"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Wickham Schmidt. To see my complete professional bio, just click on the link below.
President Donald Trump meets with President Vladimir Putin of Russia at the G-20 Summit, in Hamburg, Germany, in July 2017. CreditEvan Vucci/Associated Press
Put aside whatever suspicions you may have about whether Donald Trump will be directly implicated in the Russia investigation.
Trump is right now, before our eyes and those of the world, committing an unbelievable and unforgivable crime against this country. It is his failure to defend.
The intelligence community long ago concluded that Russia attacked our election in 2016 with the express intention of damaging Hillary Clinton and assisting Trump.
“In 2016, cyber actors affiliated with the Russian Government conducted an unprecedented, coordinated cyber campaign against state election infrastructure. Russian actors scanned databases for vulnerabilities, attempted intrusions, and in a small number of cases successfully penetrated a voter registration database. This activity was part of a larger campaign to prepare to undermine confidence in the voting process.”
And this is not simply a thing that happened once. This is a thing that is still happening and will continue to happen. As Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told the committee in February, “Persistent and disruptive cyberoperations will continue against the United States and our European allies using elections as opportunities to undermine democracy.” As he put it, “Frankly, the United States is under attack.”
The Robert Mueller investigation is looking into this, trying to figure out what exactly happened in 2016, who all was involved, which laws were broken and who will be charged and tried.
“Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team has either indicted or gotten guilty pleas from 32 people and three companies — that we know of. That group is composed of four former Trump advisers, 26 Russian nationals, three Russian companies, one California man, and one London-based lawyer. Five of these people (including three former Trump aides) have already pleaded guilty.”
Twelve of those indictments came last week with a disturbingly detailed account of what the Russians did. As The New York Times put it:
“From phishing attacks to gain access to Democratic operatives, to money laundering, to attempts to break into state elections boards, the indictment details a vigorous and complex effort by Russia’s top military intelligence service to sabotage the campaign of Mr. Trump’s Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.”
Whether or not Trump himself or anyone in his orbit personally colluded or conspired with the Russians about their interference is something Mueller will no doubt disclose at some point, but there remains one incontrovertible truth: In 2016, Russia, a hostile foreign adversary, attacked the United States of America.
We know that they did it. We have proof. The F.B.I. is trying to hold people accountable for it.
And yet Trump, the president whom the Constitution establishes as the commander in chief, has repeatedly waffled on whether Russia conducted the attack and has refused to forcefully rebuke them for it, let alone punish them for it.
In March, the White House, under pressure from Congress, seemed to somewhat reluctantly impose some sanctions on Russia for its crimes. As CNN reported that month, Congress almost unanimously passed the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act last summer, “hoping to pressure Trump into punishing Russia for its election interference.” But as the network pointed out:
“Trump signed the bill reluctantly in August, claiming it impinged upon his executive powers and could dampen his attempts to improve ties with Moscow.”
Instead, Trump has repeatedly attacked the investigation as a witch hunt.
Just last week at a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Theresa May, Trump said:
“I think I would have a very good relationship with Putin if we spend time together. After watching the rigged witch-hunt yesterday, I think it really hurts our country and our relationship with Russia. I hope we can have a good relationship with Russia.”
Now Trump is set to pursue just such a relationship as he meets one-on-one with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, on Monday in Finland. As Trump said earlier this month at a rally:
“Will he be prepared? Will he be prepared? And I might even end up having a good relationship, but they’re going, ‘Will President Trump be prepared? You know, President Putin is K.G.B. and this and that.’ You know what? Putin’s fine. He’s fine. We’re all fine. We’re people.”
Actually, none of this is fine. None of it! Trump should be directing all resources at his disposal to punish Russia for the attacks and prevent future ones. But he is not.
America’s commander wants to be chummy with the enemy who committed the crime. Trump is more concerned with protecting his presidency and validating his election than he is in protecting this country.
This is an incredible, unprecedented moment. America is being betrayed by its own president. America is under attack and its president absolutely refuses to defend it.
Simply put, Trump is a traitor and may well be treasonous.
