Vast government conspiracies are fiction, best confined to the X-Files or an Oliver Stone movie. In reality, what seems to be a government conspiracy generally is the result of stupidity, incompetence, inexperience (or all three). The allegations of collusion between Trump and Russia, from what we know so far, may fall into the latter category.
While there is a lot of talk about the allegations, thus far, there is no direct evidence of collusion or conspiracy. The former Directors of the FBI and of National Intelligence, and Democratic and Republican lawmakers who have seen the classified information have all said as much.
What we do know raises suspicion, but doesn’t amount to a smoking gun. Mr. Trump had an inordinate number of people around him with close business ties to Russia. Then there’s the series of meetings between people in Trump’s orbit, the timing of which raise questions, as does the tendency of Team Trump to display a peculiar amnesia about them. The phone calls with Russia’s Ambassador and appearance fees accepted by former National Security Michael T. Flynn from Russian state-sponsored media outlet RT, which Mr. Flynn initially omitted from his financial disclosure form, have raised eyebrows. But, it could all be a mixture of coincidence and a consequence of a uniquely inexperienced administration not aquatinted with international diplomacy or the operations of the Federal government.
Lack of Federal Appointments
Political insiders point to the lack of Presidential appointments as an example of how unprepared the incoming Trump administration was for the task of governing. White House adviser Steve Bannon and Mr. Trump himself have railed against the deep state – embedded liberal career bureaucrats out to undermine President Trump’s agenda who they have claimed are responsible for the Trump-Russia narrative. Given that, you would expect Mr. Trump to populate the bureaucracy with his own people. He hasn’t.
There are 1,212 presidential appointments that require Senate approval, 559 of which are considered key by the Washington Post. Mr. Trump had nominated 64 people for those key positions as of June 6th. Just 39 had been confirmed and were in place. Mr. Trump has only nominated 8.73% of the people he legally can.
This is not a new issue for Mr. Trump. As of early February, the White House reportedly still was vetting appointees. A month before the election, the Hillary Clinton transition team had a target number of appointments, and a list of candidates that it submitted on a weekly basis to be vetted for hundreds of the key positions. Had Clinton won, she would have had a full slate of vetted people that Clinton could immediately nominate on inauguration day.
No One with Significant Executive Branch Experience
People who have served in both Republican and Democrat administrations as far back as Reagan say one of the keys is to have people with prior significant White House experience. Those people know how the federal government works, and have many friends within Congress to help pass the president’s legislative agenda. Mr. Trump has employed few people that meet that description.
The only Trump White House personnel who previously have worked there are Joseph Hagin, deputy chief of staff for operations, Dina Powell, deputy national security advisor, and Michael Anton, spokesman for the National Security Council. Mr. Hagin, who served a similar role in Bush’s administration, is primarily concerned with making the Presidential trains run on time. Ms. Powell worked in the Presidential personnel office. Mr. Anton wrote speeches for Condoleeza Rice when she was Bush’s National Security Advisor. None have previously served in roles that would qualify them as the kind of Washington grandees who are normally tapped to guide a President’s agenda.
Washington insiders privately say the Trump administration needs people with significant White House experience who can take control over the much-reported infighting, shepherd the hiring process, and work with the Hill.
. . . Or With Presidential Legislative Experience
President Trump has struggled to implement his legislative agenda outside of the Senate confirmation of Justice Gorsuch. Trump is not entirely to blame for that. The inability of Speaker Ryan to get his conference in order, and Senate rules that allow Democrats to use the filibuster to check the President’s agenda also play a major part.
But the White House bears some responsibility for the lack of legislative progress. Once again, the lack of depth of Trump’s bench is at least partly to blame. Mr. Trump’s deputy chief of staff for intergovernmental relations is Rick Dearbourn, who has a 25-year congressional career, including stints working for two members of Senate leadership. The President’s chief Hill lobbyist is Marc Short, who worked for Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, and in the Republican Conference under Vice President Pence.
Those are impressive credentials. But there is a major difference between working for a senator – even one in leadership – or the conference and being the President’s point person on legislation. They require different skill sets, and there is no time for a learning curve when your job is to have Congress approve the President’s policy and legislative agenda.
The bottom line…
All we do know with any certainty is: Russia attempted to influence the election and Trump and his team maintained a highly unusual level of contact with Russian officials that they have often tried to hide and in some cases have been caught lying about. Yet, it very well may be that Mr. Trump’s contrarian instincts, lack of advisors schooled in Presidential decision-making, and a string of coincidences conspired to make things look worse than they are.
James Comey, the FBI Director President Trump fired, will appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday for the first time since he was sacked last month. Mr. Comey’s testimony has been highly anticipated in Washington. Front and center will be the question of whether Mr. Trump attempted to pressure Mr. Comey to back off of the FBI’s investigation into potential collusion between Mr. Trump’s campaign in Russia’s election meddling last year.
In prepared remarks, Mr. Comey affirmed President Trump’s claim that Mr. Comey told Mr. Trump that he was not under investigation. In his prepared remarks, Mr. Comey wrote:
“…I discussed with the FBI’s leadership team whether I should be prepared to assure President-Elect Trump that we were not investigating him personally. That was true; we did not have an open counter-intelligence case on him. We agreed I should do so if circumstances warranted. During our one-on-one meeting at Trump Tower,based on President-Elect Trump’s reaction to the briefing and without him directly asking the question, I offered that assurance.”
it is unlikely that Mr. Comey will reveal anything new that might signal where the Russia probe, now being led by former FBI Director Robert Muller, is going. Rather, Mr. Comey will address a series of awkward interactions with President Trump seemingly aimed at persuading Mr. Comey to curtail the FBI’s Russia probe.
Those conversations, which Mr. Comey memorialized in a series of memos to the file, have raised questions about whether Mr. Trump abused the power of his office to derail the FBI’s investigation. When Mr. Mueller was named as special council, the Justice Department authorized him to look into whether Mr. Trump broke any laws. Mr. Comey intends to simply report the facts Thursday and leave the legal judgements to Mr. Muller and others.
What we know
We do know that on several occasions over the past few months, Mr. Trump prodded Mr. Comey about the Russia investigation. News reports suggest that Mr. Comey grew increasingly disturbed about what he perceived as an attempt by Mr. Trump to pressure him. During a dinner with Mr. Comey early in his Presidency, Mr. Trump reportedly asked Mr. Comey if he had his loyalty. Mr. Comey promised only his honesty. In an Oval Office meeting with Mr. Comey, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and other aides soon after National Security Advisor Michael Flynn resigned, the topic of the Russia investigation came up again. According to an account reportedly memorialized by Mr. Comey in a memo, Mr. Trump shooed everyone out of the room and, once alone with Mr. Comey, asked if he could move past the investigation into Flynn. “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” Trump said. “He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.” According to a New York Timesreport, Mr. Comey grew concerned enough that he asked Attorney General Sessions to ensure that Mr. Comey was never alone in the room with Trump.
Arms Length
The FBI occupies an odd political space. Independent by nature, the FBI walls itself off from the White House when it comes to politically sensitive investigations. While the FBI Director serves at the pleasure of the President, he doesn’t take orders from him when it comes to the conduct of investigations, certainly not ones involving the President’s own campaign. Mr. Trump’s overtures to Mr. Comey disregarded the traditional arms-length relationship between White House and FBI. On their own they don’t rise to the level of criminal obstruction of Justice, but the pattern of conversations fall into a grey area.
What lawmakers want to ask Mr. Comey Thursday is whether there’s more to the story. Were there more forceful efforts on the part of Mr. Trump than has been previously reported. For example, did Mr. Trump suggest that Mr. Comey should stop investigating Russia or lose his job? There is no indication from what we know so far that this is the case. But, the Committee wants to question Mr. Comey so they can assess just how closely Mr. Trump walked up to that line.
In a sign of the high-stakes nature of Thursday’s hearing, the White House considered invoking executive privilege in a bid to prevent Mr. Comey from testifying. An extraordinary step that it probably didn’t have the power to take. It later rejected the idea.
https://prodroughlyexp.wpengine.com/2017/06/2368/
Mr. Comey’s firing continues to be a rolling nightmare for the White House. Mr. Comey’s on the record accounting of events and the memos he wrote meticulously recording them Thurday could be a make or break moment for the White House. When a reporter asked Mr. Trump if he had anything to say to Mr. Comey in advance of the hearing, the President said simply, “I wish him luck.”
President Trump’s decision not to invoke executive privilege and, thus, allow former FBI Director James B. Comey to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee was moot before it was even announced.
Executive privilege never applied to the memorandums Comey wrote that reportedly document what Comey thought were Trump’s attempts to influence an FBI investigation into Michael T. Flynn possible connections to Russia. Nor did the privilege apply to Comey himself. Trump also likely waived the privilege when he publicly discussed the reasons behind his firing of Comey.
What Is Executive Privilege, Who & What Does It Cover
Presidents may invoke executive privilege in response to a letter from a congressional committee that requests either documents or witness testimony, or to a congressional subpoena. There are two different types of executive privilege – deliberative process privilege, which covers the executive branch decision making process, and presidential communications, which relates to documents.
The memorandum that Comey reportedly wrote about a meeting or meetings with the President arguably does not relate to decision making. Had the President claimed executive privilege, Congress would then look to its precedent and court rulings to determine whether the Comey memorandum were covered.
Comey Not Covered Under Communications Privilege
There are numerous federal cases – starting with the U.S. Supreme Court in United States v. Nixon – that address executive privilege as it applies to communications. A Congressional Research Service report on congressional oversight (widely considered the Oversight Bible among congressional staff) notes that “the presidential communications privilege may only be asserted with regard to documents or communications that are authored by or solicited and received by the President or presidential advisers with ‘operational proximity’ to the President. The courts [have] determined that ‘operational proximity’ included advisers within the White House, but did not include cabinet secretaries or cabinet employees.”
Comey reportedly took handwritten notes of his meeting or meetings with the President, and used them to write a memorandum to the file. Neither the President, nor apparently any White House advisers, solicited or received the memos. While the President appoints the FBI director and can fire him at will, the FBI Director is a cabinet employee. The FBI operates within the Department of Justice.
. . . Nor By Deliberative Process
The CRS report notes the deliberative process portion of executive privilege only applies to “the disclosure of executive branch documents and communications that are predecisional, meaning they are created prior to reaching the agency’s final decision, and deliberative, meaning they relate to the thought process of executive branch officials and are not purely factual.”
Deliberative process clearly relates to regulatory or other decisions by executive branch agencies. It likely does not cover a private conversation between a President and an FBI Director in which the chief executive reportedly asked the law enforcement official to go easy on a potential target of an investigation.
Trump Waived Executive Privilege
An argument can be made that President Trump, through his public comments and Tweets about the firing of Comey, has waived privilege. The minute a witness or participant opens their mouth about a subject, they risk a waiver of privilege. Ask Lois Lerner what happens when you make a statement after you invoke your Fifth Amendment right.
Some unnamed legal experts cited by the press contend that, had Trump tried to assert executive privilege over Comey’s forthcoming testimony, the President would be on shaky ground because Comey no longer is a government employee.
That is not quite accurate. Had Comey once served within the White House, he would have been covered. The privilege resides in the President and the White House counsel. It is Trump’s alone to use. It theoretically would not have mattered whether Comey as a now private citizen wanted to testify or not. If Comey served in the White House, the President could invoke executive privilege. Whether the Senate Intelligence Committee would have accepted that is a different matter, and would that likely would have resulted in a story line we all have seen before – subpoenas, possibly refusals to comply, threats of contempt, more refusals, a contempt motion, and a lengthy legal battle.
The author is a former congressional investigator.
President George W. Bush hosts a meeting in the Oval Office December 21, 2001. White House photo by Paul Morse.
The oval shape of rooms in the White House was chosen to accommodate an elaborately formal greeting ceremony known as a “Levee.” The ceremony was borrowed from the royal courts of England and France.
The White House Historical Association explains how it worked in America.
“The levee, a tradition borrowed from the English court, was a formal occasion to allow men of prominence to meet the president. Replete with formal dress, silver buckles, and powdered hair, the event was a stiff public ceremony almost military in its starkness. Invited guests entered the room and walked over to the president standing before the fireplace and bowed as a presidential aide made a low announcement of their names. The visitor then stepped back to his place. After fifteen minutes the doors were closed and the group would have assembled in a circle. The president would then walk around the circle, addressing each man by his name from memory with some pleasantry or studied remark of congratulation, which might have a political connotation. He bowed, but never shook hands. When he had rounded the circle, the president returned to his place before the mantel and stood until, at a signal from an aide, the guests went to him, one by one, bowed without saying anything, and left the room.”
The Oval Rooms of the White House Residence
Lorenzo Winslow’s circa 1947 plan for changes to the White House, close to the actual implementation
George Washington ordered the bowed walls that characterize the three oval shaped rooms on the South side of the White House residence: the Diplomatic Reception Room, the Blue Oval room on the State Floor and the Yellow Oval Room on the third floor for Levee ceremonies.
White House Blue Room during the Kennedy Administration
But, the Levee ceremony was only briefly used. The practice was not loved by John Adams, the White House’s first resident. While Adams accepted the reasoning behind the Levee, an efficient way to grant wider access to the President in a manner consistent with his station, he didn’t disguise his personal distaste for it. In a letter to his wife Abigail, Adams said simply: “I hate Levees.”
The Most Famous Oval of All
Time/Life diagram of the West Wing in 1934; “Rabbit” was the nickname of Louis Howe’s secretary.
The Levee was promptly abolished by Thomas Jefferson, who saw the ritualized grander of the ceremony as uncomfortably close to the trappings of monarchy from which the young nation had just fought a revolution to divorce itself. The oval shape nevertheless was reprised in the design of the iconic President’s office when the West Wing was built in 1909. The shape of the Oval Office serves no formal purpose except as a homage to the oval rooms of the White House residence, reinforcing the sense of awe for the power wielded within its cornerless walls.
Jared Kushner, Senior Advisor to President Donald J. Trump, sits in on a meeting with Marine Corps Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at the Ministry of Defense in Baghdad, Iraq, April 3, 2017. (DoD Photo by Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Dominique A. Pineiro)
News reports circulated last week that Jared C. Kushner, the son-in-law turned advisor to President Trump, is now a person of interest in the FBI investigation into allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 elections.
According to the reports, the FBI’s specific interest in Kushner is focused on a series of meeting that he held with Russian ambassador Sergei I. Kislyak and Sergei N. Gorkov, the head of Vnesheconombank (also known as Veb) the Kremlin-controlled Russian state development bank. Gorkov is also a graduate of the Federal Security Service (FSB) Academy. The FSB is one of the Russian intelligence agencies at the heart of the allegations of interference in the 2016 election. Veb has been associated with spy intrigue as well. Evgeny Buryakov, a senior official at Veb, was deported last month after his conviction last year on espionage charges.
A Series of Meetings at Heart of Investigation
Both NBC News and the Washington Post reported that the FBI is interested in a series of three meetings Kushner or his aides held with Kislyak and Gorkov.
The first, held early last December, involved Kushner, Kislyak, fired National Security adviser Michael T. Flynn. It was held in New York, most likely at Trump Tower, and the discussion reportedly centered around U.S.-Russian relations, possibly to include American sanctions imposed on Russia.
An aide to Kushner attended a second meeting with Kislyak. It is unclear what the subject of that meeting was. After the second Kislyak meeting, at the end of December, Kushner held a meeting with Gorkov.
Different Accounts of Kushner-Gorkov Meeting
The Trump administration and Russian officials have given different accounts of the Gorkov meeting. A Veb spokesman said it merely was one of a series of that bank officials held with “the largest banks and business establishments of the United States, including Jared Kushner, the head of Kushner Companies.” A spokesman for Putin endorsed that view, saying the meeting with Gorkov “was ordinary [bank] business.”
An unnamed White House official said Kushner attended the meeting with the Russian banker “in his capacity as a transition official in his role as a member of the Trump transition team.”
Timing of Kushner-Gorkov Meeting Is Crucial
The timing of the Kushner meeting with Gorkov is critical. As Business Insider reported, it “. . . came as Kushner was trying to find investors for a Fifth Avenue office building in Manhattan that is set to be heavily financed by Anbang Insurance Group, a firm with ties to the Chinese government.” The Anbang deal fell through earlier this year.
New York real estate insiders told Roughly Explained it was common knowledge within the industry that, at the time of his meeting with Gorkov, Kushner “was shopping around” for a source of funds that would help his family bail out 666 Fifth Avenue, the firm’s planned flagship building that had been losing money since at least 2008.
After The New York Times first reported on the Kushner-Gorkov meeting, a White House White House spokeswoman said “the Kushner Tower” project wasn’t discussed during the meeting.
How Did Gorkov Know Kushner Needed Money?
Here is the time-line that everyone agrees upon: Kushner met with Kislyak; there was a follow-up meeting between a Kushner representative and the ambassador; then Kushner has a meeting with the Russian banker.
The Russians are not known for their veracity. But, for the moment, let us assume that the Veb and Putin spokesmen are telling the truth – the meeting between Kushner and Gorkov merely involved financial matters.
Current and former government investigators have said the circumstances that surround the meeting between Kushner and Gorkov raise major red flags. The investigators all have the same question: How did Gorkov know the Kushner family needed money for their Fifth Avenue building?
