The Commentariat -- March 23, 2018
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
GOP Leaders Coax POTUS out of Trumpertantrum. Julie Davis & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Trump signed a $1.3 trillion spending bill into law on Friday, avoiding a government shutdown that had suddenly become a possibility when the president vented angrily on Twitter about his frustration with the bipartisan legislation. The president abruptly backed down from his threat to veto the spending bill in a head-spinning four hours at the White House that left both political parties in Washington reeling and his own aides bewildered about Mr. Trump’s contradictory actions. Speaking at the White House, Mr. Trump said the spending bill was important for increasing military spending.... It was the latest instance of the president parting ways with his advisers in a sudden reversal that could have serious consequences.... The president’s apparent change of heart came as a surprise but hardly a shock to Republican leaders, who spent much of a snowy Wednesday privately imploring an agitated Mr. Trump to put aside his objections and back the measure, claiming it as a win." ...
... Ed Kilgore IDs "The Eight Zaniest Things about Trump's Omnibus Veto Threat:... 1) It directly contradicts a presidential tweet from Wednesday night in which Trump conveyed his grudging support for the bill.... 2) It directly contradicts Trump’s own personal assurances to Republican congressional leaders, and the White House’s public assurances to the whole world soon after.... 3) Trump himself caused the DACA problem that he’s now pitching a fit about Congress not fixing.... 4) Negotiations leading to the omnibus — including the immigration provisions and the lack thereof — have been going on for more than six months.... 5) Trump has moved the goalposts on immigration policy, making a deal all but impossible.... 6) Trump waited until Congress was heading out of town before his latest veto threat.... 7) Trump may have issued his veto threat because of a Fox and Friends segment.... 8) If Trump vetoes this bill, his biggest fan will be Bob Corker [who encouraged the veto]."
** "A Detailed Account." Karoun Demirjian of the Washington Post: "Sen. John McCain, whose experience as a prisoner of war in Vietnam has established him as Congress’s moral conscience on torture, asked CIA director nominee Gina Haspel to detail her role in the agency’s enhanced interrogation program. Haspel’s tenure at the CIA, where she serves as deputy director, has been tied to its history of using enhanced interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding, on terrorism suspects in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. At one point, Haspel was in charge of a 'black site' prison where such measures — often referred to as torture — were used. Haspel is also part of a group of CIA officials who were involved in the decision to destroy videotaped evidence of some of the interrogation sessions with detainees. In a letter to Haspel on Friday, McCain (R-Ariz.) asked for 'a detailed account' of her role overseeing the CIA’s interrogation programs between 2001 and 2009.... He also asked her to list the steps she did not take to prevent the CIA from using such measures — and for the names of those who asked her to destroy evidence related to the sessions."
Matthew Rosenberg of the New York Times: "The political action committee founded by John R. Bolton, President Trump’s incoming national security adviser, was one of the earliest customers of Cambridge Analytica, which it hired specifically to develop psychological profiles of voters with data harvested from tens of millions of Facebook profiles, according to former Cambridge employees and company documents. Mr. Bolton’s political committee, known as The John Bolton Super PAC, first hired Cambridge in August 2014, months after the political data firm was founded and while it was still harvesting the Facebook data. In the two years that followed, Mr. Bolton’s super PAC spent nearly $1.2 million primarily for 'survey research,' which is a term that campaigns use for polling, according to campaign finance records.... The contract [between Bolton's group & Cambridge] broadly describes the services to be delivered by Cambridge as 'behavioral microtargeting with psychographic messaging.'” Whistleblower Christopher Wylie said Bolton's group told them they wanted to make "people more militaristic in their worldview.” ...
... New York Times Editors: "There are few people more likely than Mr. Bolton is to lead the country into war. His selection is a decision that is as alarming as any Mr. Trump has made so far. Coupled with his nomination of the hard-line C.I.A. director, Mike Pompeo, as secretary of state, Mr. Trump is indulging his worst nationalistic instincts. Mr. Bolton, in particular, believes the United States can do what it wants without regard to international law, treaties or the political commitments of previous administrations."
Ellen Nakashima & Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post: "The Trump administration on Friday announced sanctions and criminal indictments against an Iranian hacker network it said was involved in 'one of the largest state-sponsored hacking campaigns' ever prosecuted by the United States, targeting hundreds of U.S. and foreign universities, as well as dozens of U.S. companies and government agencies, and the United Nations. None of the alleged hackers were direct employees of the Iranian government, but all worked at the behest of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, officials said. While not the first such punishments imposed on Iran for malicious cyber acts, the new measures address more extensive Iranian efforts than previously alleged."
Darren Samuelsohn of Politico: "... Donald Trump’s top White House lawyer, Don McGahn, is expected to step down later this year, though his resignation is contingent on the president finding a replacement and several other factors, according to four sources familiar with McGahn’s thinking. McGahn, according to two of the sources, has signaled interest in returning to the Jones Day law firm where he previously worked and reprising a role he had during the 2016 campaign by handling legal matters for Trump’s reelection.... Sources said Trump wants to have a new White House counsel in place who he’s comfortable with before clearing McGahn for the exits."
