The Conversation -- March 25, 2025
Trump Blames Unnamed Staffer for Goldberg Read-in. Garrett Haake & Megan Lebowitz of NBC News: "... Donald Trump stood by his national security adviser, Mike Waltz, after The Atlantic's editor-in-chief was accidentally added to a private, high-level chat on the messaging app Signal where military plans were being discussed. 'Michael Waltz has learned a lesson, and he's a good man,' Trump said Tuesday in a phone interview with NBC News. When asked what he was told about how Goldberg came to be added to the Signal chat, Trump said, 'It was one of Michael's people on the phone. A staffer had his number on there.' Trump said Goldberg's presence in the chat had 'no impact at all' on the military operation.... The situation, Trump said, was 'the only glitch in two months, and it turned out not to be a serious one.'" ~~~
~~~ Marie: Say, Garrett, why didn't you follow up and ask Trump why his top aides violated standard protocol for discussing non-public information? He can't blame an anonymous staffer for that.
See Patrick's comment below on just how vulnerable are the phones of our Signal-ing leaders and their appy-happy aides. Then check out the story RAS linked next: ~~~
~~~ Joanne Stocker & Emmet Lyons of CBS News: Donald "Trump's Ukraine and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff was in Moscow, where he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin, when he was included in a group chat with more than a dozen other top administration officials -- and inadvertently, one journalist -- on the messaging app Signal, a CBS News analysis of open-source flight information and Russian media reporting has revealed. Russia has repeatedly tried to compromise Signal, a popular commercial messaging platform that many were shocked to learn senior Trump administration officials had used to discuss sensitive military planning." ~~~
~~~ Oh, And This. Quil Lawrence & Tom Bowman of NPR: "Several days after top national security officials accidentally included a reporter in a Signal chat about bombing Houthi sites in Yemen, a Pentagon-wide advisory warned against using the messaging app, even for unclassified information. 'A vulnerability has been identified in the Signal messenger application,' begins the department-wide email, dated March 18.... 'Russian professional hacking groups are employing the "linked devices" features to spy on encrypted conversations.' It notes that Google has identified Russian hacking groups who are 'targeting Signal Messenger to spy on persons of interest.' Moreover there was a memo in 2023 obtained by NPR warning of using Signal for using any non-public official information.... The 2023 DoD memo prohibited use of mobile applications for even 'controlled unclassified information,' which is many degrees less important than information about on-going military operations.... A Signal spokesman said the Pentagon memo is not about the messaging app's level of security, but rather that users of the service should be aware of so-called 'phishing attacks.'"
Heather Cox Richardson: "As national security specialist Tom Nichols noted: 'If the President is telling the truth and no one's briefed him about this yet, that's another story in itself. In any other administration, [the chief of staff] would have been in the Oval [Office] within nanoseconds of learning about something like this.' Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is evidently going to try to bully his way out of this disaster. When asked about it, he began to yell at a reporter that Goldberg is a 'deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist who's made a profession of peddling hoaxes time and time again.' Hegseth looked directly at the camera and said: 'Nobody was texting war plans.' But Goldberg has receipts.... Zachary B. Wolf of CNN noted that 'Trump intentionally hired amateurs for top jobs. This is their most dramatic blunder.'... Foreign policy scholar Timothy Snyder posted: 'These guys inherited one of the most functional state apparatus in the history of the world and they are inhabiting it like a crack house.'"
Abigail Hauslohner & Warren Strobel of the Washington Post: "Democrats hammered the United States' top intelligence officials Tuesday morning as they delivered the annual global threat assessment to Congress -- a day after a bombshell report that the vice president, defense secretary, national security adviser and other top Cabinet members used a commercial messaging app to discuss secret war plans for Yemen and inadvertently included a journalist in the group chat. At least two of the officials who appeared before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence -- Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe -- were among those who participated in the group chat over the Signal messaging app.... 'This is one more example of the kind of sloppy, careless, incompetent behavior, particularly toward classified information,' exhibited by the Trump administration, [Sen. Mark] Warner [(Va.) -- the top Democrat on the select intelligence committee --] said, adding, 'This is not a one-off.' Gabbard on Tuesday at first declined to say whether she was involved in the group chat. Later, she and Ratcliffe insisted that no classified information was shared in the chat -- a claim that triggered an incredulous backlash from the committee's liberals." ~~~ Summary of Gabbard's and Ratcliffe's testimony: "Homina-homina, lie-la-la-lie-lie-lie." The NPR story is here. ~~~
~~~ Rebecca Beitsch of the Hill: "Sen. Mark Warner (Va.), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, criticized the Trump administration for using a Signal group to discuss plans for carrying out bombing in Yemen, calling on officials to resign and saying others would have been fired for the same actions. Warner said national security adviser Mike Waltz and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth did not 'conduct hygiene 101' in failing to realize there was a journalist on the group chat.... 'When the stakes are this high, incompetence is not an option. Pete Hegseth should resign. Mike Waltz should resign,' he wrote [on X]."
