Barr barks a declaration of independence from Trump. Really?

No puppet, no puppet

President Donald Trump can't contain his enthusiasm over how Attorney General William Barr faithfully carries his water. "Congratulations to Attorney General Bill Barr," he tweeted after Barr's Justice Department pulled back on a tough sentencing recommendation for Trump pal Roger Stone.

Presidential pats on the head for serving Trump's wants aren't making Barr look good. On Thursday, Barr couldn't take it anymore.

"I am not going to be bullied … I cannot do my job here at the department with a constant background commentary that undercuts me," Barr said in an ABC News interview. Trump needs to stop tweeting about the Justice Department, he said, because his posts “make it impossible for me to do my job and to assure the courts and the prosecutors in the department that we’re doing our work with integrity.”

The appearance that Barr was bending the justice system to Trump's will has led to worsening turmoil at the department, The Washington Post reported, and this was hardly the first time. Since becoming attorney general, Barr has pleased Trump with a happy-talk interpretation of former special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation report, set in motion probes of those who investigated the president and opened a transom for Rudy Giuliani's Ukraine conspiracy fishing.

Barr, in the interview, insisted Trump played no role in reconsidering the Stone sentencing recommendation, and he said the president needs to stop making it look otherwise.

Barr's rebuke of Trump stood out as the most stinging ever delivered by a senior administration official still on the job. Yet there was no indication that the president would strike back by ousting him. Neither was there a sign that Trump would accept Barr's counsel to pipe down.

White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said, "Trump wasn’t bothered by the comments at all" and has "full faith and confidence in Attorney General Barr to do his job and uphold the law." She also said the president "has the right, just like any American citizen, to publicly offer his opinions."

Care to quid pro, Cuomo?

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo went to the White House to fight for New Yorkers' reinstatement in Trusted Traveler programs that speed up airport lines. But Trump had more on his mind before the meeting: a tweeted list of grievances against his former home state.

One of them: "New York must stop all of its unnecessary lawsuits & harassment." The reference — to state investigations surrounding Trump’s finances — was taken as a hint that Trump would be more amenable to a deal. In December, he tweeted, "All they want to do is investigate to make me hate them even more than I should."

So just a week after he escaped punishment for seeking the "favor" from Ukraine of investigating his foes, the president seemed to be soliciting an end of investigations into himself and his businesses. At least that's how Democrats behind the impeachment inquiry took it.

"Dear @SenateGOP, This is what another quid pro quo by the President of the United States looks like," tweeted Rep. Jerry Nadler. "Different corrupt purpose, same corrupt President," tweeted Rep. Adam Schiff.

Cuomo and Trump didn't reach a compromise over the feds' demands — for access to the state Department of Motor Vehicles database in return for reinstating New Yorkers' eligibility for the traveler program — but Cuomo spokeswoman Dani Lever said there would be further discussion next week. See Newsday's story by Laura Figueroa and Michael Gormley.

Kelly: Trump can't tell good from bad

As Trump's former chief of staff John Kelly sees it, the president has made villains out of heroes and vice versa.

Speaking Wednesday at a college lecture series in New Jersey, the retired four-star Marine general lauded Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a key witness in the House impeachment hearings who was booted from the White House last week after Trump's Senate trial acquittal.

Of Vindman's decision to alert superiors to disturbing comments by Trump to Ukraine's president, Kelly said the Army officer "did exactly what we teach them to do, from cradle to grave. He went and told his boss what he just heard.” When Vindman heard the president tell Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky he wanted to see the Biden family investigated, that was tantamount to hearing “an illegal order,” Kelly said.

Kelly said Trump also was wrong to go to bat for Chief Petty Officer Eddie Gallagher, a Navy SEAL acquitted of war crimes but convicted of posing for a photo with a prisoner's corpse. Gallagher "was not a guy that represents our military in any way, shape or form," Kelly said. “ … The idea that the commander in chief intervened there, in my opinion, was exactly the wrong thing to do."

The Washington Post reported that Kelly has been even harsher on Trump in private, describing the president as amoral and a deeply flawed man, obsessed about his news coverage and thinking little about what matters to the United States when making decisions. In Kelly's view, Trump cares only about what foreign leaders think of him and what makes him look strong in the moment.

Trump hit back on Twitter, saying Kelly was "way over his head" in the White House job and now "misses the action & just can’t keep his mouth shut … which he actually has a military and legal obligation to do." There is no such obligation for retired officers, as Trump should recall from retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn's attacks on then-President Barack Obama during the 2016 campaign.