*****
Politico: "... Donald Trump tweeted on Friday morning that he is 'considering a VETO' of a bill funding the government because the legislation does not address DACA recipients and does not fully fund his proposed border wall. The tweet comes after the White House reassured lawmakers that Trump would sign the omnibus spending bill designed to avert a government shutdown that would start on Saturday." More on the bill down the page.
Mark Landler, et al., of the New York Times: "Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, the battle-tested Army officer tapped as President Trump’s national security adviser last year to stabilize a turbulent foreign policy operation, will resign and be replaced by John R. Bolton, a hard-line former United States ambassador to the United Nations, White House officials said Thursday." Mrs. McC: Bolton, besides being a nut, is also a Fox "News" regular commentator. Natch. ...
... Greg Jaffe of the Washington Post: "The president announced the news in a tweet: 'I am pleased to announce that, effective 4/9/18, @AmbJohnBolton will be my new National Security Advisor. I am very thankful for the service of General H.R. McMaster who has done an outstanding job & will always remain my friend. There will be an official contact handover on 4/9.[']" ...
... Jennifer Jacobs & Margaret Talev of Bloomberg: "The move was announced by Trump on Twitter so quickly on Thursday afternoon that many of the president’s top aides didn’t know it was coming. [Open link in private window.] Even by the standards of Trump, it was a turbulent day that left staff frustrated and demoralized. Earlier, the president rattled markets by imposing tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese imports, saw one of his top lawyers in the Russia probe quit in frustration and watched Congress struggle to try to avoid a government shutdown.... The McMaster move also means Trump is heading into talks with North Korea with a new national security team, having also just sacked his top diplomat, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.... Written guidance prepared for the president by White House advisers ahead of Tuesday’s phone [to Vladimir Putin] call explicitly cautioned against complimenting Putin. But in a verbal briefing he personally delivered to Trump before the call, McMaster didn’t emphasize what not to say about the election.... White House Chief of Staff John Kelly was said to be in consultations with Pentagon officials about finding a command that would have allowed McMaster to obtain a fourth star. In a statement released by the White House after his departure was announced, McMaster said he would retire from the military this summer.... Later Thursday night, after Trump announced his replacement, McMaster attended a dinner for visiting Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman in Washington and received a standing ovation after former Florida Governor Jeb Bush pointed him out in the crowd from the stage."
... Alex Ward of Vox: "Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster began his tenure as national security adviser as one of the most celebrated military leaders of his generation. But ... Donald Trump let him go him on Thursday after just over a year in the administration — leaving McMaster’s once-sterling reputation in tatters and the White House in even more disarray.... McMaster perhaps struggled most simply dealing with Trump. A National Security Council (NSC) staffer ... told me that no policy decision Trump took was ever final until it was actually implemented. In other words, it was hard for McMaster and his team to put a policy into place because the president’s wishes sometimes changed on a dime." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Luckily for John Bolton, he never had a "sterling reputation." ...
... Zack Beauchamp of Vox: "Bolton has said the United States should declare war on both North Korea and Iran. He was credibly accused of manipulating US intelligence on weapons of mass destruction prior to the Iraq war and of abusive treatment of his subordinates. He once 'joked' about knocking 10 stories off the UN building in New York. That means his new appointment to be the most important national security official in the White House has significant — and frightening — implications for Trump’s approach to the world." Beauchamp reviews Bolton's glorious career. ...
... "It's Time to Panic Now." Fred Kaplan of Slate: "John Bolton’s appointment as national security adviser — a post that requires no Senate confirmation — puts the United States on a path to war. And it’s fair to say ... Donald Trump wants us on that path.... His agenda is not 'peace through strength,' the motto of more conventional Republican hawks that Trump included in a tweet on Wednesday, but rather regime change through war. He is a neocon without the moral fervor of some who wear that label — i.e., he is keen to topple oppressive regimes not in order to spread democracy but rather to expand American power.... Bolton is not likely to put up with a professional staff, and the flood of White House exiles will soon intensify. Nor is Bolton at all suited to perform one of a national security adviser’s main responsibilities—assembling the Cabinet secretaries to debate various options in foreign and military policy, mediating their differences, and either hammering out a compromise or presenting the choices to the president." Kaplan also reviews Bolton's career. ...
... Jonathan Chait: "Bolton is in some ways the foreign-policy analogue of his domestic counterpart, Lawrence Kudlow, the incoming head of the National Economic Council. Like Kudlow, Bolton is a true-believing ideologue firmly encamped on his party’s right flank, who appears regularly on Fox News to propound ultrasimplistic solutions to the world’s problems, which Trump can easily grasp on his sofa. Also like Kudlow, Bolton has given every indication of being personally committed to Trump, and has not condescended to him. The difference, however, is that Kudlow’s kooky ideas have little chance of enactment given the tenuous Republican control of Congress. Bolton’s foreign-policy notions can be quickly operationalized, given the near-total command the Executive branch has over foreign policy. What’s more, those ideas have the potential to kill large numbers of people." ...