Michael Birnbaum of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump's crackdown on lawyers is having a chilling effect on his opponents' ability to defend themselves or challenge his actions in court, according to people who say they are struggling to find legal representation as a result of his challenges. Biden-era officials said they're having trouble finding lawyers willing to defend them. The volunteers and small nonprofits forming the ground troops of the legal resistance to Trump administration actions say that the well-resourced law firms that once would have backed them are now steering clear. The result is an extraordinary threat to fundamental constitutional rights of due process and legal representation, they said -- and a far weaker effort to challenge Trump's actions in court than during his first term. Legal scholars say no previous U.S. administration has taken such concerted action against the legal establishment, with Trump's predecessors in both parties typically respecting the constitutionally enshrined tenet that everyone deserves effective representation in court and that lawyers cannot be targeted simply for the cases and clients they take on....
"Trump on Friday ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi to expand the campaign by sanctioning lawyers who 'engage in frivolous, unreasonable, and vexatious litigation' against his administration. Legal scholars say there is little precedent in modern U.S. history for Trump's actions. But the president is following a playbook from other countries whose leaders have sought to undermine democratic systems and the rule of law, including Russia, Turkey and Hungary." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Shame on the lawyers. Every large law firm -- left, right and apolitical -- should be standing up against Trump and for individuals and organizations who oppose him. This would not be remarkable heroism; it would saving democratic ideals and preserving the rule of law for everyone, including their own businesses.
Marie: Here is Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), my perpetual preference for president (his name is already on the tea towels), explaining the Trump/Musk plan for Social Security in the way I too have assumed it is designed to work:
Trump's Former Lawyer Lied Under Oath, Too. William Rashbaum, et al., of the New York Times: "During his U.S. Senate confirmation hearing to become the No. 2 official at the Justice Department, Todd Blanche suggested that he had no direct knowledge of the decision to abandon a criminal corruption case against the mayor of New York City. But in a draft letter unsealed on Tuesday, the interim U.S. attorney in Manhattan wrote that a top department official, Emil Bove III, had suggested otherwise before ordering her to seek the case's dismissal. The U.S. attorney, Danielle R. Sassoon, wrote that when she suggested that department officials await Mr. Blanche's Senate confirmation so he could play a role in the decision, Mr. Bove informed her that Mr. Blanche was 'on the same page,' and that 'there was no need to wait.' The draft was written by Ms. Sassoon earlier this year, as she fought for the case's survival.... When Senator Peter Welch, a Vermont Democrat, asked Mr. Blanche about whether the decisions in the case had been directed by officials in Washington, Mr. Blanche suggested that he had no direct knowledge. 'I have the same information you have,' he said. 'It appears it was, yes, I don't know.' Reached for comment on Tuesday, Senator Welch said, 'If this is true, it clearly indicates Blanche "misled" -- in plain English, lied -- to the committee.'"
Amudalat Ajasa of the Washington Post: "According to an internal email, EPA officials knew they had no contractual right to cancel dozens of grants. They did it anyway.... An agency lawyer warned officials they had cited contractual language that did not apply to many of the grants the EPA had ended in recent weeks, advising that terminations could be reversed if recipients challenged them administratively or in court.... In a letter to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin on Monday, nine Democratic senators on the Environment Committee challenged the grant terminations, pointing out that the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act 'directed EPA to distribute $3 billion to improve environmental protection in communities facing economic hardship.'... 'Any attempt to withhold these funds violates the Impoundment Control Act and Congress's constitutional Article I spending authority,' the senators said."
Ukraine. Lizzie Johnson & Robyn Dixon of the Washington Post: "Russia and Ukraine agreed Tuesday to expand their initial limited ceasefire on energy infrastructure to include the Black Sea after U.S.-sponsored indirect talks in Saudi Arabia. In separate joint statements from the White House -- one between the United States and Russia, another between the U.S. and Ukraine -- the two countries agreed to 'ensure safe navigation, eliminate the use of force, and prevent the use of commercial vessels for military purposes' in the Black Sea, as well as to develop measures to implement and monitor the partial ceasefire. The statements did not specify when the limited ceasefire would go into effect."
~~~~~~~~~~
Marie: It's 10:30 am ET, and I'm done.
