‘Repugnant.’ Rejecting as a violation of the nation’s constitutional values President Trump’s legal argument that sitting presidents are immune to criminal investigations, a federal judge in New York is ordering the president to surrender eight years of tax returns to Manhattan’s district attorney.
■ Congress has a second whistleblower—this one with what a lawyer says is firsthand knowledge of the first whistleblower’s secondhand accounts.
■ A Politico reporter recounts suburban Congressman Sean Casten’s six hours of town hall sessions on impeachment.
■ Laura Washington in the Sun-Times: Trump’s approach to impeachment is to slow the process down, giving him “endless opportunities to whip up his adoring supporters.”
■ … but, CNN reports, “Trump’s feverish efforts” are having some success in preventing “serious slippage” of Republican lawmakers’ support. (Cartoon: Keith J. Taylor, who merits your vote for Best Comics Illustrator in the Reader’s Best of Chicago poll.)
■ Vox’s Nicole Hemmer: “Fox News … played a critical role in luring Trump into committing Nixonian misdeeds.”
■ Jimmy Carter, who at 95 is America’s oldest-ever ex-president, suffered a black eye and 14 stitches after a fall Sunday, but he still showed up last night to rally Habitat for Humanity volunteers.
■ … but [link corrected] beware pickpockets on the CTA. (Photo: Harry Carmichael in the Chicago Public Square Flickr group. Come join the fun.)
■ The Sun-Times’ Neil Steinberg compares Illinois’ richest man, Ken Griffin, buying his name onto the Museum of Science and Industry to “slapping a fresh layer of rouge on the cheeks of a streetwalker.”
Been there, suffered that. Veteran City Hall reporter Fran Spielman says the three major strikes Mayor Lightfoot faces mirror the three faced 40 years ago by Chicago’s first female mayor, Jane Byrne.
■ Cook County assessor Fritz Kaegi, who campaigned on a pledge to clean up government, faces a government reformer’s complaint he’s not doing it fast enough.
High expectations. Three evening public meetings this week will give people a chance to hear about zoning rules in the works for recreational marijuana’s legalization in Chicago.
■ Here’s when and where they’ll happen.
Her time’s here. Tina Tchen, ex-First Lady Michelle Obama’s former chief of staff, is taking over as CEO of the anti-sexual harassment organization Time’s Up.
■ She replaces a woman who quit after her adult son was accused of sexual assault.
■ Tchen has drawn criticism for her role in the case of evasive actor Jussie Smollett (March link).
Joker matters. Contrary to several mainstream movie critics, filmmaker and sadly accurate political fortune teller (July link) Michael Moore says the new movie Joker raises issues “so profound, so necessary, that if you look away from the genius of this work of art, you will miss the gift of the mirror it is offering us.”
■ As you encounter accounts of the movie’s box-office records, remember those numbers haven’t been adjusted for inflation.
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Thanks to reader Paul Clark, first to note an errant link to the CTA pickpocket story above.