* Trump’s lawyer Ty Cobb is out.
Source familiar with Cobb’s departure says WH lawyer had been clashing with Trump in recent weeks: “Ty was uncomfortable with the Mueller tweets…” and was not going to be “part of a mud slinging campaign.” Cobb made it clear to POTUS, legal team he “can’t go down that path.”
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) May 2, 2018
* Emmet Flood is in.
Emmet Flood is the latest attorney who will try wrangling President Trump, a notoriously difficult client to work for…Flood is the attorney you bring on when you anticipate being under siege…
He was hired out of a desire for someone “more aggressive,” former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who is serving as a personal attorney for Trump, told the Washington Post.
Flood, a Republican, is perhaps best known for his tenure on President Clinton’s legal team when Clinton was locked in an impeachment battle with Congress. In his work for Clinton, he also helped draft the President’s response to the Starr report.
* Two months ago Trump tweeted this:
The only one of the three left standing is Jay Sekulow.
* This administration obviously thinks they can pick and chose with laws they comply with.
The Trump administration has chosen to ignore an executive order that requires the White House to issue an annual report on the number of civilians and enemy fighters killed by American counterterrorism strikes.
The mandate for the report, which was due May 1, was established by former president Barack Obama in 2016 as part of a broader effort to lift the veil of secrecy surrounding drone operations in places such as Yemen, Somalia and Libya. The White House has not formally rescinded the Obama-era executive order but has chosen not to comply with some aspects of it.
“The executive order that requires the civilian casualty report is under review” and could be “modified” or “rescinded,” a White House spokesman said. The White House declined to say who is conducting the review, how long it has been ongoing and when it is expected to be completed.
* To get some idea about why the Trump administration wouldn’t want to release a report like that, Kevin Drum provided this graph of how many civilians have been killed in conventional airstrikes in Iraq and Syria.
* Sen. Dean Heller is either getting really desperate or beginning to lose his ever-lovin’ mind. Here is what he tweeted yesterday about his Democratic opponent.
Who does Jacky Rosen stand with? Iran … or #Israel?
Based on her record of supporting the #IranDeal, we all know the answer. #nvsen
— Dean Heller (@DeanHeller) May 1, 2018
He is suggesting that support for an agreement that stopped Iran from developing nuclear weapons means standing with Iran and not Israel. That’s just nuts!
* Now that some of the furor over Michelle Wolf’s comedy routine at the White House Correspondents Dinner has died down, I wanted to share a portion of it that hasn’t gotten any attention, but nailed the truth when it comes to Donald Trump. It goes from about 5:15-7:00 in this clip.
* Finally, in case you needed some assurance that the kids are all right, her ya go.
‘There is power in our footsteps. And the streets will ring with it long after we are gone.’ — NYC Youth Poet Laureate William Lohier’s poem on gun violence is a must-see #NoRA pic.twitter.com/VKp3onAD5G
— NowThis (@nowthisnews) May 1, 2018
