Wednesday
Dec112019
The Commentariat -- December 12, 2019
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
Michael Shear of the New York Times is highlighting developments in the House Judiciary Committee's debate on Articles of Impeachment. "Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee moved quickly to try to kill the articles of impeachment against President Trump as the markup got underway, condemning the process as unfair to the president." ~~~
~~~ The Guardian's impeachment liveblog also includes other related (and at least one unrelated) developments. Here's a related one: "President Trump has weighed in on the hearings. And, as has become a common political tactic during his tenure, has singled out two women of colour to attack on false premises: 'Dems Veronica Escobar and Jackson Lee purposely misquoted my call. I said I want you to do us (our Country!) a favor, not me a favor. They know that but decided to LIE in order to make a fraudulent point! Very sad.' [-- Donald Trump, in a tweet]"
** Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times has a terrific story on Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), the only member of the Judiciary Committee who has participated in the impeachment proceedings of Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton & Donald Trump.
They Can't Handle the Facts. Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post on Republican Senators' reported plan to hold an abbreviated impeachment "trial" without witnesses (related story linked below): "... it would be grossly irresponsible and cowardly of the Senate majority to duck its constitutional obligations by refusing to hear facts before a vote, but it follows that nothing would more vividly convey the irresponsibility and cowardice of Republican senators."
I believe that President Trump is engaged in the most direct sustained assault on freedom of the press in our history. -- Fox "News" host Chris Wallace, speech at the Newseum, a media museum in Washington, Wednesday
Jonathan Chait backs up my assertion (below) that Trump & Putin were colluding on 2020 election disruption: "President Trump is facing impeachment primarily for abusing his power for political gain, extorting a foreign country to discredit his political rivals. The secondary aspect of the plot is that the target of his extortion is hardly random. Ukraine is the victim of Russian aggression, and Russia's continuing incursions into Ukrainian territory is the muscle that gave Trump's threats leverage. Trump's domestic interests are one intended beneficiary of his scheme. The other is Vladimir Putin.... Rudy has worked as Trump's lawyer for 'free,' but [Rudy aide Lev] Parnas paid him half a million dollars for his work. If Parnas himself was being paid by Russian sources, this means the Russians were essentially subsidizing Trump, paying for the work themselves so he didn't have to lay out a dime of his own money." Chait does add a caveat that it's not a slam-dunk that whatever oligarch(s) paid Parnas had an interest in helping Putin with Ukraine. But the way the government-oligarchical "system" works in Russia, it's likely.
Tom McCarthy of the Guardian: "Incensed perhaps by her selection -- and not his -- as Time magazine's person of the year, Donald Trump opened Twitter fire Thursday morning on the climate activist Greta Thunberg. Trump, 73, tweeted that Thunberg, 16, who has been diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, had an 'anger management problem' and should 'chill' -- no pun apparently intended. 'So ridiculous,' the president wrote. 'Greta must work on her Anger Management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Greta, Chill!'... Trump's attack on her, in personal terms, from his presidential bully pulpit struck many observers as a marked and hypocritical escalation. Trump's wife and his eldest son recently reacted with outrage when a witness called by Democrats to testify in the impeachment hearings punned on the name of Trump's 13-year-old son, Barron, to make a point about how presidents are not kings.... 'A minor child deserves privacy and should be kept out of politics,' Melania Trump changed her bio description on Twitter. 'A teenager working on her anger management problem,' it now reads. 'Currently chilling and watching a good old fashioned movie with a friend.'" Thanks to unwashed for the link.
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Trump is picking on a minor, a female, specifically for a disability. A trifecta which would have been perfect if only Greta weren't white. ~~~
~~~ Aaron Rupar of Vox: "Trump's Greta tweet was undoubtedly the most unsavory he posted during his Twitter binge on Thursday, but it was far from the only bad one. Fourteen minutes after the Greta tweet, Trump ... shared an advertisement posted by the Trump Organization, a business he still owns and profits from, promoting his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. 'I will be there in two weeks, The Southern White House!' Trump said, conflating properties he profits from with the publicly funded residence in which he's supposed to do the people's business.... He [also] retweeted a post from Rudy Giuliani characterizing Democrats following the Constitution's impeachment process as an 'attempted coup'; characterized FBI agents as 'dirty cops'; lauded Fox News's ratings, adding, 'It's great to have a wonderful subject, President Trump'; and, in an apparent attempt to make it look like he's doing something constructive, touted a Chinese trade deal that he's been hyping without results for more than a year."
Julia Ainsley & Courtney Kube of NBC News: "The Defense Department's internal watchdog plans to review a recent Army Corps of Engineers decision to award a $400 million contract for border wall construction to a North Dakota company that has been publicly and privately endorsed by members of the Trump administration, including the president himself. The review of the award to Fisher Sand & Gravel is an audit by the Pentagon's inspector general and comes in response to a request by Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the Democratic chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security. Thompson said the decision to award the contract should be reviewed because Fisher's 'proposals reportedly did not meet the operational requirements of U.S. Customs and Border Protection' and because of 'concerns about the possibility of inappropriate influence' on the Army Corps of Engineers." The New York Times story is here.