One possible way is that Kushner or someone close to him mentioned it to Kislyak. Another is that one of the many Russian real estate developers with whom Trump has done business knew about it, and passed it on. Or an unknown third party either could have passed it on, or have been a Russian agent (willingly or not). We do not know. But, it’s likely a question Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller will be looking to answer.
The author is a former Congressional investigator.
Editor’s Note: We’ve all received spam emails promising huge sums from Nigerian princes and fabulously wealthy foreigners that need you (of all people) to help them invest their vast sums. Humor contributor Dave Alexander decided to see what happens if you took them up on it. The results were hilarious. In an increasingly absurd email exchange that took place over several weeks, Dave turned the table on the scammer. In the end, the con-man realizes he’s the one who is being conned. – tg
It started with an email…
Dear sir — I am a prominent investor who would like to invest in your country… If you have a good project plan that requires funding or looking forward for expansion of existing business, and you know you can handle such transaction, get back to me with your ideas for feasibility study. Looking forward for possible business collaboration. — Best Regards, Koneswaran.
Dear Koneswaran — I have an upcoming mining project that requires funding and looking for expansion. Let me know if you would like to collaborate on a feasibility study.Best Regards, Dave
Dear Mr. Dave — Thanks for your response and your high level business proposal is very nice and sensibility.what will be the requirements and estimated cost? Best Regards, Koneswaran.
Thank you for your savvy business sense to contact me about this.
Dear Koneswaren — I am seeking investors for a diamond mine in the United States. We are currently mining with a pick ax and small tractor but we are seeking a $100,000 investment for a bulldozer, buckets and other mining equipment. We have already discovered 12 great diamonds. If we can secure an investment, we feel that our mine will be among the greatest of all time.Thank you for your savvy business sense to contact me about this. Best Regards, Dave
12 great diamonds!
Dear Mr. Dave –– I am so glad that you have discovered 12 great Diamonds, i suggest that we should secure an investment deal to expand the mining sector. i budgeted over $137,000,000 for projects. I have a joint venture in Malaysia with a Malaysian, a palm plantation and processing plant. And i also invested into some other areas such as tourism and real estate. I am Norwegian. I also work with United Nation… But you have to promise me your confidentiality in the transaction and you have to prove your stands and capacity to handle the funds once i transfer it to your account. i suggest we should have a round table meeting. Sincerely, Koneswaran.
Together we intend to take over the U.S. diamond market
…we plan to appear on the American television series “Shark Tank” and secure an investment deal with Mark Cuban.
Hi Koneswaran — I can tell that you are a great business negotiator. You will be a perfect partner in our mining endeavor. I have included my business partner, CP on this email. He is also an investor in the mining business. He is very good with the pick ax and has been assisting me with the tractor. Together we intend to take over the U.S. diamond market within the next two years.
With your investment we can expedite this process and control the world diamond economy with the next year. With $100,000 we can quickly expand our current mine. With $134,500,000 we can open a mine in each of the U.S. states and quickly expand and open diamond kiosks in every major city.
After this, we plan to appear on the American television series “Shark Tank” and secure an investment deal with Mark Cuban. From here we plan to overtake De Beers and quickly put them out of business with our discount diamond collection.
Each Diamond with be sold for 25% off and we will offer a buy two, get one free special on every major holiday. I assume with you business expertise, you can see the high potential with this plan. Please let me know how you would like to proceed. I am anxious for our round table meeting. Sincerely, Dave
Dear Mr. Dave, I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to partner with you and meet with you for further discussion on our partnership. I have to reiterate that my position remain the same regards the financial position. I will appreciate if you will make all our discussion and transaction confidential due to my position as a public servant, you must agree with me that as a public servant I have limitation therefore i want to confide in you . The $134,500,000 for the project will be made available to you after the meeting with my representatives. My enthusiasm for the interest to work with you were greatly strengthened as a result your commitment to meet. I am confident that we will have a smooth partnership. The money will be transferred to your account after the meeting with my representatives. Best Regards, Koneswaran.
Tragedy strikes
Dear Koneswaran, I have very bad news! Our business partner CP is currently trapped in the mine. It collapsed on him while he was uncovering a large bed of rubies deep underground. I am very worried as he has no food or water. I have been up all night with the rescue team. Attached is a photo of the current situation here at the mine. Please pray for him. It would be very hard to find another miner as great as CP. Do you have any resources with the United Nations that could help us with the rescue? In Mourning, Dave
Dear Dave, It’s a very sad news, i pray he will be alive and safe. Please always keep me update for the latest development on the mining site. And also i will like to have your phone number.
Dear Koneswaran, I have a very troubling update for you. Our good friend CP is dead. His head was mutilated by a flying boulder. The mood is very somber here at the mine. I have attached photo of him being carried away. I thank you for being my closest friend during this terrible tragedy. CP was a great miner, but together we will endure this horrible time and move forward to overtake the world’s diamond business.
Now it is just the two of us. We will split the business 50/50. You will handle the investing, email marketing, and PR. I will take care of the mining, door-to-door sales, and accounting. Together we will be an unstoppable team. Are you available for a Skype video chat to discuss our flourishing business? Optimistically, Dave
Dear Mr. Dave, I am so troubled and saddened with the news you sent to me which i am not expecting. CP has come and gone, GOD you brought him to us and you took him back to be in a special place you prepared for him………… MAY HIS SOUL REST IN PERFECT PEACE, AMEN. Sincerely, Koneswaran.
Love is in the air
Dear Koneswaran, Thank you for your prayers and your sympathy. You are a wonderful lover.
Dear Koneswaran, Thank you for your prayers and your sympathy. You are a wonderful lover. Now, let’s get back to the diamond business. Right before CP was mutilated, he discovered a cavern containing an abundance of alluring diamonds. You can see in the photo that this mine is richer than we ever dreamed. With your permission, I would like to donate a diamond to the family of CP. I feel it would be the right thing to do considering all that he has done for us. His family is grieving and I believe this would be a generous gesture of love from our business. Also, we could write if off as a tax deduction. I will be at the funeral this weekend. I know you are a busy investor, but I feel in my heart that CP would want you here. Please join us if you can make it. I would like to further discuss our business on Monday. I would prefer a chat on Skype or I can give you my phone number. Your Lover, Dave
Dear Mr. Dave, My condolence once again to the family and friends of CP. I will be waiting to hear from you on Monday. Best Regards, Koneswaran.
My Dearest Koneswaran, The funeral was a bitter and lonely time without you. You can see that I decorated my car to pay tribute to the greatest miner who ever lived.
CP’s family is very grateful for the diamond that we presented to them. They are impoverished and have lost their home. Our act of kindness will allow them to pay for the funeral expenses. I realized through this experience that special friends like you and CP are very hard to find.
Koneswaran, you are my dearest love. I believe we have a special bond between us that cannot be broken. Our love and our diamond business will survive any tragedy. Please call me as soon as possible. CP’s pick ax was broken in the mine and we need to discuss replacement options. Yours Forever, Dave
The ‘Roundtable’ Meeting
The final message
After weeks of absurdity, the scammer finally realizes he’s been played. Koneswaran’s final message.
You are a joker, please if you don’t mind you better go to bed if you are jobless. Thanks!
Editors Note: No miners were actually harmed in making this prank. CP is alive and well.
President Donald Trump meets with Russian Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, left, in the White House in Washington, Wednesday, May 10, 2017. At right is Russian Ambassador to USA Sergei Kislyak. President Donald Trump on Wednesday welcomed Vladimir Putin's top diplomat to the White House for Trump’s highest level face-to-face contact with a Russian government official since he took office in January. (Credit: Russian Foreign Ministry)
Every modern President has met with Russian officials. Presidents Obama and Bush have both met with the very same Russian official Trump did, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov — and they met with others as well.
The fact that President Trump met with Russian officials is not at all unusual. Rather, what has people worked up is the circumstances surrounding the meeting — amid an investigation of Russian interference in the election on Trump’s behalf, possible collusion between Trump and Russia related to it, and allegations that Trump shared classified information with the Russian officials during the meeting.
Here’s President Obama with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, the same Russian official Trump met with:
And here’s President Bush with Lavrov too:
Other Presidents have had similar meetings. Here’s President Clinton with Russian Special envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin:
And President Bush with Russian President Vladimir Putin himself:
Even at the height of the Cold War, meetings with Soviet officials were not unheard of. Here’s President Reagan with Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev:
It’s important in the present swirl of outrage surrounding President Trump that we keep things in context. There’s nothing at all wrong with a U.S. President meeting with Russian leaders. But, never before has there been reason to suspect that a U.S. President might do so with anything other than our nation’s best interests at heart.
The suspicions around Trump and Russia are still only that. But they have nevertheless changed how Trump’s interactions with Russia will be viewed.
President Barack Obama walks into the Oval Office at the White House Wednesday morning, Jan. 21, 2009, for his first full day in office. His Personal Aide Reggie Love stands nearby.
Official White House photo by Pete Souza
Conversations in the Oval Office are generally not recorded. However, notetakers may be present in important meetings, especially those with foreign leaders.
Presidents could choose to bug themselves if they like, but as Richard Nixon demonstrated for the ages, it’s not such a good idea. No one is infalliable. A complete record of every utterance of even the most virtuous president is bound to include something unflattering.
It also might have a chilling effect on the level of candor with which aides offer advice. Knowledge that their words are being recorded might cause a president’s advisors pause about offering advice the president might not want history to hear. The ability of a president’s staff to speak frankly is critical. When presidents are wrong, and they sometimes are, aides need to be able to tell them that without fear of tarnishing their legacy.
President Trump Arrives in Saudi Arabia (White House photo via Facebook)
In the four months since his inauguration, Washington Republicans have clung tightly to the glimmers of promise from President Trump. The early policy fumble of the immigration ban, the air ball on Obamacare, and his countless ill-advised tweet-storms could still be weighed against Trump’s inspired choice of Neil Gorsuch to serve on the Supreme Court, his rousing address to a joint session of Congress in February, and hints of pragmatism on NATO, trade, and immigration. Republicans could rationalize Trump’s stumbles as the consequence of an unconventional but ultimately well-intentioned President inexperienced in the mechanics of governing who, once he got his feet under him, held the potential to upend the sclerosis in Washington and meaningfully change the course of the nation for the better. But, the events of the last two weeks make that harder.
President Trump’s ambitious foray abroad is tempered by dread of the other shoes to drop upon his return. As Josh Jordan (@numbersmuncher) quipped on Twitter, “We have yet to see concrete evidence that Trump colluded with Russia on anything, but Trump is doing his best to make everyone believes it.”
Things are going sideways, and even the President’s closest aides know it. As Air Force One climbed away from Joint Base Andrews Friday evening for President Donald J. Trump’s first foreign trip, a sense of sober resignation prevailed among all but the most ardent Trump loyalists.
A dispatch from Axios’ Jonathan Swan drew a gripping portrait of the state of mind among Trump’s inner circle. “WH officials I’ve spoken to privately this week are closer to being numb than panicked. Those who went through the campaign with Trump are numb to the crises and thought so many times before that *this* would be the one to break Trump. They’ve been wrong so many times before… They view their boss as completely undisciplined and self-destructive. They’re exasperated by him … They’re sick and tired of the media feeding frenzy. But even in their most frustrated moments, they’ll admit that Trump has got some special resilience that they can’t begin to understand. A coat of protection that almost seems supernatural to them.”
Yet, there remains a hardy band of loyalists around Trump who are “unfazed” by it all, Swan writes. “They’re just swinging for Trump and have no qualms working to defend him,” he added. Still, the flood of leaks coming from within Trump-land suggest a nervous White House White House staff hedging their bets in case their boss’ luck runs out.
‘The Drips are Filling the Bucket’
The Russia investigation is grinding Trump’s agenda to a halt. Although few Republicans are saying so publicly, official Washington is racked with doubt. Trump’s political capital is now all but exhausted — frittered away on a series of unforced errors and miscalculations. After the firing of an FBI director investigating his own White House, suggestions that the President attempted to pressure him to pull his punches before doing so, and the apparent careless disclosure of classified material to Russian officials, it’s growing increasingly difficult to rationalize the White House’s problems as just the manufactured controversies of an admittedly hostile press corps. As one outside advisor to the White House told Axios’ Mike Allen in an email, “[t]he drips are filling the bucket.” Trump’s Republican allies, who just a few weeks ago were still dreaming of triumphs, would now settle for mere survival.
With a special counsel now in place, the die is cast. Trump may yet be exonerated on the core accusation that he personally colluded with Russia in Moscow’s efforts to influence the 2016 elections. But, the suggestion that he may have pressured the investigation may hold new troubles. Further, it seems increasingly likely that the special counsel investigation led by former FBI Director Robert Mueller might uncover evidence of wrongdoing, if not by Trump himself, then by at least some people within Trump’s orbit.
Still, all the breathless talk of impeachment is premature. President Trump remains popular among grassroots Republicans. His support has slipped a bit in the past week, but most of his voters are still sticking with him. While Trump’s troubles are making Congressional Republicans nervous, few will be willing to turn against him — but they aren’t go out of their way to defend him either.
As sacked former FBI Director James Comey, prepares to testify on Capitol Hill and the special counsel investigation gains steam, that “supernatural” veil of protection White House advisors talk about will surely be put to the test.
Philly mobster Frank Narducci Jr. walks into a court appearance in the early 1980s alongside his father and brother.
Two major characteristics separate President Trump from other men to hold the office: He has no political experience, and he heavily relies on family members and a few long-time trusted advisers. One of the people the president leans on is White House counsel Donald F. McGahn, whose family has long ties to Donald J. Trump. As the Washington Post noted, McGahn is the nephew of Patrick ‘Paddy’ McGahn Jr., who once was Trump’s lawyer.
Patrick McGahn, who died in 2000, was more than a lawyer. He controlled the South Jersey Democratic machine and largely was credited with bringing casino gambling to Atlantic City. New Jersey state records show that he assisted Trump in the $1.1 million cash purchase of property from organized crime figures.
Mobsters and Parking
The Trump Organization in 1982 began construction on Harrah’s at Trump Plaza, an Atlantic City casino that later became the Trump Plaza. While Trump had the casino site, he did not have a place to park customers’ cars. Trump was interested in two potential site that he wanted to turn into parking.
In a book about Trump, investigative reporter Wayne Barrett, who died earlier this year, wrote that the site Trump eventually purchased was owned by two sons of organized crime figures: Salvatore “Salvie” Testa and Frank Narducci, Jr. They had paid $195,000 in 1977 for the property directly across the street from the Trump Plaza, and operated a nightclub on it.
Testa’s father, Philip “Chicken Man” Testa, was killed by a bomb – an act that was immortalized in the Bruce Springsteen song “Atlantic City” (“Well they blew up the chicken man in Philly last night now they blew up his house too”). Barrett alleged that Testa “headed Nicodemo “Nicky” Scarfo’s hit-man squad called the Young Executioners.” FBI reports state the Scarfo crime family at the time “dominated Atlantic City and Philadelphia.”
A Website about organized crime called Narducci Jr. a “Philly Wiseguy.” He was convicted of murder along with Scarfo and five other reported organized crime figures. Narducci’s father ironically was killed reportedly in retaliation for his role in the murder of Philip Testa.
Patrick McGahn’s Role
New Jersey state investigative records show that Trump paid $1.1 million for the site, after the title was transferred from Testa and Narducci to Patrick McGahn’s secretary and then to a Trump entity.
An investigative report on Trump’s license to operate Trump Plaza undertaken by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement states that Trump knew the property was owned by what the DGE called “Testa Group.”
The DGE report states: “Because [Trump] did not want to negotiate with those people directly, he instructed his attorney, Patrick T. McGahn, Jr., to deal with a broker and arrange for a cash deal. With respect to the property in question, by deed dated July 11, 1977, Jeanne’s Enterprises transferred the property to Frank J. Narducci Jr. and Salvatore A. Testa. By deed dated April 1, 1982, Narducci conveyed his interest in the property to Testa.”
The DGE reports that Trump “authorized McGahn to purchase the property . . . for such entity which [Trump] would thereafter designate in writing. [Trump] also requested that McGahn ensure that the property would be fully assignable.” Barrett alleged the other “entity” was McGahn’s secretary.
The closing was held on November 4, 1982 in McGahn’s law office. The DGE report states that the people who attended the closing included McGahn, Testa and his lawyer, and Chris Scarfo – “the son of Nicodemo Scarfo.” The DGE notes: “The $1,100,000 purchase price of the property was paid in cash.”
The author is a former Congressional investigator.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosentein took an important step to stabilize the spiraling series of crises that have enveloped the Trump Administration Wednesday when he named former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel to investigate potential collusion between Trump’s team and Russia. Both Republicans and Democrats praised the selection of Mueller, who is widely respected on both sides of the aisle and within law enforcement.
Three things to know:
Naming a special counsel may help to tame some of the chaos.
Mueller’s unimpeachable credentials and reputation for non-partisanship and independence will give weight to the investigation’s findings. If Trump is exonerated, this can only help him.
Mueller is a high-risk/high-reward scenario for Trump. If Mueller discovers fire amidst all the smoke around Trump and Russia, the bipartisan respect Mueller enjoys will make his conclusions hard to discredit.