⭐Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic: "The world found out shortly before 2 p.m. eastern time on March 15 that the United States was bombing Houthi targets across Yemen. I, however, knew two hours before the first bombs exploded that the attack might be coming. The reason I knew this is that Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense, had texted me the war plan at 11:44 a.m. The plan included precise information about weapons packages, targets, and timing." Michael Waltz, the national security advisor, read in Goldberg on a Signals chat group that included JD Vance, Hegseth, Marco Rubio, Tulsi Gabbard, John Ratcliffe, Stephen Miller, Waltz, and other top officials who sometimes stood in for them. Goldberg remained in the chat group for about four days, until after the bombing of the Houthi strongholds began. He had access to all of the communications among the group, including a dissent from JayDee, who explained why "I think we are making a mistake." Goldberg doesn't reveal all of the chat messages from Hegseth in particular because some of
~~~~~~ "The information contained in them, if they had been read by an adversary of the United States, could conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel, particularly in the broader Middle East, Central Command's area of responsibility. What I will say, in order to illustrate the shocking recklessness of this Signal conversation, is that the Hegseth post contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing.... The Signal chat group, I concluded, was almost certainly real.... I have never seen a breach quite like this.... Conceivably, Waltz, by coordinating a national-security-related action over Signal, may have violated several provisions of the Espionage Act.... The Signal app is not approved by the government for sharing classified information.... [Also,] Waltz set some of the messages ... to disappear after one week, and some after four. That raises questions about whether the officials may have violated federal records law: Text messages about official acts are considered records that should be preserved." Thank you to RAS for this gift link. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: This is one of the most extraordinary stories I have ever read. Unless you're a person accustomed to listening in on top-secret chats among top U.S. officials, I urge you to read it. RAS wonders "how much information they have just given away because they are stupid and unprofessional." Waltz's level of incompetence in reading in a journalist is staggering. (And nobody else in the group seemed to notice Goldberg [identified on the chat as "JG"] was reading right along with them.) As explosive as the Pentagon Papers were, they were after-the-fact analyses. Here, Hegseth & Waltz, et al., were sharing U.S. war plans with a journalist immediately before the fact. Of course Congress should look into what went wrong, but it won't, especially because Waltz was a member of Congress until two months ago. Update: Here's a GOP senator who says the Senate will be investigating. We'll see. ~~~
It appears that were mistakes were made, no question. We'll try to get to ground truth and take appropriate action. -- Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.)
[Crickets.] -- Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ak.), chair of the Intelligence Committee
If true, this story represents one of the most egregious failures of operational security and common sense I have ever seen "Military operations need to be handled with utmost discretion, using approved, secure lines of communication, because American lives are on the line. The carelessness shown by President Trump's cabinet is stunning and dangerous. -- Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), ranking member on the Armed Services Committee, in a statement
BUT. I'm told they're doing an investigation to find out how that number was included, and that should be that.... [The administration] acknowledged it was a mistake, and they'll tighten up and make sure it doesn't happen again.... I'm not sure that it requires much additional attention. -- Speaker Mike Johnson
~~~ At this time, the message thread that was reported appears to be authentic, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain. -- Brian Hughes, National Security Council spokesperson ~~~
~~~ ... Nobody was texting war plans, and that's all I have to say about that. -- Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, also calling Goldberg a "deceitful" journalist who "peddles in garbage" [IOW, lying AND blaming the messenger]
If these people were junior uniformed personnel, they would be court-martialed. -- Kevin Carroll, national security lawyer
I don't know anything about it.... You're telling me about it for the first time.... I'm not a big fan of the Atlantic. -- Donald Trump, at the White House
(These citations come from the NYT & WashPo stories.) ~~~
~~~ Helene Cooper & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "It was an extraordinary breach of American national security intelligence. Not only was the journalist inadvertently included in the group, but the conversation also took place outside the secure government channels that would normally be used for classified and highly sensitive war planning.... Several Defense Department officials expressed shock that Mr. Hegseth had put American war plans into a commercial chat group.... Revealing operational war plans before planned strikes could ... put American troops directly into harm's way, the officials said. And former F.B.I. officials who worked on leak cases described this as a devastating breach of national security.... Former national security officials said that if personal cellphones were used in the group chat, the behavior would be even more egregious because of ongoing Chinese hacking efforts." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Assuming that Trump is telling the truth (okay, nobody would really make that assumption) and that he didn't know about the breach when a reporter questioned him, his Cabinet is really afraid of him. Goldsmith wrote, "Earlier today, I emailed Waltz and sent him a message on his Signal account. I also wrote to Pete Hegseth, John Ratcliffe, Tulsi Gabbard, and other officials." So obviously, a number of the people on the call knew their security breach was about to be outted in the national press. AND they didn't think it was important to inform the president*. ~~~
~~~ Update: Ah, it was a lie. Marcy Wheeler writes, "Sure, this is almost certainly a lie. Goldberg says he told the White House about it at 9AM yesterday [Monday] morning." AND Wheeler concludes, as I do, "If [none of the people on the call told Trump of the breach,] it would mean Trump could trust no one to keep him informed of the most basic things. It would mean his entire national security team fucked up and kept it a secret from him." ~~~
~~~ Dan Lamothe, et al., of the Washington Post: "... the disclosure immediately raised questions about how the administration has discussed classified national security matters and whether anyone will be disciplined. Senior Trump administration officials have warned in recent days that they will investigate unauthorized leaks to journalists, citing reporting in a number of publications. Several of them also for years criticized the handling of classified information by Democrats in other cases." ~~~
