The Commentariat -- February 9, 2018
Afternoon Update:
Trump is all sad about the fate of poor Rob Porter, could not care less about the women Porter physically attacked; in fact, implies they lied & Rob is the victim:
Get out There & Lie for Me. -- Kelly. Philip Rucker & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly on Friday morning instructed senior staff to communicate a version of events about the departure of staff secretary Rob Porter that contradicts the Trump administration's previous accounts, according to two senior officials. During a staff meeting, Kelly told those in attendance to say he took action to remove Porter within 40 minutes of learning abuse allegations from two ex-wives were credible, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because discussions in such meetings are supposed to be confidential. 'He told the staff he took immediate and direct action,' one of the officials said, adding that people after the meeting expressed disbelief with one another and felt his latest account was not true. That version of events contradicts both the public record and accounts from numerous other White House officials in recent days as the Porter drama unfolded."
Carol Leonnig, et al., of the Washington Post: "For much of the past year, President Trump has declined to participate in a practice followed by the past seven of his predecessors: He rarely if ever reads the President's Daily Brief, a document that lays out the most pressing information collected by U.S. intelligence agencies from hot spots around the world. Trump has opted to rely on an oral briefing of select intelligence issues in the Oval Office rather than getting the full written document delivered to review separately each day, according to three people familiar with his briefings.... Several intelligence experts said that the president's aversion to diving deeper into written intelligence details -- the 'homework' that past presidents have done to familiarize themselves with foreign policy and national security -- makes both him and the country more vulnerable." ...
... OR, to put it a bit less diplomatically, Jonathan Chait: "When Donald Trump was elected president, it quickly became obvious that the traditional national-security briefing a person in his position receives daily would be well beyond his zone of proximal development. The briefings were slimmed down in length, chopped up into easy-to-digest bullet points, and decorated with lots of graphs and pictures. Alas, the Washington Post reports, even the kiddie version of the presidential brief has proven too challenging. Now, Trump gets his briefing verbally.... Perhaps not surprisingly, while the verbal method comports with Trump's preferred learning style, he does not show very strong listening skills." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Actually, POTUS* gets his PDB not from the intelligence community, whom he doesn't trust, but from Fox "News." And he doesn't always understand their fractured fairy tales, either, which explains why Trump got enraged about getting his "wires tapped," about a terrorist attack in Sweden that never happened, & about a "bombshell" report that President Obama was monitoring the Clinton e-mail investigation (presumably in order to rig the 2016 presidential election). Also why he has no idea Russia actually tried to rig the election.
Another Fox "News" Half-Story to Rile Trump. Alayna Treene of Axios: "Sen. Mark Warner [D-Va.], vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, texted last year with Adam Waldman, a D.C. lobbyist connected to Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, in an attempt to gain a meeting with Christopher Steele, the author of the controversial Trump-Russia dossier, according to text messages obtained by Fox News. Yes, but: While the Fox News report put an emphasis on the 'secrecy' of Warner's messages, Warner issued a statement to Fox News with Senate Intel Chair Richard Burr indicating that the report doesn't paint a full picture: 'From the beginning of our investigation we have taken each step in a bipartisan way, and we intend to continue to do so. Leaks of incomplete information out of context by anyone, inside or outside our committee, are unacceptable.... Republican Sen. Marco Rubio confirmed that disclosure in a tweet yesterday, defending Warner's actions: 'Sen.Warner fully disclosed this to the committee four months ago. Has had zero impact on our work....'... A key paragraph [of the Fox report]: 'An aide to Burr knew there was a "back channel" Warner was using to try and get to Steele and was not concerned that Warner was freelancing on the matter.'"
Mark Osborne & Adam Kelsey of ABC News: mike pence disparaged the military parade North Korea held Thursday, but "heartily supports" Trump's proposed military parade.