Rebecca Traister of New York on how male pundits hold female candidates to a high standard of honesty (Elizabeth Warren) while ignoring male candidates' dishonesty (Joe Biden).
** Andy Kroll of Rolling Stone: "For nearly three years, Stephen Miller has used his White House seat to orchestrate the most extreme anti-immigrant agenda in almost a century. But he hasn't done it alone. A loose network of lawyers and advisers embedded throughout the Trump administration has worked closely with Miller to carry out the daily effort of pushing through draconian and often inhumane policies.... In other words, Miller, with his white-nationalist mindset and fervor to enact xenophobic policies, is far from an isolated actor. He's the leader of a broad operation spread across the federal government." Kroll highlights a few of the extremist voices. --s
Jake Pearson & Anand Tumurtogoo of ProPublica: "On a hunting trip this August, Donald Trump Jr. shot and killed [an argali, an endangered species of sheep]. His adventure was supported by government resources from both the U.S. and Mongolia, which each sent security services to accompany the president's eldest son and grandson on the multiday trip.... Afterward, Trump Jr. met privately with the country's president, Khaltmaagiin Battulga, before departing the capital of Ulaanbaatar back to the U.S.... It isn't clear what was discussed. Trump Jr. wouldn't answer questions about the meeting. Representatives for Battulga haven't responded to requests for comment.... [A] spokesman for Trump Jr. ... said in a statement it was a purely personal expedition. He purchased the seven-day Mongolian hunting trip at a National Rifle Association charity auction before his father announced his candidacy for president in 2015 ... and flew commercial in and out of the country. It's unclear if the auction item listed an argali or mentioned meetings with Mongolian government officials." --s ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: "The Mongolian government issued [Junior] a hunting permit retroactively." Emphasis added.
Bryant Harris of Al-Monitor: "The White House successfully pushed Congress to remove language in the annual defense bill that would have imposed concrete penalties on Saudi Arabia for the war in Yemen and the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.... The House amended the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) 240-185 in July to block US funding for the Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemen's Houthi rebels. At the same time, the House passed another NDAA amendment 405-7 in a veto-proof vote to sanction Saudi officials complicit in Khashoggi's murder.... Republican negotiators successfully fought to keep the Saudi provisions out of the final defense bill after the White House marked it as a red line.... [P]aid parental leave is likely not enough to get many left-wing Democrats on board the final bill, which authorizes a $131 billion increase in annual defense spending since Trump took office while removing virtually all other progressive national security priorities that Democrats initially had in their version of the legislation." --s
Julian Borger of the Guardian: "Legislation to stop Donald Trump from withdrawing the US from Nato has been approved for a Senate vote, amid uncertainty over the president's intentions towards the alliance. The Senate foreign relations committee on Wednesday voted unanimously for the bipartisan bill which will now await a slot to go to the Senate.... 'We're aware that it has been seriously debated and seriously considered in the White House at the highest levels,' [Democrat Tim] Kaine told the Guardian.... Kaine predicted his bill to block a withdrawal would gain overwhelming support from the House of Representatives and win a veto-proof majority in the upper chamber of at least 67 votes." --s ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: There's no mention in this or other articles about the bill on whether or not the House has passed an analogous bill.
~~~ Patricia Zengerle of Reuters: "A U.S. Senate committee backed legislation on Wednesday to impose sanctions on Turkey after its offensive in Syria and purchase of a Russian S-400 missile system, the latest move in the chamber to push Republican President Donald Trump to take a harder line against Ankara. The Republican-led Senate Foreign Relations Committee voted by 18-4 to send the 'Promoting American National Security and Preventing the Resurgence of ISIS Act of 2019' for a vote in the full Senate. 'Now's the time for the Senate to come together and take this opportunity to change Turkey's behavior,' said Senator Jim Risch, the panel's Republican chairman, a lead sponsor of the bill with Senator Bob Menendez, the panel&'s top Democrat.... [The House] passed its own Turkish sanctions bill by an overwhelming 403-16 vote in October...." Mrs. McC: Now I guess the big question on these bills is whether or not Mitch McConnell will bring them to the floor.
** Brave New Big Brother World. Lee Fang of The Intercept: "... Donald Trump's reelection effort has retained the services of a technology company [Phunware, an Austin, Texas-based firm] that specializes in the mass collection of smartphone location data, which can be used to track voters for political targeting purposes.... Phunware, in a section of its website, discusses the company's ability to obtain GPS location data and the Wi-Fi network used by an individual, as well as user data that can infer an 'individual's gender, age, lifestyle preferences' -- potential tools for identifying and influencing voters.... Earlier this year, deleted scenes from the documentary 'The Brink' revealed that Steve Bannon, Trump's campaign manager in 2016, had used similar location-tracking technology services to target church-attending Catholics during the midterm elections. 'If your phone's ever been in a Catholic church, it's amazing, they got this data,' Bannon said in the film clip. 'Literally, they can tell who's been in a Catholic church and how frequently,' he added." --s ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Since I don't have many secrets, many intrusions on our privacy don't creep me out as much as perhaps they should. This technology creeps me out.
