"Everything Donald does is transactional," Mary Trump, a licensed psychologist and niece of the disgraced former President has explained.

A scathing federal court decision late last week, awarding nearly one million dollars in sanctions against Don the Con and his attorney in response to just one of his many recent frivolous lawsuits against perceived political enemies, underscores Mary's point. It also details how, since leaving office, 2020's biggest loser has engaged in and continues to engage in a litigation grift.

The withering 46-page order [PDF] handed down last Thursday by U.S. District Court Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks in Donald J. Trump v. Hillary Clinton, et al. does more than explain why the veteran federal jurist awarded an eye-popping $937,989 in attorney's fee sanctions against the former President and his New Jersey lawyer, Alina Habba. The erudite legal ruling also contained an in-depth discussion of more than a half-dozen other deceptive and frivolous lawsuits that this "predator" and "successful sociopath" filed against those he has long hoped to paint as enemies since leaving office.

In an attempt at reversing his more than 7 million vote loss at the polls, Trump and his allies filed and lost 61 out of 62 post-election lawsuits. The cases were so devoid of merit, so replete with deceptive allegations, that many of the former President's attorneys were later confronted with ethics complaints and sanctions ranging from fines, to censure and even disbarment.

In the aftermath of that debacle, a normal, non-sociopathic person would have slunk off towards oblivion, tail between his/her legs. Not The Donald.

From a "transactional" perspective, those 61 "losing" cases were a smashing success. They provided the failed President an opportunity to rake-in $250 million from his gullible "base".

But, along with imposing nearly $1 million in attorney's fees sanctions --- including almost $172,000 that Trump will now have to pay out to perhaps his greatest perceived personal nemesis, Hillary Clinton --- Judge Middlebrooks expressed the need to remediate the harm caused to the 31 named Defendants, whom he regarded as the victims of an "abusive" and "completely frivolous" complaint. His Honor eviscerated Trump's lawsuit as one "that should never have been filed"; a lawsuit that was drafted only "to advance a political narrative; not to address legal harm caused by any Defendant." The veteran and very able jurist also expressed a hope that the eye-popping amount of court sanctions might act as a deterrent.

Nonetheless, as long as Trump's litigation fundraising continues to rake-in enormous sums, it's unlikely that anything short of criminal prosecution for some of his many alleged crimes will ultimately accomplish that worthy goal. Maybe...

Saturday's Passover shooting at a synagogue in Poway, California, just north of San Diego, was only the latest in a rising spate of Rightwing extremist hate crimes --- rising even over the past week alone! --- as discussed on today's BradCast. [Audio link to show follows below.]

We're joined today by NBC 7 San Diego reporter RAMON GALINDO, who spent the weekend covering the shooting at Chabad of Poway, which took the life of 60-year old Lori Gilbert-Kay and injured three others, including the congregation's Rabbi, after a 19-year old armed with a military-style assault rifle opened fire during Shabbat services. The alleged shooter, who was arrested while fleeing, is said to have been inspired by both the recent attack on two Muslim mosques in New Zealand, where 50 were killed, and the Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh which killed 11 worshipers exactly 6 months ago.

The shooter at Chabad, who posted a "manifesto" just prior to the attempted massacre, is also said to have been responsible for an incident of arson at a nearby Muslim mosque in late March, according to Galindo who broke the story of that fire for NBC San Diego last month. In addition to bringing us up to the latest, including charges that have now been filed, Galindo offers insight on a number of the heroes in the story who he spoke with over the weekend, including both Gilbert-Kay and Oscar Stewart, an Iraq vet and congregant who reportedly ran toward the shooter to stop him as others were fleeing. It was, in fact, a good guy WITHOUT a gun who appears to have prevented far more carnage, though an armed Border Patrol officer at the service reportedly fired shots at the shooter's car as he was speeding away.

We've got a lot to unpack on all of this today, with both Galindo and listeners who call in with their own thoughts and reactions to the shooting (including one woman who lives in the neighborhood), the White House response (denying Donald Trump's obvious responsibility in helping to hasten the rise of white supremacists and other rightwing extremists) and even some thoughts on the Obama Administration's willingness to fold to reactionaries on Fox 'News' and in the Republican Party by withdrawing his own Dept. of Homeland Security's dire draft report [PDF] on the dangerous rise of lone wolf rightwing domestic terrorism in April of 2009.

That (shamefully) withdrawn report stated: "DHS has concluded that white supremacist lone wolves pose the most significant domestic terrorist threat because of their low profile and autonomy --- separate from any formalized group.” (No such fury was issued by the right after a similar report on the dangers of leftwing extremism was issued before it. Both reports were begun during the George W. Bush Administration. Moreover, as Daily Beast reported earlier this month, the Trump Administration has been disbanding DHS efforts to work with state and local officials on issues of white supremacy and domestic terrorism.)

We also talk with Galindo about the editorial decision by some in the media to not share --- or, at least, over use --- the suspects name and why neither of us did so today. As noted, there is much to discuss on today's program...

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On today's BradCast: The coverage by the corporate media --- and response by many Democrats --- to Attorney General William Barr's terse, misleading 4-page summary of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report after two years has, by and large, been atrocious in innumerable ways. [Audio link to show follows below.]