*****
So it's midnight as I write, & your government has officially turned off the lights. Thanks, Li'l Randy! -- Mrs. Bea McCrabbie
The Trump Slump, Ctd. Tiffany Tsu & Matt Phillips of the New York Times: "Major stock indexes suffered a steep drop in late trading on Thursday, the second straight day that stocks plunged shortly before the markets closed. The 3.75 percent decline pushed the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index down more than 10 percent from its peak in late January. That means the market is technically in correction territory -- a term used to indicate that a downward trend is more severe than simply a few days of bearish trading.... In addition to the S. & P. 500's drop on Thursday, the Dow Jones industrial average fell 4.15 percent. The Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index -- a measure of the choppiness of markets -- surged by 21 percent." ...
... Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "The Dow Jones industrial average fell more than a thousand points on Thursday. It wasn't the largest single-day drop in history, but only because the drop on Monday was bigger. So, thanks to the big drop earlier in the week, Thursday's was the second-biggest drop in history.... The Dow Jones industrial average has now lost 40.6 percent of the value it had added since Trump's inauguration as of the peak it hit on January 26.... So far, the White House seems sanguine about the fluctuations in the market, pointing to the underlying economic metrics that show more stability than the week's fluctuations in the Dow. That approach is completely fair. But for a president who only last week touted the growth in the markets as an indicator of his policy successes, it's worth noting when that metric suddenly sinks by more than 40 percent."
Thomas Kaplan of the New York Times: "The House gave final approval early Friday to a far-reaching budget deal that will reopen the federal government and boost spending by hundreds of billions of dollars, hours after a one-man blockade by Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky delayed the votes and forced the government to close. House Democrats, after threatening to bring the bill down because it did nothing to protect young undocumented immigrants, gave Speaker Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin the votes he did not have in his own party and ensured passage. In the end, 73 House Democrats voted yes to more than offset the 67 Republicans who voted no. Just before the vote, Mr. Ryan voiced support for bringing a debate on immigration to the House floor -- though he did not make a concrete promise, as Democratic leaders had wanted.... The Senate finally passed the measure, 71 to 28, shortly before 2 a.m. The House followed suit around 5:30 a.m., voting 240 to 186 for the bill." (This is an update of a report linked earlier.) ...
... Mike DeBonis & Erica Werner of the Washington Post: "President Trump tweeted that he signed the bill, officially ending the second shutdown of his presidency."
... Margaret Hartmann: "Shortly after 11 p.m., the Senate recessed until 12:01 a.m. without passing the spending bill, meaning the government will officially shutdown -- at least briefly -- for the second time in three weeks. Senator Ted Cruz, who knows a thing or two about shutdowns, happened to be presiding over the chamber at the time." ...
Rand Paul voted for a tax bill that blew a $1.5 trillion hole in the budget. Now he is shutting the government down for three hours because of the debt. The chance to demonstrate fiscal discipline was on the tax vote. -- Sen. -- Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), in a tweet yesterday
... Rand's Stand. Burgess Everett of Politico: Sen. "Rand Paul is on course to drive the government into a brief government shutdown over his demands for an amendment to slash government spending, annoying his colleagues with his latest one-man assault on federal spending. The Kentucky Republican is upending congressional leaders' plan to quickly pass a budget deal on Thursday after clinching the agreement on Wednesday. The Senate needs consent from all 100 senators to hold a vote before the midnight funding deadline, and Paul is refusing to grant it without a vote on his amendment.... Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) tried to set up a vote on the budget deal beginning at 6 p.m., and Paul objected on the floor. The result could be the second government shutdown in a period of three weeks, though it would likely be brief." ...
... Mike DeBonis & Erica Werner: "Hours to a midnight shutdown deadline, congressional leaders scrambled to rally support for a sweeping half-trillion-dollar spending deal Thursday amid last-minute objections from a conservative in the Senate, and attacks from left and right in the House. As opposition appeared to swell in the House and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) threw up last-minute roadblocks in the Senate, White House Office of Management and Budget spokesman John Czwartacki said that 'agencies are now being urged to review and prepare for lapse' in spending after midnight." ...
... Thursday in Paul Ryan Flim-Flam. Alayna Treene of Axios: "House Speaker Paul Ryan zeroed in on his commitment to solve the Dreamers problem and find a DACA fix Thursday, but said he only wants to bring a bill that the president supports to the floor: 'To anyone who doubts my intention to solve this problem and bring up a DACA and immigration reform bill, do not,' said Ryan. 'I want to make sure it gets done right the first time. I don't want to risk a veto.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McC: Why, that's right odd, because he didn't feel a bit constrained by the presidunce*'s wishlist when it came to the budget bill, & Trump jumped right on that bandwagon. ...