Charles M. Blow has been an Op-Ed columnist since 2008. His column appears every Monday and Thursday. He joined The Times in 1994 and was previously the graphics director. He also wrote the book “Fire Shut Up in My Bones.” @CharlesMBlow•Facebook
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Yup! Bogusly claiming that desperate refugees are a threat to our national security, failing to protect us, and in fact enabling and furthering the actual existential threats to our security from Putin. That’s Trump and his “fellow traveler” supporters!
Remember all oft he nonsense about the “Kobach Commission” and their bogus search for almost nonexistent “undocumented voters?” Compare all the pontificating about the “integrity of our election process” with the Administration’s “shrug off” of hard evidence that a foreign power actually did attempt to interfere in our elections with the purpose of sowing discord and electing Trump?
Trump makes enemies out of our friends, creates non-existent enemies, and treats our country’s enemies as if they were our friends!
In his interview with NBC’s Craig Melvin, Bill Clinton had a chance to acknowledge the impropriety of his relationship with then intern Monica Lewinsky and to sincerely apologize to her. It would have cost him absolutely nothing.
Instead, he chose to react defensively, attack Melvin, misrepresent the facts, and spout non sequiturs about JFK, LBJ, and how much in debt he was when he left the White House. No genuine acceptance of responsibility; no real remorse; no graciousness; no humility; no class. In other words, just what we’d expect from Donald Trump.
In retrospect, the Dems shot themselves in the foot by nominating a 2016 candidate who carried too much baggage and was too tied to the past and its problems. It’s time for the Dems to move forward and leave the Clintons to a past era that they were never really capable of understanding, acknowledging, and facing up to in a fully responsible manner.
Earlier this month, in the wake of revelations about his pricey travel habits and sweetheart deal on rent courtesy of a high-powered lobbyist, Scott Pruitt sat down with a series of reporters to clear the air and explain what was happening. The negative headlines and stories painting him as one of the most corrupt Cabinet members in the Trump administration were the result of one thing and one thing only, he said: a liberal plot against him. The real issue, Pruitt and his defenders insist, is not his preference for flying first class when coach would suffice, or the $50 a night he was shelling out for part of a D.C. townhouse in a neighborhood where the market rate was several multiples of that, but that the left simply doesn’t appreciate his hydrocarbon-happy dismantling of Barack Obama’sregulatory regime. Which makes fresh accusations against Pruitt, by one of Donald Trump’s favorite staffers, somewhat awkward!
In a six-page letter addressed to Pruitt but circulated much more widely than his pair of very fancy desks, two senators and three House representatives detailed allegations that were brought to their attention this week by Kevin Chmielewski, who served as the president’s body man during the campaign—Trump called him a “star” and a “gem”—before going on to work as the E.P.A.’s deputy chief of staff. (Chmielewski was placed on administrative leave without pay after objecting to Pruitt’s spending policies, which can be loosely summed up as: F–k you, I do what I want.) Among the most damning allegations:
Pruitt demanded the agency “enter into a $100,000 per month contract to rent a private jet, which would have cost more than the administrator’s annual travel budget of approximately $450,000,” a situation Chmielewski says he prevented from happening, probably to the detriment of his employment;
Pruitt made travel decisions based on his “desire to visit particular cities or countries rather than official business” and then told staff to “‘find me something to do [in those locations]’ to justify the use of taxpayer funds,” which might explain his trip to Morocco to promote U.S. natural gas exports, despite the fact that said exports are not part of the E.P.A.’s mission to “protect human health and the environment”;
Pruitt booked his flights through Delta, despite the airline not being the federal government’s contract carrier for the route, “because [he] want[ed] to accrue more frequent flier miles,” just in case his private jet didn’t pan out;
Pruitt stayed in hotels that far exceeded the U.S. government per diem, sometimes by 300 percent. Exhibit A: when he traveled to Australia and Italy and refused to stay in hotels recommended by the U.S. Embassy, choosing fancier but less secure ones, which you think would concern someone who wanted a bullet-proof desk;
Pruitt blew through the $5,000 limit allowed by law to redecorate his office with items that included a $43,000 soundproof phone booth, art leased from the Smithsonian Institution, and a desk (one of two) that alone cost $2,075;
Pruitt insisted, as previously reported, on “the use of lights and sirens to transport [him] more quickly through traffic to the airport, meetings, and social events on numerous occasions” and required his drivers to “speed through residential neighborhoods and red lights, far in excess of posted speed limits,” because Scott Pruitt’s got places to be, people!