... Trump Foils Kelly's Mass Firing Plan. Eliana Johnson of Politico: "... Donald Trump’s decision to abruptly fire national security adviser H.R. McMaster surprised senior White House aides who had been preparing a single statement announcing the departure of multiple top Trump officials, according to two senior administration officials. White House chief of staff John Kelly and other top aides were waiting for inspector general reports that they believed would deliver devastating verdicts on Veteran Affairs Secretary David Shulkin and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, who have both been accused of racking up extravagant expenses. They were also debating whether several senior White House aides, including McMaster, should go with them." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Ah, well, Trump may yet fire lots of top people in one fell swoop ... including Kelly: ...
... Hallie Jackson & Carol Lee of NBC News: "In the midst of a Cabinet shake-up and a possible staff upheaval..., Donald Trump considered firing his chief of staff this month and not naming a successor, according to three people familiar with the discussions. Trump has mused to close associates about running the West Wing as he did his business empire, essentially serving as his own chief of staff, these people said.In conversations with allies outside the White House, the president envisioned a scenario in which a handful of top aides would report directly to him — bypassing the traditional gatekeeper position."
Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "Rex Tillerson is officially done as secretary of state, but he got in what appeared to be one final dig at President Trump before heading out the door. At the very end of his farewell speech to the State Department on Thursday, Tillerson talked about the importance of maintaining your integrity and having respect for others. Then he turned to politics. 'This can be a very mean-spirited town,' he said, drawing knowing laughs and a round of applause, 'but you don't have to choose to participate in that. Each of us get to choose the person we want to be, and the way we want to be treated, and the way we will treat others.' It's virtually impossible not to connect these comments to Tillerson's ouster. He was fired via tweet, and the No. 4 official at the State Department said Tillerson wasn't given any advance notice. [Mrs. McC: SO Trump fired the No. 4 guy & replaced him with a Fox 'News' alum.] Then, in a closed-door meeting last week, White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly reportedly told staffers that Tillerson received the news of his impending exit while using the toilet.”
Mark Phillips of the New York Times: "Global markets shuddered on Thursday as investors began to take seriously the prospect of a trade war between the world’s two largest economies. Stocks in the United States fell for a second straight day, as President Trump announced $60 billion worth of annual tariffs on Chinese imports, and concerns about growing trade tensions mounted. After wobbling throughout the day, the Standard & Poor’s 500 index turned decisively lower in the last hour of trading, closing down by 2.5 percent. That put the index into negative territory for the year." ...
... Mark Landler & Jim Tankersley of the New York Times: "President Trump said he would impose about $60 billion worth of annual tariffs on Chinese imports on Thursday as the White House moved to punish China for what it says is a pattern of co-opting American technology and trade secrets and robbing companies of jobs and billions of dollars in revenue. The measures come as the White House grants a long list of exemptions to American allies from steel and aluminum tariffs that go into effect on Friday, including the European Union, which has lobbied aggressively and publicly for relief from the trade action." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Trump Tariffs Whack Trump Voters. Heather Long & Andrew Van Dam of the Washington Post: "There are two ways Americans are highly likely to get hurt in a U.S.-China trade spat. First, prices on a lot of items will almost certainly rise, and second, China is going to hit back with tariffs on American products.... Tariffs are basically taxes that mean Americans will pay more when they shop. That's especially true for low-income families who spend a higher share of their paychecks on goods and often buy the cheapest products, families that Trump often thinks of as his base.... Senior Chinese officials have made it clear they'll take 'necessary measures' to retaliate for Trump's tariffs. All indications from Beijing are that China's countertariffs will target goods and jobs in parts of the United States that voted for Trump. At the top of China's list are agricultural products such as soybeans and hogs." ...
... David Lynch of the Washington Post: "The Chinese government fired back hours later, threatening to hit $3 billion in U.S. goods with tariffs.... Among U.S. politicians and business leaders, there is broad agreement that China has violated U.S. intellectual property rights through restrictive licensing arrangements in China and outright cybertheft in the United States. But Thursday’s actions threaten to unravel global supply chains, increase costs for consumers and open the door to Chinese retaliation against U.S. farmers and businesses.... The United States last adopted this sort of uncompromising approach in a 1995 dispute over intellectual property rights. China ultimately acceded to U.S. demands, but today its economy is almost 17 times as big, making it less vulnerable to American pressure. A Sino-U.S. trade war would affect economies that account for roughly 40 percent of global output, which explains the mounting apprehension on Wall Street.... Even [U.S.] business groups that support the goal of requiring changes in Chinese industrial policy voiced opposition to the tariffs." ...