... Melanie Zanona of the Hill: "Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said on Thursday that he believes he has the votes needed to pass a massive budget deal and avoid a government shutdown, despite pushback from both the left and right over the bipartisan deal." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Paul Krugman: "If anything, we should be using this time of relatively full employment to pay down debt, or at least reduce it relative to G.D.P. 'The boom, not the slump, is the time for austerity at the Treasury,' wrote John Maynard Keynes. But Republicans have turned that sage advice on its head. They are providing more stimulus to an economy with 4 percent unemployment than they were willing to allow an economy with 8 percent unemployment [in 2011].... How do we know Republicans were never sincere about the deficit?... [Their] proposals always involved giant tax cuts for the wealthy -- funny how that worked -- offset by savage cuts in social benefits.... Even at the peak of their deficit-hawk posturing, all Republicans really had to offer was redistribution from the poor to the rich.... And I don't think it's unfair to suggest that there was an element of deliberate economic sabotage.... Basically, they were against anything that might help the economy on President Obama's watch." ...
... Jonathan Chait says, yeah, it's sabotage: "Republicans have used their control of government to virtually double the budget deficit, which had been hovering around half a trillion dollars per year, and will now likely run well over $1 trillion -- during the peak of an economic expansion. There is no economic rationale for this behavior. Their policy is simply to support fiscal contraction under Democratic presidents and fiscal expansion under Republican ones. Cynicism is the only basis to explain their behavior."
Finally, a Wall! Olivia Gazis of CBS News: "In a sign of increasing partisan hostilities, Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee plan to construct a wall -- a physical partition -- separating Republican and Democratic staff members in the committee's secure spaces, according to multiple committee sources. It's expected to happen this spring. For now, some Republican committee members deny knowing anything about it, while strongly suggesting the division is the brainchild of the committee's chairman, Devin Nunes, R-California." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Manu Raju & Jeremy Herb of CNN: "Last month, an attorney expressed his outrage with leaders of the House Intelligence Committee: He demanded to know why a committee official shared his client's secret testimony with another lawyer, a blatant violation of the panel's rules. Days later, the committee instead sent a subpoena signed by Chairman Devin Nunes demanding that the witness -- an associate to Sen. John McCain who had met with ex-British agent Christopher Steele -- reappear before the committee on short notice. News of the subpoena was reported by a conservative media outlet just 10 minutes after the witness received it. The episode,... underscores the aggressive tactics Nunes and several of his senior staffers have employed to undercut Steele's dossier of allegations tying Donald Trump and his associates to Russia."
Kyle Cheney of Politico: "The FBI was monitoring Carter Page when the former Trump campaign adviser says he spoke with Trump adviser Steve Bannon about Russia in January 2017, raising the strong possibility that the FBI intercepted a conversation between the two men.... Bannon hasn't been accused of any impropriety.... In November testimony to the House Intelligence Committee, Page told lawmakers that Bannon called him sometime shortly before Trump's Jan. 21, 2017 inauguration, asking him to cancel a planned television appearance on that day. By then the former investment banker and energy consultant had long been exiled from the Trump orbit following reports that he was under investigation for ties to Moscow.... Page [said] that he and Bannon spoke not just about the television appearance but about the [Steele] dossier itself, though he did not offer details."
Alec Luhn of the (U.K.) Telegraph: "A Russian deputy prime minister secretly met with oligarch Oleg Deripaska to discuss US relations after Paul Manafort reportedly offered Mr Deripaska briefings on the Trump campaign, according to videos discovered by a Russian opposition activist. While a recorded snippet of Mr Deripaska's alleged conversation with Sergei Prikhodko, deputy prime minister and head of the government executive office, does not specifically mention Donald Trump, the fact of their meeting on a yacht raises further questions of collusion with Vladimir Putin's government. The rendezvous at sea with Mr Prikhodko suggests a cosy relationship between Mr Deripaska, the president and largest shareholder of the aluminium giant Rusal, and the Russian government."