~~~ Tara Copp, et al., of the AP: "In a statement late Monday, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said the president still has the 'utmost confidence' in Waltz and the national security team." ~~~
~~~ Ah, but watch the White House drop a strategic leak: ~~~
~~~ Dasha Burns, et al., of Politico: "The stunning revelation that top administration officials accidentally included a reporter in a group chat discussing war plans triggered furious discussion inside the White House that national security adviser Mike Waltz may need to be forced out. Nothing is decided yet, and White House officials cautioned that ... Donald Trump would ultimately make the decision over the next day or two as he watches coverage of the embarrassing episode. A senior administration official told Politico on Monday afternoon that they are involved in multiple text threads with other administration staffers on what to do with Waltz.... 'Half of them saying he's never going to survive or shouldn't survive,' said the official, who like others was granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberation. And two high-level White House aides have floated the idea that Waltz should resign in order to prevent the president from being put in a 'bad position.' 'It was reckless not to check who was on the thread. It was reckless to be having that conversation on Signal. You can't have recklessness as the national security adviser,' the official said.... Speaker Mike Johnson told Politico that Waltz should 'absolutely not' resign." ~~~
~~~ Marie: I suppose those "multiple text threads" are on Signal. ~~~
~~~ "FUBAR." Amy MacKinnon, et al., of Politico: "Members of Congress and national security staffers were stunned Monday by a bombshell report that top Trump administration officials ... discussed war plans in a Signal group chat.... Speaking on the floor of the Senate on Monday afternoon, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called on Majority Leader John Thune to push for a 'full investigation' into the lapse.... Republican Rep. Don Bacon (Neb.), who serves on the House Armed Services Committee, said..., 'The unconscionable action was sending this info over non-secure networks.... None of this should have been sent on non-secure systems. Russia and China are surely monitoring his unclassified phone.'" ~~~
~~~ Garrett Graff: "[Monday] afternoon..., The Atlantic posted what is, hands down, the wildest and most insane story I have ever read about US national security[.]... No, really -- if you haven't [read Goldberg's story] -- please stop here and just go read the article. I promise you the headline and whatever summary you've heard is way less weird, way less troubling, and way less eye-popping than the reality.... Imagine for a minute what would have happened if Joe Biden's National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan had accidentally added Tucker Carlson to a group chat about classified war plans? It's impossible to imagine Sullivan lasting a single hour in office before resigning -- this would be the biggest scandal of the Biden administration full stop. There would be Republican congressional hearings, the ole flurry of subpoenas, and calls across Capitol Hill for multiple officials to resign. And here's the thing: They would all be right." Read on; Graff makes some other cogent points, like, "It doesn't take reading too deeply between the lines to see that the principals weren't entirely clear on what Trump had ordered...." ~~~
I guess Signal is a few steps above leaving a copy of your war plan at the Chinese Embassy -- but it's far below the standards required for discussing any elements of a war plan. -- Mark Montgomery, director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies ~~~
~~~ Praveena Somasundaram & Kyle Melnick of the Washington Post report on how officials are supposed to communicate top-secret war plans. Moreover, for people at the level of Cabinet officials like those on the Waltz chat, it's pretty easy: "Larry Pfeiffer, a former senior CIA and NSA official, said top administration officials like those involved in the group chat have government-approved communications with them 24 hours a day, even when traveling.... The Defense Department has previously referred to Signal as an 'unmanaged' messaging app. In a 2023 memo, the department defined unmanaged apps as those 'NOT authorized to access, transmit, process non-public DoD information.'" A Politico story is here. ~~~
~~~ Marcy Wheeler lists "seven reasons Trump's entire national security team should resign in disgrace." I've linked other stories that cover the seven reasons here, but this is a good summary (and not long-winded!). ~~~
~~~ David French of the New York Times: "I don't know how Pete Hegseth can look service members in the eye. He's just blown his credibility as a military leader.... If he had any honor at all, he would resign.... I'm a former Army JAG officer (an Army lawyer). I've helped investigate numerous allegations of classified information spillages, and I've never even heard of anything this egregious -- a secretary of defense intentionally using a civilian messaging app to share sensitive war plans without even apparently noticing a journalist was in the chat.... Federal law makes it a crime when a person -- through gross negligence -- removes information 'relating to the national defense' from 'its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted or destroyed.'... There is not an officer alive whose career would survive a security breach like that.... When leaders break the rules that they impose on soldiers, they break the bond of trust between soldiers and commanders." Thanks to laura h. for the link. ~~~
~~~ But the Emails! Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "Even in 2015 and 2016, it was obvious that Trump's criticisms of [Hillary] Clinton['s use of a private email server] were insincere. He repeatedly made false claims about what Clinton had done, even as he publicly asked Russia to try to access the server and its sacrosanct contents.... When he took office in 2017, stories of his team's use of external communications systems quickly emerged.... Then Trump left office, bringing boxes of presidential records -- many classified -- with him to his Florida home.... Republicans never tried to reconcile Trump's actions with his (and their) criticisms of Clinton.... The Atlantic's new story is different.... That this was information offered on a nongovernmental platform to users wherever they happened to be -- and whomever was around -- was one staggering failure to ensure security for an operation that put American forces in harm&'s way.... [And] who's to say what other actors [-- besides Jeff Goldberg --] might have been included in this or other groups?...
"It is an indifference to security that is more obvious and more immediate than anything Clinton was ever accused of doing, with a demonstrable failure to preserve the security of the operation (despite Hegseth's insistences within the chat itself). What's more, there's every reason to think that no one in the administration will face any consequences for the inclusion of Goldberg or for the sharing of war plans over Signal or for the possibility that Waltz established the chat -- which included an auto-delete mechanism -- specifically to avoid preserving public records."