Pruitt insisted the E.P.A.’s director of scheduling “act as his personal real estate representative, spending weeks improperly using federal government resources and time to contact rental and seller’s agents, and touring numerous properties in which [he] might wish to reside”;
Pruitt gave two favored aides giant salaries after they were denied by the White House (which Pruitt claimed in recent interviews to not know anything about);
And that Pruitt did not even pay the $50 per night he owed lobbyist J. Steven Hart, who complained during a phone call Chmielewski heard on speakerphone that Pruitt “had never paid any rent to him” and that Pruitt’s daughter “had damaged his hardwood floors by repeatedly rolling her luggage across the unit when she was staying there.”
According to the letter, Chmielewski’s employment with the E.P.A. ultimately ended thanks to his refusal to “retroactively approve [a favored staffer’s] first-class return flight from Morocco.” That Chmielewski, contends, caused Pruitt to remove him from his post. But naturally Pruitt did not do the dirty work himself, allegedly relying instead on the head of his security detail, Nino Perrotta, who Chmielewski says threatened him in such a way that he reported it to the local police, E.P.A. officials, and the White House Office of Presidential Personnel. (Speaking of Perrotta, i.e. the guy who deemed it too risky for Pruitt to sit in coach, we highly suggest checking out his self-published memoir, Dual Mission, which includes lines like, “I cannot tell how many women in those days held [my] gun during very passionate late-night moments. It was, in some ways, like a dangerous, forbidden sex toy to some, and I played right along. Although never loaded, I am certain to have broken a rule or two in terms of allowing unauthorized access to and use of a federal firearm.”)
While the lawmakers concluded that the information left them “certain that [Pruitt’s] leadership at E.P.A. has been fraught with numerous and repeated unethical and potentially illegal actions on a wide range of consequential matters,” it’s not clear that Trump will have him removed. On the one hand, the guy is on a roll when it comes to firing people. On the other, Pruitt has done such a stellar job dismantling Obama’s environmental legacy in his short time on the job, and good work is truly hard to find. While Trump has said nothing about the matter on social media, during a speech today ostensibly about tax reform, he told the crowd that that he plans to sign a “presidential memorandum directing the E.P.A to cut” even more regulations on manufacturers.
For their part, Pruitt’s handlers appear to be on the offensive: just hours after the letter detailing the E.P.A. head’s ethically challenged habits was released, word leaked that Chmielewski “never filed required financial disclosure forms during his year in the Trump administration.” That, combined with Pruitt’s stellar work turning the environment into an ashtray, should help him hang on little while longer.
On the other other hand . . .
Bloomberg reports that Andrew Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist, has been confirmed by the Senate to serve as the E.P.A.’s deputy administrator, which means he would lead the agency should Pruitt suddenly be told to clean out his desk. Many Democrats were opposed to the nomination, given Wheeler’s push to roll back regulations while working on behalf of his clients, among them one of America’s largest coal-mining companies. That may not be as impressive as Pruitt’s credentials for leading the agency—suing it 14 times—but it’s something.
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Go on over to Vanity Fair at the link to get the full “Levin Report.”
In an Administration loaded with ethically challenged individuals, starting with the “Big Boss,” Pruitt stands out. Nevertheless, because he is deconstructing the EPA and dismantling critical environmental protections — “turning the environment into an ashtray” — nobody in today’s GOP dares to agitate for his removal. Could you imagine how apoplectic the GOP would have been if Hillary Clinton or anyone else in the Obama Administration were fingered for doing this type of stuff?