Janison: Turning on the pros

Trump's campaign vow to "surround myself only with the best and most serious people" is long past its expiration date.

He has escalated his campaign of contempt against government officials who make professional judgments based on facts and rules, writes Newsday's Dan Janison. It hasn't stopped them and former officials from hitting back. Barr and Kelly are just the latest.

The ousted U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, who is still in government, got a standing ovation Wednesday during a Georgetown University speech in which she warned: "The State Department is in trouble” and "We need to reempower our diplomats to do their job. We can't be afraid to share our expertise or challenge false assumptions."

Not that Trump won't keep promoting such assumptions. His preference for fantasy-based information and analysis even reached weather forecasting last year when he doubled down on his false warning of a hurricane threat to Alabama.

No experts worth their salt support Trump's claims of unfettered power under the Constitution, or his canard about wind turbines causing cancer, or a hundred other falsehoods about himself and others.

Mike and Donny down by schoolyard

The taunts traded by Trump and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Thursday were on the cheap side, yet they had a rich flavor.

First, the president's tweet: "Mini Mike Bloomberg is a LOSER who has money but can’t debate and has zero presence, you will see." The post was accompanied by an altered image of Trump towering over Bloomberg, who is made to look shorter than in real life. Another Trump tweet said, "Mini Mike is a 5'4" mass of dead energy." (He's actually 5-foot-7.)

Bloomberg tweeted back: "⁦‪@realDonaldTrump⁩ - we know many of the same people in NY. Behind your back they laugh at you & call you a carnival barking clown. They know you inherited a fortune & squandered it with stupid deals and incompetence."

Bloomberg doubled down during an appearance in North Carolina. "Donald, where I come from, we measure your height from your neck up," he said.

One angry man

First he attacked the prosecutors in the Stone case. Then he attacked the judge. On Thursday, Trump moved on to complain that a private citizen was unfair: the forewoman of the jury that convicted Stone on seven counts in November.

"Now it looks like the fore person in the jury, in the Roger Stone case, had significant bias,” Trump tweeted. “Add that to everything else, and this is not looking good for the ‘Justice’ Department.”

Trump’s tweet came a day after reports that Tomeka Hart, who identified herself as the forewoman of the jury in a Facebook post, stood up for the prosecutors on Facebook as having acted with the "utmost intelligence, integrity, and respect for our system of justice.”

Reports about her social media posts in conservative media such as the Daily Caller suggested a dislike for Trump. But The Washington Post said she made no secret of her Democratic political affiliation during jury selection, including a run for Congress from Tennessee, and told the court she had not formed an opinion about Stone.

What else is happening:

• The Senate approved a bipartisan measure Thursday aimed at limiting Trump’s authority to launch military operations against Iran, with eight Republicans joining Democrats in a 55-45 vote. Trump is expected to veto the resolution if it reaches his desk.
• As Trump mounts a post-impeachment purge of officials seen as insufficiently loyal, he's bringing back a couple he trusts. Hope Hicks will be a senior adviser to son-in-law Jared Kushner, also a senior adviser. A new personnel-vetting chief is Johnny McEntee, who was escorted out in 2018 after he was denied a security clearance, reportedly over a fondness for online gambling.
• On ABC's "The View," Joe Biden said it was "hurtful" when "a friend of mine" like Sen. Lindsey Graham attacked his son Hunter. "He's still a friend?" asked Joy Behar. "I plan on being president. Presidents can’t hold grudges, you gotta heal,” Biden responded.
• Reversing what he told a radio host amid the impeachment inquiry, Trump affirmed that he sent Giuliani to Ukraine to investigate his foes, CNN reports. "Here's my choice: I deal with the Comeys of the world, or I deal with Rudy," Trump said in a podcast interview with Fox's Geraldo Rivera. In November, Trump claimed, "I didn't direct him."
• Bernie Sanders, who had a heart attack in October, has gone back on a pledge to release “comprehensive” records on his health, Politico reports. At 78, the Vermont senator is the oldest candidate in the 2020 race.
• Bloomberg is facing scrutiny for 2008 comments blaming the role of bad mortgages in the financial meltdown on the end of "redlining" — the racially discriminatory denial of housing loans in minority communities. Tweeted rival Elizabeth Warren: "I'm surprised that someone running for the Democratic nomination thinks the economy would be better off if we just let banks be more overtly racist."
• The latest on Bloomberg's limitless campaign spending: Entry-level field organizers are getting paid $72,000 annually, nearly twice what other campaigns offer, The New York Times reports. He also has contracted some of the biggest meme-makers on the internet to promote him on Instagram.