~~~ Marie: Nevertheless, it is a mistake to assume that the Trumpists won't cry "But the Emails" vis-a-vis the Goldberg scandal. I heard them yesterday on CNN. ~~~
~~~ JayDee Is Consistently Europhobic. Andrew Roth of the Guardian: "If Europe wasn’t already on notice, the extraordinary leak of deliberations by JD Vance and other top-level Trump administration officials over a strike against the Houthis in Yemen was another sign that it has a target on its back.... 'I think we are making a mistake,' wrote Vance, adding that while only 3% of US trade goes through the Suez canal, 40% of European trade does.... Vance was contending that once again the United States is doing what Europe should be. It is consistent with his past arguments that the US is overpaying for European security and the derision he displayed toward European allies (almost certainly the UK and France) when he described them as 'some random country that hasn't fought a war in 30 or 40 years'. (Both fought in Afghanistan and the UK fought alongside the US in Iraq).... 'I just hate bailing Europe out again,' Vance [said]. He tacitly admitted a difference between his foreign policy and Trump's saying that the strike would undermine the president's Europe policy -- one that has been led by Vance in his divisive speech at the Munich Security Conference...."
~~~ Washington Runs on Signal. Shira Ovide, et al., of the Washington Post: "Two months into the Trump administration, there's a sweeping shift underway in Washington as federal workers -- and some high-level administration officials -- migrate their correspondence to Signal in a zeal for secrecy.... Adopting Signal and other surveillance-dodging tactics of spies and billionaires comes at the potential loss of a real-time history of the Trump administration. Lauren Harper ... [of] the Freedom of the Press Foundation, said Americans will never have a full accounting of the policies made in their interests when officials and workers communicate in private channels that are closed off to U.S. citizens.... Using private email accounts, personal cellphones and unofficial technologies like WhatsApp and Signal could violate requirements that most government correspondence and internal communications are preserved and archived for public transparency."
"Institutionalizing Disinformation." Steven Myers & Stuart Thompson of the New York Times: "Mr. Trump's first four years in the White House were filled with false or misleading statements -- 30,573 of them, or 21 a day on average, according to one tally. Back then, though, aides often tried to play down or contain the damage of egregious falsehoods. This time, Mr. Trump is joined by a coterie of cabinet officials and advisers who have amplified them and even spread their own. Together, they are effectively institutionalizing disinformation.... Mr. Trump and his advisers have ushered the country into a new era of post-truth politics, where facts are contested and fictions used to pursue policy goals.... False narratives that once percolated in the darker corners of the internet are now advanced by Mr. Trump and his appointees and amplified by a media echo chamber, muddying the political discourse and compounding a broader erosion of trust in institutions themselves.... The surge in all these false or misleading claims in today's political discourse is also a consequence of tectonic shifts in the media. Americans have increasingly drifted from traditional news organizations and landed instead on a digital cacophony of podcasts, livestreams and social media feeds where partisanship, fury and resentment generally prevail over a balanced deliberation of facts.... This new media ecosystem is today dominated by the right."
Tyler Pager of the New York Times: Even though he has supported the aggressor in the Ukraine/Russia war, and often aligns with ruthless dictators, Donald Trump thinks he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize and frequently complains that the Nobel committee has not awarded it to him: "It's too bad. I deserve it, but they will never give it to me."
David Sanger & Julian Barnes of the New York Times: "When the nation's intelligence chiefs go before Congress on Tuesday to provide their first public 'Worldwide Threat Assessment' of ... [Donald] Trump's second term, they'll face an extraordinary choice. Do they stick with their long-running conclusion about President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, that his goal is to crush the Ukrainian government and 'undermine the United States and the West?' Or do they cast Mr. Putin in the terms Mr. Trump and his top negotiator with Russia [Steve Witkoff] are describing him with these days: as a trustworthy future business partner who simply wants to end a nasty war, get control of parts of Ukraine that are rightly his and resume a regular relationship with the United States?... Mr. Trump refuses to acknowledge the obvious, that Russia invaded Ukraine.... But for the American intelligence agencies, whose views are supposed to be rooted in a rigorous analysis of covertly collected and open-source analysis, there is no indication so far that any of their views about Mr. Putin and his ambitions have changed."
Portraitgate Resolved. Justine McDaniel of the Washington Post: "On Monday, Republican state lawmakers in Colorado ... asked ... [that a] portrait [of Donald Trump] to be taken down [because [Trump] complained about it], and the Democratic lawmakers who hold the majorities in the legislature signed off on removing it, Colorado House Democrats spokesman Jarrett Freedman said.... In his complaints Sunday evening on social media, Trump falsely claimed that the portrait had been arranged for by Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) and alleged that his likeness had been 'purposefully distorted' -- but in reality, the portrait was commissioned during Trump's first term and backed by Republicans. It has hung in Colorado's Capitol since 2019, and its funding was led by a Republican former state Senate president, Kevin Grantham."