Rachel Bade & John Bresnahan of Politico: "The criminal investigation into Rep. Duncan Hunter is intensifying as a grand jury in San Diego questions multiple former aides about whether the California Republican improperly diverted political funds for personal use. Federal prosecutors have subpoenaed Hunter's parents, as well as a female lobbyist with whom many people close to the congressman believe he had a romantic relationship, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the investigation. The Justice Department is trying to determine whether hundreds of thousands of dollars from Hunter's campaign account were spent improperly on his family and friends. Hunter already sold his home to pay back what even he now acknowledges were improper charges, moving his wife and kids in with his parents while he mostly lives in his Capitol Hill office." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Sarah Bailey of the Washington Post: "President Trump delivered a God-and-country-infused speech Thursday at the National Prayer Breakfast, appealing to Americans who believe in Christian nationalism -- the belief that God has a uniquely Christian purpose for the United States." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Maggie Haberman, et al., of the New York Times: "White House officials conceded Thursday that they regretted the way they handled accusations against Rob Porter, the staff secretary who resigned Wednesday after two former wives publicly accused him of abusing them. But they refused to provide any information about when President Trump's most senior advisers first learned about the episodes. [Porter] He left behind questions about whether Mr. Kelly and other members of Mr. Trump's inner circle had been willing to ignore serious episodes of domestic violence to protect a trusted aide who had denied they ever happened and about how Mr. Porter could have continued in his job when it was known that his permanent high-level security clearance had been held up.... Jennifer Willoughby, one of Mr. Porter's former wives, said in an interview that in September, Mr. Porter had told her that White House officials had informed him his security clearance 'had not gone through.' Ms. Willoughby, who said Mr. Porter abused her during their marriage, said 'someone had told him that there was a violent allegation and that was what was holding it up.'" ...
... Nicole Lafond of TPM: "Jennifer Willoughby, an ex-wife of former White House aide Rob Porter who has come forward with allegations of domestic abuse, said Thursday that Porter asked her this week to 'downplay' her accusations." Mrs. McC: If you read the whole exchange, I think you'll conclude that Porter asked Willoughby to lie. Depending upon what she said in her FBI interviews, that could subject her to criminal prosecution. ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: I'm curious as to why the White House sent out a man -- Raj Shah -- to handle the press briefing instead of Mrs. Huckleberry. I can't recall that Shah, the deputy press secretary, has run the briefing from the White House before. Did Mrs. Huckleberry have the vapors, or what? As Trump would say, she knew what she signed up for. ...
... Philip Rucker of the Washington Post: "White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly first found his credibility being challenged in October, when he leveraged his standing as a retired four-star Marine Corps general who had lost a son on the battlefield to try to contain a political crisis over President Trump's calls to the families of fallen soldiers. His reputation took another hit when he later refused to apologize for falsely attacking a Democratic congresswoman. And another when he called Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee 'honorable' and blamed the Civil War on a lack of compromise. And yet another when early this week he said some immigrants known as 'dreamers' were 'too lazy to get off their asses.' Then came the Rob Porter saga.... This week, Kelly defended Porter on Tuesday after the Daily Mail published a detailed account of Porter's alleged abuse of his second wife. On Wednesday, after photographs of his first wife with a black eye surfaced, as well as more allegations from both women, Kelly stood by Porter, who has denied the allegations. Only after Porter announced he would resign, and with the matter blowing into a media firestorm, did Kelly issue a second statement." ...
... Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "... it is remarkable just how wrong the White House got this one.... Assuming [reporting] is accurate, it's an indictment of how the White House handled Porter's entire employment and an even bigger indictment of the staff's initial reactions to the news Tuesday. It's tough to believe nobody was asking questions about why Porter hadn't received a full security clearance.... It's impossible to understand how Kelly was truly 'shocked' by any of this. It's also really, really hard to understand why the White House didn't check to make doubly sure that their initial statements about Porter wouldn't come back to bite them -- especially on an issue as sensitive as domestic abuse. President Trump has repeatedly assured that he only hires the best people. This episode suggests the White House staff is either incompetent or has way too much hubris." ...