While President Trump resisted naming a special prosecutor in the past, he may have a lot to gain from a credible investigation led by Mueller. If Trump hasn’t done anything seriously wrong, it will allow him to put suspicions about Russia behind him. With the investigation proceeding independently, Trump will also get some political breathing room to pursue his policy agenda as Mueller’s investigation proceeds independently.
The move has been greeted with rare bipartisan praise. Trump confidant Roger Stone called it a “master stroke” that would allow Trump to “once and for all clear the air.” Senate Majority Leader and frequent Trump critic Chuck Schumer hails it too. “Former Director Mueller is exactly the right kind of individual for this job. I now have significantly greater confidence that the investigation will follow the facts wherever they lead,” Schumer said in a statement.
The White House reaction was measured and devoid of the usual Trumpian hyperbole. In a statement, President Trump said, “as I have stated many times, a thorough investigation will confirm what we already know—there was no collusion between my campaign and any foreign entity. I look forward to this matter concluding quickly.”
It Was the Only Way
In truth this was the only way. Trump’s decision to sack FBI Director James Comey and revelations that he pressured the former FBI Director to curtail the investigation into his former National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn, did irreparable damage to the credibility of any Russia investigation led by any new FBI director nominated by Trump. As we wrote earlier this week:
“If Trump is innocent, and he very well may be, his decision to fire Comey had made clearing his name that much harder. Now, any outcome favorable to the President will be tainted by suspicion that Trump’s new FBI director whitewashed the investigation.”
Mueller’s unimpeachable credentials and reputation for non-partisanship and independence will give weight to the investigation’s findings. If Trump is exonerated, this can only help him.
Naming a special prosecutor will also relieve some of the immense pressure on the nomination for Comey’s replacement as FBI Director. With responsibility
for the Russia investigation now with Mueller, Trump may be spared the full brunt of what was sure to be a politically charged confirmation process.
High-risk/High-reward
But, if Mueller discovers fire amidst all the smoke around Trump and Russia, the bipartisan respect Mueller enjoys will make his conclusions hard to discredit. Mueller is a high-risk/high-reward scenario for Trump. Still, that beats the all-risk/little reward proposition of an investigation led by a Trump appointee whose findings would be in doubt.
Mueller offers Trump’s his best hope of putting Russian behind him and getting back to the business of moving his agenda forward.
A memorandum for the file written by fired FBI Director James B. Comey revealed this week is raising charges of obstruction of justice and excited talk of impeachment among Trump critics. The memo, first reported by The New York Times, details a conversation between Comey and the President in which Trump apparently pressured the FBI to drop its investigation into Michael T. Flynn. That conversation supposedly took place the day after Trump fired Flynn because he lied to Vice President Pence about his contacts with Russian officials.
The existence of the memo has led at least one senior Republican senator to say the allegation raised in the memo – that the President may have tried to derail an investigation that possibly could implicate him or close associates – was reminiscent of Watergate. While parallels to Watergate seem premature, that is not a good place to be if you are a President involved, even peripherally, in an FBI probe.
‘I hope you can let this go’
According to The Times account, in a private Oval Office meeting, President Trump encouraged Comey to abandon the FBI’s investigation of his former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, telling the FBI Director, “I hope you can let this go.”
After he returned to his office, Comey wrote a memo for the file that documented the conversation. He showed the memo to senior FBI officials, and told colleagues that he perceived the President’s comments as an attempt to pressure him to halt the Flynn investigation.
These memos would have been nothing unusual for Comey. Multiple people close to the former FBI Director told Roughly Explained that throughout his career, Comey had made it a habit to write memos documenting important conversations in real time.
Unexploded Bombshells
The Times report and suggest potential unexploded bombshells for Trump. The article noted the memo “was part of a paper trail Mr. Comey created documenting what he perceived as the president’s improper efforts to influence a continuing investigation.”
“Improper efforts.” Plural. If the Times report is correct, it suggests that Trump may have sought to halt or impede the FBI investigations into Flynn’s connections with Russia and, possibly, the agency’s probe of Russian efforts to influence the 2016 election on more than one occasion. There may be other shoes to drop.
Congress Requests Documents
The Times’ account was based on a source who read one of them to a Times reporter over the phone. No one outside of Comey’s inner circle has actually seen the memos. But that may soon change.
On Tuesday, Chairman of the House oversight committee Jason Chaffetz wrote a letter to the FBI requesting that the Bureau hand over all documents or recordings related to President Donald Trump’s communications with former FBI chief James Comey.
In his letter to acting Director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe, Chaffetz said that if the reports are accurate, “these memoranda raise serious questions as to whether the President attempted to influence or impede the FBI’s investigation as it relates to Lt. Gen. Flynn.”
Chaffetz set a deadline of May 24 for the FBI to hand over the documents.
The Specter of Watergate
For many, including Sen. John S. McCain, the Comey memo raised the dark shadow of Watergate. McCain said Wednesday, “I think we’ve seen this movie before. I think it appears at a point where it’s of Watergate size and scale.” From what we know so far that might be overstating things.
McCain has personal reasons to dislike Trump. In July 2015, then-candidate Trump said of the Arizona senator, “He’s not a war hero. He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.” McCain was held prisoner for more than five years, during which time he was repeatedly beaten and tortured. McCain still feels the effects of that ordeal to this day. It wouldn’t be surprising if McCain still held a grudge.
While the revelations so far are troubling, comparisons to Watergate seem premature. Watergate was a vast, complex scandal that involved payments of hush money, a plan to enlist the CIA in an effort to shut down the FBI’s investigation, the firing of a special prosecutor and taped conversations that proved Nixon’s complicity. So far, all we know about Trump is that he fired the FBI director and, if this newest report is correct, lobbied the FBI director to go easy on Flynn.
In an interview with Roughly Explained last month, FOX News Senior Washington Correspondent and Watergate historian James Rosen cautioned against getting too carried away with allusions to the Nixon-era scandal. “The American people have become inured to the brandishing, on a near daily basis, of the word ‘Watergate’ to describe this or that, Rosen, who wrote a definitive 2008 biography of Nixon Attorney General John Mitchell said. “It strikes me that too little is yet known about the current situation to merit comparisons to the great scandal of 1972-75.” The developments of this week probably don’t change that analysis much. While there are almost certainly other shoes to drop, we’re not there yet.
Is Trump at Risk for Impeachment?
The articles of impeachment against President Richard Nixon charged that he engaged “in a course of conduct or plan designed to delay, impede, and obstruct the investigation,” through, among other things, “interfering or endeavouring to interfere with the conduct of investigations by the Department of Justice of the United States, [and] the Federal Bureau of Investigation. . . .” Thus, there is historical and legislative precedent for the impeachment of a president on the grounds that he merely attempted to interfere in an FBI probe.
Whether Trump’s actions meet that standard will be entirely up to House of Representatives. In an unsuccessful 1970 attempt to impeach Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, then Rep. Gerald R. Ford declared: “An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history.”
GOP in A Quandary
If the allegations contained in the Comey memo are accurate, Trump may find many GOP members of Congress reluctant to come to his aid. Trump’s anti-Washington platform won him few friends on Capitol Hill. Since being elected, the President has made little progress in winning over skeptical members of his party. Still, it will be politically difficult for Congressional Republicans to abandon Trump completely. Trump continues to enjoy strong support among his voters, only 2% of which said they regret casting their ballot for him according to one recent poll. While many Capitol Hill Republicans may be in no hurry to defend Trump, there’s political risk in turning against him at this point.
Many ordinary Americans have grown numb to the perpetual sense of crisis in Washington. Distrust of the media, disgust with Washington, and a confusing array of overlapping scandals makes it hard to make sense of it all. Trump supporters, who see the accusations against Trump as the handiwork of a cabal of Washington insiders, Hillary loyalists and their media allies, dismiss all of this as a conspiracy to undermine the man they elected and still stand behind.
Where Things Stand
Conclusive evidence that Trump himself was complicit in Russia’s efforts to influence the 2016 election has yet to emerge. Too little is known about Trump’s actions in regards to James to merit a judgement on whether they rise to the level of Nixon-era obstruction of justice. There is still some possibility that this all turns out to be all smoke and no fire.
But, the White House’s problems are growing more serious with each passing week. Team Trump’s often ham-handed attempts at damage control are serving only to deepen his troubles. In a sign of deteriorating morale within the West Wing, Trump’s inner circle has become the primary source of leaks to the press as unnerved staffers seek to distance themselves from the air of scandal enveloping their boss.
While there’s still hope that Trump can turn it around, we can say for certain that things look worse for Trump now than they did a week ago.
The author is a former U.S. government investigator.
President Donald Trump meets with Russian Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, left, in the White House in Washington, Wednesday, May 10, 2017. At right is Russian Ambassador to USA Sergei Kislyak. President Donald Trump on Wednesday welcomed Vladimir Putin's top diplomat to the White House for Trump’s highest level face-to-face contact with a Russian government official since he took office in January. (Credit: Russian Foreign Ministry)
The Washington Postreported Monday that in a meeting last week with Russian ambassador Sergei Lavrov, President Donald Trump described details of intelligence the U.S. had obtained from a foreign partner about the potential use of laptop bombs by ISIS.
FIVE THINGS TO KNOW
The White House does not deny that the discussions took place, but says that Trump shared information only of a general nature and did not reveal sources and methods. No one said he did.
Instead, the Post reported that Trump, in the meeting with Russian officials, described the intelligence in specific enough detail that the Russians could easily deduce how it was obtained.
The information Trump revealed likely fell in a grey area in which Trump’s supporters and detractors can take more, or less, charitable interpretations of the same basic facts.
Revealing this kind of highly classified information is a significant concern because it could jeopardize ongoing intelligence operations or put the lives of sources at risk.
While it is unlikely that President Trump intended to reveal anything classified, the incident is nonetheless troubling. Still, it probably says more about Trump’s lack of sophisticated understanding of the nuances of intelligence operations than his relationship with Russia.
White House officials, including National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster, whose credibility is widely respected, disputed the account saying that the information shared was general in nature. “The president and the foreign minister reviewed common threats from terrorist organizations to include threats to aviation,” McMaster who was in the meeting said. “At no time were any intelligence sources or methods discussed, and no military operations were disclosed that were not already known publicly.”
While McMaster says the Washington Post story is false, he does not say what about it is not true. The difference between the White House’s account and that of the unnamed sources in the Washington appears to be one of degrees. McMaster’s denial that Trump shared sources and methods does not directly contradict the Washington Post’s sources, who did not say that Trump explicitly revealed the sources of information. Nor did the Post say anything about revealing ongoing military operations, making McMasters denial that he did so puzzling.
Instead, the Post reported that Trump, in the meeting with Russian officials, described the intelligence in specific enough detail that the Russians could easily deduce how it was obtained. That raised concerns for two reasons. First, the intelligence was provided by a foreign partner whose trust in U.S. ability to keep information confidential might be diminished. Second, if the same method is used to gather intelligence on Russia or its allies, such as the Syrian regime or Iran, Russia might be able to also work out how to thwart future gathering of valuable intelligence.
Without knowing the specifics of the information in question, it’s hard to tell if the alarm about all this is overblown. It might be. Trump has plenty of detractors in the intelligence community. More now after firing FBI Director James Comey. It’s likely that Trump’s comments fell in a grey area and his detractors are taking the more uncharitable interpretation of the same basic facts. Whether Trump truly revealed classified intelligence or not, he walked closely enough to the line that intelligence agencies felt compelled to spend Monday night doing damage control.
Even if he did reveal classified information, it is unlikely that Trump did so intentionally. The episode may say more about Trump’s lack of sophisticated understanding of the nuances of intelligence operations than his fondness for Russia. Still, intentional or not, it’s troubling.
At the least it appears that Trump failed to exercise appropriate discretion in discussing this material. Information gets classified for a reason, in this case at the codeword level reserved for the most sensitive secrets. Revealing this type of information could put lives at risk or undermine ongoing intelligence and military operations. Considering the amount of criticism President Trump leveled against Hillary Clinton for risking disclosure of classified information stored on her home-brew email server, Democrats will feel well-justified in flogging Trump over this.
But, whatever the case, Trump probably didn’t break any laws. The President has broad authority to declassify anything he wants. If anyone else did the same thing, they’d potentially be facing criminal charges. Still, coming on the heels of Trump’s controversial dismissal of James Comey last week, it doesn’t looks good. It is just one more crisis in what is shaping up to be a really bad couple of weeks for President Trump.
In the week since President Donald Trump stunned official Washington by firing FBI Director James Comey, why he did it and what it means continues to dominate the conversation. Reactions have been sharply divided, mostly along partisan lines. Trump’s fans celebrated it as the long overdue comeuppance of the architect of a politically-motivated witch-hunt. The President’s critics seized on it as confirmation of Trump’s authoritarian intentions. Most everyone else was simply baffled.
A Shifting Narrative
Shifting explanations from the White House heightened the controversy as the week wore on. Team Trump’s original story, that the President made the decision after Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein recommended he do so quickly fell apart quickly. Rosenstein, who wrote a memo at the President’s request laying out the case against Comey, reportedly bristled at the White House’s claim that firing the FBI director was his idea. The rational that Trump dismissed Comey for mishandling the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server didn’t hold much water either. By week’s end, it became apparent that the real reason Trump fired Comey was that his anger with the FBI director over the ongoing Russia investigation boiled over.
“Regardless of recommendation, I was going to fire (James) Comey.” – President Donald Trump to NBC’s Lester Holt.
The chief debunker of the White House’s version of events turned out to be the President himself. In an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt Thursday night, the President said that his mind was made up about firing Comey prior to the recommendation from Sessions and Rosenstein. Trump complained that the former FBI director was a “showboat” and told Holt that the Russia investigation, which he felt was baseless, was on his mind when he made the decision. “And in fact when I decided to just do it,” Trump told Holt, “I said to myself, I said you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story, it’s an
excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have
won.”
The New York Times threw another wrinkle into the official narrative when it reported that at a dinner soon after taking office, Trump asked for assurance that he had Comey’s loyalty. Comey refused to give it but promised his honesty. This, according to Comey’s allies, infuriated the President and was a big part of the reason he fired Comey. The White House denied Trump made such a demand.
Backfire
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters Thursday that Team Trump hopes firing James Comey will help bring the FBI’s Russia probe to a swift close. Yet, if Trump removed Comey to put an end to his Russia-related troubles, the plan is already backfiring.
Firing Comey won’t stop FBI agents from investigating. If anything, said one former FBI agent, “this might rally them.” Acting FBI director Andrew McCabe is not likely to be cowed. Any candidate the Senate will agree to confirm as Comey’s successor is not either. There is little chance that the Senate will confirm a new FBI Director unless Senators are convinced that they will not bury the Russia investigation.
Republicans on Capitol Hill, troubled by the timing of Comey’s dismissal and the dubious explanations offered by the White House have not rushed to Trump’s aid. And public opinion has come down squarely against Trump’s move. By abruptly firing his FBI director in the middle of an investigation into his campaign, Trump poured gasoline on an already burning fire.
‘Enough is Enough’
“There was a sense in the White House, I believe, that enough was enough when it came to this guy.” – Trump confidant Roger Stone.
Still, it seems unlikely that sacking Comey is part of any kind of planned strategy to derail the Russia investigation. Rather, it seems more likely that President Trump simply got fed up. As Axios’ Mike Allen put it, “The answers to why Trump canned Comey are becoming clear: The president was filled with grievance about the FBI probe and acted on impulse without clearly thinking through the fallout.”
The Case Against Comey
There is a case to be made that Comey bungled the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server. Plenty of reasonable people — including a good many FBI agents — don’t see much distinction between “gross negligence” (the legal standard for prosecuting Clinton) and extreme carelessness (Comey’s characterization of Clinton’s actions). It is a fair criticism of Comey that he went too far in publicly announcing his recommendation not to prosecute. It wasn’t his call to make. His October letter announcing that the FBI was revisiting its investigation into the affair was not especially prudent either.
Comey’s actions in 2016 were controversial, but by most accounts he was acting in good faith. Comey was reluctant to make the FBI the meat in anyone’s political sandwich but has a tin ear for politics and ended up doing exactly that. Whether that’s a firing offense doesn’t really matter. While the norm is that there’s a really high bar for firing FBI directors, they serve at the pleasure of the President. Trump can technically fire Comey for any reason or no reason at all. That doesn’t mean it was a good idea.
Firing Comey May Always Haunt Trump
As yet no convincing evidence has emerged, publicly at least, that Trump did anything wrong. Still, there’s no real way for Trump to stop the investigation. Even if Trump turns out to be squeaky clean, there’s good reason to believe that people around him might not be. Regardless, it is important to understand Russia’s efforts to meddle in the 2016 election in order to prevent its doing so in the future. For that reason, the investigation will continue to have bipartisan support. Firing Comey certainly won’t allow Trump to put suspicions about Russia behind him. Instead it will just make matters worse.
If it turns out Trump was not complicit in Russia’s interference, there’s no reason to believe that Comey would not have found as much. Comey’s conclusion would have been seen as credible. If Trump is innocent, and he very well may be, his decision to fire Comey had made clearing his name that much harder. Now, any outcome favorable to the President will be tainted by suspicion that Trump’s new FBI director whitewashed the investigation. In the end, Trump has ensured that Russia will probably always haunt him.The best thing he can do now is nominate the most credible FBI director candidate he can find and hope for the best.