Australia. Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd. Ben Smee of the Guardian: "The Tamborine Mountain state school has run out of water, even as water miners in the Gold Coast hinterland are sending millions of litres to commercial bottling operations. Trucks sent by the Queensland government carrying emergency supplies to the school, including Mount Tamborine bottled water, have been passing trucks heading in the opposite direction taking local water to bottling for beverage giants such as Coca-Cola. The school remains open but parents have been advised by teachers to consider keeping their children at home." --s
Raphael Satter of Reuters: "North Korean state-backed hackers appear to be cooperating with Eastern European cybercriminals, a report here said on Wednesday, a finding that suggests digital gangsters and state-backed spies are finding common ground online." --s
~~~~~~~~~~
Nicholas Fandos & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "The House Judiciary Committee opened debate Wednesday on two articles of impeachment against President Trump, starting a somber and deeply partisan confrontation over Democrats' charges that the president abused his power and obstructed Congress. In a rare evening session that was only the third time in modern history the panel had met to consider removing a president, Democrats and Republicans clashed over the Constitution, the allegations against Mr. Trump and the political consequences of moving to oust him less than a year before the next election. The debate unfolded at the start of a two-day meeting that is expected to culminate on Thursday with a party-line vote to send the articles to the full House for final passage." ~~~
~~~ Mary Jalonick & Lisa Mascaro of the AP: "Democrats and Republicans used the otherwise procedural meeting Wednesday evening to deliver sharp, poignant and, at times, personal arguments for and against impeachment. Both sides appealed to Americans' sense of history -- Democrats describing a strong sense of duty to stop what one called the president's 'constitutional crime spree' and Republicans decrying the 'hot garbage' impeachment and what it means for the future of the country."
Kyle Cheney & John Bresnahan of Politico: "Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) on Wednesday night publicly named a person that some Republicans and allies of ... Donald Trump claim is the alleged whistleblower who first brought the Trump-Ukraine scandal to light. Gohmert identified the person, who[m] Politico is not naming, during remarks at a Judiciary Committee meeting on articles of impeachment against Trump. Gohmert named the person as he ticked through a list of witnesses he said the committee should hear from before voting on impeachment. Gohmert did not identify the person as the potential whistleblower, but Republicans have demanded that the whistleblower be subpoenaed to testify, a call that Democrats have swatted away as irresponsible and even dangerous." Mrs. McC: One of the comments on a YouTube video of Gohmert's testimony names the supposed whistleblower and calls him "ONE DEAD MOFO." I'm sure that's not an isolated sentiment among the wingnut brigade. ~~~
"Impeach President Trump." USA Today Editors: "... Trump's egregious transgressions and stonewalling have given the House little choice but to press ahead with the most severe sanction at its disposal.... In his thuggish effort to trade American arms for foreign dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, Trump resembles not so much [Bill] Clinton as he does Richard Nixon, another corrupt president who tried to cheat his way to reelection. This isn't partisan politics as usual. It is precisely the type of misconduct the Framers had in mind when they wrote impeachment into the Constitution."
Lame Veep Makes Lame Excuse. Kyle Cheney & Andrew Desiderio of Politico: "Vice President Mike Pence's counsel rejected House Democrats' request to declassify details of a Sept. 18 call between Pence and Ukraine's president, calling the request illegitimate because the impeachment inquiry has concluded. In a letter to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), Pence's lawyer, Matthew Morgan, said it 'serves no purpose' to declassify supplemental testimony from one of Pence's national security aides, as Schiff had demanded. 'At this point, the Intelligence Committee's oversight authority is limited to those areas in which it may potentially legislate or appropriate,' Morgan wrote to Schiff, who pressed Pence last week to declassify supplemental testimony from one of the vice president's national security aides, Jennifer Williams.... Morgan also appeared to rebuke Williams, writing that 'the contents of a classified call with a foreign head of state should never have been discussed in an unclassified committee hearing or an unclassified deposition.'" Mrs. McC: According to Schiff's request letter, "The Office of the Vice President's decision to classify 'certain portions' of the Sept. 18 call ... cannot be justified on national security or any other legitimate grounds we can discern."
Seung Min Kim, et al., of the Washington Post: "Senate Republicans are coalescing around a strategy of holding a short impeachment trial early next year that would include no witnesses, a plan that could clash with President Trump's desire to stage a public defense of his actions toward Ukraine that would include testimony the White House believes would damage its political rivals. Several GOP senators on Wednesday said it would be better to limit the trial and quickly vote to acquit Trump, rather than engage in what could become a political circus.... Most notably, a quick, clean trial is broadly perceived to be the preference of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who wants to minimize political distractions in an election year during which Republicans will be working to protect their slim majority in the chamber." A CNN report is here. ~~~
~~~ Ted Barrett & Manu Raju of CNN: "Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is expected to hold a final vote to acquit ... Donald Trump should he be impeached, when a majority of senators believe his trial has run its course instead of holding a vote on dismissing the articles of impeachment, two Republican senators told CNN on Wednesday. That's significant, because Republicans want to have a vote on acquittal -- to clear the President of the charges against him -- not simply rely on a 51-vote threshold procedural motion to dismiss the hotly disputed case. The Constitution mandates 67 votes are required to convict the President and remove him from office, a barrier widely considered too high to be reached in this case. One vote McConnell can't rely on is that of Vice President Mike Pence, who has 'no role in impeachment,' according to a GOP leadership aide, despite being president of the Senate with the mandate to break ties."