... S.V. Date of the Huffington Post: "... a Republican close to the White House ... said Kelly received word last fall that Porter had failed his security clearance investigation because of the domestic abuse reports. Porter at that time told Kelly he would leave the White House in December but agreed to stay at Kelly's urging, the Republican said on condition of anonymity." Mrs. McC: If this is true, it stands to reason that at least by December, Kelly would have challenged the FBI to find out whatall was so bad in Porter's background that would cause him to be ineligible for security clearance. The FBI, BTW, according to teevee reports, received the black-eye photos in January 2017, so they certainly would have shared them with Kelly had he challenged their decision. ...
... BUT. Eliana Johnson of Politico: "White House chief of staff John Kelly was told several weeks ago that the FBI would deny full security clearances to multiple White House aides who had been working in the West Wing on interim security clearances. Those aides, according to a senior administration official, included former White House staff secretary Rob Porter, who left the White House on Thursday after reports that he physically and verbally abused his two ex-wives. The White House chief-of-staff told confidants in recent weeks that he had decided to fire anyone who had been denied a clearance -- but had yet to act on that plan before the Porter allegations were first reported this week." Mrs. McC: Does that mean Kelly was going to fire Kushner? Even before Jared negotiates the Middle East peace agreement? ...
... THEN AGAIN. Josh Dawsey & Beth Reinhard of the Washington Post: "White House Counsel Donald McGahn knew one year ago that staff secretary Rob Porter's ex-wives were prepared to make damaging accusations about him but allowed him to serve as an influential gatekeeper and aide to President Trump without investigating the accusations, according to people familiar with the matter. Chief of Staff John F. Kelly learned this fall about the allegations of spousal abuse and that they were delaying Porter's security clearance amid an ongoing FBI investigation. But Kelly handed Porter more responsibilities.... In January 2017, when McGahn learned of the allegations, he wanted Porter to stay put because he saw the Harvard Law-trained Capitol Hill veteran as a steadying, professional voice in the White House.... When McGahn informed Kelly this fall about the reason for the security clearance holdup, he agreed that Porter should remain and said he was surprised to learn that the 40-year-old had ex-wives. Talk about Porter's past started spreading throughout the White House after a former girlfriend told McGahn in November that he should investigate the abuse alleged by the ex-wives.... Law enforcement officials said the FBI does not make any security clearance determinations or recommendations, but rather provides a report at the end of an investigation to the hiring agency, which makes the decision." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: If this is the case, then -- save for news reports -- the White House/"hiring agency" would have decided Porter was A-OK, given him his tippy-top-secrect clearance & that would have been the end of it. ...
... Aaron Blake: "It's really difficult not to call this a scandal now.... What really seems to have changed for the White House is that they realized the pictures made their position untenable, from a public relations standpoint. Even when they were confronted with information about Porter that they didn't care to seek out themselves -- as they were promoting him up the ranks '' they played it off as if it were a minor nuisance. They seemed to try their hardest not to find out whether someone they respected as a colleague might have done something truly awful, and when they did, they were prepared to defend him until they could no longer do so, because of either hubris or incompetence." ...
... Peter Baker & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "The president has little tolerance for aides who attract negative media attention that spills onto him, and in recent days Mr. Kelly has drawn a string of unwelcome headlines.... White House officials said privately that the president was frustrated with both Mr. Kelly and the White House communications director, Hope Hicks, who in recent weeks has been dating Mr. Porter.... Mr. Kelly has previously played down accusations against someone he believed served a greater goal. He appeared as a character witness in a 2016 court-martial of a Marine colonel accused of sexually harassing two female subordinates. Mr. Kelly praised the colonel as a 'superb Marine officer.'" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Here's my favorite excuse for Kelly in Baker & Haberman's report: Friends and associates noted that with Mr. Kelly's lack of experience in Washington politics, he may not have been attuned at first to how the domestic abuse allegations against Mr. Porter would be perceived. So Kelly thought that most people (or most Washington politicos??) would "perceive" that it was okay for a man to repeatedly beat up on two wives & a girlfriend. That's perhaps an inconsequential optic? Who thinks that?? Oh, I know -- a guy who testifies that a serial sexual harasser is a "superb Marine officer." ...