We're joined today by HEATHER DIGBY PARTON, who has been covering the corrupt Trump Presidency for years now, including its various Russia-related storylines and other criminal probes at Salon and Digby's Hullabaloo. Among our several related topics of discussion today: Shameful failures by the media and others to demand independently verifiable evidence of speculative allegations both before the confidential Mueller Report was finally delivered to Barr and the subsequent failure by many of the same organizations and individuals in their credulous reporting of Barr's bare-bones, "very, very clever political document" summarizing the sprawling, two-year probe.

Rather than learning from mistakes, many in the media seem to be repeating them all over again in the wake of Barr's memo, which some justifiably regard as a "whitewash" or "cover-up" by a man who was selected by Trump, in no small part, for his previously stated opposition to the probe and to the very notion that any President can legally be charged with Obstruction of Justice. There's much more related conversation here today --- including on the substance of Barr's letter, Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein's curious complicity, and the GOP's premature victory laps --- but you'll have to tune in to listen.

Also on today's program: Though Democrats led a decisive 248 to 181 vote today (with 14 Republicans) in hopes of overriding Trump's veto of the resolution blocking his phony "national emergency" declaration, the effort fell 38 votes shy of the two-thirds majority needed. In the Senate, where 12 Republicans previously voted with Democrats, 59 to 41, to block the President previously, no override vote will now be held since a two-thirds majority vote is required in both chambers. AP described Trump's overwhelming loss in both chambers as a "victory" for the President today, and it will now be left to challenges in court to block Trump's order diverting billions appropriated by Congress to the military to instead build his border wall. Mexico is still not paying for it.

Then, in a major reversal of their previous legal position, Trump's Dept. of Justice filed documents in an appeals court Monday to support striking down the entire Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare") as unconstitutional. While Jeff Sessions served as Attorney General, DoJ had "only" supported gutting provisions that limited premium prices insurers could charge for the elderly and those with pre-existing conditions. Under Barr, however, the Administration now seeks to kill the entire landmark healthcare law. If successful, as many as 30 million Americans would lose their access to affordable healthcare coverage;

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest very busy Green News Report, as fossil fuel-related climate related disasters continue in the U.S. and around the world, while the Trump Administration plows billions of tax-payer dollars into troubled nuclear plants and the Senate GOP carries out a "sham" vote on the Green New Deal, in hopes of mocking the initiative...

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So what did you think we'd be talking about on today's BradCast? [Audio link to full program is posted below.]

On Sunday, Donald Trump's new Attorney General William Barr issued a four-page letter [PDF] summarizing the long-awaited, nearly two-year Special Counsel investigation by Robert Mueller into Russia's alleged interference in the 2016 Presidential election, Team Trump's cooperation in that effort, and Donald Trump's attempts to obstruct the probe. Mueller's effort resulted in some 35 indictments, including more than 20 Russian individuals and entities, as well as indictments, convictions or guilty pleas from six top Trump associates and staffers. It has also spawned a number of other probes and indictments, including what Barr describes as "several matters" referred "to other offices for further action."

Nonetheless, based on Barr's summary report, issued less than 48 hours after receiving what is likely to have been tens of thousands of pages from the Special Counsel, the White House, the President and his fellow GOPers are falsely characterizing the terse summary as reflecting Mueller's "complete and total vindication" of Trump. That, despite Mueller's express and specific finding (according to one of the very few passages directly quoted by Barr) that the Special Counsel's report "does not exonerate" Trump of obstruction of justice crimes. That did not prevent the White House from falsely describing Mueller's findings as "a total and complete exoneration of the President of the United States." That is the opposite of what little we know the report to have found.

If fact, while Barr claims Mueller's "investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities" (the matter which media, Democrats and Trump alike have long described as "collusion"), Mueller left the decision on whether to prosecute Trump on obstruction up to the Attorney General, according to Barr, for reasons that still remain unknown and will likely stay unknown until and if Mueller's report is actually publicly released. Congressional Democrats are justifiably demanding as much.

While we've shared no small measure of healthy skepticism over the years about what Russia did or didn't do during the 2016 election, along with what Team Trump's involvement with it may or may not have been, there is no legitimate question about Trump's attempt to obstruct Mueller's investigation of it, beyond whether or not the obstruction rose to something that was prosecutable or impeachable and whether a sitting President can be indicted under the DoJ's dubious guidelines which say he or she may not.

Of course, just about everyone seems to have an opinion about Barr's report on Mueller's report. But it should be made clear that everything we currently know is based only on Barr's own summary, compiled in less than 48 hours. It should also be made clear that Barr is wildly conflicted in this matter, as he "auditioned" for the job as Trump's new AG by sending an unsolicited 19-page memo [PDF] to DoJ last year explaining why he believed Mueller's probe was "fatally misconceived" and that, essentially, a President cannot be held criminally accountable for any "exercise of core discretionary powers within the executive branch." (That would include, for example, Trump's firing of FBI Director James Comey due to "the Russia thing," as he admitted out loud.)

That Barr and similarly-conflicted Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein were left to determine Trump's fate on this point --- and did so in less than 48 hours after a two year investigation --- is anything but what any American should consider to be "justice". But, as Mark Joseph Stern argues today at Slate, "William Barr Did What Donald Trump Hired Him to Do".

Today, we focus on the very few FACTS revealed by Barr's memo and open up our phone lines for listeners to offer a bunch of interesting takes on the events of the past 24 hours...and, as you might have guessed...even of the past three years...

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On today's BradCast, I’m your guest host --- Angie Coiro, of In Deep with Angie Coiro --- while Brad and Desi are on the road.