Betsy Swan of the Daily Beast: “People working closely with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky have been in contact with Trump administration officials over the past several weeks discussing the relationship between the two presidents, according to four people with knowledge of the talks. Based on those conversations, Ukrainian officials came to expect that Trump would make a statement of support before Zelensky met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in France for peace talks.... Words of support from the United States in the lead-up to the Normandy talks could have given the Ukrainian president more leverage with Putin.... Instead, Trump spent the weekend on Twitter tweeting about Fox News pundits, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and CNN.... On Tuesday, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held a joint press conference with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and made an appearance at the White House. One of the people close to the Zelensky administration said the silence from White House -- combined with Lavrov's photo-friendly visit to Washington -- sent 'a terrible signal' and was 'most unfortunate.'"
Daily Kos: "In a should-have-been-predicted new twist, U.S. prosecutors revealed to a federal court today that Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas received a $1 million payment ... from Russia just one month before being indicted for funneling foreign cash to U.S. political campaigns -- and attempted to hide that payment even after his arrest. Arguing Parnas poses an 'extreme' risk of flight that is 'only compounded' by his continued willingness to lie to the government, prosecutors have asked the judge to revoke Parnas' bail and return him to jail. Parnas is currently under house arrest; government prosecutors filed their motion in response to a Parnas request that the court allow him to leave his house during work hours." The original Bloomberg report on which this post relies is here. Erica Orden of CNN has a report here. ~~~
~~~ ** Mrs. McCrabbie: As we might have guessed, a significant portion of the Three Stooges' mission to frame Ukraine for 2016 election interference came from Russia; that is, from the "real culprits." Even more alarming: Congressional Republicans will not impeach & remove from office the U.S. President* who commissioned that effort, which Russia would later partially fund. This is Trump & Putin, working in concert -- you might say "colluding" or "conspiring" -- to undermine a U.S. election, and all, or almost all, Republicans marching in lock-step.
DOJ Inspector General's Report
Devlin Barrett, et al., of the Washington Post: "Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz said Wednesday that a senior prosecutor failed to convince him that the FBI's 2016 investigation of President Trump's campaign was improperly opened, revealing new details about internal tension among senior officials over the politically explosive case. At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Horowitz was asked by the panel's senior Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), if Attorney General William P. Barr or his hand-picked prosecutor on the issue, Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham, offered anything to change the inspector general's view that the FBI had a valid reason to open the probe in July 2016. 'No, we stand by our finding,' said Horowitz, who said he met in November with Durham to discuss the findings in the inspector general's 434-page report released Monday. When the report was released, Durham issued an unusual public statement saying he did not agree with Horowitz's conclusion about the opening of the investigation. Horowitz told lawmakers that the disagreement stemmed from a difference of opinion about whether the FBI should have opened a preliminary investigation, which puts some limitations on the investigative steps that can be taken, or a full investigation. The FBI opened a full investigation, based on a tip from the Australian government.' (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: So as nearly as I can tell from the WashPo report & from what I heard on the teevee, the "disagreement" Durham found with the IG report, which he did not specify in his "unusual"/political statement issued upon release of the report, was on whether or not the FBI should have opened a "full" investigation before they initiated a "preliminary" investigation. Or, IMO, big whup. ~~~
~~~ ** HOWEVER. David Sanger of the New York Times: The inspector general's "study amounted to the most searching look ever revealed about the government's secretive system for carrying out national-security surveillance on American soil. And what the report showed was not pretty.... Michael E. Horowitz, and his team uncovered a staggeringly dysfunctional and error-ridden process in how the F.B.I. went about obtaining and renewing court permission under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, to wiretap Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser.... The inspector general found major errors, material omissions and unsupported statements about Mr. Page in the materials that went to the court. F.B.I. agents cherry-picked the evidence, telling the Justice Department information that made Mr. Carter look suspicious and omitting material that cut the other way, and the department passed that misleading portrait onto the court.... Most ... targets [of FISA-warranted surveillance] never learn that their privacy has been invaded, but some are sent to prison on the basis of evidence derived from the surveillance. And unlike in ordinary criminal wiretap cases, defendants are not permitted to see what investigators told the court about them to obtain permission to eavesdrop on their calls and emails." Read on. (Also linked yesterday.)
~~~ The New York Times has a highlights blog here. (Also linked yesterday.)
Marshall Cohen of CNN: "The Justice Department inspector general continues to investigate potential leaks by FBI officials in New York to ... Rudy Giuliani before the 2016 election. Inspector General Michael Horowitz told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that the investigation is ongoing, and is broader than just Giuliani, but suggested his team was struggling to prove that there were illegal leaks. Shortly before the election, Giuliani claimed that he heard about big problems coming soon for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. That was shortly before then-FBI Director James Comey announced he was reopening the criminal probe into Clinton's email server, which didn't lead to any criminal charges. The polls shifted after Comey's comments, and Clinton has said it was a main reason for her defeat.... Giuliani has denied ever receiving non-public information from active FBI agents."