... Gabriel Sherman of Vanity Fair: "On Wednesday night, Donald Trump vented to advisers that [John] Kelly had not fully briefed him on [Rob] Porter's issues with women until recently, two sources told me. Trump was also not aware of the severity of the alleged abuse until yesterday, when Ivanka walked into the Oval Office and showed her father a photo published in the Daily Mail of Porter's ex-wife with a black eye. 'He was fucking pissed,' said one Republican briefed on the conversation. According to a source, Ivanka and Jared Kushner have been discussing possible chief-of-staff replacements.... According to a source, Kelly at first pushed back when White House officials wanted him to issue a second statement walking back his initial strong defense of Kelly [Porter]. The crisis also raises questions about Hope Hicks's decision-making, and whether her romantic relationship with Porter clouded her judgment. According to a source, Hicks did not get a sign off from Trump for the White House's initial statement defending Porter, in which Kelly was quoted calling Porter a 'man of true integrity.' She drafted the statement with her close friend, Kushner's White House spokesman Josh Raffel.... This morning, Hicks continued to defend Porter in private, a source said, telling people she thinks the allegations aren't true. In recent weeks, Trump has been angry at Hicks for her role in approving interviews with Michael Wolff...." ...
... M.J. Lee of CNN: "The current husband of one of Rob Porter's ex-wives emailed the FBI last January expressing concern that a close friend of the former White House aide was 'actively working to quell' background check issues. Skiffington Holderness, the current husband of Porter's first ex-wife, Colbie Holderness, said in an email to the FBI obtained by CNN that he had several conversations with Porter's friend, Bryan Cunningham. The email details those conversations, including one in which Cunningham allegedly reacted positively when Holderness said his wife was not inclined to talk to the FBI regarding Porter's background check. Cunningham, according to the email, said 'that was good,' she was 'not obligated' to speak with the FBI, and that they should 'bury the past.'" Cunningham denied the story. ...
... Judd Legum of ThinkProgress argues that John Kelly's coverup of Rob Porter's (alleged) physical abuse of his ex-wives & a girlfriend -- and the resulting inability to obtain a security clear for Porter, who handled top-secret documents every day -- is a firing offense. Mrs. McC: The White House is apparently claiming Trump had no idea of the allegations against Porter till yesterday. If that's true (and I doubt it), that should be added to the list of "Reasons to Fire John Kelly." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Jonathan Swan of Axios: But odds are that Trump won't fire Kelly, partly because Kelly doesn't want the job anyway. ...
... Lachlan Markay & Asawin Suebsaeng of the Daily Beast: "Late Tuesday night, senior White House officials reached out to Sen. Orrin Hatch's (R-UT) office [and asked them to] to put together a statement praising his former chief of staff and then-White House Staff Secretary Rob Porter. At issue was a story that was about to pop from the British tabloid, the Daily Mail, in which two of Porter's ex-wives detailed the emotional and physical abuse they endured by him. The White House officials told Hatch's office that the story was the product of a 'smear campaign' being orchestrated against Porter by his political enemies. Among those they pinpointed was ... Corey Lewandowski.... Multiple White House staffers told Hatch himself that Lewandowski 'was digging into Rob's previous marriages,' recalled one source, who said Porter himself was among the officials who fingered Lewandowski." Mrs. McC: Hatch obliged, & of course ended up with egg on his face -- & the need to retract his laudatory statement. He might be displeased at being duped by White House staff. ...
... Mrs. McC: Oops! No. I missed an important addendum to the sequence of the Hatch Theory of Punching out Women. Michelle Goldberg: "... after the black-eye photograph of [Rob Porter's former wife Colbie] Holderness was published, Hatch issued a statement saying that domestic violence is 'abhorrent.' But after that, he gave an interview in which he said he hoped Porter would 'keep a stiff upper lip' and not resign. 'If I could find more people like him, I would hire them,' said Hatch, describing Porter as 'basically a good person.' It's not really a surprise that Hatch, who once said that Trump's presidency could become the greatest ever, would treat serious allegations of abusing women as a personal foible unrelated to one's professional capabilities. You basically have to see things that way to support Trump in the first place. The reasons that Porter didn't belong in any White House are the reasons he fit in in this one." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: It appears then that the GOP's approach to domestic violence is this: in general, it's not a good idea for men to beat up women because women are sacred, blah-blah, but if my buddies and I do it, we're still the best people. And talented, too. It's a twisted droit de seigneur. ...