Version 2.0 of the American Health Care Act likely will not even come to a vote in the Senate, at least not in its present form. The reasons have as much to do with politics as they do with a little-understood law, arcane Senate rules that deal with budget reconciliation and how many votes are needed to approve legislation. And the politics are not easy either. Even a version modified to Senators liking faces difficult odds. Either way, repealing Obamacare faces major hurdles in the Senate.
The House crafted the AHCA as a budget reconciliation measure so that it would only have to be approved by a simple majority of 51 Senators to pass, not the usual 60 vote super-majority needed to invoke cloture (or cut off debate). But, in doing so it subjected the bill to an arcane set of rules that restrict what can be in it and how it is considered.
The AHCA – an earlier version of which previously preciously fell short of enough support to win House passage – only passed by a 217-213 vote after a last minute amendment. The amendment authored by Rep. Fred Upton added language to the Social Security Act, and mandates that the “amount otherwise appropriated [under the Act] . . . shall be increased by $8,000,000,000 for the period beginning with [fiscal year] 2018 and ending with [fiscal year] 2023, to be allocated to States with a [pre-existing condition] waiver in effect” for the establishment of high-risk pools for people who have pre-existing conditions. This laid the foundation for a big problem.
First Hurdle: Byrd Rules & U.S. Law
The first issue the AHCA faces in the Senate are what are known as the “Byrd Rules” – after the late Senate President Pro Temp Robert Byrd. Adopted into law in 1985, the rules state what can and cannot be in a budget reconciliation measure. U.S. Code Title 2, Section 644 prohibits including any “extraneous” provisions from a reconciliation bill.
Put into plain English, reconciliation legislation must not change revenues or spending for the fiscal year it covers; cannot increase the deficit beyond the fiscal year covered by it; nor make any changes to Social Security. The AHCA does all of the above.
The Upton Amendment adds language to the Social Security Act. It makes $8 billion in appropriations for FYs 2018-2023, with no spending cuts or revenue increases. The original version of the AHCA changed some of the Affordable Care Act’s insurance regulations, and the second changed even more. All of those provisions, on their face, could be considered extraneous under the Byrd Rules and U.S. Code.
Second Hurdle: Possible Objections on Extraneous Provisions
Under the Byrd Rules and the law, “Notwithstanding any other law or rule of the Senate, it shall be in order for a Senator to raise a single point of order that several provisions of a bill, resolution, amendment, motion, or conference report” are extraneous.
A point of order is a non-debatable motion. Before he either affirms or overrules the motion, the Presiding Officer generally consults with the Senate Parliamentarian. However, the Presiding Officer can consult with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell rather than the Parliamentarian. In addition, the Vice President can overrule the parliamentarian, but this has not happened since Nelson Rockefeller did it in 1975.
Any Senator can seek to overturn the Presiding Officer’s ruling. Once again, that motion cannot be debated. But it requires 60 votes – the same to close off debate. The same number McConnell would need in order for the Senate to approve the AHCA if it came up during the regular course of business.
The only way around objections is if the Senate considers the AHCA anew, and the Chairman and Ranking Minority Member of the Budget Committee certify that everything in the AHCA is germane. Considering Democrats’ unanimous opposition to the bill, the likelihood of that happening is zero to nil.
Third Hurdle: How Long It Will Take CBO to Score
The third issue is that of timing. And that could be fatal. As the report on the legislation makes clear, it is being consider as a budget reconciliation measure for fiscal year 2017 – the current fiscal year.
The Congressional Budget Office has not yet scored the approved AHCA, and that may take up to three weeks. Senate insiders said that chamber’s parliamentarian cannot rule on whether any provisions violate the Byrd Rule.
A House member told Roughly Explained that a reconciliation measure cannot be taken up after the President submits his next fiscal year budget to Congress. White House officials publicly have said President Trump plans to submit his FY 2018 budget within the next two weeks.
By the time CBO has a cost estimate for the AHCA, the time for the Senate to take it up may have passed.
Fourth Hurdle: The Calendar & Numbers
The fourth issue is how long Congress has to act on a budget reconciliation measure. A report by the Congressional Research Service notes that, under the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 (which first took effect for FY1987 and still remain in effect), all budget reconciliation measures must be approved by June 15.
Even assuming CBO can score the bill before President Trump’s budget gets to Congress, and no Senator raises a point of personal privilege about extraneous provisions, there is little doubt that the AHCA will undergo a major rewrite before it reaches the Senate floor.
That’s where the calendar comes in. Rewrites take time. There are only six weeks before the statutory deadline for considering budget reconciliation measures. But The House has recesses scheduled for the week of May 8th and the 29th. In reality, there are just four weeks for the Senate to recraft the AHCA send the bill back to the House, and have it approve the new measure. And depending on how the rules shake out, they could need eight Democrats willing to repeal President Obama’s legislative legacy to do it,
Final Hurdle: Not Enough Support in the Senate
The final, and probably fatal, problem in the Senate is arithmetic. It takes the votes of 50 senators plus Vice President Pence to pass a budget reconciliation measure. Republicans have a 52-48 majority. They have only a two-vote margin.
At least four Republican senators either have expressed opposition to the AHCA or have grave doubts about it. They are: Alexander (chairman of the health committee), Collins, Murkowski, and Paul. Sources say that Rubio likely is a “no” vote because the AHCA will hurt Florida’s elderly population. In addition, Cruz and Lee may not support it.
Political Theatre
So why would the House approve a measure they must have realized had no chance in the Senate? Because they had to. Since Obamacare came into existence, Republicans have run on a platform that they would repeal and replace it. The House voted more than 40 times during the Obama presidency to do just that, knowing full well it was a futile gesture.
Since Republicans took control of the White House and both houses of Congress, their base has been demanding that they repeal and replace Obamacare. The House tried and failed. It could not afford to fail again. House members can now say they did their part, blame the Senate, and possibly keep control of the House.
The only thing harder than fixing health care is tax reform, but President Donald Trump means to try. The proposal the White House unveiled today is short on specifics, long on aspirations. Trump’s plan includes:
A 15% corporate tax rate, which would also apply to “pass-throughs” – business structures like LLCs used by many small businesses, hedge funds and real estate partnerships.
A tax reduction for middle income tax payers in the form of a higher standard deduction.
Elimination of most tax preference, but not the popular ones like deductions for charitable contributions and mortgages.
These are ambitious goals. But, paying for them is another matter. On face value they would add trillions to the deficit. But, Trump’s team is counting on massive economic growth they hope the tax cuts will spur to fill the shortfall.
While Trump’s tax cuts would certainly spur economic growth, it is it is far from certain that they would do so at the levels required to pay for themselves. It is more likely that the White House views the principals announced today as a starting point for negotiations rather than a realistic end goal.
Bending the Laffer Curve
Backers of Trump’s plan point to the Laffer Curve, an economic concept developed by economist Arthur Laffer. The basic premise is that higher tax rates impede economic activity. The Laffer Curve illustrates that there is a point of diminishing returns at which marginal increases in tax rates generate less revenue by impeding economic activity and incentivizing tax avoidance behavior.
If tax rates reached 100%, there would clearly be no reason to work, so there would be no revenue generated to the government either – exactly the same as if the tax rate were zero.
On the front end of the curve, reducing tax rates will generate more income. On the back end, less. Whether tax cuts can pay for themselves depends on where the tipping point on the curve occurs.
Most, but not all, estimates put the peak of the curve higher than current rates. Unsurprisingly, economists on the left see the revenue-maximizing tax rate quite a bit higher than current marginal tax rates, while credible estimates from right leaning economists range from somewhere slightly below current tax rates to slightly above.
Left-leaning economist see the curve peaking around 60-70%. Economists on the right put it as low as 19%, but most would say it’s somewhere between 35% to 50%. So, it seems likely that Trump’s tax cuts are likely on the back end of the curve where they will generate less new income from economic growth than they lose from rate reductions.
According to Gregory Mankiw, who was chairman of President George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers, “A reasonable rule of thumb, in my judgment, is that about one-third of the cost of tax cuts is recouped via faster economic growth.”
Some economists argue that the revenue-maximizing rate shouldn’t matter. The point should not be to make the government as flush with cash as possible, but to drive the strongest economic growth possible. As Marty Feldstien, chairman of President George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisors put it:
“Why look for the rate that maximizes revenue? As the tax rate rises, the “deadweight loss” (real loss to the economy rises) so as the rate gets close to maximizing revenue the loss to the economy exceeds the gain in revenue…. I dislike budget deficits as much as anyone else. But would I really want to give up say $1 billion of GDP in order to reduce the deficit by $100 million? No. National income is a goal in itself. That is what drives consumption and our standard of living.”
All fair points. But, it does matter if you are worried about exploding deficits and unwilling to reduce spending to compensate for the lost revenue. Given President Trump’s ambitions for large investments in infrastructure and reluctance to pair back entitlements, meaningful spending reductions are probably not on the table. The White House seems to be willing to roll the dice and hope economic growth will fill the gap. As Earnest Hemingway’s protagonist Jake Barnes muses to Lady Brett in The Sun Also Rises, “isn’t it pretty to think so.”
Since the first signs emerged of Russian’s hack into the presidential elections, some within the intelligence community have speculated that the operations had two objectives: First to issue a not-very-subtle warning to CIA and NSA of Russia’s cyberwarfare capabilities; Second, to interfere with the process and, thereby, call into question the integrity of our election process and government. Many within the intelligence community think the second motive may have been the most important, because it would undermine voters’ beliefs in Western democracies.
The Hacks Were Very Traceable
In their testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, both NSA Director Rogers and FBI Director Comey said the FSB and GRU made it clear they were behind the hacks. When asked for the difference between the Russian operations in the 2016 presidential elections and previous cyberattacks, NSA Director Rogers said, “I’d say the biggest difference from my perspective was both the use of cyber, the hacking as a vehicle to physically gain access to information to extract that information and then to make it widely, publicly available without any alteration or change.”
FBI Director Comey said, “The only thing I’d add is they were unusually loud in their intervention. It’s almost as if they didn’t care that we knew what they were doing or that they wanted us to see what they were doing. It was very noisy, their intrusions in different institutions.” In intelligence terms, the phrase “unusually loud” means there were many hacks and all were easily traced back to the Russians.
A person in the intelligence community with first-hand knowledge of the investigation into the Russian hacks of the DNC and state election systems told us last year that the Russians did not even try to hide their digital trails. In fact, this person said, one of the hacks traced directly back to a senior Russian intelligence official.
During the summer of 2016, our intelligence community source described the Russian hacks as “the cyber equivalent of flying a MIG 50 feet over the USS Eisenhower in the Mediterranean.”
They Wanted Us to Know
Rep. Ros-Lethinen asked the FBI and NSA directors why the Russians did not mind being loud and, thus, found out. Comey said, “I think part — their number one mission is to undermine the credibility of our entire democracy enterprise of this nation and so it might be that they wanted us to help them by telling people what they were doing.”
Rogers agreed with Comey. He said, “a big difference to me in the past was while there was cyber activity, we never saw in previous presidential elections information being published on such a massive scale that had been illegally removed both from private individuals as well as organizations associated with the democratic process both inside the government and outside the government.”
. . . And Maybe That Was the Point
The intelligence community source said a follow-up exchange between Rep. Ros-Lehtinen and the directors may be a key to the Russian operation. The congresswoman asked whether Comey and Rogers expect further interference in our elections.
Comey said he did, “. . . I’ll just say as initial matter they’ll be back. And they’ll be in 2020, they may be back in 2018 and one of the lessons they may draw from this is that they were successful because they introduced chaos and division and discord and sewed doubt about the nature of this amazing country of ours and our democratic process.”
The NSA director said, “I fully expect them to continue this — this level of activity because I — our sense is that they have come to the conclusion that it generated a positive outcome for them in the sense that calling into question the democratic process for example is one element of the strategy.”
Same Thing Is Happening in Europe
Rogers went on to testify that the Russians were using the same cyberwarfare techniques during the current round of European elections. He testified the intelligence community noticed “some of the same things that we saw in the U.S. in terms of disinformation, fake news, attempts to release of information to embarrass individuals” have begun to “play out to some extent in European elections right now.”
Within weeks of the intel officials’ testimony, a cybersecurity firm issued a report on hacks that involved both the French and German elections. Trend Micro reported that cyberattacks on the campaign of Emmanuel Macron (in the French presidential runoff against Marine Le Pen), and the political party aligned with German Chancellor Angela Merkel seemed to have originated in Russia.
Trend Micro said the techniques (phishing attacks and malware) and internet protocol addresses used by Pawn Storm – the group behind the hacks – were similar to those the Russians conducted against the DNC and other people and entities during the 2016 elections.
The Point Is to Sow Confusion
Since the Russian hacks into the U.S. elections became public, one question that politicians and pundits have been asking is why? What was the Russian’s motive?
The official answer is that “Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him” – to quote directly from the Director of National Intelligence’s report.
A career Russia analyst explained that Russians are chess players, they look many moves ahead. Disinformation also is a hallmark of their tradecraft, the analyst said, who noted that a long-term goal of both the Soviet Union and the Russian Republic is to undermine Western democracies.
As the DNI report of the 2016 hacks noted, “Russian efforts to influence the 2016 US presidential election represent the most recent expression of Moscow’s longstanding desire to undermine the US-led liberal democratic order, but these activities demonstrated a significant escalation in directness, level of activity, and scope of effort compared to previous operations.” The report states that Putin “ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process . . .”
The analyst’s comments and the DNI’s report lead to a set of conclusions: The Russians hack into political computers to gain access to information, which they then selectively leak. The leaks undermine political leaders’ confidence in their cybersecurity, and make them search for moles. The Russians sometimes salt the hacked documents with fake ones, to create further suspicion. In addition, through blogs, trolls, and “media reports,” the Russians push out false media reports. All of which causes voters to question what is real and what is true. All of which undermines people’s faith in elected and political institutions, and in the trustfulness of the media.
And that is the point. That is the Russian’s aim: to have us question everything and believe nothing.
The author is a former U.S. government investigator.
Politics, Religion, 2016 Election and Inherit the Wind
The plan for this commentary is to explore the role of the many forms of southern culture in the 2016 election process. More specifically, we will dive into the complex relationship between evangelical Protestantism, political conservatism and the miscalculation by political pundits and pollsters of the Trump phenomenon. This phenomenon however is no longer confined to the south but applies to a broader swath of social strata. The experts seemed unable to approach this election in terms of a merger between many elements. We will shift explanations for this underestimation of Trump-ism from words to images, taking the perspective of “one picture is worth 10,000 words”. We turn to Stanley Kramer’s 1960 movie Inherit the Wind. Kramer dramatizes the infamous Scopes Monkey trial in the mid 1920’s in Dayton Tennessee. Ironically this trial occurred within a few years of Raymond Dart’s announced his discovery of Australopithecus africanus (South African ape-man). Both the trial and the discovery of this supposed “missing link” between man and the apes opened a Pandora’s box of cognitive dissonances.
As in most movies (this was a play also) the screen writers and directors take liberties with the historical facts. But the movie does a frightening job of bringing into focus the siege mentality, zealotry, emotionalism, anti-intellectualism, and demands for orthodoxy and conformity in this small Tennessee community. In addition, the movie dramatizes the generational, educational, and regional differences in attitudes towards change. The emphasis on my corner of the world reminds me of a post-Copernican priests who argued “I am more interested in working to get souls to heaven than how the heaven’s work”. The play and movie make stunning use of the fundamentalist mantra of “gimme that old time religion” to get me to heaven. This hymn stands in stark contrast to emerging science and evolutionary biology. The trial scenes emphasize an underlying concern at the time regarding the dissemination of this “modern science” in the fertile young minds in the brave new world of American high schools. This concern persists today as many religious conservatives decry to exclusion of Creation Science and the unfettered teaching of evolution by natural selection to counterbalance evolutionary “theories”. This mind set of faith versus scientific evidence resurfaces from time to time in many disguises. Pundits did not explore the role played by these beliefs, themes, values and conflicts played in the 2016 election. We will try to in a later article.
Stanley Kramer’s 1960 movie version centers on the conflicts between Spencer Tracy (Henry Drummond or Clarence Darrow); Frederick March (Matthew Harrison Brady or William Jennings Bryan) and Gene Kelly (E K Hornbeck or H L Mencken) and a very powerful supporting cast. In a sense it is allegorical. Many younger readers may be not remember, or have read about the events of early 1960’s when the USSR seemed to be ahead in the space race and science teaching in the US looked second rate. Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin (first man in space) were stark reminders. Historical events pitted the anti-science believers (anything attached to evolution by natural selection) with new information about cosmology, evolutionary biology, and other basic sciences. Some consider the rise of a new wave of fundamentalism as a rear guard defense against liberal Biblical modes of criticism. The “old time religion” was far more comforting that this stuff. The rise of terms “godless scientist” and “atheism” seemed intertwined with the challenges to federal effects at desegregation. Culture change and this amalgam of “left behind” working folk may partly explain the emerging shift from democratic to republican hegemony. These changes also helped propel the solidification of the connection between religious Fundamentalism and political conservatism. A similar argument went something like this “we need better scientific education, but not Darwin’s “theory” of natural selection- there is no god in his world”.