I’m glad to have JODI JACOBSON on hand, from Rewire.News. Like me --- and like you, maybe --- she watched the whole Brett Kavanaugh circus today, and shares her impressions with us. She’ll be back again tomorrow.

Speaking of Rewire, this story posted there late today is deeply affecting. Watching Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s life get shredded, five Congresswomen spoke up to publicly identify themselves as victims of sexual assault or domestic violence. Rep. Alma Adams of North Carolina said so very simply that this is "just part of her job representing her constituents."

This hour I present to you the contrasting statements of the accuser and the accused. A tentative but strong, conciliatory and polite woman (asked about taking a break, she replied "Does that work for you? I’m used to being collegial."), and an angry, bellowing, interruptive, hostile nominee for a lifetime position on the U.S. Supreme Court. As Brian Behar tweeted: "Can you imagine what the reaction would've been if Dr. Ford had behaved even half as hysterically as Brett Kavanaugh or Lindsey Graham?"

Speaking of Twitter: you’re welcome to view my analysis of Brett Kavanaugh’s tell-tale face. I tweeted that thread before he took his seat at the hearing; then, every time I glanced at his face, it only confirmed for me his wrath at having his power, privilege, and entitlement questioned in the slightest. I guarantee you: countless women have seen that face in the worst of all possible circumstances, and you never forget it.

Until tomorrow, then...

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On today's BradCast: It's National Voter Registration Day as the crucial midterm general elections on November 6th are now exactly 6 weeks away. Other than that, today's news may be somewhat less encouraging --- though we, and the world, manage to have a bit of a laugh at Donald Trump's expense, in the bargain. [Audio link to show follows below.]

First up: Happy National Voter Registration Day! Do you need to register to vote before November 6th? Have you checked your registration lately to make sure it's accurate? Today is a great day to do so!

Today is also a great day, apparently, for the world to laugh at the President of the United States, as they literally did at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday. Not with Donald Trump, but at him, during his address to the Assembly.

While there, during a joint media avail with the President of Colombia, Trump also took the time to attack the two named women who have accused his U.S. Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, of sexual assault during high school and his first year at Yale. Trump also dismissed the allegations as little more than "a con game being played by the Democrats." That, even as new information continues to buttress the allegations by the women and as the calls grow louder (even from Mormon women) for a full, legitimate investigation of their charges, which the White House and Republicans refuse to ask the FBI for (and which even potential Kavanaugh swing vote Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) now says she'd like to see.)

Meanwhile, Kavanaugh, a longtime GOP operative who claimed during his initial Senate confirmation hearings just weeks weeks ago that "the Supreme Court must never be viewed as a partisan institution", took to the right-wing Fox 'News' air waves on Monday night for a softball interview with his wife, in hopes of defending himself against the growing allegations. He and his first accuser, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, are scheduled to give testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday. In advance, the all-white, all-male Republicans on the Committee have announced they are hiring a woman to ask questions of Ford on their behalf, though they won't identify her. They have also now scheduled a committee vote on Kavanaugh's nomination the very next day, on Friday.

At the same time on Thursday, Trump is scheduled to meet at the White House with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the Republican who oversees the Robert Mueller Special Counsel probe into the alleged conspiracy between Team Trump and Russia. The meeting, at which many expect Rosenstein will be fired, follows a misleading exclusive report published by the New York Times charging Rosenstein had suggested secretly taping Trump and recruiting White House staffers to invoke the 25th Amendment early last year. As subsequent reporting by other outlets reveals, however, Rosenstein was reportedly being sarcastic with his comments, according to people who were actually at the meeting in question. Nonetheless, we are still barreling toward a potential Constitutional Crisis as early as Thursday, thanks in no small part to the pretext for firing Rosenstein --- and perhaps Mueller, shortly thereafter --- äs provided by the Times' reporting.

We're joined today by former Media Matters media critic, author and political writer ERIC BOEHLERT of ShareBlue to discuss both of these stories and where they may be headed, as well as for some insight into what the hell is wrong with the New York Times.

On the Supreme Court, Boehlert says, among many things of note today: "With Merrick Garland, and with Kavanaugh, the Republican Party in 18 months is this close to demolishing the legitimacy of the United States Supreme Court. That has huge implications, not just for law and justice, but for an authoritarian like Trump. Because corrupting the high courts is always a goal of any authoritarian, just like de-legitimizing the free press."

As to his analysis of the "institutional problems" at the Times, you'll have to tune in for details, but he notes: "There does seem to be a pattern. When they get things wrong, they get things wrong in a way that helps Republicans."

Finally today, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as the impacts of Hurricane Florence continue in the Carolinas two weeks after landfall, including new evacuations, more record flooding, the toxic release of coal ash into North Carolina waters, and the media failure to connect the climate change dots to all of it. She also offers a bit of good news for us today, for a change, out of Cleveland, OH! So there's that!...

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Today's BradCast was perhaps best characterized by TV writer Jordon Nardino who tweeted on Sunday night: "Next week has been exhausting." [Audio link to show is posted below.]

Monday provided a bit of a fire drill for the upcoming Constitutional Crisis, when it looked like Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversees Robert Mueller's Special Counsel investigation into Team Trump's alleged conspiracy with Russia in 2016, appeared to be about to be either fired or forced to resign. That moment, for now, will likely not happen now until Thursday, when he is set to meet with Donald Trump at the White House after the President's appearance this week at the U.N. General Assembly.