... "Bumbling into a Trade War." Paul Krugman: "... reducing the trade deficit has been a long-term Trump obsession, so you might expect him to learn something about how world trade works, or at least surround himself with people who do understand the subject. But he hasn’t. And what he doesn’t know can and will hurt you.... First came the splashy announcement of big tariffs [on steel & aluminum], ostensibly in the name of national security — infuriating U.S. allies, which are the main source of our steel imports. Then came what looks like a climb-down: The administration has exempted Canada, Mexico, the European Union and others from those tariffs.... Much of the apparent U.S. trade deficit with China — probably almost half — is really a deficit with the countries that sell components to Chinese industry (and with which China runs deficits).... A trade war with 'China' will anger a wider group of countries, some of them close allies. More important, China’s overall trade surplus is not currently a major problem.... Trump may think that our trade deficit with China means that it’s winning and we’re losing, but it just ain’t so. Chinese trade — as opposed to other forms of Chinese malpractice — is the wrong issue to get worked up over in the world of 2018. And here’s the thing: By bumbling into a trade war, Trump undermines our ability to do anything about the real issues." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Wow, Paul, who knew international trade could be so complicated? BTW, I used to think Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) would be a good presidential candidate. But he's an idiot on trade. ...
... digby: "But sure, a crude trade war is just what the doctor ordered. All those Trump voters will be millionaire steel workers and everyone will be happy."
Michael Schmidt & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "The president’s lead lawyer for the special counsel investigation, John Dowd, resigned on Thursday, according to two people briefed on the matter, days after the president called for an end to the inquiry. Mr. Dowd, who took over the president’s legal team last summer, had considered leaving several times in recent months and ultimately concluded that Mr. Trump was increasingly ignoring his advice, one of the people said. Under Mr. Dowd’s leadership, Mr. Trump’s lawyers had advised him to cooperate with the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III.... The president was said to be pleased with Mr. Dowd’s resignation, as he had grown frustrated with him.... Despite claiming otherwise on Twitter, the president has expressed displeasure with his legal team for weeks." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Yes, but Trump's got Joe diGenova now, who will set Bob Mueller to cowered in a corner when Joe excoriates him for operating a cabal to frame our Dear Leader. ...
... Oh, It's a Two-fer. Brooke Singman of Fox "News": "... a source confirmed to Fox News that [Joe diGenova's] wife and law partner, Victoria Toensing, also would represent the president." Mrs. McC: Excellent! She's a goofy winger, too. AND a teevee personality. ...
... Shannon Pettypiece of Bloomberg: "John Dowd resigned as Donald Trump’s attorney amid friction over the hiring of (open in private window) Joseph diGenova, a vocal critic of the Russia probe who has attacked the FBI and the Justice Department, according to three people familiar with the matter.... Dowd was deeply versed in the facts of the case, including the tens of thousands of pages of documents that had been handed over to Mueller and the dozens of witnesses Mueller had interviewed. DiGenova is coming in late to an effort that has been going on since the summer and faces a heavily staffed team of Justice Department investigators on the other side. He also could find himself at odds with Trump’s other lawyers, who have set a tone of cooperation with Mueller. DiGenova, for example, has suggested that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who oversees Mueller’s work, to be removed and appointed as a judge." ...
... Charles Pierce: "If [Ty] Cobb isn’t surreptitiously slipping his valuables out of his White House office by now, he’s not as sharp as he should be. Eventually, the president*’s legal team is going to consist entirely of people who have appeared before Judge Jeannine Pirro." ...
The Failing New York Times purposely wrote a false story stating that I am unhappy with my legal team on the Russia case and am going to add another lawyer to help out. Wrong. I am VERY happy with my lawyers, John Dowd, Ty Cobb and Jay Sekulow. They are doing a great job and..... -- Donald Trump, in a tweet March 11 ...
... Paul Waldman: John Dowd's "departure is yet more evidence that the president will continue to approach the Mueller investigation not as a legal problem but as a PR problem. Which may not be quite as stupid as it seems.... One can’t help but assume that Trump hired people such as Dowd and [Ty] Cobb, established Washington lawyers, on the recommendation of the more reasonable people around him.... On the other hand, Trump has also filled out his legal team with people like such as Jay Sekulow and his latest hire, Joe diGenova, who were almost certainly Trump’s idea, since they have the distinction of appearing often on Fox News.... No matter what he does, the odds that Trump will be criminally indicted are very small.... Trump’s personal culpability will be judged by the political system — in congressional hearings, in the 2020 election and possibly through impeachment. If that’s the case, the greatest protection Trump has is not smart lawyers who can keep him out of trouble but a Republican Party that sees its own self-interest in staying unified behind him. So far, the party has...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Jeff Toobin of the New Yorker: "Dowd’s departure substantially increases the chances that the President will move to fire Mueller — perhaps very soon.... Cobb’s days appear to be numbered, as well. He has long been the lead dove on the President’s legal team, at least relative to his colleagues.... As illustrated by Trump’s increasingly strident tweets about Mueller and his investigation in the past week ... the President wants confrontation, not coöperation, with the prosecutor. DiGenova will surely deliver on that score. Trump’s jittery disquiet is probably exacerbated by his legal problems on other fronts. He now faces three lawsuits from three different women, which are based on his alleged sexual misconduct.... The reaction from congressional Republicans, including Dowd’s departure, suggests that the President has what he wants for getting rid of his pursuer: a green light." ...