Several themes grow out of this movie:
The exaggerated conflict between science (Evolutionary Biology) and Biblical literalism grew out of a sense of disbelief in the meaning and validity of scientific methods and findings when contrasted with emotional beliefs, theology and social values. Unfortunately these ideas merged with hardening support for segregation; elimination of prayer in public school, legalized abortion, growing welfare state, attitudes towards communisms, function of a college education, and many of the programs established by FDR and Lyndon Johnson. The justification for these challenges depended in part on a very distorted picture of the historical interactions between science and religion.
As the complexity of scientific data exploded, the scientific IQ of many people lagged well behind. Many scientists seemed unable to communicate the meaning of their increasingly specialized and often anti-intuitive scientific data. Science was perceived as a destructive force when it perceived in the eyes of many religious folks. In the public eye (populists especially) there was a tendency to devalue pure or basic research at the expense of goal-directed science (and education) with practical or instrumental applications. The impracticality of those in the ivory tower was inferior to personal experience and common sense. They “don’t know anything about how my world works or what is really useful.”
The Butler Act prohibited the teaching of evolution in any public high school in Tennessee. Scopes (Bertram Gates in the movie) openly defied the law and taught an oversimplified version of evolution in a classroom setting. He was charged with violating that Tennessee law. His defense (Spencer Tracy) presented legal arguments based on freedom of thought and belief- a challenge to religious and social orthodoxy. Consistent with a literal interpretation of the Butler Act, the judge (a young Harry Morgan) prohibited the testimony of noted experts and scientists of the day. The prosecution was dominated by Brady (William Jennings Bryan) hinged its case on the narrow issue of breaking the law. The defense countered by questioning the validity of Biblical accounts of the creation of man and miracles that were foundational to the religious fundamentalism. The defense seduced Brady into taking the stand as an expert on the Bible. In a piece of courtroom skill Drummond (Tracy or Clarence Darrow) proceeded to destroy him based on inconsistencies. Brady’s arguments collapsed but the jury ruled against Scopes. But the story is more complex. This trial was a test case for ACLU. They pushed for an appeal and the eventual negation of the Butler act.
Hornbeck (aka Kelley or HL Mencken) plastered his newspaper columns with his depiction of the deplorables in Tennessee as closed minded, backward rubes – the primitivism, anti-intellectualism and fanatical fundamentalism to many of his northern readers. Embedded in both of these events are the hints of a distrust and disgust with lawyers, judges, the press and liberals so prominent in the 2016 election.
The movie depicts the use of religious zeal as an instrument of conformity and a place of asylum from the uncertainty generated by a rapidly changing, conservative society. The greatness of the play/movie lies in the depiction of the human diversity (actually not everyone was vehemently anti-science or evolution). There was compassion and a search for understanding on all sides but the drama was dominated by the brutality and inhumanity of extremism. The goals were not debate but destruction of the other. In the end, it was Tracy and Kelly that clashed over moral and ethical principles of justice versus legal victory. Both Drummond and Hornbeck argued against the stifling effect of rigid conformity in Southern society. This mindset also included a discomfort with “new learning”, a zealous religious fundamentalism and “localism” were over exaggerated for the sake of dramatic effect. Localism referred to a view of our town, our folks, and our experiences are superior to and closer to fundamental Truths in sharp contrast with the scientific truths presented by the experts. The inherent superiority of our folks (even “our blacks”) over those in the next town. These attitudes created a fertile ground for many of the cognitive dissonances that dominated the 1960’s.
In a stark but at times melodramatic fashion, Kramer and his cast captured the complexity of the times. The same argument can be raised during any discussion of southern religion, its relationship to politics and social change. It is a bit foolish to even think that I covered the tip of the iceberg regarding these psychosocial forces. So let me paraphrase a few quotes for your review:
“Swaggering, unyielding characteristics, and unruly congregations, fighting when they deemed fighting appropriate. A premium is placed on a straight-ahead speaking style that emphasizes a thunderous voice that can drown out hecklers, simply experience-tinged ideas with no rational explanations offered as evidence. The events evoked wild emotional responses, recklessness, with a hint of dangerousness and uncivilized- violence”.
Is this a summary of the speaking style of the last presidential campaign? Does it sound familiar from a man that seems disinterested in the complexity of events and the rich learning of experts? Close but no cigar. The collage paraphrases a non-theologically trained, frequently uneducated, travelling revival speakers in the southern frontier of the early 19th century (David T Bailey. Frontier Religion. In Hill SS (Ed) Religion from The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture). This is a revival speaker before a potentially rowdy, violent and clearly emotionally expressive faithful. Compare these observations to the crowds at Trump Campaign. He played a role that resonated with his crowds: his stump speech captured the structure and function of a revival. This congruence between the President’s campaign style and a well-established evangelical world of history was largely overlooked or forgotten by pundits.
Watching his “rallies” awakened old experiences with revivals from my childhood. A good preacher has to tap into the energy and zeal of a sectarian camp meeting designed to preach to the faithful and attract new converts. Part of Trump’s talent lies in his ability to resonate with this camp meeting fervor. He is a master at categorizing others as hell-bound sinners (liberals and progressives) are not worthy of salvation or membership in our brotherhood/sisterhood. In one swoop the deplorables are now accepted and belong to God’s chosen. Even though they are suffering economic and spiritual hardships, they will be redeemed in his “Better America”. Trump himself is a “Convert”. He has given his testimony and made his testimony and is now “saved”.
All of the participants in his rallies struggled with their sins. The rally like a camp meeting “converted and saved” his audience. His foibles were considered in a similar vein- he said he was sorry and this testimony purified his heart and erased obvious biographical “facts” and other sources of cognitive dissonances. His trials and tribulations and suffering were brought on by the press, US Congress and those damnable liberals. He is redeemed, new baptized and now is “one of us”. Even if he backslides, he will be forgiven through god’s grace. But probably not the voter’s grace. Remember this a metaphor and those who unconsciously seize the mantel political religion have to answer for their failure in this world.
This analogy of his campaign rallies as “tent meetings” (religious revivals) also function as a conversion experience. Conversion takes a candidate with many flaws (all of us are sinners) who is “born-again” and acceptable to his believers. Regardless of lying, cheating, abusing or any other sins of his past he is “saved” by virtue of this conversion experience.
Although this article is speculative and woefully over simplified it may offer possible clues to the functional similarities between this campaign and a revival meeting. These are largely unconscious processes but they manipulate expectations of the crowds and loyalists. These observations are not limited to the southern political/religious universe. These observations may provide meager insights into why voters seem to be capable of suspending disbelief and develop a sense of unity with this president. To belong in Trump-land does not emphasize intellectual synchrony, and cognitive dissonance is swept away by faith and devotion. A political-religious experience meets much deeper psychological needs. Calling these folks “deplorables” unites them and matches their sectarian world view. Clinton provided an apology but it was not perceived in term of a conversion or testimony. She relied on intellectual arguments, abstractions, and burdensome facts.
About the Author
Jarrett Barnhill is a native of rural eastern North Carolina. He earned his BA from the UNC-Chapel Hill in anthropology and is a graduate of Wake Forest University School of Medicine. As a psychiatrist, Barnhill has studied the effects culture change and emotional responses to social stress.
CIA Director Michael Pompeo delivered a speech on April 13 that amounted to a detailed declaration of war against both Julian Assange and Wikileaks. Aside from Fox News Channel, which covered the speech live, the media largely ignored the CIA director’s first major policy address. Which is a shame, because there was a lot of information in it.
Equates Julian Assange with Philip Agee
In the speech to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Pompeo equated Wikileaks founder Julian Assange with a former CIA agent who made his name outing CIA covert operators. The DCI related that Philip Agee helped found Counterspy magazine, which in 1973 called for the exposure of CIA undercover operatives. In its first issue, Counterspy unmasked Richard Welch as the agency’s station chief in Athens. Less than a year later, Welch was assassinated by a terrorist group while returning home from a Christmas party.
The DCI said,
“Today, there are still plenty of Philip Agees in the world, and the harm they inflict on U.S. institutions and personnel is just as serious today as it was back then. They don’t all come from the Intelligence Community, share the same background, or use precisely the same tactics as Agee, but they are certainly his soulmates. Like him, they choose to see themselves in a romantic light—as heroes above the law, saviors of our free and open society. They cling to this fiction, even though their disclosures often inflict irreparable harm on both individuals and democratic governments, pleasing despots along the way. The one thing they don’t share with Agee is the need for a publisher. All they require now is a smart phone and internet access. In today’s digital environment, they can disseminate stolen US secrets instantly around the globe to terrorists, dictators, hackers and anyone else seeking to do us harm.”
Paraphrasing an op-ed that Assange wrote in the Washington Post, Pompeo said the Wikileaks founder claimed to be a legitimate news organization, and that Assange compared his Website’s contributions to the Pulitzer Prize-winning work of leading newspapers. “Julian Assange and his kind are not the slightest bit interested in improving civil liberties or enhancing personal freedom. They have pretended that America’s First Amendment freedoms shield them from justice. They may have believed that, but they are wrong,” he said
Wikileaks Is “A Hostile Intelligence Service”
The reality, Pompeo said, is much different. The DCI declared that Wikileaks was effectively a hostile intelligence service:
“WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence service and talks like a hostile intelligence service. It has encouraged its followers to find jobs at CIA in order to obtain intelligence. It directed Chelsea Manning in her theft of specific secret information. And it overwhelmingly focuses on the United States, while seeking support from anti-democratic countries and organizations. It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is – a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia.”
Snowden’s Links to Russians & Aid to Terrorist
As we previously have commented on these pages, the intelligence community has long believed that former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who passed on materials to Wikileaks, is a Russian agent. Pompeo made that allegation – not exactly earth-shattering news given that he is living in Moscow – but this marked the first time that a senior CIA official has said so publicly.
The DCI said:
“When Snowden absconded to the comfortable clutches of Russian intelligence, his treachery directly harmed a wide range of US intelligence and military operations. Despite what he claims, he is no whistleblower. True whistleblowers use the well-established and discreet processes in place to voice grievances; they do not put American lives at risk. In fact, a colleague of ours at NSA recently explained that more than a thousand foreign targets—people, groups, organizations—more than a thousand of them changed or tried to change how they communicated as a result of the Snowden disclosures. That number is staggering.”
Pompeo said that, as a result of Snowden’s disclosures, terrorists are better at hiding their communications.
“[T]he bottom line is that it became harder for us in the Intelligence Community to keep Americans safe. It became harder to monitor the communications of terrorist organizations that are bent on bringing bloodshed to our shores. Snowden’s disclosures helped these groups find ways to hide themselves in the crowded digital forest. Even in those cases where we were able to regain our ability to collect, the damage was already done. We work in a business with budgetary and time constraints. The effort to earn back access that we previously possessed meant that we had less time to look for new threats.”
Assange Has Assisted Terrorists
Pompeo said Assange was either complicit with al Qaeda or a willing idiot – to use a Russian phrase that means someone who unwillingly is being used by an intelligence service.
The DCI said Assange’s “actions have attracted a devoted following among some of our most determined enemies. Following a recent WikiLeaks disclosure, an al Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula member posted a comment online thanking WikiLeaks for providing a means to fight America in a way that AQAP had not previously envisioned. AQAP represents one of the most serious terrorist threats to our country and the world. It is a group that is devoted not only to bringing down civilian passenger planes, but our way of life as well. That Assange is the darling of terrorists is nothing short of reprehensible.”
The Declaration of War
The DCI then effectively declared a three-step war against Assange and Wikileaks. Pompeo said, “First, it is high time we called out those who grant a platform to these leakers and so-called transparency activists. We know the danger that Assange and his not-so-merry band of brothers pose to democracies around the world. Ignorance or misplaced idealism is no longer an acceptable excuse for lionizing these demons.”
Second, Pompeo said, the intelligence community had to boost its own systems, and “improve internal mechanisms that help us in our counterintelligence mission.” Finally, he said, “we have to recognize that we can no longer allow Assange and his colleagues the latitude to use free speech values against us. To give them the space to crush us with misappropriated secrets is a perversion of what our great Constitution stands for. It ends now.”
First Shots Fired in War
Exactly a week after Pompeo’s speech that denounced Wikileaks and implied that the administration would not idly stand by, the Washington Post reported that the Justice Department opened an investigation into Wikileaks.
The newspaper, in its April 21st print edition, reported, “Federal prosecutors are weighing whether to bring criminal charges against members of the WikiLeaks organization, taking a second look at a 2010 leak of diplomatic cables and military documents and investigating whether the group bears criminal responsibility for the more recent revelation of sensitive CIA cyber-tools, according to people familiar with the case.”
Interestingly, the article note, “The Justice Department under President Barack Obama decided not to charge WikiLeaks for revealing some of the government’s most sensitive secrets — concluding that doing so would be akin to prosecuting a news organization for publishing classified information. Justice Department leadership under President Trump, though, has indicated to prosecutors that it is open to taking another look at the case, which the Obama administration did not formally close.”
The Post reported that the DoJ is also looking at the leaks from Chelsea Manning, the Army soldier who was convicted in 2013 of revealing sensitive diplomatic cables. The paper noted, “Manning chatted with Assange about a technique to crack a password so Manning could log on to a computer anonymously, and that conversation, which came up during Manning’s court-martial, could be used as evidence that WikiLeaks went beyond the role of publisher or journalist.”
When asked to comment on the reopened investigation, Attorney General Sessions said, “We are going to step up our effort and already are stepping up our efforts on all leaks. Whenever a case can be made, we will seek to put some people in jail.”
Assange and Wikileaks may be in for some interesting times ahead.
I am a native of eastern North Carolina who grew up in the midst of tobacco fields, textile mills and the darkness of Jim Crow. I have spent my professional lifetime as a psychiatrist but have remained keenly interested in the social changes that left a large number of my family and friends in the realm of anachronisms. My home town is dying. Progress killed it when a new bypass reduced it to an exit ramp. It is now invisible to most people driving to and from the coast. This is the heart of North Carolina’s Trump country.
Abandon Common Sense All Who Enter
The quote is a paraphrase of the warning above the entrance to Dante’s Inferno. The goal of this brief overview is to apply this psycho-social and cultural principles to an age of rampant cognitive dissonances. Our current political struggle is act one in the drama of increasing polarization and perhaps tribalization in America. This past election splits the electorate (or 55% or so that voted) into nearly equal percentages of people believe that we are already passed through the gateway. The other half are on the verge of leaving Purgatorio and about to enter the Paradiso.
The divisions within the news media seem equally cavernous. The boundary between truth versus fake news and outright lying is semipermeable. Objectivity is the first casualty. Even the viewing public is divided between zealous followers. This sectarian split creates situation in which ethics and sense of fairness in news reporting and governing is now prey to party loyalty and overzealous devotion. We are moving away from “just the facts ma’am” to pandering to belief systems. The highly competitive, 24-hour news cycle feeds the faithful and vilifies the heretics on the other side of the great divide. Winning at all costs is preferable to common truths. We are a “house divided against itself”, but the big question is whether we “cannot survive”. “E pluribus Unum” is crumbling away like a dry pie crust. Do we need a war or some catastrophe to repair the damage?
My job is not to assume the mantle of a Soviet Era psychiatrist and use the power of a diagnosis to label opposing politicians as suffering from a mental illness. I deeply respect the Goldwater rule. This was an ethics restriction issued to psychiatrists that sanctioned the speculative diagnoses for political figures (Barry Goldwater in 1964). This is not a diagnostic case study. It is my best attempt to explore the social forces that lead to a suspension of disbelief by my fellow southerners. I think it has generalized to a much larger segment of our complex, fragmented and perhaps tribal society. But I know southerners first hand by virtue of being a southern white male who grew up in a working, lower middle class, farmer- handyman led family. If anything is grossly biased or incorrect please remember an old southern aphorism: “he tried but he just can’t help it”.
Why Did This Happen?
The Federalist papers argued for unity and a common sense of purpose in order to override state rights in terms of economics and international affairs. Today we see, to be creating a chain of lesser being in which even state’s right is regressing to increasingly smaller units- county, town/city, organization (like the NRA or ACLU), political party, and tribal affiliation. What remains is a fragmented reality in which the individual becomes his own governing body. We have replaced loyalty to North Carolina with loyalty to self –interest and the party line. The pursuit of happiness is perverted into a lust for wealth and power. The winners are blessed, let the rest “eat cake”.
If this transition continues, the Senate and House of Representatives may become the next Fort Sumter. Sen McConnell has lit the fuse. Will the nuclear option further militarize the great divide and ring the death knell for compromise and governance? Will the future be determined party line votes; totalitarianism by simple majority; gerrymandering as “double speak” for the destruction of general welfare and the common good; a rewriting history with the demise of a free press or dissent; dismantling of the constitutional balance of power, a rubber stamp congress, and ruining the desire for a greater America as we run headlong into the quicksand pits in the Washington swamp? Or are we on the verge of a very strange Utopia in which people willfully support a voluntary destruction of their safety net for short term sense of well-being and power?