The showdown with Rosenstein comes on the heels of what appears to be a somewhat misleading exclusive published last Friday by the New York Times, reporting that Rosenstein "suggested" using the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office during a meeting at the Department of Justice last year, in the chaotic days after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey in his attempt to end the FBI's Trump/Russia investigation. Rosenstein, according to follow-up reports from other outlets quoting a source said to have actually been in the room at the time of the conversation in question, is said to have been sarcastic when mentioning wearing a wire to record the President.

Also coming up this Thursday, if all goes as currently scheduled, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford is set to testify before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee after a weekend of negotiations with Senate Republicans following her accusation of sexual assault by U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh when they were both in high school. Over the weekend, and into Monday, several other allegations of assault (we're up to four now) by Kavanaugh in high school and college, vague or otherwise, have begun to surface.

We're joined today by Slate's Supreme Court and legal reporter MARK JOSEPH STERN to try to make sense of all of these quickly developing stories. In the Rosenstein saga, Stern details his concerns about Trump's Solicitor General Noel Francisco, who would be next in the line of succession to become Acting Attorney General overseeing the Mueller probe if Rosenstein is removed from his post. He describes Francisco as a huge Trump supporter, who has simply made up stuff out of whole cloth, even while arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court. Stern explains why Francisco would be very likely to try and shut down the Special Counsel probe if given the opportunity.

"He is an extremely unscrupulous, unethical and dishonest man," he tells me. "To let this guy, who would lie whenever it's convenient for him, control this investigation --- it's a recipe for disaster."

We also discuss why Republicans are in a desperate state of panic to install Kavanaugh as quickly as possible on their already-stolen SCOTUS. Among the reasons cited by Stern are both the odds of Republicans losing their majority in the Senate this November and a number of cases important to Rightwingers that are to be heard by the Supremes when they begin their new term on October 1. A 4-4 tie in several of those cases would be likely to benefit progressives.

"They've got to squeeze it all in while they still have that one-vote majority" in the Senate, he explains. "Now they just have to cross this final finish line, shove these accusers to the side and get this man on the bench for life."

Stern also responds to the claims by many on the right who suggest Kavanaugh should not be held accountable for his behavior as a 17-year old. That assertion, however, is at odds with how courts deal with crimes by 17-year olds who aren't nominated for lifetime appoints to the Supreme Court.

Stern, who happens to be a licensed attorney in the state of Maryland, also speaks to the weekend claim by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) that the crimes alleged to have been carried out by Kavanaugh in MD 36 years ago could no longer be prosecuted. Stern argues that is not true and local law enforcement officials in the state seem to concur.

Finally, as Rosenstein appears to be targeted for removal, as early as this week, we share a new song by Ben Folds, recently published by Washington Post Magazine, inspired by a derisive name Trump is said to use when referring to the Deputy Attorney General: Mr. Peepers - The Ballad of Rod Rosenstein...

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Today on The BradCast: On the eve of Donald Trump's scheduled Monday summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Dept. of Justice Special Counsel Robert Mueller brought eleven new felony charges against twelve Russian military intelligence officials on Friday. They were charged with various crimes related to cyber-interference in the 2016 Presidential election. And, a bi-partisan federal lawsuit is filed in South Carolina in hopes of finally terminating the state's easily-hacked, repeatedly-failed, 100% unverifiable voting system. [Audio link to show follows at end of article.]

The Russian military officials cited in today's indictment [PDF] relates to hacking into and stealing documents from the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign, and releasing them to the public in hopes of manipulating the election. The charges also relate to attacks against state and county election officials and a voter registration company where email spearphishing schemes are said to have implanted malware onto the computer networks in question.

The new indictment does not allege any Americans knew of the hacking scheme detailed by Mueller, though it notes that Trump's public July 2016 call for Russia to find and release "missing" personal Hillary Clinton emails was followed by attacks, "for the first time", on an Internet domain used by her personal office.

While the filing details at least one state voter registration system where some 500,000 private records were accessed, it does not allege that voting results were manipulated (although the DHS admitted last year they never examined either ballots or voting systems.) During Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's announcement of the new charges, he also excoriated partisan and media speculation regarding the probe, as well as attacks (presumably by Congressional GOPers and Trump) on the FBI itself.

Meanwhile, much media coverage was given on Thursday to the insanely chaotic ten-hour long U.S. House hearing featuring testimony by Peter Strzok, the top FBI counter-intelligence specialist who initially led the investigation into Russian interference back in 2016. At the same time, a hearing in the U.S. Senate this week on safeguarding our election infrastructure received little or not coverage. Today, we try to correct that a bit, with some of the testimony offered by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), sponsor of a new election reform bill in the Senate --- the Protecting American Votes and Elections (PAVE) Act --- which is the only one that would require a HAND-MARKED paper ballot for every voter in the U.S. His testimony calls out ES&S, the nation's largest computer voting system vendor, for failing to show up for the hearing or answer any of his basic cyber-security questions he's sent to the company over the past year.

Then, after more than a decade of failed elections on the 100% unverifiable ES&S iVotronic touch-screen voting systems used across the state of South Carolina --- including the still-remarkable and still-unexplained story of Alvin Greene, the completely unknown, unemployed man who somehow managed to win the state's 2010 Democratic U.S. Senate primary without campaigning at all, against a longtime, well-known state legislator and circuit court judge --- a lawsuit was filed this week in federal court to force the state to offer a secure system to voters.