... Kristen Welker, et al., of NBC News: The departure of John Dowd "clears the path to begin preparations should an interview [with the special counsel's team] occur, people familiar with the matter said. Trump said Thursday he wants to testify before Mueller." Dowd opposed an interview. ...
... Greg Sargent: "... it now looks as if [Trump is] surrounding himself with people who will tell him that he’s tough and manly enough to vanquish Mueller in a face-to-face interview, rather than those hand-wringers who worried that his uncontrollable lying — not to mention the fact that he might have very good reason to lie — might put him in serious peril." ...
... Adam Raymond of New York: "... the search for new counsel isn’t going so well. Both [Ted] Olson and Emmet Flood, along with two other lawyers, have turned down offers to join Trump’s legal team in the past two weeks, CNN reports. ...
... Who Cares? Trump Is Innocent! Karoun Demirjian of the Washington Post: "The House Intelligence Committee voted Thursday to approve a GOP-authored report stating there is no evidence President Trump or his affiliates colluded with the Russian government during the 2016 U.S. election.... While the vote ends the Russia probe for the panel’s GOP majority, it only stoked the fury of Democrats, who have denounced their colleagues’ findings. The document — whose public release is probably weeks away — also criticizes the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment that Russia sought to help Trump win the presidency. The panel voted in secret session to adopt the report, which will have to be sent to the intelligence community to have classified information redacted before it can be released." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Spencer Ackerman & Kevin Poulsen of the Daily Beast: "Guccifer 2.0, the 'lone hacker' who took credit for providing WikiLeaks with stolen emails from the Democratic National Committee, was in fact an officer of Russia’s military intelligence directorate (GRU), The Daily Beast has learned. It’s an attribution that resulted from a fleeting but critical slip-up in GRU tradecraft.... On one occasion, The Daily Beast has learned, Guccifer failed to activate the [Virtual Private Network] client before logging on. As a result, he left a real, Moscow-based Internet Protocol address in the server logs of an American social media company.... Working off the IP address, U.S. investigators identified Guccifer 2.0 as a particular GRU officer working out of the agency’s headquarters on Grizodubovoy Street in Moscow.... That forensic determination has substantial implications for the criminal probe into potential collusion between ... Donald Trump and Russia.... Trump’s longtime political adviser Roger Stone admitted being in touch with Guccifer over Twitter’s direct messaging service." ...
... Jen Kirby of Vox: "... it will be much harder for Trump, or his defenders, to blame the hack on just 'a 400 pound genius sitting in bed and playing with his computer.' That goes for Stone, who tried to push the narrative that Guccifer 2.0 was a random dude, not the Russians, and released messages the two exchanged to debunk the Kremlin connection. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and other top law enforcement officials are hosting a press conference Friday morning to cover a 'major cyber law enforcement announcement.' It is reportedly not related to Mueller’s investigation, but the timing sure is interesting." ...
... Kevin Drum: "... if the CIA and NSA knew that the DNC hacker was a GRU officer, then they certainly must have briefed President Trump about it. And yet he continued to insist in public that no one really knew for sure if the Russians were behind the campaign hacks.... Did Stone know that he was a GRU agent? I’ll bet Robert Mueller is trying to find out." ...
... Haley Britzky of Axios: "Special counsel Robert Mueller never explicitly implicated Russian President Vladimir Putin in his investigation. Connecting Guccifer to 'Russia's largest foreign intelligence agency' would do exactly that."
"DO NOT CONGRATULATE." Jonathan Chait: BUT "Why does Trump constantly say and do things that make him look guilty? Occam’s razor would offer one explanation. The Republicans have a different one.... Republicans have responded to this [Trump-Putin phone call] episode with outrage. But their indignation is directed [at the leakers who revealed to the WashPo that national security advisors gave him cheat sheets telling him not to congratulate Putin but to scold him for poisoning British residents (which he didn't)]. It is obviously natural to want the White House to avoid leaking. What’s unnatural is the Republican belief that the leaking, rather than the subject of the leaks, is the underlying problem."
