Clash of Power: In a dramatic standoff last night, Attorney Gen. William Barr tried to force out the US attorney in Manhattan, who responded by refusing to step down.

  The Trump administration in recent weeks has been purging people deemed insufficiently loyal. Geoffrey Berman, who presided over the prosecution of former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen and is now examining  Rudy Giuliani, said he had learned from a department news release that he was “stepping down.” He said in a statement, “I have not resigned, and have no intention of resigning, my position.”

  Barr is reported now to be moving to fire Berman outright.

  Presiding in a position that is supposed to be politically neutral, the Attorney General Barr has repeatedly intervened in criminal cases involving Trump associates, including the prosecutions of Roger Stone, and Michael Flynn, the short term national security adviser who has pleaded guilty twice.  

Judgment and Warning: The Oklahoma Supreme Court rejected an effort to stop President Trump’s Tulsa rally today over fears of spreading the coronavirus, and Trump issued a thinly veiled warning to protesters planning to show up.

  “Any protesters, anarchists, agitators, looters or lowlifes who are going to Oklahoma please understand, you will not be treated like you have been in New York, Seattle, or Minneapolis,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter. “It will be a much different scene!”

  Although the message made no distinction between peaceful and violent protesters, Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters, “What he was meaning are violent protesters.”

  It’s amazing how often Trump’s lieutenants need to explain what he really meant to say and anyway, it’s just hot air. He has no control over how Tulsa would deal with protests.

  Trump is holding his rally despite public health warnings about large gatherings of people. The Oklahoma Supreme Court rejected a bid by some local residents and businesses to delay the event until social distancing guidelines could be enforced.

  McEnany said she won’t be wearing a mask at the event because “It’s a personal decision.”

Viral News: New cases of the coronavirus in the US are up six percent over the last two weeks, but deaths are down 45 percent over the same period. This morning, 119,131 Americans have died of the virus. 

Get Out: President Trump says he’s going to take another shot at deporting the class of illegal immigrants known as “Dreamers,” the people who were brought to the country when they were children.

  Trump tweeted, “We will be submitting enhanced papers shortly in order to properly fulfil the Supreme Court’s ruling & request of yesterday.”

  Taking it back to court at this point probably means there will be no resolution by the time of the November election, and possibly not until the next inauguration, no matter who puts his hand on the Bible.

  Referring to “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, Trump said in doublespeak that, “I have wanted to take care of DACA recipients better than the Do Nothing Democrats, but for two years they refused to negotiate.” What he really wants to do is send 700,000 people who’ve lived most of their lives in the US back to countries they don’t know.

Hero and a Heel: As controversial as his new memoir about President Trump is the author himself, the hawkish former national security adviser John Bolton.

  In the leadup to Tuesday’s release of “The Room Where it Happened,” Bolton leaked information to Congress yet refused to testify in Trump’s impeachment. Instead, he took a $2 million advance for a tell-all book, at least all the National Security Council will allow him to tell. Bolton, like Trump, manipulates events to his own advantage.

  John Gans of the University of Pennsylvania writes in The NY Times  that, 

“It is hard to see any more in Mr. Bolton’s crusade beyond self-interest: for vengeance, attention and sales of the book, which cravenly opened for pre-order in the hours after the first story with details from his manuscript went live.”

  Gans says, “Regardless, Mr. Bolton was willing to work for Mr. Trump, willing to destroy the governmental structures that could check the president and willing to take notes during vulgar episodes like the president’s endorsement of China’s concentration camps, as long as he got to stay in the room where it was happening and pursue uber-hawkish foreign policies.”

  Bolton, in his book, is as unflattering about Trump as the reviewers are about Bolton. He describes Trump as “erratic,” “impulsive” and “stunningly uninformed” He says Trump could make “irrational” decisions and “saw conspiracies behind rocks.”

  Bolton writes, “Throughout my West Wing tenure, Trump wanted to do what he wanted to do, based on what he knew and what he saw as his own best personal interests,” Mr. Bolton writes in the book. At another point he adds, “I am hard-pressed to identify any significant Trump decision during my tenure that wasn’t driven by re-election calculations.”

Police Blotter: An officer involved in the shooting death of Breonna Taylor in her home in Louisville is being fired. The 26-year-old Taylor, who was black, was an emergency medical technician. The cops were executing a no-knock drug warrant when they killed Taylor. They didn’t find any drugs.

The Bulletin Board: The Navy has upheld the dismissal of a popular aircraft carrier captain who was fired after his warnings about the danger of the coronavirus aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt. The findings of a preliminary investigation had recommended that Capt. Brett Crozier be reinstated. — In an interview with a Philadelphia television station, Vice President Mike Pence refused to use the term “black lives matter,” insisting instead that “all lives matter in a very real sense.”

Talk of the Nation: President Trump’s adviser Kellyanne Conway, who on a good day looks like a shar pei who hasn’t slept, showed up on television this week with a dramatically different look. Her skin was smooth and the bags under her eyes were gone. Her appearance set off as much talk as President Obama’s tan suit. Could it be plastic surgery? Could it be Maybelline?

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