The complaint [PDF] was filed on behalf of two plaintiffs. One, a former eight-term Democratic state legislator, the other a longtime Republican Freedom of Information Act champion and election critic in the Palmetto State. The Republican plaintiff, FRANK HEINDEL, and attorney LARRY SCHWARTZTOL, of the non-partisan, non-profit ProtectDemocracy.org, join me to explain the lawsuit, Heindel's years of work attempting to oversee state elections (and their accompanying disasters), and whether the new complaint might make any difference in the state before this year's crucial 2018 midterms.

"I've just always been skeptical of the 'black box' mentality where you go in and you just trust the machine, and there's no way to verify the results," Heindel explains. "I've just never really trusted that system. I've tried to push us towards a more paper-based way to vote, and it's taken many years here, but I'm starting to get a little optimistic that the worm has turned and we're going to make some progress."

"You need a system where the winner knows that he won, the loser knows that he lost, and everybody knows that their votes were cast and counted directly. We don't have that today," he tells me. The longtime businessman has spent the last decade or more filing some 47 FOIA requests attempting to personally investigate election results and related problems in the state. (We've been following Heindel's efforts for years. You can watch part of Dan Rather's 2010 report on Heindel, right here.)

The longtime litigator Schwartztol, for his part, explains: "What we're arguing for in the lawsuit is to replace that system with one that meets basic, common-sense principles. Secure in its basic architecture against cyber-attacks. The main way to do that, most people agree, is a pretty simple one. And that's building a system around paper ballots, that can be verified, that can be audited, that can be the subject of a recount if that's necessary."

"What we describe in the lawsuit is a voting system that contains unnecessary vulnerabilities and that is not sufficiently reliable to do the work," he adds. "The work of ensuring that votes are accurately recorded and counted."

He lauds the state's election commission chair, Marci Andino (one of the suits defendants), for stating her desire to move to a new system, but is critical of the claim that it would require $50 million to do so. A paper ballot system he says, citing a recent report from NYU's Brennan Center for Justice, would cost much less. He also tells me that one of the solutions they hope to pursue in the case, potentially before November, is the use of the state's absentee paper ballot system that could be used for all voters this year.

"You saw today where Rosenstein was saying that the Russians had sent phishing emails to various state and county folks," notes Heindel. "Our county election people, they're hard-working and they mean well, but I can get tricked on a phishing email. The idea that we have state and county election people that are trying to fend off sophisticated attacks from foreign adversaries, it's crucial that we get our arms around this thing, and get to paper sooner rather than later."

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On today's BradCast: The chaos that is the Trump Administration continues to move faster than anyone can possibly keep up with. But we try. [Audio link to show follows below]

First up today: Late last week a judge in Arkansas found the state's second try at a Photo ID voting restriction law to be as unconstitutional as the one struck down by the state Supreme Court four years ago. The new measure, adopted by Arkansas' Republican-majority legislature, has now been blocked in advance of the state's mid-term primaries coming up later this month. Leslie Rutledge, the state Attorney General who unsuccessfully defended the law, failed to demonstrate any evidence of voter fraud in court. The state is now appealing the lower court ruling. But, as we reported back in 2014, Rutledge herself committed actual voter fraud when she voted by mail in Arkansas even after registering to vote in Washington D.C.!

News out of Texas on this front is not as encouraging, as a split decision by a three-judge panel on the conservative 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided to allow that state's new version of its voter-suppressing Photo ID law to be used in the 2018 mid-terms, though opponents are likely to appeal. Lower courts --- and even a unanimous panel on the 5th Circuit itself --- have repeatedly found both versions of the state's GOP-adopted state statute to be unlawful and/or in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

Then, we're joined today by national security journalist MARCY WHEELER of Emptywheel to try and make sense of, among other things, the nearly four dozen questions said to be from Robert Mueller's Special Counsel probe for Donald Trump, as published by the New York Times on Monday night after apparently being leaked by someone on Team Trump. Those questions include queries on Trump's alleged obstruction of justice, as well as Team Trump's so-called "collusion" with Russia before and after the 2016 election.

Wheeler explains why she believes the information was leaked and how its being desperately used by Trump to (falsely) suggest the Special Counsel has found no evidence of "collusion", despite the many published questions in the list which cite issues related to a conspiracy between Russians and members of the Trump Campaign.

"These guys are incompetent at governing and most every other thing, but they are very competent at playing the press. And they have played the press for the last six months, making it seem as if the only risk to Trump has to do with obstruction," Wheeler argues. "More than a third of these questions go to the conspiracy. It was never just about just obstruction."

We also try to make sense of the bizarre, late-breaking story regarding Trump's infamous gastroenterologist, Dr. Harold Borenstein, who is now charging that Trump's longtime personal bodyguard Keith Schiller and a Trump Organization lawyer "raided" his office last year to take Trump's medical records without the required legal forms, shortly after Borenstein told the media that Trump uses a hair-loss drug.

Wheeler also offers her insights into the new evidence suggesting that Trump is now tossing his old business partner and personal lawyer Michael Cohen under the bus in the wake of the recent FBI raids on Cohen's office and residences. "There are so many weird things about the Cohen thing that I hesitate to settle on an explanation for what's going on there, aside from the fact that I think that yeah, Trump is worried about him flipping."