Eli Rosenberg & Beth Reinhard of the Washington Post: "Former Playboy model Karen McDougal spoke on camera for the first time about the 10-month affair she says she had with Donald Trump shortly after the birth of his youngest son, baring the relationship’s most intimate details and tracing its arc — from the moment she first met the future president to what she says was her decision to end the romance later — in an intensely personal interview broadcast on national television.... Unlike the belligerent, invective-flinging character people see on television or Twitter, Trump was 'charming,' and 'caring,' said McDougal, who described herself as an avid Republican and proud Trump voter.... The interview came just days after McDougal filed a lawsuit against American Media Inc., which publishes the National Enquirer, in the attempt to void her agreement to sell the story’s rights to the company for $150,000 about three months before the election.... The suit claims that [the man who was ostensibly her attorney, Keith] Davidson, worked secretly with AMI and [Trump attorney Michael] Cohen as 'part of a broad effort to silence and intimidate' her. The $150,000 McDougal was paid for her story was split nearly evenly between her and Davidson — 45 percent went to the lawyer, the complaint says."
Paul Waldman: "Trump's ability to escape accountability in his pre-political life wasn't just about being a wealthy white man, though that was certainly part of it. He learned from his father that certain rules just didn't apply to him.... Whenever anyone Trump had wronged tried to fight back — a small business owner he stiffed, a woman he abused — he had the lawyers handle it.... Trump's ability to escape accountability reached its apotheosis with his presidential run.... Every appalling statement, every fight he picked, every person he offended — and how he emerged unscathed every time — reinforced the old lesson: I can get away with anything. But then he walked into the Oval Office and found that the presidency is surrounded by layers of accountability and constraint.... There may never have been anyone in Trump's life who imposed the kind of accountability on him that [Robert] Mueller threatens to. Trump's tweets about him are cries of impotent rage, coming from a man realizing for the first time that there's another person out there who can make him answer for what he's done."
Cheri Jacobus of USA Today on Melania Trump's supposed anti-cyberbullying campaign: "Mrs. Trump’s anger is not directed at her husband’s daily barrage of hate, lies, smears and bullying on social media. It is not because he has attacked and lied about people like me and then unleashed his army of Twitter trolls to depict me as raped, beheaded, dismembered, shot, stabbed, starved in a concentration camp or grossly disfiguring my face because I am a Trump critic. No, Melania says her anti-cyberbullying crusade (consisting of reading a written statement) is born from a concern for children. It's a shallow, downright laughable claim. No written statement talking about 'the children' and no meeting with social media company executives will accomplish more to eradicate cyberbullying than taking a stand at home with her husband. That’s how you protect children from cyberbullying before they are old enough to be on social media."
Bernard Condon of the AP: "New York City’s buildings regulator launched investigations at more than a dozen Kushner Cos. properties Wednesday following an Associated Press report that the real estate developer routinely filed false paperwork claiming it had zero rent-regulated tenants in its buildings across the city. The Department of Buildings is investigating possible 'illegal activity' involving applications that sought permission to begin construction work at 13 of the developer’s buildings, according to public records maintained by the regulator. The AP reported Sunday that Kushner Cos. stated in more than 80 permit applications that it had zero rent-regulated tenants in its buildings when it, in fact, had hundreds." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Zachary Cohen of CNN: "The US has dropped charges against 11 of the 15 bodyguards for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who were indicted after a brawl with protesters outside the country's embassy in Washington last May, a spokesperson for the US Attorney in DC told CNN on Thursday. Motions to dismiss the charges against seven of the security officers were filed on February 14 -- just one day before President Donald Trump's now former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson traveled to Ankara to meet with Erdogan. 'The decisions were made after further review of evidence in the case that raised questions about the identification of individuals,' a source familiar told CNN. The source said they are not aware of any political pressure having an impact on the decisions to dismiss charges as they were based on evidentiary review that continued during the case."
Every Republican would vote against this disgusting pork bill if a Democrat were president. This spending kegger is a wildly irresponsible use of the taxpayers’ money, and the president should not sign it. -- Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.)
In all honesty, none of us know what is actually in this bill. -- Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) ...
... ** Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: "After a scare over whether a fiscally conservative senator [Rand Paul (R-Ky.)] might force a brief government shutdown this weekend, along with an unexpected grievance from another senator [Jim Risch (R-Idaho)]..., the Senate voted 65 to 32 to approve the bill around 12:30 Friday morning.... On Thursday, [Paul] fumed about the bill in a series of Twitter posts, offering observations as he made his way through the legislation, which he said took more than two hours to print in his office.... Jim Risch ... was unhappy with a measure that had been tucked into the spending bill renaming the White Clouds Wilderness in his state.... The wilderness will be named for Cecil D. Andrus, a four-term Democratic governor of Idaho who was interior secretary under President Jimmy Carter. Mr. Andrus died last year, and [late Thursday] Mr. Risch objected to the provision affixing his name to the wilderness.... Government funding was set to expire Friday night, but by approving the bill, lawmakers moved to avert what would have been the third shutdown of the year." ...