How Trump’s policies could worsen the migration issue he says he wants to solve
By Tal Kopan, CNN
President Donald Trump in recent days has decried “weak” US border laws that he says leave the US vulnerable to unfettered immigration — but some of his policies could have the effect of worsening a Central American migrant crisis.
Even as the Department of Homeland Security says the southern border “is more difficult to illegally cross today than ever before,” Trump has stepped up his hardline immigration rhetoric, calling on the US military to guard the US-Mexico border until his long-promised wall is complete. He’s hammered Mexico and other countries for policies that he says are disadvantageous to the US and that send unsavory individuals into the country.
But experts say the President has been pursuing other policies that could substantially harm Central America — and in doing so, he risks creating conditions that generate the exact kind of mass exodus north that he talks about wanting to solve.
Immigration is driven by what are called push and pull factors. The US has been seeking aggressive immigration powers to cut down on what they say are pull factors — the perception that immigrants can live illegally with impunity in the US. But those very policies could affect push factors — the conditions of poverty and violence that drive immigrants elsewhere out of desperation.
“The US sort of talks out of both sides of its mouth,” said Eric Olson, a Latin America expert at the nonpartisan Wilson Center.
“If you’re investing in the region to address the drivers of migration and at the same time pursuing a policy of large-scale deportation, or at least potentially large-scale deportation, and you’re creating more obstacles for people leaving the region for reasons like violence and so on, you’re really creating more instability, not less instability.”
As Tal says, there’s much, much more to her report on the total stupidity and counter-productivity (not to mention inhumanity) of the Trump Administration’s “Gonzo” enforcement policy. Go on over to CNN at the link to get the full picture.
I’ve been saying for some time now that Trump is pursuing facially “hard-line” policies that are proven failures. Indeed, that forced migration from Central America is a phenomenon that spans four decades and six different Administrations with varying degrees of “same old, same old” would suggest to rational leadership that a different approach is required.
Contrary to Trump’s oft-made bogus claim, his is not the first Administration to try a “close the border, detain and deter” policy. Beginning with Reagan, every Administration has tried largely the same thing (although perhaps without some of the inflammatory and outright racist rhetoric favored by the Trumpsters) and all have failed. I know because I’ve been involved in some aspect of trying to implement those failed policies in at least four of those Administrations, two GOP and two Democrat.
That’s why the trend of migration from the Northern Triangle continues and will continue and fester until we get some enlightened leadership that 1) correctly applies our refugee and protection laws in the generous humanitarian spirit they were intended; and 2) recognizes and starts to deal effectively with the “push” issues in the sending countries.
Contrary to the false narrative spread by current Administration, most Central American refugees that I encountered personally during my career would have preferred to remain in their home countries, if political and country conditions had permitted it. Indeed, many were forced by targeted violence to give up promising careers, studies, or businesses to flee for their lives to the U.S. Here, they often had to perform “entry-level” work to support themselves unless and until they achieved some type of legal status (often TPS , asylum, withholding of removal, CAT relief, Special Immigrant Juvenile (“SIJ”) status, or a green card under NACARA).
Of course, many were denied protection despite having very credible, well-documented fears of harm because they didn’t fit the intentionally restrictive asylum criteria engineered by the BIA over several Administrations largely as a result of political pressure on the system to be “unwelcoming” to Central American migrants. Some of those who returned were killed or disappeared; others were tortured or attacked again and forced to flee second or third times, now bearing the scars or injuries to prove their cases — only as “prior deportees” they were no longer eligible for asylum but had to accept withholding of removal or CAT deferral.
Nobody in this Administration, and sadly relatively few in Congress and among the public, are willing to deal honestly with the phenomenon of Central American migration and the “push factors” that will never, ever be controlled by more restrictive laws, more violations of statutory, Constitutional, and international rights, inhumane and life-threatening detention , and racist rhetoric. Nor will it be stopped by any bogus “Wall.”
As I’ve said before, “We can diminish ourselves as a nation, but that won’t stop human migration!” If only someone would listen!