This report shows there was a proper predicate for the FBI to investigate Russia's malign influence on the 2016 election and contacts with the Trump campaign. That puts to rest President Trump's accusations of a deep state conspiracy, and no amount of spin from Attorney General Barr, the White House, or congressional Republicans can change that.... The Inspector General is an important defender against political influence over law enforcement -- a regrettable tendency under Attorney General Barr. I hope the Inspector General turns his attention to other allegations of politically motivated investigations by this administration. -- Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., said in a statement, Monday
** Former Attorney General Eric Holder in a Washington Post op-ed: "Virtually since the moment he took office..., Barr's words and actions have been fundamentally inconsistent with his duty to the Constitution.... The American people deserve an attorney general who serves their interests, leads the Justice Department with integrity and can be entrusted to pursue the facts and the law, even -- and especially -- when they are politically inconvenient and inconsistent with the personal interests of the president who appointed him. William Barr has proved he is incapable of serving as such an attorney general. He is unfit to lead the Justice Department."
Greg Sargent of the Washington Post: "President Trump is openly telegraphing that he fully expects his attorney general to validate one of his biggest lies: that the real crime in 2016 wasn't Russia's sabotaging of our election but rather the decision by law enforcement to investigate it. New public comments from William P. Barr provide Trump with ample grounds for being confident that Barr will deliver for him.... Barr's latest claims about the Russia investigation rest on a serious misrepresentation that has not gotten the focus it deserves -- and is more pernicious than it first appears.... [In his NBC interview, Barr implied] that the FBI's initial investigation was only motivated by what it had learned about the Trump campaign's intentions with regard to coordinating with Russia's electoral subversion effort.... [But] officials told the I.G. that the new information about the Trump campaign precipitated the investigation, but only on top of the fact that Russia was already 'targeting U.S. political institutions' and trying to manipulate the 'U.S. democratic process.'... Trump wants to make all of those facts disappear. And Barr is effectively using the power of law enforcement to help him do it." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Oh, the Hackery. Igor Derysh of Salon, republished in the Raw Story: "Attorney General William Barr claimed in an NBC News interview that former President Barack Obama posed the 'greatest danger' to democracy in the 2016 election -- not Russia. Barr told the network that he disagreed with his own department's inspector general report, which concluded that the FBI did not 'spy' on the Trump campaign and was justified in launching an investigation into its ties to Russia.... Barr claimed to NBC News reporter Pete Williams that the FBI may have opened the investigation in 'bad faith' and insisted that Trump's campaign was 'clearly spied upon' in spite of inspector general Michael Horowitz's nearly two-year investigation which found no such evidence. He also downplayed the Trump campaign's extensive contacts with Russian officials, insisting that 'presidential campaigns are frequently in contact with foreign persons.' Barr's comments were a stark contrast from Horowitz's report, which found no evidence of the 'spying' allegations invoked by [Trump] and his conservative allies." ~~~
~~~ Lee Moran of the Huffington Post: "Walter Shaub, the former head of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, on Tuesday called Attorney General William Barr a 'threat to democracy' and warned he may try to interfere in the 2020 presidential election to benefit ... Donald Trump. MSNBC's national affairs analyst John Heilemann issued a similar caution, while CNN's chief legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin described Barr as 'a Fox News bot.' In a lengthy Twitter thread, Shaub accused Barr of misleading the public after he rejected the Justice Department's inspector general report that found the FBI was not politically motivated in launching a probe into the Trump 2016 campaign's links to Russia." (Also linked yesterday.)
Marcy Wheeler attacks Pete Williams of NBC News for his failure to follow up ever on the stunning assertions Barr made during Williams' "so-called interview." "American Democracy Needs Better Reporters than Pete Williams" is the title of her post. Thanks to Ken W. for the link. Mrs. McC: The answer to the problem is in the title of Wheeler's post: Williams is a "reporter." He is not an "interviewer." Barr knows the difference. Both Barr & Williams have been around for a long time, so Barr knows how Williams works: Williams asks questions, writes down the responses & types 'em up (see Stephen Colbert), metaphorically in this case of course because Williams didn't even have to write 'em down & type 'em up -- he left that to the videographer. That's what reporters do, not what political interviewers do. Barr can now boast that he is not a Foxbot, as Jeff Toobin properly calls him; he gives interviews to MSM outlets. Advantage Barr.
Trump Is a Nihilistic Force. -- Paul Volcker. Jeff Cox of CNBC: "Three months before he died, former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker issued a scathing critique against ... Donald Trump and the 'movement to undermine Americans' faith in our government and its policies and institutions.' In an afterword to a paperback release of his autobiography, the legendary former central bank chief called out the president for his attacks on the Fed and said there is a general movement to undermine confidence in essential U.S. institutions. 'Nihilistic forces are dismantling policies to protect our air, water, and climate,' Volcker wrote at the end of 'Keeping At It: The Quest for Sound Money and Good Government.' 'And they seek to discredit the pillars of our democracy: voting rights and fair elections, the rule of law, the free press, the separation of powers, the belief in science, and the concept of truth itself.' Volcker died Sunday at age 92. An excerpt of the afterword was published Wednesday in the Financial Times."