... ** Dahlia Lithwick of Slate: "Apparently 'I didn’t see it with my own eyes in the workplace,' is the new 'thoughts and prayers.' Note that the central moral issue was no longer the scurrilous women who must have lied to a slanderous press, but Hatch's own heartbreak. He didn't apologize to the women he had maligned hours earlier... All the grown-ups in the room protected, privileged, and covered for Rob Porter despite everything they knew about his pattern of abuse, because his career was important to them. Even well-educated, high-status, articulate white women who were lawfully married to Porter didn't matter enough to be taken seriously. Please stop asking why women don't come forward. These women did. They believed that once the police, the FBI, the White House, and John Kelly knew what they knew, Porter would stop ascending in their ranks. They were wrong." ...
... AND here's something I overlooked in a report by Andrew Restuccia & Eliana Johnson of Politico, also linked yesterday: "In recent weeks, an ex-girlfriend of Porter's -- who also works in the Trump administration -- contacted White House counsel Don McGahn and voiced her distress after discovering evidence of a romantic relationship between Porter and White House communications director Hope Hicks, according to two administration officials. She also alleged that he had abused his two ex-wives." (Lithwick says the woman reported to McGahn that Porter had physically abused her, too.) ...
... Josh Dawsey, et al., of the Washington Post: "Good-government advocates have long been critical of the security-clearance process. The U.S. Government Accountability Office last month added the system to its 'high risk' list of federal areas in need of reform.... Democrats on Capitol Hill have tried to press the issue regarding the Trump White House, though Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, said in a letter Thursday that their efforts have been largely stymied. The White House, Cummings wrote, had not responded to his requests for information related to several officials' security clearances, and Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), the Republican chairman of the committee, had blocked any move toward a subpoena. Citing Porter's case, Cummings asked Gowdy to support a new bid for documents. 'Mr. Porter's case is only the latest example of requests made by Democratic Members to conduct oversight of the security clearance process,' Cummings wrote. 'You have also refused requests to obtain documents regarding the security clearances of former national security adviser Michael Flynn, his son Michael Flynn Jr..., Jared Kushner, and others.'" ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: That's kinda curious, because Gowdy sure didn't have any trouble demanding every scrap of paper or electronic note on her yoga schedule Hillary Clinton ever wrote.
... Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. David Uberti of Splinter: Fox "News" barely covered the Rob Porter fiasco yesterday. "The millions of people who watch these shows might come away from them not even knowing that Porter exists, let alone that White House officials may have been aware of his alleged abuse for months." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Dara Lind of Vox: "The Trump administration is working on new rules that would allow the government to keep immigrants from settling in the US, or even force them to leave, if their families had used a broad swath of local, state, or federal social services to which they're legally entitled -- even enrolling their US-born children in Head Start or the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP).... The rule wouldn't make it illegal for immigrants to use public services that are open to everyone regardless of immigration status, or that are available to their US-born children. But it would make it possible for the government to deny their applications for a new type of visa, or a green card, if they'd used those services." ...
... As Ed Kilgore points out, these "new rules that can make use of a broad variety of public benefit programs grounds for not granting citizenship or actually being deported, even for people who follow all of the rules of legal immigration.... And it gets worse. Sponsors for legal immigrants could soon get payment-overdue notices from the Feds for any benefits the people they sponsor receive[.]... The crucial sleight of hand in this draft order is to treat anyone receiving public benefits, however small or appropriate or justified on humanitarian grounds, as a deadbeat.... And there's your supposed nexus to 'securing the borders' and the fight against illegal immigration: If we let legal immigrants get benefits of any kind, it will be a 'magnet' for the undocumented.... It's indeed a slippery slope when you start treating poor or needy people as scum."
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