Irony Bit Trump in His Big Fat Rear End. Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The 1952 law under which the Trump administration seeks to deport Mahmoud Khalil, a lawful permanent resident who helped organize protests at Columbia University, is largely untested. Largely, but not entirely. It was ruled unconstitutional in 1996 -- by ... [Donald] Trump's sister.... When Judge [Maryanne Trump] Barry considered the 1952 law, which the Trump administration has said will play a major role in its deportation plans, she asked whether it could be squared with the Constitution. 'The answer,' she wrote, 'is a ringing "no."'... An appeals court later reversed her decision, though on grounds unrelated to its substance. But it remains the most thorough judicial examination of the constitutionality of the law, and other judges may find its reasoning persuasive.... 'I will never forget the many times people would come up to me and say, "Your sister was the smartest person on the Court,"' [Donald Trump] posted on social media when she died in 2023. 'I was always honored by that, but understood exactly what they meant -- They were right! She was a great Judge, and a great sister.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: Barry did not hold a high opinion of her brother Donald. CBS News (August 2020): "In secretly recorded audio, Maryanne Trump Barry, the eldest sister of ... [Donald] Trump, criticized her brother for his lack of principles, his lying and said, 'you can't trust him.' The audio, first reported by the Washington Post and obtained in part by CBS News was recorded between 2018 and 2019 by Mr. Trump's niece, Mary Trump, who recently published a tell-all book about the president." ~~~
What is happening to Columbia now is what the erosion of democracy looks like. -- Virginia Page Fortna, Columbia political science professor ~~~
~~~ Sharon Otterman & Wesley Parnell of the New York Times: "The Trump administration on Monday welcomed concessions by Columbia University to tighten disciplinary procedures and assert more control over academic departments in response to charges of antisemitism, saying the actions represent a 'positive first step in the university maintaining a financial relationship with the United States government.' Facing the loss of about $400 million in federal research funding, Columbia has pledged that masked demonstrators must show identification when asked, that protests will generally not be allowed in academic buildings and that several dozen public security officers will be empowered to make arrests.... Still..., the Trump administration regards the actions Columbia has announced as a 'precondition' to formal talks to restore canceled federal grants and contracts, which largely affect scientific and medical research.... Earlier on Monday, about 50 professors turned out in a steady drizzle outside the campus gates to protest the funding cuts and what they criticized as Columbia's conciliatory response. The professors said they hoped to be the vanguard of a resistance movement among academics that remains, for now, at an early stage." ~~~
~~~ Jonah Bromwich & Hamed Aleaziz of the New York Times: "A 21-year-old Columbia University student who has lived in the United States since she was a child sued ... [Donald Trump and other high-ranking administration officials on Monday after immigration officials tried to arrest and deport her. The student, Yunseo Chung, is a legal permanent resident and junior who has participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations at the school. The Trump administration is arguing that her presence in the United States hinders the administration's foreign policy agenda of halting the spread of antisemitism.... She was one of several students arrested this year in connection with a protest at Barnard College. Ms. Chung, a high school valedictorian who moved to the United States with her family from South Korea when she was 7, has not been detained by ICE. She remains in the country, but her lawyers would not comment on her whereabouts."
Yet Another Irony: Federal Civil Rights Investigators Violate Students' Civil Rights. Laura Meckler of the Washington Post: "When federal civil rights attorneys launched investigations in February into whether universities properly responded to antisemitism on campuses..., the Trump administration told the attorneys working on the cases to also collect the names and nationalities of students who might have harassed Jewish students or faculty.... In a March 7 memo to the Office for Civil Rights enforcement staff obtained by The Washington Post, [Craig] Trainor[, the Education Department's acting assistant secretary for civil rights,] made clear that the office's top priority would be antisemitism investigations and that the department would begin insisting on more sweeping agreements with schools to close investigations.... Three days later, the Education Department sent warning letters to almost 60 other universities, saying they, too, may face sanctions for failing to protect the civil rights of Jewish students. Around the same time, the administration moved to deport several students involved in pro-Palestinian protests -- including one activist from Columbia University who has a green card -- even though these protesters have not been convicted of any crimes." Attorneys told the Post that there was no investigative need for the government to obtain the names & nationalities of students & that the request might be a violation of civil rights. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Against this backdrop, we must keep in mind that Trump has no interest whatsoever in curbing antisemitism. He himself often makes antisemitic remarks. This is about controlling universities and deporting Muslims. It's also an excuse to make sure any federal civil rights staff he can't fire or immobilize will ignore discrimination against other minorities and women.
"Nazis Got Better Treatment." -- Appeals Court Judge. Perry Stein & Jeremy Roebuck of the Washington Post: "Justice Department lawyers acknowledged to a federal appeals court panel in D.C. on Monday that migrants who were deemed Venezuelan gang members and targeted for removal under the Alien Enemies Act are entitled to hearings to challenge that designation. But U.S. officials don't have to tell those migrants they've been designated as 'alien enemies' or give them time to request court hearings before they are removed from the country, a government lawyer told the judges. The assertion appeared to flummox at least one member of the three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit as it weighed a lower court's order temporarily barring the Trump administration from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport migrants it has accused of being members of the violent Tren de Aragua gang.... 'There were no procedures in place to notify [those] people. Nazis go better treatment,' Judge Patricia Millett said Monday, referring to hearing boards for suspected Nazis targeted for removal under the Alien Enemies Act during World War II."
Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "A federal judge on Monday kept in place his ruling barring the Trump administration from using a powerful wartime statute to summarily deport a group of Venezuelan immigrants whom officials have accused of being members of a violent street gang. In a 37-page order, the judge, James E. Boasberg, said the order should remain in place so that the Venezuelan immigrants could have the opportunity to challeng accusations that they belong to the gang, Tren de Aragua, before the Trump administration can fly them out of the country under the wartime law known as the Alien Enemies Act. The Alien Enemies Act, Judge Boasberg wrote, 'arguably envisions that those caught up in its web must be given the opportunity to seek such review.'... In his order, Judge Boasberg said that he was not yet issuing a ruling on the 'complicated legal issues' of whether Tren de Aragua should be defined as a hostile nation or whether the phenomenon of immigrants crossing the border could be construed as an invasion.... While Mr. Trump and his allies have accused Judge Boasberg of overstepping his authority by intruding on the president's prerogative to conduct foreign affairs, the question at the heart of the case is whether Mr. Trump himself overstepped by ignoring several provisions laid out in the text of the act for how the deportations should be handled." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ The order, linked in the story, is via the court, so not behind a NYT firewall. ~~~
~~~ The Vice President and members of Trump's Cabinet may have allowed a prominent journalist to listen in on top-secret war plans, but it seems the chief judge of the D.C. Circuit -- who is a former presiding FISA judge, so certainly has the necessary clearances, AND has a clear need-to-know -- cannot hear state secrets: ~~~
~~~ Alan Feuer & Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "The Trump administration ... in a patent act of defiance ... told a federal judge [James Boasberg] on Monday night that it would not disclose any further information about two flights of Venezuelan migrants it sent to El Salvador this month despite a court order to turn back the planes, declaring that doing so would jeopardize state secrets. The move sharply escalated the growing conflict between the administration and the judge -- and, by extension, the federal judiciary -- in a case that legal experts fear is precipitating a constitutional crisis.... The invocation of the state secrets privilege in this context was a new level of aggression....
"After the Bush administration frequently invoked the state secrets privilege to block lawsuits on topics like torture and warrantless wiretapping, the Justice Department in the Obama era imposed new limits on the power. The policy called for the department to reject a request to use the privilege if officials decide the motivation for doing so is to 'conceal violations of the law, inefficiency or administrative error,' to 'prevent embarrassment' or to block information 'the release of which would not reasonably be expected to cause significant harm to national security.'"
Justin Jouvenal of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to allow the firings of thousands of probationary workers as the president seeks to greatly shrink the size of the federal government. A federal judge in Northern California ordered the administration to rehire about 16,000 workers at a half-dozen agencies this month after finding Trump officials had not followed proper procedures in terminating their employment. In an emergency appeal, the administration on Monday asked the high court to block that ruling in a lawsuit brought by unions." (Also linked yesterday.)
Todd Frankel & Hannah Natanson of the Washington Post: "Elon Musk put a big target on the Social Security Administration in the first weeks of the Trump administration, claiming it is plagued by 'immense waste' and promising audits to root out 'the extreme levels of fraud.'... Donald Trump said during his joint address to Congress earlier this month that Musk's U.S. DOGE Service was already 'identifying shocking levels of incompetence and probable fraud' at the agency. But some of the biggest examples of allegedly wasteful spending held up by Musk and DOGE so far have been overblown or inaccurate.... Less than 1 percent of Social Security's payments in recent years were determined to be improper -- often the result of an accidental oversight or change in benefit status, according to a report last year by the agency's inspector general.... More than two-thirds of the mistaken payments were eventually clawed back.... Social Security's inspector general [who looks for & roots out waste, fraud & abuse within the agency] was fired in the first days of the Trump administration.... Although the office has continued to operate, it is expected to lose up to 20 percent of its staff because of budget cuts...." ~~~
~~~ Marie: So since they couldn't find much waste, fraud & abuse, and the goal was always to discredit the agency, not to streamline it, the Musk/Trump administration went to Plan B: ~~~
What's going on is the destruction of the agency from the inside out, and it's accelerating.... What they're doing now is unconscionable. -- Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) ~~~
~~~ Lisa Rein & Hannah Natanson of the Washington Post: "The Social Security Administration website crashed four times in 10 days this month, blocking millions of retirees and disabled Americans from logging in to their online accounts because the servers were overloaded. In the field, office managers have resorted to answering phones at the front desk as receptionists because so many employees have been pushed out. But the agency no longer has a system to monitor customers' experience with these services, because that office was eliminated as part of the cost-cutting efforts led by Elon Musk.... The ... [Administration] is engulfed in crisis -- further undermining its ability to provide reliable and quick service to vulnerable customers.... Leland Dudek -- the accidental leader elevated to acting commissioner after he fed data to Musk's team behind his bosses' backs -- has issued rapid-fire policy changes that have created chaos for front-line staff.... Calls have flooded into congressional offices [and] the AARP.... With aging technology systems and a $15 billion budget that has stayed relatively flat over a decade, Social Security was already struggling to serve the public amid an explosion of retiring baby boomers." ~~~
~~~ Emily Peck of Axios: "The Social Security Administration is rushing cuts to phone services at the White House's request, the agency's acting commissioner told Social Security advocates in a meeting on Monday, two sources who attended tell Axios.... Acting commissioner Leland Dudek said the changes in question would usually take two years to implement, but will be made in two weeks instead.... Dudek also said the changes, happening so fast and with little public understanding, will create opportunities for scammers, one of the sources said. Dudek acknowledged the policy could increase fraud risks for beneficiaries, according to one attendee. He said in the past Social Security had been too 'thoughtful in considering beneficiaries before making changes." MB: I'm tellin' ya, system fail is the goal here.
