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A pair of news stories today reveals that efforts by Attorney General Bill Barr’s Justice Department to shield allies of Donald Trump from the consequences of their crimes are succeeding. Last night came word that a prosecutor who withdrew from the Roger Stone case will testify before Congress that he and his colleagues were repeatedly pressured to cut Stone "a break” because of his relationship with the president. This morning, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has overruled District Judge Emmet Sullivan and ordered him to accept the DOJ’s motion to dismiss the case against former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. These developments should concern every American. The rule of law is eroding bit by bit, and greater abuses of power are always what follow. —Evan McMullin
Top Ten

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1. How about that? A smooth pandemic primary ([link removed])

Fears that yet another primary election would lead to chaos amid the coronavirus pandemic were laid to rest yesterday, as voting in Kentucky, New York, and North Carolina went relatively smoothly. In Kentucky, where poll worker cancellations forced election officials to staff fewer than 200 polling locations instead of the usual 3,700, mail-in balloting and in-person early voting helped lessen demand on the polls—and lead to record numbers of voters casting ballots in the state. A win-win. —NPR ([link removed])
* — Kentucky. The Senate Democratic primary race to determine who takes on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in November is too close to call. Centrist candidate Amy McGrath has a slight edge over progressive challenger Charles Booker in votes cast in person. A substantial number of mail-in ballots have yet to be counted and will not be for days. —NBC News ([link removed])
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* — New York. Progressive upstart Jamaal Bowman has declared victory over influential 16-term congressman Eliot Engel in the Democratic House primary in New York’s 16th District—even as tens of thousands of absentee ballots remain uncounted. The primary race has not yet been officially called for Bowman, who currently leads Engel in the vote count by about 25 percentage points. —The Hill ([link removed])
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* — North Carolina. Twenty-four-year-old Madison Cawthorn defeated Lynda Bennett in North Carolina's 11th congressional district's Republican primary. It's a significant victory for the young Cawthorn, as President Trump vigorously backed Bennett, and she also had the endorsement of White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who vacated the seat earlier this year. —Axios ([link removed])

More: Litt: Long voting lines threaten our democracy. Fixing them is easier than you think (CNN) ([link removed])

2. Mitchell: What if Trump doesn't leave? ([link removed])

"Leaders like Ukraine's Viktor Yanukovych or even Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic did not rely simply on constitutional pyrotechnics to try to remain in power. They also used a ruling party that they controlled entirely, powerful state media, the threat of violence, and a large and loyal base of support. ([link removed])

We must be prepared for the possibility that Trump could do the same. The 2020 presidential election result may be close, with narrow victories in a few states determining the winner. If Trump loses those states by small margins it will be easy for him to build a 'stolen election' narrative based on the doubts he has already seeded about voting by mail and his frequent, and false, statements about widespread voting by non-citizens." —CNN ([link removed])

Ed. Note: Lincoln Mitchell teaches in the political science department at Columbia University and is the author of "The Color Revolutions."

More: In Arizona, Trump has a redo of his Oklahoma rally (Politico) ([link removed])

3. 'Stone was treated differently because of politics' ([link removed])

Two Justice Department employees, John Elias and Aaron Zelinsky, along with former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Donald Ayer, testified before the House Judiciary Committee today "to describe the unprecedented politicization of the Department under President Trump and Attorney General William Barr." ([link removed])
* — "What I heard—repeatedly—was that Roger Stone was being treated differently from any other defendant because of his relationship to the president," Zelinsky, one of four prosecutors who quit the Stone case, said. "I was also told that the acting U.S. Attorney was giving Stone such unprecedentedly favorable treatment because he was 'afraid of the president.'" —Politico ([link removed])
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— "Barr's central goal is...to systematically dismantle the system of checks and balances that stand between this president and unchecked power," Ayer testified. —Lawfare ([link removed])
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* — In another development, a surprise ruling by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals this morning overturned District Judge Emmet Sullivan's ruling, ordering him to accept the DOJ's motion to dismiss the case against former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller charged Flynn with one count of lying to federal investigators in late 2017—a charge to which Flynn twice pleaded guilty. —ABC News ([link removed])

More: Inside the White House plan to plant cronies all over (Daily Beast) ([link removed])