These versions of myopia also include a belief that facts are what we believe them to be rather than what science and unity or consensus dictate. Unfortunately, we seem to have lost the ability to assess the amount of self-damage that such rigid loyalties might bring. This translates into political self-mutilation in a desire to conform to an ideology that pits my basic needs against the desire to cut the very programs that sustain a modern society. We are currently in a political cold war with no Mutually Assured Destruction to keep a lid on ambition and further division- the acronym MAD seems apt for our times.
Befuddled many of us are groping to understand the balance between vengeance to hold back progress and life in a post-modern nation state. There seems to be a trend towards “getting the ravenous government off our backs; a cleansing that spruces up our unabashed drive for self-promotion, a fundamentalist political religion that preaches rampant individualism and laissez-faire economics. The chorus seems to be chanting: “I am not and nor should I ever be, my brother/sister’s keeper”. This new Renaissance glorifies the “good old days” without acknowledging the remarkable technological and scientific breakthroughs that might launch a new economic surge.
It seems that those who are most alienated and disenfranchised are lining the streets and glorifying the political and socio-economic myths of our sacred industrial past, while others are glorifying the ongoing positivism and urge to purchase any new technology borne of this scientific revolution. Change is the evil that lurks in the hearts of those who vilify or glorify newness. The idea that creating future industries by dismantling the inefficient or unsavory parts of the past practices becomes a malevolent act. The epidemic of amnesia affects everyone. Today is a becoming a massive rear guard defense to slow down “progress”.
At the core of this struggle is how we view and the psychological stress of adapting to change. The attitude that culture change is dissonant at best and malevolent at its worst seems to underlie the responses of many rural and working class southerners. Technology is fine for entertainment and escape but not for automating and modernizing traditional southern industries. Who would vote for someone who vows to oppose or destroy a living wage; federal loans for their children to attend college, caring for the less fortunate around the world, or health care that covers their many pre-existing conditions. On the surface this seems like sheer lunacy, but the ideas offered to explain this regression fill up the sociological, political and historical accounts are equally vexing.
The Rise and Fall of the South shall Rise Again
First of all, the South is a euphemism for rural and other blue and red state voters who pulled off this ignominious defeat of the politically correct establishment — the Democrats and others wearing a scarlet “L” for liberal on their foreheads. The L word is a dirty name in some parts of conservative southern America. But even the
2016 Presidential Election Results by county.
conservative tribe or sect seems fragile as regional differences in politics splinter this coalition. In addition, the fundamentals of regional differences are now being replaced by a socio-economic and political red shift that seems to characterize our current politics. It seems that rednecks in the north, south and other regions of the US are more similar than different- except they speak with different accents. The myth of homogenization is mostly a populist, demagogue’s dream. Is fragmentation sufficient to destroy unification or does it propel the old cry “the south will rise again” and re-assert itself in the noble struggle to reshape society? If so then will the new winners erase the past and recreate their version of history and the future.
But I wonder how many people recall the facts surrounding the American Civil War. Most of us are more familiar with the mythology of the War of Northern Aggression. W J Cash described the tenacity of this mythical history in The Mind of the South. Later studies suggest that the escalation and polarization of socio-political, fire-breathing religious fervor, and regressive pull of these forces led to the civil war. Slavery, state’s rights and a sense of being impoverished second class citizens contrasted with the myth of noble, paternalistic planter class. The issue of slavery split political, social and religious organizations and the election of 1860 touched off the fuse to explode the powder keg. The south was destroyed, but the myth lived on as progress propelled the another myth- progress in education, industry and wealth.
Jim Crow as an oddly placed variant of xenophobia that was no accident. It served as payback for Reconstruction and became one method of sustaining the mythical South. The myth was expanded and further glorified by subsequent generations of southerners who promoted the ideal of a valiant nobility, engaged in chivalrous war against the invading masses of Northern Huns. The noble generation lost but did so with chivalry and glory for the Lost Cause. David lost to Goliath but a vengeful God of wrath was entering history. In this Apocalyptic, the War and Reconstruction was hell. The initial survivors adopted and recapitulated Milton’s Satan:”tis better to rule in hell than serve in heaven.” Over time, no matter how battered the survivors were this remained an issue of honor. They could turn hell into a mythical heaven- at least as long as African Americans were horribly worse off than they were. The infiltration of Northern missionaries, teachers and black enfranchisement was seen as an invasion that threatened their myth of the south. But many would never surrender without a fight. Since 2010, this cycles of elections has been both a retribution and a redemption.
The underlying psycho-sociology of the assault on Southern “culture” by an amalgam of outsiders seems to re-invent itself over and over again. From the early 20th century onward it appeared that the “Cause” of post-civil southern mythology was transformed into a new asymmetrical civil war — the return of a continuum from runaway state’s rights, community and party loyalty, the demise of the yellow dog democrat to a solid republican majority; the superiority of personal and group beliefs over scientific evidence, and a deep distrust of overly educated, liberals who live in ivory towers and lack enough common sense to change a tire. When the 2016 presidential election is viewed through this lens the outcome makes sense.
Although surely one for the ages, the shock and awe of November 2016 set a whole generation of progressives and political junkies scattering like a covey of quail. The ecstasy of the winners is the agony of those hoping for a rerun of the “New South”.
Living in this New South may be another story. The “deplorables, rednecks, crackers and other “degenerates” fooled the experts, pundits and pollsters. In keeping with the Bible David slew Goliath- the “deplorables” won. As a child I remember folks talking about such an outcome as a redneck’s payday- except this was winning the lottery. Described in less pejorative terms the disenfranchised rural and working classes bypassed an unsophisticated, inarticulate manner of debating style and spoke with their votes. The elections had all of the earmarks of historical political campaigns in the south. It was filled with theatrics, demagoguery, focus on personalities and mudslinging; a flagrant disregard of political decorum, political correctness, or rhetoric about upholding southern political traditions in spite of preaching progress. The flyover from 30,000 feet now suggests that the traditional regional forces have disappeared, and the “mind of the south” is now based on socioeconomic boundaries. As a surprise to the pollsters America is filled with rednecks and the southern cause is now shared in part by a substantial minority of the voting public.
This election was a street fight and you had to get down and dirty to win.
So how did you convince millions of voters to suspend disbelief and vote against what appear to be their self-interests. In the rural south of my childhood “the south shall rise again” and the noble cause is now in the legislatures, House of Representatives, the Senate and now the US Supreme Court. The irony is that the winner said and did things that would have disqualified any politician over the nearly 227 years since the Constitution was completed. In the 19th century, the log cabin was symbolic of humble beginnings, hard work, and determination. The candidate captured the heart and soul of a frustrated, disenfranchised population in culture shock and promised to restore the idealized past. The “experts” babble on about the science of politics, economics and culture change. This election was a street fight and you had to get down and dirty to win.
Perhaps the most dramatic triumph was convincing people who claim to think for themselves, revel in individualism, claim to be good Christian folks, work hard every day want America to be great as it is dismantled around them? First of all, I suspect the president is not the messiah and Obama, is not the anti-Christ. Perhaps George Wallace was the last great master of this art form. He was a master of working crowds, sayingthings in a simple brand of English, kindling and stoking the fires of segregationists and working class folks who had little time, inclination or perhaps academic smarts to worry
about the nuances and subtle art of proper politics. Nixon’s southern strategists
unleashed Spiro Agnew (and Pat Buchanan as the writer of a fiery brand alliterative street fighting) that relied on condemning a free press, independent judiciary, evidence versus belief, and brutal art of devaluing the very government and intellectual foundation of our political system.
This is not the time to hide behind old political theory and voting patterns. It is a time to face the reality of hand to hand political combat. In a sense pundits who relied upon a process analogous to Robert McNamara’s approach to the Vietnam War- fight by statistical analysis, kill ratios, and with technological wonders. Ho Chi Minh and General Giap knew otherwise. This was a bloody mess not a chivalrous battle for principles honor. In the south of my youth politics is a blood sport not a game of chess or bridge. From another angle, how could the Confederate battle flag (Stars and Bars) waivers, Klansmen and other die-hard survivalists celebrate the election of a New York businessman with no comparable life-experiences? Perhaps his aura of anti-intellectualism and an underdog who won rekindles the old myth- “the south did rise again”.
To those who see this in millenarian terms, the president is the great white hope for their version of American greatness. This was a rehearsal for Armageddon. The President’s campaign flare for media attention and drawing zealous crowds resembled a well-choreographed pas de due that played well among the scoop-hungry monster of a 24 hrs./day, seven day a week, 365 days a year news media. Reality TV, like alternative facts is constantly in everyone’s home, car and workplace. There should be an anti-Emmy or Academy Award for best director, actor, screen play and cinematography for old time southern politics wearing new suits.
Next we will continue a larger review with a look into the role of religious and political fundamentalism, evangelicalism and sectarianism in our current drama.
About the Author
Jarrett Barnhill is a native of rural eastern North Carolina. He earned his BA from the UNC-Chapel Hill in anthropology and is a graduate of Wake Forest University School of Medicine. As a psychiatrist, Barnhill has studied the effects culture change and emotional responses to social stress.
CREDIT: Institute for the Study of War; Roughly Explained
President Donald Trump on Thursday ordered a missile attack on a Syrian airbase the U.S. believes was the launching point for Tuesday’s chemical attack. Tomahawk cruise missiles, 59 of them, launched from the USS Porter and USS Ross pounded Shayrat Airbase in Hom province. The White House is touting the strike as indication that President Trump is taking a more resolute approach towards Assad than that of his predecessor, President Barack Obama.
The strike came in response to Tuesday’s deadly chemical attack on civilians in Khan Sheikhoun, a town in Idlib Province. The attack, which appears to have been carried out with Sarin nerve gas, killed at least 86 people, 26 children among them. Photos of dead and dying children galvanized outrage towards the Assad regime as they spread on social media this week.
“Even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered in this very barbaric attack. No child of God should ever suffer such horror.” – President Trump
Tensions with Russia
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson lashed out on Thursday at Russia’s failure to remove Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles under an agreement struck following the Assad regime’s 2013 chemical attack on civilians in Ghouta. “Either Russia has been complicit, or Russia has been simply incompetent in its ability to deliver on its end of that agreement, Tillerson said.
The change in tone was notable for the stark reversal it represents. Just a week ago, Trump administration officials seemed resigned to accepting the status quo in Syria’s complex civil war, and were looking to strike a deal with Russia to contain its ally Iran and ultimately find a diplomatic solution to the conflict.
The offensive represents a significant break between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been supporting Syrian President Bashir al-Assad in the countries bloody civil war. The U.S. and other western nations blame Assad for the attack. The Assad regime and Russia denied that Syrian government forces were responsible.
Russian Frigate Admiral Grigorovich, Black Sea Fleet
Moscow reacted furiously to the U.S. missile strikes calling them an “act of aggression” and a violation of international law. The Russian foreign ministry announced on Friday that it was suspending an agreement between the
U.S. and Russia that prevents inadvertent direct conflict between the two countries as they operate in Syria. Russian sources told the Tass News agency that the frigate Admiral Grigorovich would enter the Mediterranean on Friday, adding that the cruise-missile capable ship was bound for the Russian logistics base at Tartus on Syria’s coast. For now, the Trump administration’s hopes of working with Russia look to be in vain.
CREDIT: Institute for the Study of War; Roughly Explained
Trial by Reality
Thursday’s strike was the first time the U.S. has struck Syrian government forces directly. The escalation of U.S. intervention in Syria carries risks. It is a multi-dimensional conflict of shifting alliances and great power chess games. Dozens of rebel groups, foreign powers, and terrorist factions, each with their own interests, are fighting on different sides. Separating the good guys and bad guys is maddeningly difficult, made more so by their tendency to change with the situation on the ground.
Before taking office, President Trump was an ardent opponent of any intervention in Syria. He frequently attacked President Obama for involving the U.S. in the conflict. Trump’s shift in stance is the result of a trial by reality that every new President experiences to at least some extent. Problems that seemed from the outside to have simple answers look far less simple from the Oval Office. Decisions must be balanced not only in terms of the consequences of action, but the consequences of inaction as well. Assad’s calculation that there would be no U.S. response from attacking Khan Sheikhoun with Sarin nerve gas resulted in the deaths of scores of women and children. As the gravity of the office settles on him, President Trump is realizing that being President isn’t as easy as it looked.
In nearly two decades covering Washington, James Rosen has interviewed Presidents, broken important stories and at times been at the center of the story himself. The Obama administration targeted Rosen as a “co-conspirator” in a 2010 leak investigation stemming from his exclusive reporting on North Korea, prompting outrage among First Amendment advocates that resulted in major reforms.
As one of Washington’s smartest and most insightful journalists, Rosen has chronicled history in the making. But he’s also an accomplished writer and historian with three books and numerous essays to his credit. Roughly Explained talked with Rosen about Trump, Russia, the state of journalism, and — of course — the Beatles for this week’s Ten Questions.
The story of Russian influence in a U.S. election was bound to stir political passions. As a serious journalist, how do you separate the reality from the nonsense?
The task is more complicated for today’s journalist than it was for his predecessors only by virtue of the proliferation of sources, outlets, assertions and allegations, and the accompanying growth in the output of sheer nonsense. But the same basic precept as has always prevailed prevails here and now: Caveat emptor. Check stuff out. The good news is that the same Information Age that contributed to this unwelcome proliferation has also made it easier than ever before to access data and do due diligence.
There’s a lot of controversy over unnamed sources, yet especially in national security reporting, it’s difficult to do your job without them. How do journalists evaluate the credibility of anonymous sources when they use them?
The good reporter will ask, silently or otherwise, a series of questions of his anonymous source: How well do I know this person? How reliable has he been in the past? Is he in a position to know the information he is claiming to know? Does he tend to present claims that are susceptible to substantiation via other means? And lastly – of some importance but not always dispositive or even relevant: What is his motive in providing information to me?
You’ve got a new book out, A Torch Kept Lit: Great Lives of the Twentieth Century, which is a collection of obituaries of the late conservative icon William F. Buckley. You knew Buckley and interviewed him over the years. In 2000, you asked Buckley what responsible historians would write about Bill Clinton’s presidency. I’ll ask you the same question, what should responsible historians write about our current political moment?
Naturally, the good reporter will be more reluctant than Bill Buckley, the peerless commentator, to engage in the inherently dangerous business of prognostication; rather, the good reporter will comfortably confine himself to recounting that which has recently transpired. But in broad terms, I suspect future historians will aptly pay attention to the structural forces grinding away, features of globalism and digitalization, that conspire to make our politics less civil and less efficacious.
You’re also a historian of the Watergate scandal. It’s tempting to view the Russia controversy through the same lens. Is that a fair comparison? What are the similarities and differences between the two?
The American people have become inured to the brandishing, on a near daily basis, of the word “Watergate” to describe this or that. It strikes me that too little is yet known about the current situation to merit comparisons to the great scandal of 1972-75. The closest analogue to the Nixon era is the persistent allegation – and it remains only that, at this point – that individuals connected to the Trump campaign somehow colluded with the Russian government in the Kremlin’s effort to meddle in the 2016 election. In general terms, this mirrors the allegations that the 1968 Nixon campaign used a backchannel to the South Vietnamese government to prevent the Johnson White House from using a bombing halt, in the weeks before the election, to bring about a peace deal that could sway the contest to Vice President Humphrey: the so-called October surprise. I wrote about these intrigues in my book The Strong Man: John Mitchell and the Secrets of Watergate.
Watergate has been popularly viewed as a triumph of the Washington Press Corps. In Strong Man, your biography of Nixon Attorney General James Mitchell, you show that the press got a lot wrong about. What are they getting wrong now?
Only thanks to the unusually thorough record-keeping of the Nixon administration – including, above all, the president’s own taping system – and the increasing access to those records over the passage of several decades’ time did it become possible to provide a thorough corrective to some of the worst, most inflated, sensationally wrong news media coverage of the Nixon era. It is by definition too soon to draft such a corrective for today’s coverage, but the reality is that no administration will ever again preserve the history of its internal deliberations with the same thoroughness that Nixon and his aides exhibited, and so we will likely never be able to correct the record of our times with the same accuracy. This is also true by dint of the proliferation of sources, outlets, assertions, allegations, and sheer nonsense averred to earlier: There simply isn’t enough time or bandwidth to correct it all nowadays. It forces us, I think, to redefine our conceptions of the scope of what we used to call media criticism.
On the flip side, there’s been resistance among Trump supporters to take the Russia investigation seriously. You hear a lot about the “deep state” — a cabal of intelligence operatives and bureaucrats loyal to Obama seeking to damage Trump as an explanation. What do you make of that charge?
In an interview for Fox News last month, I asked Vice President Pence whether the Deep State exists, and if so, of whom it consists and what its aims are. He said he himself hasn’t used the term, but added that he believes President Trump “has rightly been concerned about leaks that have been happening out of this administration.” I’m not sure that what some today call the Deep State is all that different from what used to be called the Shadow Government or the permanent bureaucracy. Sidney Blumenthal, the longtime Clinton adviser who played a critical role in the scandal over Secretary Clinton’s private server, actually published a book in 1976 along these lines, entitled Government by Gunplay. One could also point, by way of precursors, to the Moorer-Radford scandal, wherein the Joint Chiefs of Staff were discovered to have been stealing documents from the Nixon-Kissinger NSC and leaking the contents to syndicated columnist Jack Anderson, thereby helping him to win the 1972 Pulitzer Prize. I also wrote extensively about this in The Strong Man.
https://youtu.be/JZy-MCJtLaU
What are the legitimate questions raised by the Russia investigation that we need answered to understand what really happened?