Niraj Chokshi of the New York Times: "Increased federal spending in recent years has helped to improve U.S. ports, roads, parks, public transit and levees, according to a report released on Tuesday by the American Society of Civil Engineers. But that progress could stagnate if those investments, some of which were put on hold after ... [Donald] Trump took office in January, aren't sustained.... In 2021, the group said, thanks to the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which authorized $1.2 trillion in funding under President Joseph R. Biden Jr.[, the country began to improve its infrastructure]. That investment is showing results, with grades having improved since the last report, in 2021, for nearly half the 18 categories that the group tracks. But in January, Mr. Trump froze much of the funding under that law and another aimed at addressing climate change, pending a review by his agencies. That halted a variety of programs, including those intended to help schools, farmers and small businesses." ~~~
~~~ Another Irony Alert. Marie: RAS pointed out last week that Trump was taking credit for Biden's infrastucture projects, taking down signs that correctly credit Biden and putting up big ole signs that falsely declare, "Donald J. Trump -- Rebuilding America's Infrastructure." Danny Westneat of the Seattle Times cites a specific example -- modernization of the Seattle Rail Yards -- and reminded readers that Trump so opposed Biden's infrastructure initiative that he threatened to recruit primary challengers to Republicans who voted for the infrastructure bill, calling them "weak, foolish and dumb." A pretty good read.
Loui Louis Said Me Gotta Go Now. Jacob Bogage of the Washington Post: "U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy will resign at the end of the day Monday, concluding a five-year tenure that began at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, stretched through elections conducted predominantly by mail for the first time in the nation's history, and ended amid pressure from ... Donald Trump's administration to assert political control over the postal system. Recent tension between DeJoy and the Trump administration over the work of the U.S. DOGE Service contributed to the White House's antipathy toward the mail chief, who was hired during Trump's first term by a postal board dominated by Trump appointees. When DOGE officials arrived at postal headquarters, DeJoy refused to give them broad access to agency systems, according to four people familiar with the interactions, something the group has grown accustomed to elsewhere in government." Read on. It appears Trump, Musk & Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick ran up against a postmaster as egotistical as they are. The AP report is here. ~~~
~~~ See Akhilleus's commentary at the top of today's thread.
Jason Zinoman of the New York Times: Conan O'Brien "has always steered clear of ideological fervor. But moving out of his comfort zone [in his acceptance of the Mark Twain Prize for Humor Sunday night], O'Brien delivered what amounted to a bristling attack on the current administration artfully disguised as a tribute to Mark Twain.... Twain's enduring power, he argued, stemmed from his core principles, which shaped his comedy. 'First and foremost, Twain hated bullies,' he said, saying he populated his works with them, and made his readers hate them. Twain was allergic to hypocrisy and loathed racism, empathizing with former enslaved people struggling during Reconstruction, immigrant Chinese laborers in California and European Jews fleeing antisemitism." (Also linked yesterday.)
~~~~~~~~~~
Canada. Trump is not the first U.S. leader who tried to get Canada to become part of what would become the United States. ~~~
~~~ Madelaine Drohan of the University of Ottawa, in a Washington Post op-ed on a 1774 letter to the people of Quebec from the delegates of the First Continental Congress, including George Washington, John Adams & John Jay, inviting the Québécois to become the 14th colony in the American fight against the British government. "... the delegates seemed sincere in what they saw as the many attractions of the system of governance they were building. Indeed, it has served the United States well for many years. But today..., Donald Trump, his Cabinet and his party are dismantling the foundations laid 250 years ago.... When the French Canadians did not reply to that 1774 invitation, the Continental Congress authorized an invasion the next year.... American troops failed to take Quebec City in December and then fled for home when British reinforcements arrived by ship in May.... Canadians did not want to become the 14th colony in 1776, and -- for what may be even better reasons -- they do not want to become the 51st state now." ~~~
~~~ Marie: The letter, which is many pages long, is here. It is not firewalled, as far as I can tell.
Greenland's Government Says Trump Lied. Steb Starcevic of Politico: "Greenland did not invite an American delegation to come visit this week, the self-ruling island's government said Monday, flatly denying a claim made by ... Donald Trump.... Trump told reporters Monday that Greenlandic 'officials' requested Washington send a team to the island. 'People from Greenland are asking us to go there,' he said. But Greenland's government said that was false. 'Just for the record, Naalakkersuisut, the government of Greenland, has not extended any invitations for any visits, neither private nor official,' the government said in a post on Facebook.
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