Court Forces Trump's Kids to Go to Remedial School. Luis Ferré-Sadurní of the New York Times: "As part of the settlement [in the Donald J. Trump Foundation scandal], Mr. Trump's three children who were officers of the foundation -- Eric Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump -- were ordered to undergo mandatory training to ensure they do not engage in similar misconduct in the future. On Tuesday, the [New York State] attorney general's office confirmed the children had undergone the training."
Staffers Backed Defrauded Students, De Vos Overruled Them. Cory Turner of NPR: "Documents obtained by NPR shed new light on a bitter fight between defrauded student borrowers and U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. These borrowers -- more than 200,000 of them -- say some for-profit colleges lied to them about their job prospects and the transferability of credits. They argue they were defrauded and that the Education Department should erase their federal student loan debt under a rule called 'borrower defense.' DeVos ... says most student borrowers still got value from these schools and deserve only partial relief from their federal loans. Now, internal Education Department memos obtained by NPR show that career staff in the department's Borrower Defense Unit came down firmly on the side of defrauded borrowers.... Until now, these internal department memos have been hidden from public view. Lawmakers had previously requested access to them, but DeVos and her department refused to hand them over."
Connor O'Brien of Politico: "... the House on Wednesday overwhelmingly passed a $738 billion compromise defense policy bill that would create a Space Force as the newest military service. In a 377- to-48 vote, lawmakers approved the fiscal 2020 National Defense Authorization Act -- with both House Democrats and ... Donald Trump taking credit for its marquee provisions, which also include parental leave for federal workers and a repeal of the military 'widow's tax.' The bill still must be considered by Senate, where wide bipartisan approval is also likely. The president urged passage and said he'd sign the bill if it reaches his desk." The Washington Post story is here.
Presidential Race 2020
Ryan Lizza, now of Politico: "Former Vice President Joe Biden's top advisers and prominent Democrats outside the Biden campaign have recently revived a long-running debate whether Biden should publicly pledge to serve only one term, with Biden himself signaling to aides that he would serve only a single term. While the option of making a public pledge remains available, Biden has for now settled on an alternative strategy: quietly indicating that he will almost certainly not run for a second term while declining to make a promise that he and his advisers fear could turn him into a lame duck and sap him of his political capital." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: With so many qualified candidates running for the Democratic presidential nomination, I cannot make a recommendation on whom to choose in primary races. But I will urge readers not to vote for Joe Biden (or Tulsi Gabbard or Marianne Williamson, for that matter). Biden is the worst front-runner since, well, Hillary Clinton. In fact, he's beginning to make Clinton look pretty good.
"Off the Rails." Aaron Rupar of Vox: "... Donald Trump gave a speech at a campaign rally on Tuesday night in Hershey, Pennsylvania, that highlighted many of the reasons people feel that the country will struggle to withstand another year of this.... Over the course of a more than 90-minute delivery, Trump pushed conspiracy theories and blatant lies, trashed law enforcement officials that aren't blindly loyal to him, exhibited thuggish tendencies toward protesters, made misogynistic remarks, and demonstrated that he fundamentally misunderstands the Constitution. It was one of his most troubling performances in recent memory and served as a stark illustration of just how ugly Trump's reelection campaign will be." (Also linked yesterday.)
Michael Gold & Ali Watkins of the New York Times: "An assailant involved in the prolonged firefight in Jersey City, N.J., that left six people dead, including one police officer, was linked on Wednesday to the Black Hebrew Israelite movement, which has been designated a hate group, and had published anti-Semitic posts online, a law enforcement official said. The violent rampage on Tuesday took place largely at a kosher supermarket where three bystanders were killed. The authorities now believe that the store was specifically targeted by the assailants. The law enforcement official said the names of the two suspects were David Anderson and Francine Graham. Mr. Anderson appeared to have a connection to the Black Hebrew Israelite movement, though the extent of his involvement in that group remains unclear, the official said. The Black Hebrew Israelites have no connection with mainstream Judaism. It has been described as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center...." A Guardian story is here. (Also linked yesterday.)
Time has named Greta Thunberg, the young climate activist, as person of the year. (Also linked yesterday.)
Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd: ~~~
Megan Twohey & Jodi Kantor of the New York Times: "After two years of legal wrangling, Harvey Weinstein and the board of his bankrupt film studio have reached a tentative $25 million settlement agreement with dozens of his alleged sexual misconduct victims, a deal that would not require the Hollywood producer to admit wrongdoing or pay anything to his accusers himself, according to lawyers involved in the negotiations. The proposed global legal settlement has gotten preliminary approval from the major parties involved, according to several of the lawyers. More than 30 actresses and former Weinstein employees, who in lawsuits have accused Mr. Weinstein of offenses ranging from sexual harassment to rape, would share in the payout -- along with potential claimants who could join in coming months. The deal would bring to an end nearly every such lawsuit against him and his former company."