Adam Goldman, Katie Benner, Matt Apuzzo report for the NYT:
WASHINGTON — The F.B.I. investigated Attorney General Jeff Sessions for possible perjury last year over congressional testimony in which he said he had no contacts with Russians, according to three people familiar with the case.
In fact, Mr. Sessions later acknowledged, he had personally met the Russian ambassador to the United States during the campaign and was aware that George Papadopoulos, a campaign adviser, had developed Russian ties, too. F.B.I. agents were aware of both inaccuracies in real time. And last March, when Congress asked the F.B.I. to investigate the attorney general, agents began doing so, two of the people said.
Andrew G. McCabe, the F.B.I.’s deputy director at the time, authorized the investigation, the two people said. Mr. McCabe himself was recently fired for showing “lack of candor” in an internal investigation. Mr. Sessions rejected Mr. McCabe’s appeal and fired him hours before his retirement was to take effect, jeopardizing his pension.
The investigation into Mr. Sessions began before Robert S. Mueller III was appointed special counsel to investigate Russia-related matters. Mr. Sessions’s lawyer, Chuck Cooper, said no investigation is being conducted now.
“The special counsel’s office has informed me that after interviewing the attorney general and conducting additional investigation, the attorney general is not under investigation for false statements or perjury in his confirmation hearing testimony and related written submissions to Congress,” Mr. Cooper said in a statement.
The investigation was first reported by ABC News.
Perjury investigations based on congressional referrals are common, and the F.B.I. frequently investigates but seldom charges. But the fact that the attorney general himself was a focus of the Russia investigation, even if only peripherally and temporarily, shows how entangled the Trump administration has become in the case. Mr. Sessions is recused from any aspect of the investigation.
The investigation also adds a new layer to Mr. McCabe’s firing. Mr. McCabe’s lawyers have said that he did not lie and acted quickly to fix any inaccuracies or misunderstandings. Mr. Sessions has offered a similar defense, saying he never intended to mislead Congress.
. . . .
Mr. McCabe’s allies have pointed in recent days to these clarifications and asked why Mr. McCabe did not receive the same benefit of the doubt as the attorney general. But it is impossible to compare the cases because the Justice Department’s inspector general has not released his report explaining his concerns about Mr. McCabe’s candor.
. . . .
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Go to the above link to read the complete article in the NYT.
Double standards are the norm in the Trump Administration and the DOJ. Ethics laws, civil rights laws, environmental laws, asylum laws, conflict of interest laws, civil service protections all are applied selectively to favor “friends of the Administration” and punish “enemies.” Just like in any good Banana Republic like the “B.A.R.!”
“Gee, we’ve been hearing a ton about the turmoil in the president’s legal team. You probably have questions.
Is this something else I have to think about in the middle of the night when I’m staring at the ceiling? Because really, I’ve got enough.
We’re talking about chaos and turnover among the people defending Donald Trump in his multitudinous legal battles. If that’s the kind of thing that keeps you awake at night, it’s time to prioritize. Have a drink and relax.
I need to know immediately if I am paying to protect the president from Stormy Daniels.
No, the people getting taxpayer salaries work in the White House counsel’s office, and their job is to advise the president about what’s legal. Like, whether or not he could sign a bill banning imported scallops. Or, say, sabotage the Russia probe. The current counsel, Don McGahn, reportedly threatened to resign when Trump wanted to can Robert Mueller.
I’ve been looking for somebody to admire in the White House. Should it be Don McGahn?
Up to you. He was formerly a member of the Federal Election Commission who hated campaign-finance reform so much he once tore up the F.E.C. rule book at a meeting and threw the shredded chunks at a Democrat. He lobbied Jeff Sessions not to recuse himself from the Russia investigation. He was an enabler on that immigrant travel ban.
On the other hand, he used to be a guitarist in a rock band.
Everybody used to be a guitarist in a rock band. But about the president’s team: I know a lot of recent law school graduates who are desperate for jobs. They’re cleaning tables at Arby’s. Should I tell them there’s a lot of turnover and they ought to send in a résumé?
