh and Goldilocks is alive again.

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When Trump triumphantly accepted the invitation to meet with Kim Jong-Un last night, verbally delivered to the White House by the South Korean delegation, it almost seemed that peace on earth was about to break out after what would otherwise be one of the greatest diplomatic breakthroughs in recent US history. More importantly, the meeting between Trump and Kim, tentatively scheduled “before May”, appeared to have no conditions attached to it.

That changed on Friday afternoon, when White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that the U.S. will require North Korea to take “concrete and verifiable steps” before President Trump attends an announced sit down with Kim Jong Un.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders says President Trump won’t meet with Kim Jong Un “until we see concrete actions that match the words and the rhetoric of North Korea” https://t.co/qTID7SRySB pic.twitter.com/bJrQz4kvPQ

— CNN (@CNN) March 9, 2018

This is a notable development as the White House had not previously suggested said that there would be any “string attached” for the talks to take place in the next month.

“This meeting won’t take place without concrete actions that match the promises that have been made by North Korea,” Sanders said. However, as on Thursday, Sanders did not specify what promises must be kept or what steps North Korea must take for the planned meeting to go through.

According to the South Korean delegation, Kim was prepared to suspend his ballistic missile tests in the hopes of opening a dialogue. Perhaps the “condition” is only for Kim to keep his word, something he has not been very good at in the past: Sanders said Friday that they expect North Korea’s actions and rhetoric to be aligned if the president is to sit down with Kim.

When reporters pressed Sanders on whether it was possible that the meeting would fall through, she said that “a lot of things are possible,” and added that “I’m not going to walk through every hypothetical that could exist in the world. But I can tell you that the president has accepted that invitation on the basis that we have concrete and verifiable steps.”

In other words, as “tribute” Trump will demand a concession of good will, one which the Pyongyang dictator may not be willing to give, in the process unwinding all the alleged process achieved last night.

Meanwhile, Trump has insisted that sanctions would remain in place on North Korea until there is “permanent denuclearization” and the White House says that planned military exercises between the U.S. and South Korea will continue as planned. Additionally, administration officials have emphasized that the planned meeting falls short of official negotiations between the U.S. and North Korea.

And while it’s unclear whether the White House expects North Korea to begin the denuclearization process before or after the meeting takes place, today’s “footnote” suggests that some token actions will be required in advance of the meeting.

“Let’s not forget that the North Koreans did promise something — they promised to denuclearize, they have promised to stop nuclear and missile testing,” Sanders said.

“And they have recognized that we’re going to continue in our military exercises. Let’s be very clear. The United States has made zero concessions, but North Korea has made some promises. And again, this meeting won’t take place without concrete actions that match the promises that have been made by North Korea.”

The White House took credit for Kim’s willingness to negotiate, saying it was the result of its “maximum pressure” campaign on North Korea.

“For the first time in a long time, the United States is actually having conversations from a position of strength, not a position of weakness like the one that North Korea finds itself in,” Sanders said. “The president is getting exactly what he wants.”

For now, perhaps, but the president may lose it all in an instant if KCNA were to lob over an angry letter overnight saying that the invitation is off.

 

 

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With Trump’s interview with Mueller looming, the President lawyers are reportedly seeking to negotiate a deal with special counsel Robert Mueller “that uses an interview with the president as leverage to spur a conclusion to the Russia investigation.”

According to the WSJ, the president’s legal team plans on telling Mueller that Trump would agree to a sit-down interview based on multiple considerations, including that the special counsel commit to a date for concluding at least the Trump-related portion of the investigation. One idea is to suggest a deadline of 60 days from the date of the interview.

Another consideration for Trump’s lawyers is “reaching an agreement with Mueller on the scope of his questioning of the president, which they expect to focus largely on his decision to fire former national security adviser Mike Flynn and former FBI director James Comey.” This also confirms that Trump’s legal team is convinced that Mueller is now going after obstruction of justice and interference, and not Russian collusion as the primary angle of attack.

Trump is pressing his lawyers to bring about an end to the probe.

Mr. Trump has been eager to see the investigation wrap up as quickly as possible, describing it as a distraction that is hurting the country. His lawyers have repeatedly laid out public timelines by which they expected the investigation to end. Those deadlines have come and gone.

Tweeting in January, Mr. Trump said of the investigation: “On and on it goes. Russia & the world is laughing at the stupidity they are witnessing.”

The WSJ source notes that conversations with Mueller over a possible Trump interview are in the earliest stages. The lead outside attorney for Trump, John Dowd, said in an email Friday: “We never discuss our communications with OSC (Office of Special Counsel).”

While it was unclear if Mueller would agree to Trump’s terms, legal experts told the WSJ they were skeptical that the special counsel would be open to the Trump legal team’s requests.

“You can’t put a timeline on these things,” said Peter Zeidenberg, a former federal prosecutor and an expert in government investigations. “Someone could walk in the door on the day before their proposed deadline and say, ‘I’ve got some information that’s going to blow your minds.’ … Mueller’s going to say, ‘Oh, too bad, the deadline’s tomorrow?’ ”

Trump’s sit down with Mueller comes as the special counsel has already interviewed dozens of top White House officials and campaign aides, including the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, and former chief of staff Reince Priebus.

* * *

As previously reported, Trump’s lawyers hold differing opinions on whether the president should testify and under what conditions.

One member of the Trump legal team said last month that Mr. Trump’s testimony could set a bad precedent for future presidents, eroding their powers.

If Mr. Trump were to face detailed questions involving dates and times, his legal team may be reluctant to have him participate. As an example, general questions about what the president was thinking when he ordered the firing of Mr. Comey might be acceptable, as opposed to what action he took on a specific date and time.

The WSJ concludes that as a Plan B, Trump’s legal team has studied federal court rulings that could be the basis for delaying or limiting the scope of an interview, or perhaps avoiding one altogether, although with Mueller successfully “turning” several potential witnesses, it is doubtful that he would succumb to any influence from the White House, absent Trump’s engaging in a controversial termination.

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