Beyond the Beltway
Kentucky. For $25,500, You Can Get Away with Murder in Kentucky. Andrew Wilson & Joe Sonka of the Louisville Courier Journal: "The family of a man pardoned by Gov. Matt Bevin for a homicide and other crimes in a fatal 2014 Knox County home invasion raised $21,500 at a political fundraiser last year to retire debt from Bevin's 2015 gubernatorial campaign. The brother and sister-in-law of offender Patrick Brian Baker also gave $4,000 to Bevin's campaign on the day of the fundraiser, according to the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance database."
Way Beyond
Israel. David Halbfinger & Isabel Kershner of the New York Times: "Having failed to form a government after two elections, Israel barreled toward a record third on Wednesday, extending the political deadlock that has paralyzed the country for nearly a year and assuring at least three more months of bitter, divisive campaigning and government dysfunction. And with the country hopelessly divided over the fate of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been indicted on three counts of corruption, there is little indication that the third election will be any more decisive than the first two."
U.K. The Guardian is liveblogging today's general election. ~~~
~~~ AND Boris Johnson hid in a fridge to avoid an attempted ambush-interview by Piers Morgan. Heather Stewart & Aamna Mohdin of the Guardian: "When [a 'Good Morning Britain' producer] presses the prime minister, stating he was live on the show, Johnson replied 'I'll be with you in a second' and walked off, before Piers exclaims 'he's gone into the fridge'. Johnson walks inside a fridge stacked with milk bottles with his aides. One person can be heard saying: 'It's a bunker.' Conservative sources subsequently insisted that Johnson was 'categorically not hiding' in the fridge, from which Johnson emerged carrying a crate of milk bottles...." (Also linked yesterday.)
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Reader Comments (9)
Many have offered analogies as means of approaching the core of Toad(y) Barr's fruit of the poisoned tree approach to discrediting the 2016 investigation of Russian interference in our elections.
Let's see if this variation on one of them might help me better understand Toad(y) Barr's argument.
The one that goes: FBI bad in action and intent, so investigation (and all the convictions it led to aside--like they never happened) bad, too.
Let's say a bank robber enters a bank intending to rob it. He has even begun to don his mask when he notices a robbery already in progress. Angry that someone else will be getting all that free money, he pulls out his cell phone instead of his gun, slips out the door and calls 911.
The robbers are arrested. Their lawyer, casting about for a defense, any defense, deposes the tipster under oath. The jealous robber-to-be, when asked why he was there, says that he was on the scene intending to rob the bank himself. He was angry with the other robbers at the time for interfering with his plans, but now sees nothing but humor in the situation.
Of course, considering the source of the original information coming as it did from someone with criminal intent and with personal animus to boot, per the newly established Barr Rule the case against the robbers is dismissed.
The informant finds the situation even funnier when he later learns, along with the rest of the country, that based on the Barr Rule, any information that comes to law enforcement from a criminal or intended criminal source wholly pardons the criminal act under investigation.
And funnier yet when he hears that creative lawyers are working to set aside all criminal convictions that derived from information gotten from criminals who had turned on their fellows either out of a sudden awakening of conscience or in search of a sweeter plea deal.
Thus was the prison overcrowding problem singlehandedly solved by AG Barr, defender of Justice and the American Way.
Many behind bars were suddenly very pleased with at least one Barr, but those who had stock in the private prison system were understandably furious.
And a more serious and intelligent comment on Barr's extraordinary perfidy along with a deserved hard knock or two on Pete Williams.
https://www.emptywheel.net/2019/12/11/american-democracy-needs-better-reporters-than-pete-williams/
I know I'm not the only one that finds it highly suspicious that the investigation into pro-Trump FBI agents trying to smear Clinton, allegedly in cahoots with Rudy Giuliani, is still "ongoing". Three years later. Still can't connect the dots. Three years later.
Strzok and Page's text messages flowed like wine into the veins of the MSM in JULY 2016. Republicans have been able to sit on all the evidence of the anti-Clinton bias texts (despite some leaks) until now, over three years later. And we're supposed to believe that the FBI is still hard at work getting to the bottom of the matter, as all the gatekeepers to that investigation are guarded by members of the Republican Party who, by the way, are all now officially members of a cult. IG Horowitz sounds like an honest broker, calling it like he sees it, but if Barr has any hand in this, and he is the ringleader, nothing will befall a fellow member of the cult.
All in service of the Movement are protected.
All others must be vanquished.
War is peace. Justice is Crime.
Regarding the Politico piece above about Shiff's letter forwarding the classified William's supplemental testimony to the Judiciary committee, this HuffPo piece includes the letter itself.
For such an official document, you'd think they'd at least spell properly rather than write a big warning at the footer and header on the two pages stating:
SECRET//NOFORN
UNCLASSIFIED WHEN SEPERATED FROM ENCLOSURE
Following R logic, this misspelling negates the classified status of the enclosure.
Psycho Killers, Qu'est-ce que c'est...
