Flynn has emerged as a crucial figure in this whole saga, and new revelations in the past 24 hours dramatically raise the stakes, once again illustrating that he may have been the figure at the heart of efforts by Trump and the White House to hamstring or slow the ongoing FBI investigation into potential Russia-Trump campaign collusion. Those efforts may ultimately be revealed as obstruction of justice.

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Flynn refused this week to turn over documents relating to his contacts with Russian officials during the campaign, which the Senate Intelligence Committee had subpoenaed as part of its ongoing probe, by invoking his right against self-incrimination. Now the committee may act as early as today to try force the issue, a senior Democratic aide tells me.

The committee has two leading options at its disposal (other than doing nothing) to try to force Flynn to cough up the documents it has subpoenaed. Right now, Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee are mulling both options, the senior Democratic aide says. As a useful Lawfare explainer notes, the Committee can either try to refer the matter to the U.S. Attorney for criminal action, or it can try to get the Senate, under a provision in a 1978 ethics reform law, to enlist its counsel to bring a civil action to compel release of the documents. The basic principle here is that in order for congressional oversight to be effective, its subpoena power must have real teeth.

The success of the first option relies on the willingness of the Justice Department to prosecute, and the latter option (a civil action brought by Senate counsel) is the more likely one, the Democratic aide tells me. And that would probably require votes first by the committee, and then by the full Senate, according to Sarah Binder, a congressional expert at George Washington University.

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“The important procedural step here has typically been that the Senate by statute is authorized to direct its chamber legal counsel to seek civil enforcement of its committee subpoenas,” Binder told me this morning. “The full Senate would vote on a resolution directing its legal counsel to file suit in federal court to enforce a committee issued subpoena.”

This would raise some political complications — and would pose a challenge to Republicans. As one legal expert explained to USA Today, the question then would be how hard the GOP-controlled Senate’s counsel will fight in civil court — which would have to decide whether the Flynn documents are protected under the Fifth Amendment — to try to get Flynn to release them. That would also raise questions about how seriously Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is taking his oversight role in carrying out the probe, and more broadly, how seriously the GOP Senate caucus is taking that role.

A spokesperson for Burr didn’t return an email requesting comment on whether the committee will act or how.

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The reason all this matters so much: Flynn’s role appears to be increasingly at the center of efforts by Trump and the White House to slow the FBI investigation. The Post reported yesterday that Trump personally asked top intelligence officials to deny the existence of any evidence of Russia-Trump campaign collusion, a request they found inappropriate. And some of the most glaring efforts were driven by Flynn, as the Post story also reported:

Senior White House officials sounded out top intelligence officials about the possibility of intervening directly with Comey to encourage the FBI to drop its probe of Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, according to people familiar with the matter. The officials said the White House appeared uncertain about its power to influence the FBI. “Can we ask him to shut down the investigation? Are you able to assist in this matter?” one official said of the line of questioning from the White House.

The urgency of efforts to scuttle the FBI probe into Flynn may have extended to Trump himself. As you may recall, a memo by former FBI director James B. Comey reportedly recounted that Trump urged him to shut down the Flynn probe. This has emerged as a major bullet point in the case that Trump might have obstructed justice. Which is to say that protecting Flynn from further scrutiny has emerged as a key objective in any such obstruction effort.

Indeed, another new revelation goes right to the heart of this matter. Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have now released new documents suggesting that Flynn may have misled Pentagon investigators about the extent of his Russia ties when applying last year for a security clearance, raising new questions about how much Trump knew about those ties. They have asked the GOP chair of that committee to subpoena from the White House documents that might illuminate that.

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And so, the question of whether the Senate Intelligence Committee will act to try to compel Flynn to cooperate with its own subpoena is a key test of how serious Republicans are about exercising their oversight role in this increasingly hyper-sensitive area.

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* TRUMP’S BUDGET WOULD DRAMATICALLY SLASH SAFETY NET: The New York Times reports that Trump’s budget, to be released today, would deliver “unprecedented cuts to programs for poor and working-class families”:

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program , known commonly as food stamps, would be cut by $192 billion over the next decade. Medicaid , the health program for the poor, would be cut by $800 billion, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, commonly known as welfare, would be cut by $21 billion … Mr. Trump also wants to … cut access to disability payments through Social Security.

Meanwhile, Trump wants to cut taxes bigly for the rich while dramatically boosting spending on the military and on border security. This is the reality of Trumpism.

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* TRUMP’S BUDGET IS ‘NATIONALIST’: The Post’s overview of the budget contains this nugget:

A White House official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said Trump saw the shrinking of the “welfare state” as a necessary component of his nationalist, working-class appeal and part of his pledge to “drain the swamp.”

Really? Are huge tax cuts for the rich also part of his “nationalist, working-class appeal”?

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* TRUMP’S BUDGET WOULD SLASH MEDICAL RESEARCH: The Post offers up additional details of Trump’s proposed cuts to medical research and health programs:

The National Cancer Institute would be hit with a $1 billion cut compared to its 2017 budget. The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute would see a $575 million cut, and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases would see a reduction of $838 million. The administration would cut the overall National Institutes of Health budget from $31.8 billion to $26 billion.

Coming next: A senior administration official will claim that this represents “populist, working-class nationalism” because it constitutes cutting “the administrative state.”

* LIBERALS LAUNCH CAMPAIGN AGAINST TRUMP BUDGET: The Center for American Progress and other groups are launching a new advocacy campaign and website, called Hands Off, devoted to blocking the regressive cuts in Trump/GOP budget proposals. The site provides a clearinghouse for people to share stories of how they’ll be hurt by the cuts.

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The site will feature issue-by-issue analysis of the cuts’ impact, broken down by congressional district. Liberal groups hope to block the worst of the Trump/GOP agenda via pressure on individual GOP members of Congress who might find political danger in enabling it.

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* POLL: OSSOFF TAKES LEAD IN SPECIAL ELECTION: The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports that a new Survey USA poll finds Democrat Jon Ossoff leading Republican Karen Handel by 51-44 in the special election for a House seat in the Atlanta suburbs.

It’s hard to poll special elections, so don’t place too much stock in this — and remember, it’s a deep-red district. Still, here’s a notable finding: Trump has a 51 percent disapproval rating here, despite the fact that the GOP House member won it in 2016 by 23 points.

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* DEMOCRATS DON’T NEED TRUMP VOTERS TO WIN HOUSE: FiveThirtyEight’s Harry Enten has a good analysis explaining that the fact that Trump is “holding his base” doesn’t mean Democrats can’t take back the House:

Trump can hang on to most — if not all — of his base, and Democrats could still clean up in the midterm elections … In the last three midterm wave elections ( 1994 2006 and 2010 ) that resulted in the president’s party losing the House, for example, the president’s party won at least 84 percent of the president’s voters . But that wasn’t enough … how independents vote in 2018 and who turns out will play roles just as big as that of how satisfied Trump voters are.

Yet pundits continue sagely telling us that the fact that Trump’s voters are sticking with him means something significant, though they rarely tell us what.

* AND TRUMP RIPS ‘EVIL LOSERS’ BEHIND BOMBING CARNAGE: A bomb killed at least 22 people, including children, at a concert in Manchester, England. Trump weighed in this morning:

“So many young beautiful innocent people living and enjoying their lives murdered by evil losers in life. I won’t call them monsters because they would like that term. They would think that’s a great name. I will call them from now on losers because that’s what they are.” “They’re losers, and we’ll have more of them, but they’re losers, just remember that,” he added.