All of it is perhaps best summed up by Wheeler's comment today: "It's a mess. Trump is in trouble."

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report as an EPA whistleblower (and Trump supporter) charges that embattled EPA chief Scott Pruitt lied to Congress during recent testimony, and the Trump Administration is trying again to rollback fuel efficiency standards for vehicles. Both of those stories also have late updates today, as we now learn that two top (and controversial) EPA officials have recently resigned amid the mountain of Pruitt-related scandals, and as California and 17 other states sue the Trump Administration over its new attempt to rollback fuel efficiency...

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On today's BradCast: That mighty "thud" you heard on Friday morning? It may have been the release by Donald Trump and U.S. House Republicans of their long-awaited, much-ballyhooed, self-generated memo, which they promised would expose "worse than Watergate" crimes and wildly biased partisan "witch hunt" activities by the FBI and DoJ as part of their investigation into whether Team Trump worked with Russia to undermine the 2016 Presidential election. It did none of those things. But it does expose them as hypocrites when it comes to U.S. surveillance policies. [Audio link to show posted below.]

The three-and-half page memo was released on Friday despite the strenuous objections of Democrats and Trump appointees at the FBI and DoJ who shared "grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo's accuracy" before its release. Trump didn't care. The document, made of partial, cherry-picked facts, is meant to suggest the FBI inappropriately obtained a secret warrant (and three renewals for it) from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to spy on Carter Page in late 2016. Page was a Trump campaign volunteer who had long been on the radar of the intelligence community after being cited in intercepts from Russian intelligence agents discussing him as an asset as early as 2013.

The newly declassified memo is the work of U.S. House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes (R-CA) and his staff, who may or may not have worked with the White House itself on the effort, but it ultimately appears to do little to bolster their argument that Republican Robert Mueller's Special Counsel probe is in some way compromised by Democratic partisans. (Even Shepard Smith of Fox "News" seems to agree.)

It does, however, underscore concerns about the manner in which Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants are obtained in the secret FISA Court, where there is no adversarial opposition to the secret case offered by the Government. All of which begs the question as to why Nunes himself voted just two weeks ago against FISA reforms advocated by civil libertarians on the Right and Left, and in favor of extending and expanding the controversial surveillance law for another 6 years. It also begs the question as to why Trump signed that FISA extension without reforms to the process that he and Nunes are now claiming to be so troubled by. Again, that was all just two weeks ago! [My conversation on that matter on this show, two weeks ago with former DoJ attorney Elizabeth Goitein --- after Nunes and the House passed the bill, and just before Trump signed it --- is right here.]

Then, as the cable news channels continue to devote nearly 24/7 to political intrigue and food fights, a reminder that a fish rots from the head down. To that end, the petty cruelty of Donald Trump is permeating its way into executive branch agencies, polices and behavior with nowhere near the media sunlight it deserves. We cover a number of the under-reported recent stories of how his cruel, hard-line immigration policies are ripping families apart and hurting real people, right now, and at least one federal judge who drew a hard line in the sand this week against at least one aspect of those policies.

Finally, as promised earlier this week, a disturbing story about Diebold, the makers of ATMs and (formerly) of computer voting, registration and tabulation systems, and a newly-issued warning that their ATMs are being hacked to spit out cash in a scheme called "jackpotting". But while the security built into their machines that contain thousands of dollars of actual cash may not be great, you needn't worry about the security of their systems used to cast and count our votes in at least one-third of the country this year in our upcoming 2018 midterm elections, right? After all, neither Trump nor Nunes nor the rest of the Congressional Republicans appear to be too concerned about it, so why should you be?...

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On today's BradCast, given the reports that Donald Trump is now personally being investigated for obstruction of justice, we unpack the chaos that may soon come about if the Deputy Attorney General is forced to recuse himself (or is fired) from overseeing the Special Counsel's probe of Team Trump. [Audio link to complete show follows below.]

But, while all the madness of the DoJ's Trump investigations are going on, Senate Republicans indicated today that they will call for a vote on their secret Obamacare replacement bill before the July 4th recess next week. They also announced they will have the votes needed for passage. If they are right, the results are likely be devastating for millions of Americans, and not only the poor. One of out three elderly Americans in nursing homes, for example, rely on Medicaid to cover the costs, and the GOP is about to cut hundreds of billions of dollars from the program in exchange for massive tax cuts for the wealthy.

We discuss that and, as record heat blasts the Western US, the unbelievably stupid explanation for climate change just offered by Energy Secretary Rick Perry (it's not CO2, he says, it's "the ocean waters and this environment that we live in"!) We also offer a very quick preview of the U.S. House Special Elections being held today on 100% unverifiable touch-screen voting machines in BOTH Georgia and South Carolina. (We'll have full results, whatever they are reported to be, on tomorrow's show).

Then we're joined by attorney, author, columnist and UNH asst. professor SETH ABRAMSON to step through his recent 50 tweet(!) tweetstorm detailing the 'bedlam' that is likely to ensue when and if (he insists "when") Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein is forced to recuse himself from overseeing Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Team Trump and, reportedly, obstruction of justice by the President himself in his firing of FBI Director James Comey.

The chain of events that could come about as the result of Rosenstein's recusal, as Abramson details on the show today, are amazing and could lead to a very real Constitutional Crisis and even completely separate obstruction of justice charges against Trump based on an entirely different investigation related to his February mass firing of all of the US Attorneys.