4. Coronavirus has brought US 'to its knees' ([link removed])

Ouch. That's the assessment of Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who testified on Capitol Hill yesterday. He told the House Energy and Commerce Committee that core public health capabilities in the U.S. have been vastly underfunded for a long time, and urgent investment is required to continue fighting the coronavirus pandemic. —The Guardian ([link removed])
* — The good. Dr. Anthony Fauci, who appeared before Congress yesterday as well, testified that President Trump has never told him or his fellow White House Coronavirus Task Force members to slow down coronavirus testing—contrary to the president's own assertion. Fauci also said a vaccine may be available by year's end. —Axios ([link removed])
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— The bad. New cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. have surged to their highest level in two months and are now back to where they were at the peak of the outbreak. According to Johns Hopkins University, 34,700 new cases of the virus were reported yesterday; only two previous days saw more cases—April 9 and April 24, when 36,400 cases were logged. —Associated Press ([link removed])
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* — The ugly. The Trump Administration, eager to claim victory over the coronavirus, has been considering scaling back the national emergency declared earlier this year to control the pandemic. Public health leaders fear the move would make it more difficult for state and local governments and health systems to keep the virus in check. —Los Angeles Times ([link removed])

More: MLB announces 60-game season for 2020; Opening Day will be July 23 or 24 (CBS News) ([link removed])

5. Healey: Visa ban will do more harm than good "It's easy to argue that Americans should be first in line when jobs come back (a process that may have already begun, if the May jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics is any indication). But businesses and employment opportunities after the recession won't be the same as the ones before the collapse. Recessions invariably displace workers whose skills fall out of demand. And one thing this country doesn't seem to be very good at is retraining people to keep pace with those changes. In the meantime, though, it won't help the U.S. economy recover if businesses that are trying to reopen or expand can't do so because they can’t find the workers they need." —The Detroit News ([link removed])
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6. A false alarm at NASCAR ([link removed])

Following an investigation, the FBI concluded late yesterday that the noose found in the team garage of Bubba Wallace, NASCAR's only black full-time driver, was not part of a hate crime. "The FBI report concludes, and photographic evidence confirms, that the garage door pull rope fashioned like a noose had been positioned there since as early as last fall," NASCAR said in a statement. Wallace has been unfairly criticized for staging the incident, but, like all drivers, he never entered the garage area nor witnessed the noose. He was informed of it by NASCAR after the investigation was already underway. —The Guardian ([link removed])
* — A sampling of racism. Despite the NASCAR episode, racism remains a real and pervasive issue for black Americans. Republican Sen. Tim Scott, who is black, played a sample of the many hateful voicemails he has received to his Republican colleagues at a closed-door lunch yesterday. Scott is leading the GOP efforts on police reform. —Politico ([link removed])
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— Scott has his work cut out for him. In a marked contrast to the growing public support for policing reforms in the four weeks since the death of George Floyd, the Senate can't seem to reach a consensus on the best way forward. Democrats called the reform plan proposed by Scott on behalf of Senate Republicans "inadequate," arguing that it falls short of a substantive transformation of controversial policing practices. The bill was blocked today, 55-45. —The Washington Post ([link removed])
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* — Protection for statues. President Trump said yesterday that he plans to sign an executive order to bolster existing laws that protect monuments. He pointed out that the Veterans' Memorial Preservation and Recognition Act allows for fines and jail sentences of up to 10 years for people who destroy monuments "commemorating the service of any person or persons in the armed forces of the United States." —The Wall Street Journal ([link removed])

7. The Economist: China bullying the world "China is taking advantage of a world distracted by COVID-19 to throw its weight around. It is true that China has been aggressive in recent months. Beyond its readiness to skirmish on the Indian border, it has decided to impose a draconian national security law on Hong Kong, slapped trade boycotts on Australia and other Western nations, and sent coastguard ships to sink or harass foreign vessels in the contested waters of the South China Sea. It is also true that the world is geopolitically distracted. It is hard for governments to chide China over democracy in Hong Kong, say, while also negotiating to buy Chinese ventilators." —The Economist ([link removed])

More: US moves to restrict Chinese media outlets as 'propaganda' (ABC News) ([link removed])