... ** Mike DeBonis & Erica Werner of the Washington Post: "The House on Thursday passed a sweeping $1.3 trillion spending bill that makes good on President Trump’s promises to increase military funding while blocking most of his proposed cuts to domestic programs and placing obstacles to his immigration agenda. The 2,232-page bill, which was released just before 8 p.m. Wednesday, would keep government agencies operating through September. Congressional leaders muscled the bill through the chamber, tossing aside rules to ensure careful deliberation of legislation to meet a Friday night government shutdown deadline. The bill includes dozens of miscellaneous provisions, ranging from crucial fixes to the recent GOP tax bill to a measure on employee tips to language codifying that minor-league baseball players are exempt from federal labor laws.... The bill passed on a 256-to-167 vote after leaders of both parties hailed the compromise. At the White House, Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said Trump would sign the bill." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Andrew Desiderio of the Daily Beast: "Buried in the massive $1.3 trillion spending bill ... are strict new punishments against Russia, in what lawmakers and aides say is a message to ... Donald Trump to reconsider his relaxed posture toward Moscow. The legislation, which Trump was always expected to sign, includes restrictions that bar many federal agencies from engaging financially or otherwise with the Kremlin and its backers on a number of fronts. Lawmakers from both parties viewed those provisions and others as an opportunity to enshrine new punishments against Vladimir Putin’s regime at a time when the Trump administration has taken heat for its refusal to immediately and fully implement mandatory sanctions and other punishments." ...
... Li'l Randy Can't Decide Whether or Not to Make a Scene. Burgess Everett of Politico: "The junior senator from Kentucky is refusing to rule out forcing another brief government shutdown over his protests of the $1.3 trillion spending bill, which he has called 'budget-busting' and a return to 'Obama spending and trillion-dollar deficits.' Fellow senators are trying desperately to persuade him to let the Senate vote on the spending bill Thursday and avoid unnecessarily keeping them in town on Friday and into the weekend." ... Update: He decided not to.
Congressional Races. Timothy Gardner & Valerie Volcovici of Reuters: "The main U.S. coal miners’ union is set to endorse two Democrats ... in West Virginia, two sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday - a boost for Democrats trying to win over a constituency that voted heavily for Republican Donald Trump in 2016. The United Mine Workers of America on Friday will endorse Richard Ojeda for U.S. Representative in the state’s third district, as well as incumbent Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat and former West Virginia governor, the sources said. They asked not to be named as they were discussing a confidential matter."
Gubernatorial Race. Celebrity Nation. Frank Bruni of the New York Times: "On Monday, [Cynthia] Nixon, a brilliant actress best known for the HBO series 'Sex and the City,' stepped forward to challenge the incumbent, [New York Gov.] Andrew Cuomo, in this year’s Democratic primary. Her announcement took the form of a video about her biography and her values. Missing from those two slickly produced minutes was even a syllable about her experience.... Little on her résumé is directly relevant to the big, difficult job that she nonetheless wants.... Shouldn’t experience count in politics...?... what’s going on with [Oprah] Winfrey and Nixon — and what went on with Trump — is about the lazy deference to celebrities in these fame-mad times.... Much of what’s going on also reflects cynicism about the status quo.... While the political arena needs some fresh faces and demands many fresh ideas, there are entry points more appropriate than the governor’s mansion.... Genius in one arena doesn’t guarantee competence in another. Nor does experience, but it’s the safer bet."
Paul Lewis & Paul Hilder of the Guardian: "The blueprint for how Cambridge Analytica claimed to have won the White House for Donald Trump by using Google, Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube is revealed for the first time in an internal company document obtained by the Guardian. The 27-page presentation was produced by the Cambridge Analytica officials who worked most closely on Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. A former employee explained to the Guardian how it details the techniques used by the Trump campaign to micro-target US voters with carefully tailored messages about the Republican nominee across digital channels. Intensive survey research, data modelling and performance-optimising algorithms were used to target 10,000 different ads to different audiences in the months leading up to the election. The ads were viewed billions of times, according to the presentation." ...
... ** Sue Halpern of the New Yorker has a terrific piece on the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal, much of which, she points out, has been reported beginning in December 2015. "For more than a year, [Carole] Cadwalladr [of the Guardian] has done yeoman work, reporting on the nihilism of Bannon and the Mercers, the cravenness of Nix, and connecting the dots between them and Trump and Facebook. But those millions of Facebook profiles do not in fact constitute a breach: they were obtained legally. Nobody hacked Facebook — nor would they have had to — because the business model of Facebook is predicated on mining the personal details of its two billion users." Mrs. McC: If you haven't to catch Mark Zuckerberg tearing up about how he went home every day hoping to be able to tell his daughters he had done good work that day, you'll want to punch the little punk in the face. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
... Mrs. McCrabbie BTW: If you don't think the MSM is an essential part of democracy, bear in mind that it was "fake news" reporters who revealed Facebook's perfidy, and -- as far as we know now -- did the reporting that undergirds Bob Mueller's entire investigation (not to mention Kushner Co. shenanigans). ...