Lots of somewhat jaw-dropping 'bedlam' unpacked and explained and to be absorbed in detail on this front on today's show, including whether or not Rosenstein himself could come under investigation; who the next officials in line are to take his place (first, a friend of Ted Cruz' named Rachel Brand, then a man named Dana Boente) and what their conflicts are; how Trump could personally come to appoint the person overseeing the Special Counsel's investigation after we go through Brand and Boente; and why, if sitting Presidents cannot be indicted, as many argue, Mueller would be carrying out a criminal obstruction of justice investigation of Trump in the first place.

"Honestly, If I were to lay out the full complexity of the situation right now at the DoJ, which goes well beyond the question of Rachel Brand possibly becoming the Acting AG in the very near term, it would take --- and I am not exaggerating --- probably about 500 tweets," Abramson tells me. "We are in so many unprecedented situations and sub-situations at the DoJ, it is bewildering even for attorneys," he says, adding later: "This is the most complex and public litigation of probably the last 100 years in American political history."

Finally today, another heartbreaking story of yet another immigrant victim of Trump's, now facing deportation and separation from his family despite spending months in the clean-up efforts at Ground Zero after 9/11...

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On today's BradCast, we do our best to surf today's news tsunami, with a focus on a few troubling and under-appreciated stories amid the political flood pouring out of Washington and around the world in the wake of the DoJ's appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

Among the huge number of quickly moving and/or under-covered stories pieced together on today's show...

• CA Assembly bill calls for Donald Trump's impeachment;
• U.S. launches new airstrike on Syrian forces (despite Congressional failure to authorize attacks on a sovereign nation, which could result in war with Russia);
• Michael Flynn blocked President Obama's planned offensive against ISIS, which was opposed by Flynn's secret client Turkey;
• Trump Team was told of FBI investigation of Flynn long before inauguration;
• VP Mike Pence, head of Trump Transition, still claims he knew nothing about Flynn's ties to foreign nations;
• Suspicion grows over Team Trump attorney, White House counsel Don McGahn;
• Senate Intel Chair offers two different stories on Flynn subpoenas;
• House Oversight Chair announces he's quitting Congress next month;
• Mueller's appointment receives mostly bipartisan support, as....;
• ...White House turns 'chaotically dark', cancels Kellyanne Conway appearance on Fox 'News', before...
• Trump turns against appointment of Mueller to describe it as 'unprecedented witch hunt', which 'divides the country', even as he begins to separate himself from 'Russia collusion' and prepares to throw campaign team under the bus;
• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report with, among other things, a citizen call to action to save National Monuments set for possible repeal by the Trump Administration...

I wish our countries had "scandals" like this one instead...

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On today's BradCast, yes, like yesterday, more huge breaking news mid-show. [Audio link follows below.]

But before we get to that, today, controversial, extremist and, perhaps, insane Milwaukee Sheriff David C. Clarke claimed today that he has been appointed to a position in Donald Trump's Dept. of Homeland Security. If true, his appointment would be disturbing. Not only given the number of people who have died in his jail cells, but also because he has, literally, called for about a million people in the U.S. to be rounded up and shipped off to Gitmo, indefinitely, without attorney or trial. Really.

Then, the fallout from yesterday's huge mid-show breaking news concerning the report that, in February, Donald Trump asked then FBI Director James Comey to end the Bureau's investigation of Trump's former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Republicans, both last night and today on Capitol Hill, are having trouble grappling with and/or responding to the news, though at least one GOP Senator, John McCain, compared what's now going on to Watergate. And committees in both the House and Senate have now asked to see the Comey memos said to document his private meetings with Trump.

And, along with all of that, the phrase "Obstruction of Justice" is being heard more and more regarding Trump's apparent efforts to shut down the FBI's probe into his campaign associates alleged coordination with Russia during the 2016 Presidential election. So, we are joined today by former Asst. U.S. Attorney, now Professor Randall D. Eliason of George Washington University Law School to discuss what "Obstruction of Justice" actually means, in both the criminal sense (as it might apply in an indictment) and in the political sense (as it might apply in Articles of Impeachment) Eliason recently discussed both applications in a lengthy article at his Sidebars Blog.

"The important thing," he tells me today, "is to distinguish between Obstruction of Justice in the broader sense --- the way the term gets thrown around a lot --- and the more narrow criminal sense of an actual criminal violation that fits the Obstruction of Justice statutes. That's a much higher standard to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, all of the elements of an actual crime, as opposed to a more general claim that the President is kind of violating all these norms and rules and traditions that we have about not interfering with ongoing investigation, appearing to pressure the FBI Director, things like that."

The key issue, Eliason explains, is whether there was "corrupt intent" in the many different incidents that now appear as Trump's obstruction. "It's not enough if the President does something that just has the effect of hurting the investigation, as a kind of side effect. The prosecutor would have to show that was what he set out to do --- he had the wrongful and deliberate intent to try to thwart, in [the Flynn] case, the ongoing grand jury investigation."

As to the use of Obstruction of Justice as used in Articles of Impeachment against a President, there is a different standard, which Eliason also explains. We discuss the cases (and defenses) being built for both types of obstruction, whether a sitting President can actually be indicted on criminal charges, and also the meaning of another phrase being bandied about of late: "abuse of power".