8. Global democracy roundup The U.S. isn't alone in removing monuments in recent days. Historical statues have been disappearing in Thailand too, but they're not effigies of colonialists or slave-owners torn down by protesters. Instead, they're memorials to celebrated leaders of the 1932 revolution that ended absolute monarchy in Thailand, who were once officially honored as national heroes and symbols of democracy. And no one is sure who has removed them. —Reuters ([link removed])
* — Germany bans neo-Nazi group. A right-wing extremist group called Nordadler, whose members pledged allegiance to Adolf Hitler, was banned by Germany's Interior Ministry yesterday, becoming the third such group banned by the country this year. —Deutsche Welle ([link removed])
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— Serbian "strongman" increases power. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has declared a landslide victory for his governing party in a parliamentary election tarnished by a boycott from much of the opposition, who accuse the leader of burgeoning authoritarianism. —Al Jazeera ([link removed])
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* — Moroccan journalist targeted. The Israeli spyware company NSO Group faced criticism last year when it was discovered that its hacking software was being used illegally against journalists and dissidents, forcing the company to unveil a new human rights policy. An investigation alleges that another journalist, Omar Radi in Morocco, was targeted with NSO software and put under surveillance after the new policy went into effect. —The Guardian ([link removed])

More: Mongolia's future as 'Oasis of Democracy' put to election test (Bloomberg) ([link removed])

9. Tharoor: Journalist's sentence threatens democracy "'This is how democracy dies in the 21st century: in a musty courtroom, with a judge invoking Mandela,' wrote Sheila Coronel, another celebrated Filipina journalist, and professor at Columbia University. 'There are no power grabs in the dead of night, no tanks rolling down the streets, no uniformed officers taking over TV stations. Just the steady drip, drip, drip of the erosion of democratic norms, the corruption of institutions, and the cowardly compromises of decision-makers in courts and congresses.'" —The Washington Post ([link removed])

10. An American Story: Mowing down racism Eleven-year-old Jack Powers of Missouri recently started mowing lawns around his neighborhood to raise money for the Black Lives Matter movement. ([link removed])
* — After seeing what happened to George Floyd, Powers decided he wanted to help. "I just wanted to make a change, and I didn't like how people were being treated," he said. — He began his business in early June and advertised it by placing flyers around his neighborhood. ([link removed])
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* — Powers' neighbor, April Strelinger, said she felt compelled to donate to his cause even though she didn't need her lawn cut. "There's been a lot of change, flux, and hardship, so to see Jack's poster and find a helper, it actually opened up a great conversation with my son about how he can be a helper." —People ([link removed])

Ed. Note: We are spotlighting ways that Americans are helping each other through the coronavirus crisis and recent unrest, and promoting American values. Would you like to suggest an "American Story" from your local news? If so, please forward a link to the story to [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) . Thank you!
What's Your Take?

I found yesterday's "What's Your Take?" to be especially moving and important. I am hoping that the difference between today's protests and those in which I participated in the '60s and '70s brings results, as it is not only the young people of color out there. It is young and old. It is the palest and the darkest of us. It is the rich and the poor. It is the voice of all of us.

My guilt over the lack of success from my youth continues to drive me to work for a more perfect union. E Pluribus Unum. —Harry G., Virginia

Watching Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' slobbering sycophancy to Donald Trump has been painful to me, but perhaps fatal to citizens of Florida.

Unlike governors like Andrew Cuomo in New York, Mike DeWine in Ohio, and Gavin Newsom in California, who have demonstrated resolute strength in these hours of crisis, DeSantis looks more like a dazed pledge at a college fraternity, so eager to ingratiate himself with the obnoxious head of the fraternity, lest he gets black-balled or paddled, he dare not say or do anything that might displease his superior.

"What do you REALLY think, Ron?" some reporter should ask him.

And if he were honest, he would reply, "Whatever I am told to think." —Jim V., New York

Click here to tell us what you think about today's stories. ([link removed])
The views expressed in "What's Your Take?" are submitted by readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff or the Stand Up Republic Foundation.

Got feedback about THE TOPLINE? Send it to Melissa Amour, Managing Editor, at [email protected] (mailto:[email protected]) .
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