We must be careful to avoid the inclination to consider as legitimate the posing of any question that can be made to sound legitimate. For now, we are obliged to take the FBI Director at face value when he testified before Congress last month that the FBI saw a legitimate need to investigate “the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts” to meddle in the election. Comey was, somewhat unfairly, unwilling to acknowledge in that same highly publicized setting whether the FBI is also investigating the unmasking of Trump-related names from intelligence reports, an action we now know to have been ordered by Susan Rice; and who leaked such data to the news media. Those would also seem to be very relevant questions.
Trump’s tweeted charge that Obama tapped his phone has been widely disparaged. You actually were subjected to a court order in a leaking that allowed Federal investigators to rifle through your email. This has been offered as evidence that Trump was on to something. Do you think that’s right?
The relevance of my case in relation to the current situation is simply that it established the proclivity of the Obama administration to exceed the bounds of lawfulness in its use of surveillance against improper targets, and its development of tenuous legal theories as a predicate for doing so. President Trump’s specific claim, that President Obama “wire tapped” him, remains unproved and is likely false, as the chairs and ranking members of both intelligence committees, and other relevant officials and former officials, have pointed out.
You were at the center of several controversies during the Obama administration from leak investigations to the selective editing of a State Department press briefing. Some would say that now Trump is taking it to a new level. How does the Trump administration’s approach compare to Obama’s?
Nothing the Trump administration had yet done to, or in connection with, the news media approaches in nature or severity what the Obama administration did in the same realm; the actions there were not merely distasteful but criminal. That said, the Trump White House, and the president himself, while no doubt correct in many of their complaints about biased and dishonest news coverage, have said and done things to specific members of the news media, and to specific news media organizations, that make me uncomfortable and discouraged about the future trajectory of the relationship. Ultimately, the top officials in this White House need to recognize that the American people they were elected to serve care less about Jake Tapper and Katy Tur than about the Chinese and the Russians, and about the pressing problems created by things like automation and runaway entitlement spending.
Trump’s battle against the media has made your profession a pariah among Trump supporters. What would you say to a Trump supporter who distrusts journalism about how they should view the media today?
I would only presume to speak for myself and for the program on which I most frequently appear, “Special Report with Bret Baier,” which airs weeknights at 6p ET. Watch that show for a week and tell me if you think we aren’t living up to our motto of “fair and balanced” reporting, wherein “we report, you decide.” It’s the best, most comprehensive political news show on television today, and even the most fervent Trump supporter would be obliged, I should think, to agree.
Finally, what Beatles song do you think would be most apt as a soundtrack to our present political moment?
Ha! First, allow me to say how grateful I am that you didn’t pose some variation of the Inevitable Question that true Beatles freaks like me receive all the time from non-freaks, and regard as heretical and offensive: namely, Which is your favorite song/album/Beatle? (Which of my children should be rescued from the burning building? How to compare the genius of “It Won’t Be Long” with that of “Hey Jude”?) As for which Beatles track best suits our current moment, one could do worse than to remember the lyrics of “Within You, Without You,” George Harrison’s Indian-flavored classic on the Sgt. Pepper album, released fifty years ago June 1:
Try to realize it’s all within yourself, no-one else can make you change
And to see you’re really only very small
And life flows on within you and without you
President Obama and Susan Rice make a secure call in a SCIF. CREDIT: Wikipedia commons.
Bloomberg National security columnist Eli Lake reported on Monday that former National Security Advisor to President Barack Obama Susan Rice requested that names of Trump associates mentioned in intercepted communications between foreigners, and in some cases communications between Russian officials and members of the Trump team, be “unmasked” in classified intelligence reports. Such requests aren’t improper, but it’s not routine.
Normally, a U.S. person’s name would be obscured from intelligence reports derived from foreign surveillance. For example, an American might be referred to as “U.S. Person A.” In some cases, when the identity of the U.S. person is critical for understanding of the foreign intelligence, an official will request that it be “unmasked.” Unmasking does not authorize the leaking of information. It also does not mean that Trump officials were targeted for surveillance as the President claimed in a tweet last month.
But, it does raise questions about whether the “unmasking” broke rules intended to protect the privacy of Americans incidentally picked up in the process of spying on foreigners. Under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the names of U.S. persons are supposed to be obscured “unless such person’s identity is necessary to understand foreign intelligence information or assess its importance.” Such U.S. person information can also be revealed for law enforcement purposes if it involves evidence that a crime has been committed or will be in the future.
A counter-intelligence investigation of Russia’s election interference would obviously create a situation in which knowing the names of U.S. persons involved was important. Nothing would make much sense if you didn’t know whether it was about at least one U.S. person, Donald Trump. Most of the intercepted communications were reportedly between foreigners. To the extent they discussed Trump campaign officials, assessing the conversation requires knowing who they are talking about. If there turned out to be an intercepted conversation between a Russian intelligence officer and a Trump associate about Moscow’s efforts to sway the election in Trump’s favor, a name would obviously be relevant there too. Some “unmasking” is to be expected.
But, Lake’s column says that at least some of the unmasked names appeared in reports that do not pertain to Russia. Some also reportedly contain politically useful information about the Trump campaign and transition.
“One U.S. official familiar with the reports said they contained valuable political information on the Trump transition such as whom the Trump team was meeting, the views of Trump associates on foreign policy matters and plans for the incoming administration.”
One reason you cannot unmask a person is to gain useful information for political reasons. We don’t know what the information actually was and whether it was important in some other way for foreign intelligence purposes. But, if names of Trump associates were unmasked for political reasons that are not pertinent to understanding foreign intelligence information, then we’ve got two scandals on our hands.
“If names of Trump associates were included for political reasons that are not pertinent to understanding foreign intelligence information, then we’ve got two scandals on our hands.”
Abuse of foreign surveillance for political purposes seems far-fetched. But, Rice is already a lightning rod. Her claim that the 2012 Benghazi attacks were protests, rather than the work of terrorists, put her at the center of a heated controversy. Last month, Rice said in a PBS interview that she was unaware of any such incidental surveillance on Trump associates. If Lake’s report is accurate, Rice apparently was not telling the truth. Whatever the case, Congress needs to get to the bottom of it.
Autopsy, a noun: a postmortem examination to discover the cause of death or the extent of disease. After President Trump and Speaker Ryan declared the American Health Care Act dead, it is time to conduct an autopsy on it. The primary cause of death was bad floor management by congressional leaders. Contributing factors were: Speaker Paul Ryan’s preference for policy over legislative details; the process used to draft the AHCA; disengagement at the White House; President Trump’s lack of knowledge of both the subject matter; the Freedom Caucus’s intransigence; and former Speaker Boehner.
Bad Floor Management
A simple political axiom states: Never schedule a vote on legislation before you know you have the votes to pass it. Speaker Ryan and his leadership team violated that simple truth. Ryan and Trump said they were close. They never were. Congressional observers and staff knew the AHCA would fall between 25-30 votes. Trump “ordered” Ryan to hold an AHCA vote, but that was one day after Ryan postponed a vote – which meant Ryan didn’t have a majority of Republicans. Trump, or any President, has zero direct say in what happens at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. If you don’t believe that, reread the Constitution, specifically Article I, Section 5: “Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings . . .” Ryan, Majority Leader McCarthy, Whip Scalise, and Deputy Whip McHenry control the floor. They decide which legislation is voted on, when, in what order, whether amendments are allowed, and the debate time.
Ryan: A Policy Wonk, Not a Legislative Tactician
In order to understand why Ryan made what Minority Leader Pelosi called a “rookie error,” you first need to know that, while Ryan is a brilliant policy wonk, he is not a legislative tactician. The AHCA is an example of this lack of legislative finesse. Ryan apparently believed he could obtain the 20-some-odd votes needed through a deal with the Freedom Caucus. But, the compromises required to bring them on board would cause GOP moderates would jump off.
Ryan did not want to be Speaker, but took the position because he was the consensus choice. He would be happier in a lengthy discussion with Bill Clinton over methods to improve educational outcomes than in legislative strategy. After the 2012 presidential campaign, Ryan quietly toured anti-poverty programs. He wrote a more than 200-page policy manifesto based on those visits. Before last year’s elections, Ryan created a document called “A Better Way” that laid out his vision of solutions to America’s problems. As the Washington Post, noted, the AHCA “was sketched out” in Ryan’s agenda.
The drafting of the AHCA is an example of Ryan’s lack of legislative tactics. His policy staff largely drafted the bill behind closed doors, incorporating some language from bills introduced in the 114th Congress by Tom Price (then the Budget Committee chairman), and the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. The Ryan draft was presented to the chairmen of the Energy & Commerce and the Ways and Means committees. That effectively cut Members out of the process. Members like to be involved in the process. When the legislation was shown to Members, they reviewed copies of the bill in an office guarded by armed U.S. Capitol Police. No staff were allowed into the room, and Members were not allowed to take copies with them. Lawmakers were furious at the process. One said Members have easier access to classified information.
Lack of Staff at HHS
While Ryan and his leadership team had a major role in the AHCA debacle, the White House also bears some of the blame. There is not a deputy secretary in place at the Department of Health and Human Services. Two people are in charge of legislative affairs at HHS, but neither has formally been nominated. For those outside the Beltway, the legislative affairs shops at federal agencies are responsible for getting the President’s agenda through Congress. Trump tried to enact a major overhaul of healthcare with Tom Price in charge of HHS and no one to help him. Price served in the House for 12 years. But he cannot run a major agency and guide major legislation through the process. No one could.
The administration’s point man on the AHCA was Reince Priebus. He was chosen because he is from Wisconsin and is a personally and politically close to Speaker Ryan. However, Priebus has never held elective office at any level. He cannot possibly understand bill drafting, process, and legislative coalition building. To use an analogy Trump would understand: It was like hiring someone with no drafting experience to be the architect for your first major skyscraper.
Trump Shares Blame
Then there is the President himself. Members and lobbyists who spoke with Trump say it was obvious that he did not understand the intricacies of the AHCA and its possible effects on both the marketplace and voters. Trump ran on a mantra of repeal and replace. In order to achieve such a lofty goal, he had to propose legislation. The President allowed Ryan to take AHCA and run, with little input from the White House. Trump only became involved in the process of selling the bill when it already too late. He tried to get lawmakers to support the AHCA through pep talks and rides on Air Force One. That will never work when Member are faced with the choice of an airplane flight with the President or winning re-election. Guess which one politicians will take.
…And the Freedom Caucus
As the President and numerous commentators have pointed out, the Freedom Caucus also played a role in the death of the AHCA, through its insistence that the bill be amended numerous times to meet their belief in a limited federal government. No one should doubt that tenet, just as no one should doubt the liberals want a more expansive federal government. This argument has been ongoing since before the Constitution was adopted. A major criticism of the Freedom Caucus has been that its members still act as if they are insurgents, rather than incumbents. The caucus has a tendency to oppose legislation, rather than to come up with solutions. A majority of the Freedom Caucus members opposed the AHCA. In an effort to get the votes need for passage, Ryan agreed to some of the caucus’ demands. In so doing, he lost moderates. In the end, the numbers were not there, and the AHCA was pulled. The Freedom Caucus succeeded in its efforts to kill a measure it saw as too expansive. Ironically, the end result was that a huge expansion of the federal government was left in place.
…And Former Speaker Boehner
Six years ago, the Freedom Caucus – which at the time largely was composed of members elected in 2010 – nearly shutdown the government when it refused to support a budget that included money for Planned Parenthood. That budget fight emboldened the Freedom Caucus. The fault for that lies squarely with John Boehner. Imagine what Sam Rayburn or Tom DeLay would have done if Members who had not been in office for a full year threatened them. Rayburn and DeLay would have put the lawmakers on little-known committees, never recognized them in the well, spiked any bill they sponsored or co-sponsored, taken their parking spots, and moved their offices to the fifth floor of the Cannon House Office Building – the House equivalent of Siberia. But Boehner caved. He agreed to allow a stand-alone measure to defund Planned Parenthood come to the floor. As a result, the caucus became emboldened.
Otto Von Bismarck supposedly said, “Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.” When it comes to the AHCA, Bismarck was wrong. It was like being at the abattoir watching the cow be slaughtered.
President Donald Trump sounded weary when he stepped in front of the press to announce that the GOP’s Obamacare repeal had failed to rally enough votes to clear the House Friday. It was the President’s first real lesson in the hard realities of governing. On social media, Trump’s extensive back catalog of bravado about his dealmaking prowess fueled a merciless Twitter at its snarky worst. The truth is that the GOP Obamacare repeal bill was doomed from the start.
The demise of the American Health Care Act (AHCA) was as much a failure of vision as a failure of dealmaking. It took a year to pass Obamacare. The idea that the AHCA was going to get through in a month was dubious. It led House Speaker Paul Ryan, eager to score a quick win, to design a bill mostly to meet the demands of a fast-track legislative procedure called budget reconciliation. This would allow it to pass the Senate with a simple majority rather than the 60 votes normally required to break a filibuster. But, there is a catch. Reconciliation is limited to budget-related matters. This severely limiting the scope of what the bill could actually do. In the end, it was crippling.
By design, AHCA was a half measure — neither full repeal nor sweeping reform. It was a bill with a few things to like and something in it for everyone to hate. Conservatives saw it as little more than a defanged version of Obamacare. It replaced Obamacare’s premium subsidies with tax credits — which are essentially the same thing, just smaller and called by a different name. More modest premium subsidies, which were based on age rather than income, would hit older, poorer people hardest, turning off moderates. It gave new flexibility to governors in running state Medicaid programs, but reduced federal funding. Flexibility is nice, but governors would rather have the money.
It also ended the individual mandate, a win for the free market that came at the expense of an unhelpful Congressional Budget Office estimate that 24 million people would choose to drop health care coverage when AHCA gave them the option to do so. No House member relished the idea of facing reelection amid headlines of an explosion in uninsured.
President Trump threw himself into selling the bill, but never mastered its tedious details. He cajoled some, threatened others. But, ultimately the art of this deal eluded him.
AHCA was to be the first in a three stage process. Its passage was to be followed by regulatory modifications and then a second bill that would perform the remaining heavy lifting of reform. Few believed that second bill would ever happen. Judging from the ignominious fate of this one, they believed so with good reason. Without the broader market-based reforms planned in the second bill, it is hard to see how AHCA would have been much better than what it replaced. Trump was like a car salesman pitching a model that he was never quite sure would actually run, reluctant especially at first, to fully embrace it. He resisted the moniker “Trumpcare.” Trump withheld his name. Members of Congress withheld their vote.
Republicans have ideas about health care. Good ideas. Ideas that would actually work. Yes, a more full-throated reform might not qualify for the budget reconciliation process, but it might have the virtue of actually improving the health care of Americans. While it would surely face opposition in the Senate, at least Republicans would have the opportunity to lay out a complete vision for health care reform that could form the basis for a public debate — and in some parallel universe — perhaps even bipartisan consensus. In the current environment of partisan animosity and warring Republican factions, a more substantial reform probably would have died in the Senate too. But, it would have been an honorable death at least. AHCA couldn’t even pass the House. Governing is not as easy as it looks.
Our elected leaders are sent to Washington to govern on behalf of the American people and enact policy solutions that improve their lives. The AHCA is a stark example of the extent to which our Representative democracy has instead become about putting political points on the board.
In their zeal to score an easy win, Speaker Ryan and the President seemed to forget altogether that governing was actually their job. Rather that propose a meaningful, comprehensive and workable replacement for Obamacare, they chose to settle for what they thought would be an easy layup. They missed.
Before we sneer in disgust, we should look in the mirror too. We’ve cheered political blood sport and yawned at serious policy for years. We should not be surprised when the leaders we elected do the same. They learned it by watching us. When we don’t put our time in as citizens to understand the issues our nation faces and to vote thoughtfully, we get the government we deserve. This is that government.
Politicians have promised Obamacare repeal for years. They said it was simple. It isn’t. The lesson here is that there is no such thing as a free lunch — and reforming health care is hard. The only thing harder than health care might be tax reform. Word is, that’s up next. Oh boy.
Representative Devin Nunes / Center for Strategic and International Studies
KEY POINTS
Nunes says he has seen intelligence reports that identify Trump team members, suggesting that they could have been surveilled.
As far as we know, Trump associates were not the intended target. Rather, the information was apparently collected incidentally in surveillance of legitimate foreign targets.
This raises questions about whether rules that protect the privacy of Americans picked up in foreign surveillance were followed.
However, it does not indicate that President Obama ordered the phones in Trump Tower to be tapped.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes announced Wednesday that Trump associates may have been picked up in foreign intelligence collection. That’s very likely true. This should come as no surprise to regular Roughly Explained readers. We told you about this weeks ago. Is it evidence that Trump’s tweet-storm accusing his predecessor of tapping his phone was true after all?
How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!
While Nunes raises some legitimate concerns, the information he reports does not substantiate President Trump’s claim that President Obama tapped his phone. As Nunes told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Thursday, this “doesn’t mean that Obama wiretapped Trump Tower,” Nunes said.