In the course of the conversation we also discuss the likelihood of impeachment and the potential application of the 25th Amendment remedy as a way to remove Trump from power and the need for a Special Counsel to be named by the Dept. of Justice.

No sooner do we complete that conversation, than the huge news breaks late today that, indeed, former FBI Director Robert Mueller has been named by Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein as Special Counsel to take over the the FBI's probe into "any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump"...

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On today's BradCast, the fallout from the James Comey firing swirl further out of control, as I suspect it will for quite some time, while other disturbing Administration policies move forward with much less focus from either media or Congress. One such policy is Trump's recent Executive Order calling for the dismantling of National Monuments --- "public land grabs" and "outrageous abuses of power", as he has taken to incorrectly describing them --- on behalf of corporate drilling and mining interests. [Audio link to show follows below.]

The madness of King Donald continues to devolve at now breakneck speeds, as the White House and an increasingly enraged Trump continue their unsustainable spinning, flip-flopping and nonsensical rants concerning the President's sudden firing of the FBI Director earlier this week under an obviously phony pretext. The need to create fresh lies to cover up older ones is also creating fresh perils for those foolish enough to enter Trump's orbit, like Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. So, we've got the latest on all of that, including an interesting suggestion for Comey's permanent replacement, a bit of pushback from his Acting replacement, and some ill-considered admissions about the entire affair by Trump himself.

Meanwhile, as Trump keeps digging, and the media and Congress continue (justifiably) to obsess about and investigate it all, the Administration's other corrupt policy measures move forward with measurably less attention. Among those efforts is the unprecedented attempt to roll back National Monument designations by the three previous Presidents, including the Obama-designated Bears Ears National Monument in southern Utah.

In response to an Executive Order signed in April, U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is touring the area this week, where more than 1 million acres of land that is sacred to Native Americans and home to tens of thousands of archaeological sites, including ancient cliff dwellings, are now being reviewed on behalf of Trump, Congressional Republicans and corporate fossil fuel interests.

Joining us today to describe the local, tribal efforts to protect these native public lands --- and the Utah Congressional delegation's efforts to undermine them (literally) --- are Carleton Bowekaty, a Zuni Tribal councilman and co-chair of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, and Matthew Campbell, attorney with the Native American Rights Fund.

They both explain the reasons why the Antiquities Act of 1906 was invoked by President Obama to protect the lands; speak to some recent "extremely offensive" comments by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT); and the absurdity of Trump describing these designation of federal lands as national monuments as "federal land grabs".

Finally today, Desi Doyen joins us for the Green News Report, with news on the Administration's deliberations regarding the landmark UN Paris Climate Agreement, the latest on the nuclear emergency in Washington state, and much more...

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On today's BradCast, as you might have guessed, we pick up on the news that broke mid-show yesterday of Donald Trump's stunning and sudden firing of FBI Director James Comey, while the fallout and reeling continues in D.C. and across the nation today. [Audio link to show follows below.]

The pretext for that firing, which even some on Fox "News" describe as "almost inexplicable", was Comey's alleged mishandling last year of the Bureau's investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server while Sec. of State, according to a letter [PDF] written by new Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

A handful of Republican Senators (though some key ones) have expressed concern or "disappointment" over "the timing" of Trump's unprecedented firing of the FBI chief, which appears to have caught just about everybody by surprise, even as investigations continue at both the FBI and Congress into Trump and members of his campaign regarding allegations of undeclared ties to Russia and/or other foreign nations both during the campaign and after the election.

Democrats, meanwhile, are outraged by Comey's firing, despite their furor about the way he oversaw the Clinton probe last year during the run-up to the Presidential election. They are calling for a special prosecutor to be named by Rosenstein at the DoJ and an independent bi-partisan special committee to be named by Congress to investigate all of this. Many are comparing Trump's dismissal of Comey to Nixon's "Saturday Night Massacre" at the height of the Watergate investigation, others describing it as "a grotesque abuse of power by the President", while some Congressional Democrats are citing this moment as "a full-blown Constitutional crisis."

Joining us today to try and explain what is or isn't going on here, and whether it amounts to such a Constitutional crisis, full-blown or otherwise, is author and Constitutional law expert Ian Millhiser of ThinkProgress Justice. He explains the legitimate complaints against Comey, while making the case that his firing was little more than an effort by Trump to disrupt the FBI's ongoing Russia probe.

"What is the emotion you're supposed to feel when the biggest villain in the United States fires the second biggest villain in the United States?," Millhiser wryly asks, before detailing the legal underpinnings for Trump's move, whether any of it is in violation of the law or the U.S. Constitution, and whether Rosenstein or his new boss, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, acted inappropriately in collusion with Trump and the White House.

"The story of the last nine years of American politics," he goes on to explain, "has been that people like Trump, and Jeff Sessions, and James Comey, and Mitch McConnell --- maybe I shouldn't lump Comey in with them because I don't know that he was necessarily acting in bad faith in the way that some of the other ones are --- but people have figured out that we don't have a system of rules that prevents you from doing a lot to blow stuff up, and that prevents you from engaging in a lot of sabotage. What we have are norms that people just didn't violate because they cared enough about the United States of America not to do so."

Those days, Millhiser argues today, appear to be over --- at least as of right now --- in these United States.

Finally, we close with a tiny bit of good news today --- thanks, in part, to the surprising vote of at least one Republican Senator --- regarding the GOP's continuing attempt to roll back Obama Administration fossil fuel-related regulations on public lands...

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