... John Hendel of Politico: "The House Energy and Commerce Committee will summon Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to testify, following recent revelations that Trump-linked Cambridge Analytica improperly obtained information on some 50 million Facebook users." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... ** David Remnick of the New Yorker: "The question is whether the barons of Silicon Valley can move beyond ritual statements of regret and assurance to a genuine self-accounting. In November, 2016, when Facebook was first presented with evidence that its platform had been exploited by Russian hackers to Trump’s advantage, Mark Zuckerberg, serene and arrogant, dismissed the suggestion as 'pretty crazy.' [Mrs. McC: Nine days later, President Obama warned Zuckerberg there was nothing crazy about. Zuck brushed off the POTUS.] As Nicholas Thompson and Fred Vogelstein write, in Wired, it took Zuckerberg at least a year to fully acknowledge Facebook’s role in the election drama and take action.... What we’ve learned from the scandals that have beset Silicon Valley of late is what we learned from the scandals that beset the Catholic Church: a self-protective assumption of righteousness can make it harder to acknowledge and confront patterns of abuse." Mrs. McC: Remnick's takedown of Trump, at the top of this piece, is mighty fine. ...
... Alex Shephard of the New Republic: "Zuckerberg’s official statement was a mix of arrogance ('The good news is that the most important actions to prevent this from happening again today we have already taken years ago') and defensiveness ('I’m serious about doing what it takes to protect our community'); on CNN, in contrast, he was clearly rattled, stumbling and sweating over straightforward, predictable questions. In both instances, Zuckerberg did the bare minimum, shying away from taking genuine responsibility while pouring most of the blame on Cambridge Analytica.... At no time did Zuckerberg reckon with the real issue, which is that Facebook’s whole business model is predicated on selling user data to advertisers and companies like Cambridge Analytica.... [The steps Zuckerberg says Facebook will take] fall short of serious accountability, such as an independent audit of the social network’s privacy protections."
Tiffany Hsu of the New York Times: "Citigroup is setting restrictions on the sale of firearms by its business customers, making it the first Wall Street bank to take a stance in the divisive nationwide gun control debate. The new policy, announced Thursday, prohibits the sale of firearms to customers who have not passed a background check or who are younger than 21. It also bars the sale of bump stocks and high-capacity magazines. It would apply to clients who offer credit cards backed by Citigroup or borrow money, use banking services or raise capital through the company." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Beyond the Beltway
** Patrick Marley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "Dealing a setback to Gov. Scott Walker and other Republicans, a judge ruled Thursday the governor must call special elections to fill two vacant seats in the Legislature. Walker declined to call those elections after two GOP lawmakers stepped down to join his administration in December. His plan would have left the seats vacant for more than a year. Voters in those areas took him to court with the help of a group headed by Eric Holder, the first attorney general under Democratic President Barack Obama. Dane County Circuit Judge Josann Reynolds — whom Walker appointed to the bench in 2014 — determined Walker had a duty under state law to hold special elections so voters could have representation in the Legislature. She said failing to hold special elections infringed on the voting rights of people who lived in the two districts."
Brian Rosenthal of the New York Times: "A Long Island restaurateur testified under oath on Thursday that he steered tens of thousands of dollars to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s political campaigns in return for favorable treatment by the city. It was the first time that the restaurateur, Harendra Singh, has publicly detailed his efforts to use campaign contributions — as much as $80,000 raised from others, and much more personally by using 'straw donors' to skirt contribution limits — to gain better terms during lease negotiations for one of his restaurants. Mr. Singh also suggested for the first time that Mr. de Blasio not only knew of the illegal arrangement, but that the mayor encouraged it and actively helped the restaurateur."
Alex Horton & Wesley Lowery of the Washington Post: "Police say they saw an object in Stephon Clark’s hand before they fired 20 bullets that killed him in his back yard Sunday night in Sacramento, [California,] a disturbing moment that was made public through body camera footage released Wednesday night. The two officers were responding to a 911 call about a man breaking vehicle windows when they encountered, then killed, Clark, an unarmed black man.... The gun officers thought Clark had in his hand was actually a white iPhone." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
News Ledes
New York Times: "A gunman opened fire and took hostages at a supermarket in southwestern France on Friday, in what the prime minister called a 'serious situation,' rattling nerves in a country that has been the site of several terrorist attacks in recent years. An armed man entered a Super U market in Trèbes, about 50 miles southeast of Toulouse, claiming to be acting on behalf of the Islamic State, although his connection to the militant group was unclear." ...
... New Lede: "A gunman killed three people in southwestern France on Friday in a burst of violence that included hijacking a car, shooting at police officers and opening fire and taking hostages in a supermarket. The gunman, who witnesses said claimed to be acting on behalf of the Islamic State, was later killed by police officers who stormed the market. An officer wounded after exchanging places with some hostages was 'fighting against death' in the hospital on Friday night, President Emmanuel Macron said."
Baltimore Sun: "... the parents of the 16-year-old girl wounded in the school shooting at Great Mills High School in Southern Maryland said they would take her off life support Thursday evening. Jaelynn Willey was left brain-dead after a 17-year-old boy shot her in the head Tuesday morning, said her mother, Melissa Willey."
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