Trump’s tweet, taken literally, accuses his predecessor of ordering the U.S. government to listen in on his phone calls, something which the President does not have the legal authority to do. If this were true, as Trump’s tweet says, it would indeed be “Watergate.” Maybe worse. We remain unaware of any evidence that would support this accusation.
What Nunes is talking about is different. “This is a normal, incidental collection, based on what I could collect,” Nunes said. “This appears to be all legally collected foreign intelligence under” the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. In other words, this is “incidental collection,” information that was collected as part of other lawful foreign intelligence surveillance. No one, as far as we know, ordered this surveillance specifically to target Trump.
Incidental collection on US persons as part of foreign intelligence surveillance is not particularly unusual. There are detailed procedures established for dealing with the situation. These rules, called FISA “minimization procedures,” restrict how such incidental collections of conversations involving U.S. persons may be used and under what circumstances their identities can be “unmasked” in intelligence reports.
Three Big Questions:
Were FISA minimization procedures for “unmasking” properly followed?
Was the dissemination of the information beyond what was required for national security purposes?
Did anyone break the law by leaking classified information?
Nunes indicated that the intelligence reports he reviewed include information about and names of US persons associated with Trump. Importantly, he said that there did not appear to be a clear national security purpose associated with identifying the Trump staffers. That last part is important.
Under the FISA law, if a US person is picked up as part of foreign intelligence surveillance, their name must be masked from any reporting unless there is a pretty good reason that it is important to national security that their name be revealed. If Obama officials improperly “unmasked” names of Trump staffers, they could face criminal charges.
There are potentially serious questions raised here that it is appropriate for Congress to ask. Still, incidental collection in the course of legitimate surveillance of foreign intelligence targets is not the same as the deliberate (and presumably illegal), targeting of Americans, directed by President Obama, that Trump’s tweets suggest.
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow promised, with much fanfare, a scintillating scoop on Tuesday night — President Donald Trump’s much talked about tax returns. What she revealed was a letdown – two pages of Trump’s 2005 returns that told us little we don’t already know.
Trump reported $153 million in income offset against $103 million in losses. He paid $38 million in taxes on the difference. While the losses he reports are large, they are not unexpected. Previously revealed documents show he reported losses topping $916 million in 1995 and planned to use those losses to offset future income.
The documents released provide no details on the source of Trump’s income though. Those looking for a Russia connection won’t find it.
Nor did the two pages shed light on the source of Trump’s losses. The White House said they were a “large-scale depreciation for construction,” but did not give specifics. The continuing write-off of the earlier losses is a reasonable enough guess.
Click to view Trump’s returns at DCreport.org
The returns do demonstrate that Trump paid substantial taxes, but took advantage of tax rules when he could to minimize what he owed. Most any reasonable business person would do the same.
The documents were leaked by an unnamed source to DCReport.org, a site run by David Cay Johnston, a former New York Times tax reporter . The White House did not dispute their authenticity in a statement issued shortly before the documents were released. “Before being elected president, Mr. Trump was one of the most successful businessmen in the world, with a responsibility to his company, his family and his employees to pay no more tax than legally required,” the statement said.
The White House also angrily denounced Maddow for publicizing Trump’s returns. “You know you are desperate for ratings when you are willing to violate the law to push a story about two pages of tax returns from over a decade ago,” its statement said. “The dishonest media can continue to make this part of their agenda, while the president will focus on his, which includes tax reform that will benefit all Americans.”
On social media, condemnation of Maddow’s hyped revelation was swift and fierce. Social media comments drew snarky analogies to Geraldo Rivera’s heavily hyped, but ultimately ill-fated opening of Al Capone’s safe. The safe, like the tax returns, turned out to be empty.
And somewhere on a beach, Geraldo Rivera smiles, as his Al Capone's Vault stunt is finally topped.
It was one more in the maddening series of leaks that have bedeviled Trump since taking office. In the end, Maddow’s scoop did more for her ratings than for the public’s understanding of Trump’s finances.
By focusing its attention on potential connections between President Trump’s campaign and the Russian government, the media is missing a bigger story: Trump’s business ties to Russians. While there have been some articles that document the latter, those have been few and far between. The press has largely ignored those pieces, instead it has focused on chasing what it thinks is the next big scandal.
Felix Sater
To find a connection between Trump’s real estate organization and Russians, you need look no further than 246 Spring Street in Manhattan, the location of the Trump SoHo hotel-condominium.The hotel-condominium is run by Bayrock Ltd. and the Sapir Organization. It was developed by them and the Trump organization. Both Bayrock and Sapir have Russian ties.
Bayrock’s founder is Felix Sater, whose father Mickhail Sheferofsky (also known as Mike Sater) was a Russian organized crime boss, according to a lawsuit. Mike Sater pled guilty to federal charges of conspiracy to commit extortion.
Like his father, Felix Sater reportedly has associations with organized crime – only in his case it is both the Russian and the Italian mafia. He was indicted on federal money laundering and stock manipulation in a case that top this day remains sealed. Felix Sater also was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a $40-million that involved figures from four of New York City’s five Mafia families.
Salvatore Lauria was Sater’s partner in the stock manipulation case. In a book about his criminal past (The Scorpion and the Frog: High Times and High Crimes), Lauria used an alias for Sater. But, if you know the facts of Sater’s life, it is clear the person is Sater. For example, Lauria wrote that his partner had his brokerage license revoked in 1991 after a bar fight during a celebration of Lauria passing his security licensing exam. Sater’s license was revoked after he attacked someone with a glass in a bar during Lauria’s celebration. The New York Times reported on that back in 2007. Lauria described his partner’s father as “a notorious, politically connected gangster who was high up on the food chain.” A description that fits Mike Sater, if the lawsuit is to be believed.
After their federal indictment, Sater and Lauria fled to – you guessed it – Moscow. Sater tried to negotiate immunity in a series of failed deals with the CIA that involved purchasing Russian military equipment from former Afghan freedom fighters. One of those operations reportedly had the assistance of a KGB general that Sater knew. The KGB officer had ties to Ahmad Shah Massoud, leader of the Northern Alliance. When those arms deals failed to materialize, Sater and Lauria began negotiations for their surrender to U.S. authorities.
For those who do not remember this, three days before September 11, 2001, Ahmad Shah Massoud was assassinated, presumably by al Qaeda. Lauria stated that, shortly after the terror attacks, Sater told him the FBI was interested in the proposed arms deals with the CIA, since it now implicated national security and counter-terrorism activities. Lauria wrote that the Department of Justice wanted to hide their involvement with anything that dealt with the matter, which could account for the files still being sealed.
Tamir Sapir
Tamir Sapir, a Russian émigré, founded the Sapir Organization. Born Temur Sepiashvili in Georgia, he helped fund the purchase of the site that became the Trump SoHo.. For his part, Trump told New York Magazine that he considered Sapir and his son “great friends.”
Sapir’s son, who now runs the real estate business, told The New York Times, he did not know about Sater’s criminal history until the newspaper began investigating it. But, as the New York Magazine article stated, “Given the tight circle of Soviet-born real-estate players in New York, that’s hard to believe.”
Lest anyone think this is old news, a well-placed source tells us that federal authorities are currently looking into activity that gives an indication of potential money laundering at a Bayrock property in a former Soviet republic.
Investigations by U.S. government into collusion between President Trump, his campaign and the Russian government have so far turned up nothing, according to James Clapper, the former Director of National Intelligence. Further investigations by Congress, law enforcement, and the press likely will produce the same results. Although they may provide some tangential information that some campaign hangers-on sought to make some money on the side.
Rather than try to grab the highest ratings or the most web site hits with its obsession over Trump links to the Russian government, the media should conduct more serious investigative reporting of the business connections between Trump’s real estate empire and Russia. They might find some very interesting facts.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) cost estimate of the American Health Care Act (AHCA) is out. On its face, CBO’s report is not all that helpful to supporters of the House GOP’s Obamacare replacement. So, comments from the White House and Congressional Republicans downplaying the report prior to its release are not surprising. Still, their arguments may not be entirely without merit.
Here’s what the CBO estimate found:
AHCA will cause premiums to fall after 2020, but rise until then by about 15-20%.
In 2018, 14 million fewer people will be covered under AHCA relative to Obamacare, largely a result of people choosing to forgo coverage if the individual mandate is removed. Through 2026 24 million fewer Americans will be covered by health insurance.
The GOP plan will reduce the deficit by $337 billion over ten years.
CBO’s estimate is confined to the bill now making its way through Congress, which is one part of a planned three stage repeal. It does not consider other elements still on the drawing board, including regulatory tweaks and a planned second bill relaxing prohibitions on selling insurance across state lines and allowing the government to use its buying power more aggressively to negotiate for lower prescription drug prices. To be fair, it is impossible to know at this point what effect these measures will have. Still, because it doesn’t consider them, CBO’s estimate arguably provides an incomplete picture of what the post-Obamacare healthcare market will look like if the repeal plan is fully implemented.
There are considerable uncertainties in estimating the effects of complex policy changes. To do so requires making assumptions about how human beings will respond in the real world. People are fickle and don’t always behave exactly as you’d expect on paper. This makes cost estimates a tricky business.
Because the AHCA repeals Obamacare’s individual mandate, CBO reckons that in the short term more people will opt out of coverage since there would no longer be a penalty for doing so. The extent to which this assumption is borne out will have a substantial impact on how much insurance plans will cost and the number of people covered.
There’s reason to suppose that the effect of removing the individual mandate might not be as pronounced as CBO assumes. Josh Blackman makes a credible case that the individual mandate has not been nearly as consequential in compelling people to get coverage as thought. It follows that repealing it may not turn out to be as significant either.
The individual mandate’s penalty is simply too low, Blackman argues, to substantially compel coverage. Flawed assumptions about the extent to which people in the individual market would enroll in plans in response to the individual mandate led the CBO to overestimate the number of people who would gain coverage under Obamacare. These same assumptions may cause it to overestimate the number of people who will no longer be covered as a result of repealing it.
This is especially true when it comes to the number of people covered under Medicaid. CBO estimate that 5 million of the 14 million people expected to drop coverage in 2018 are Medicaid recipients. Imagining that the repeal of the individual mandate would result in such large numbers of eligible beneficiaries rejecting coverage that comes at no cost to them is dubious.
Repealing the individual mandate will have some impact on the number of people covered, but it is hard to tell exactly how large the effect will be. One consequence of giving people a choice is that some people will chose not buy health insurance. Still, it is a reasonable proposition that the actual number of people who chose to opt out of coverage may be less than CBO suggests. Further, if a higher proportion of healthy people than expected choose to keep coverage, premiums would be lower as well.
Views of CBO as hero or villain oscillates between the parties depending on how favorable its analysis is towards partisan priorities. That’s a pretty good indication that it is more or less fair in how it goes about its work. While there can be reasonable disagreement about CBO’s assumptions, it is wrong to suggest that it has deliberately cooked these numbers. It is militantly non-partisan and populated by economists and analysts that are fairly apolitical by nature. It can be true that CBO’s cost estimate was made in good faith, yet might turn out to be wrong nonetheless.
On Friday night, the Justice Department asked 46 U.S. Attorneys appointed by President Obama to step down. That should come as no surprise. Every President in recent memory has done the same thing.
In their first two years in office:
President Reagan replaced 89 of the 93 U.S. attorneys;
President Clinton replaced 89;
President Bush replaced 88; and,
Obama replaced 80.
“Elections matter,” Obama Attorney General Eric Holder told the House Judiciary Committee in May of 2009. “It is our intention to have the U.S. Attorneys that are selected by President Obama in place as quickly as they can.”
President Obama replaced Bush-era U.S. attorneys at a more leisurely pace. But, other Presidents have asked for U.S. Attorneys’ resignation en masse too. In March of 1993, Janet Reno, President Bill Clinton’s attorney general demanded the resignations of all 93 U.S. attorneys. It was immediately controversial. Among those let go were Jay B. Stephens, the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, who was in the midst of an investigation into a key Clinton ally, Rep. Dan Rostenkowski. Just a few days prior to Reno’s announcement, Stephen’s had announced he was 30 days away from a major announcement in the Rostenkowski case.
There is no suggestion of a nefarious motive in the Trump case. However U.S. Attorney for New York, Preet Bhaara’s unusual refusal to submit his resignation that forced the Trump administration to fire him generated headlines nonetheless. Bharra reportedly believed he would be asked to stay on. On a Twitter account Bharra conveniently created just a few days ago, he has been milking the dismissal.
I did not resign. Moments ago I was fired. Being the US Attorney in SDNY will forever be the greatest honor of my professional life.
Known for his prosecutions of public corruption, Bhaara tweeted on Sunday, “now I know what the Moreland Commission must have felt like.” It was a reference to NY Governor Andrew Cuomo’s decision to disband a commission convened to investigate public corruption in Albany, a move Bhaara strongly criticized.
By the way, now I know what the Moreland Commission must have felt like.
Some suggest, that Bhaara is positioning himself for a run for office. CNBC’s Eamon Javers reports, citing Justice Dept. sources, that in a phone call deputy attorney general Dana Boente told him that his resignation was being requested too, but never said the words ‘you’re fired.'” However, as Javers notes, “being fired by Trump—who is deeply unpopular among New York Democrats—could be a boost to a political career.”
Bhaara’s protests notwithstanding, presidents always bring in their own new team. Those spinning up conspiracy theories for Trump’s decision would be better served to look at a little history. Democrats crying foul should be reminded of what President Obama’s attorney general Eric Holder said, “elections matter.”
things in a simple brand of English, kindling and stoking the fires of segregationists and working class folks who had little time, inclination or perhaps academic smarts to worry
As Trump Steps Onto World Stage, Republicans in Washington Fret
In the four months since his inauguration, Washington Republicans have clung tightly to the glimmers of promise from President Trump. The early policy fumble of the immigration ban, the air ball on Obamacare, and his countless ill-advised tweet-storms could still be weighed against Trump’s inspired choice of Neil Gorsuch to serve on the Supreme Court, his rousing address to a joint session of Congress in February, and hints of pragmatism on NATO, trade, and immigration. Republicans could rationalize Trump’s stumbles as the consequence of an unconventional but ultimately well-intentioned President inexperienced in the mechanics of governing who, once he got his feet under him, held the potential to upend the sclerosis in Washington and meaningfully change the course of the nation for the better. But, the events of the last two weeks make that harder.
President Trump’s ambitious foray abroad is tempered by dread of the other shoes to drop upon his return. As Josh Jordan (@numbersmuncher) quipped on Twitter, “We have yet to see concrete evidence that Trump colluded with Russia on anything, but Trump is doing his best to make everyone believes it.”
Things are going sideways, and even the President’s closest aides know it. As Air Force One climbed away from Joint Base Andrews Friday evening for President Donald J. Trump’s first foreign trip, a sense of sober resignation prevailed among all but the most ardent Trump loyalists.
A dispatch from Axios’ Jonathan Swan drew a gripping portrait of the state of mind among Trump’s inner circle. “WH officials I’ve spoken to privately this week are closer to being numb than panicked. Those who went through the campaign with Trump are numb to the crises and thought so many times before that *this* would be the one to break Trump. They’ve been wrong so many times before… They view their boss as completely undisciplined and self-destructive. They’re exasperated by him … They’re sick and tired of the media feeding frenzy. But even in their most frustrated moments, they’ll admit that Trump has got some special resilience that they can’t begin to understand. A coat of protection that almost seems supernatural to them.”
Yet, there remains a hardy band of loyalists around Trump who are “unfazed” by it all, Swan writes. “They’re just swinging for Trump and have no qualms working to defend him,” he added. Still, the flood of leaks coming from within Trump-land suggest a nervous White House White House staff hedging their bets in case their boss’ luck runs out.
‘The Drips are Filling the Bucket’
The Russia investigation is grinding Trump’s agenda to a halt. Although few Republicans are saying so publicly, official Washington is racked with doubt. Trump’s political capital is now all but exhausted — frittered away on a series of unforced errors and miscalculations. After the firing of an FBI director investigating his own White House, suggestions that the President attempted to pressure him to pull his punches before doing so, and the apparent careless disclosure of classified material to Russian officials, it’s growing increasingly difficult to rationalize the White House’s problems as just the manufactured controversies of an admittedly hostile press corps. As one outside advisor to the White House told Axios’ Mike Allen in an email, “[t]he drips are filling the bucket.” Trump’s Republican allies, who just a few weeks ago were still dreaming of triumphs, would now settle for mere survival.
With a special counsel now in place, the die is cast. Trump may yet be exonerated on the core accusation that he personally colluded with Russia in Moscow’s efforts to influence the 2016 elections. But, the suggestion that he may have pressured the investigation may hold new troubles. Further, it seems increasingly likely that the special counsel investigation led by former FBI Director Robert Mueller might uncover evidence of wrongdoing, if not by Trump himself, then by at least some people within Trump’s orbit.
Still, all the breathless talk of impeachment is premature. President Trump remains popular among grassroots Republicans. His support has slipped a bit in the past week, but most of his voters are still sticking with him. While Trump’s troubles are making Congressional Republicans nervous, few will be willing to turn against him — but they aren’t go out of their way to defend him either.
As sacked former FBI Director James Comey, prepares to testify on Capitol Hill and the special counsel investigation gains steam, that “supernatural” veil of protection White House advisors talk about will surely be put to the test.