Lately I've been binging far too long into the evening on a Netflix show called "Mindhunter", based on a non-fiction account of the early days of the FBI's delving into the inner workings and thought processes of serial killers, the original personality profiling, if you will (well, original for the FBI, Arthur Conan Doyle's man did some pretty fancy profiling of his own in stories--"The Sign of Four",
"The Red-Headed League", eg.--penned nearly one hundred years earlier).
It's very likely that I am not the only RCer for whom the ever-present stink of Trumpian treachery and turgid criminality imposes its noxious stench on the most mundane of daily tasks (taking out the trash, scraping garbage off dinner plates, for example). So how much more likely is it that the pall of the despot-us might overhang a narrative about warped criminals?
Trump, at least as far as we know, is not a serial killer, although immigrant families who have lost babies, children, spouses, in a filthy Trump prison, deprived of medical attention, might take serious issue with that assumption. But an exchange in one episode between an FBI agent who had begun interviewing what were then called sequence killers, and an academic whose specialty was criminal deviance struck me as particularly apropos to the current crime wave emanating like stink from decaying corpses (Ukrainian corpses?) from the White House.
One agent, not particularly sold on the idea of serial killers attempting to portray themselves as victims, believing it to be just another con, inquires of the professor how she can sympathize with such creatures. She responds that it's entirely likely, almost to a surety, that these reprehensible murderers believe that they are indeed victims. That they believe the con.
"They're psychopaths, and psychopaths need to feel justified in their actions, they need to believe that they are the ones being put upon. They need to believe this because the alternative, that they are simply horrible, inhuman monsters, is too terrible to contemplate. So they build a world in which their worst actions are perfectly acceptable given their circumstance" or words to that effect.
I immediately thought of not just Trump, but of his enablers and protectors in the Party of Treason, including the execrable authoritarian bullwhip, Bill Barr.
These crooks and con artists have convinced themselves that they are right and everyone else is wrong, that they are the victims of evil Democrats and women and minorities and every other bogeyman demographic on their hate/hit list.
Which makes them not just traitors, but psychopaths.
It fits.
And the putrid Trumpian pall has settled, albeit in a more tangential manner, over a novel I've just begun. Luckily, the terrific writing keeps it at bay, but more of that anon.
@unwashed: Your logic is backwards. Since the documents -- Schiff's letter & the telcon memo of the pence/Zelensky call -- cannot be seperated, the Schiff letter itself is not separated from the classified doc and therefore the letter itself is not unclassified. Ergo, Antonia Blumberg of the HuffPost, & Kyle Cheney, who published the Schiff letter on Twitter, have published a classified letter and should immediately be transported to the Covfefe Federal Prison. In the meantime, Schiff's aide should turn on his spellcheck. (Yeah, I should turn on mine, too, but it annoys me because there are so many words I spell correctly!)
@Bea, thanks for setting me straight, I think.
@Ak, your prediction yesterday was only off by a day.
I thought that Trump was supposed to like the Scandanavians, but I guess badass women of any age scare the little impotent prick.
@RAS: Even worse, Greta got something Trump wanted -- her picture on the cover of Time magazine. It doesn't matter that this isn't something she took from Trump; Time mag made the decision. But that doesn't matter to Trump: Trump wanted it, Greta got it, so Trump went after her in a most personal way. BTW, Greta's response to Trump's digs, as Trump himself might say, was "perfect."
@ unwashed –
Thank you for conveying Greta Thunberg‘s brilliant Twitter update. I’d have, otherwise, missed that sparkling gem. And the delicious Schadenfreude it offered at our fearless leader’s* expense.
I have not held a Time magazine since my Father died years ago. But once I am no longer under the weather, under the blankets and under the influence (fortifying elixirs), I hope to find a still-pristine copy and frame it. Such a beautiful image of beautiful Greta. (Can’t tell from my cell if it’s a photo with a “shopped” background, or entirely artist-created). I am in awe of her.
Gotta laugh at myself when recalling bouts of stage fright, panicked script-glancing or movement-refining beforehand. And the battles with my internal (and infernal) monologue, predicting that I will (am) never going to be “good enough”. When here is this child. This woman-child! Who opens herself up to a *world* stage! Extemporaneously. Not appearing to care a wit about her appearance (clothes, makeup, whatnot) other than, perhaps, being comfortable. Being authentically and fearlessly herself. And, if ever fearful, maintaining her riveted (and riveting!) focus and calm.
I’ve noticed how her left braid can plait differently from the right. Quirkily spiraling on that side, while the other is finished “conventionally”. If she prepares own hair, I have wondered if - like myself - her sense of direction and space, or a change of course between right and left, might warp into something quite “unique”. A kind of dyslexic-ness that could betray this otherwise athletic, graceful gal. Or just me projecting my younger person’s bits onto her, arising from the large love and admiration (retroactive envy?) I feel for this tender, gifted girl.
As I approach a new decade in 2020, and - as do all here - will despair at what our world has become, I try to access (clutch at!) the possibility that many more, like Greta, will pick up (and exceed!) where we we’ve left off, whenever it’s is time to leave this life. For now, I’m anticipating remaining for quite some time (had better!) as “I’ve miles to go before I sleep”. (Actually, time for more tea & rest.)
Cheers.