Have they ever been on Fox News? It definitely helps if you were a guest on Fox a lot.
I don’t understand how these busy lawyers have so much time to appear on TV.
Totally part of the job. Trump just hired Joe diGenova, who’s currently famous for having argued on Fox that a secret cabal of F.B.I. agents created the whole Russia investigation to “frame Donald Trump with a falsely created crime.”
O.K., I’ll ask the people who want to get lawyer gigs if they’d mind going on right-wing radio and saying something about how Trump is a victim of the deep state. Is the pay good?
On the government side, $179,700 is the top.
I think my friends could handle that.
There’s a guy named Ty Cobb who sort of coordinates between the president’s personal lawyers and the government on all the Russia stuff. It’s on the public tab, and to take it, he left a job that paid at least a million dollars a year.
Just tell me if he’s related to the baseball player.
I think vaguely. Anyhow, he’s gotten in trouble for talking about office politics — loudly — in a public restaurant. So I guess value depends on your perspective.
Meanwhile, the president’s lawyer John Dowd just made a fuss when he called for an end to the special counsel investigation. Which he said was Trump’s idea. Then he denied it. But it probably was.
Trump must be a difficult client, right?
Well, Michael Cohen, the Trump lawyer handling the Stormy Daniels case, said he used his very own home equity line of credit to raise the $130,000 he gave her in hush money.
On his own house? What kind of lawyer does that?
I guess a super-dedicated one. Unless somehow the president or his friends managed to funnel the cash back in a manner so subtle it will never be revealed. Until the next leak.
I can see why there’s so much turnover.
Yet sometimes it feels as if nobody ever really goes away. One of the early Trump lawyers, Marc Kasowitz, seemed to be getting crazier and crazier last summer. When a man wrote an email that he should resign, Kasowitz came back with a message that said, in part: “I’m Jewish. I presume you are, too. … I already know where you live. I’m on to you. You might as well call me. You will see me. I promise. Bro.”
For a while it looked as if Kasowitz was fading away. But now he’s back! In court arguing that as a sitting president, Trump cannot be sued by a woman who says he molested her during his “Apprentice” days.
That would be Stormy Daniels?
Oh gosh no. This is Summer Zervos, who says Trump came on with an unnerving series of gropes, and then when she resisted claimed “that he did not believe that she had ever known love or been in love.”
The interesting thing about this one is that Zervos is only suing Trump for $2,914 for defaming her when he denied the story. Kasowitz has so far been unsuccessful in arguing that the president’s denial is “political speech” protected by the First Amendment.
So the worse the team gets, the better for the country?
Right now, Stormy’s lawyer is making mincemeat of Trump’s legal representation. For the sake of argument, let’s say the special prosecutor has assembled at least as strong a team as the stripper did.
Could be an, um, stormy summer.”
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Sure enough, John Dowd, one of Trump’s personal lawyers on the “Russia Team” resigned on Thursday!
“Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ decision to fire former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe appears to directly violate the promise Sessions made, under oath, to recuse himself from such matters.
Some might contend that Sessions’ recusal covered only the Clinton and Trump campaigns, and that McCabe’s firing involved the Clinton Foundation investigation as a separate matter. But Sessions unequivocally assured senators of his intentions during his January 2017 confirmation hearings in response to a clear and specific question from the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Chuck Grassley. Sen. Grassley asked a follow-up question that went right to the point. In response, Sessions very clearly said his recusal would cover any matters involving the Clinton Foundation.
Here is the full exchange:
Grassley: During the course of the presidential campaign, you made a number of statements about the investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, relating to her handling of sensitive emails and regarding certain actions of the Clinton Foundation. You weren’t alone in that criticism. I was certainly critical in the same way as were millions of Americans on those matters, but now, you’ve been nominated to serve as attorney general. In light of those comments that you made, some have expressed concerns about whether you can approach the Clinton matter impartially in both fact and appearance. How do you plan to address those concerns?
Sessions: Mr. Chairman, it was a highly contentious campaign. I, like a lot of people, made comments about the issues in that campaign. With regard to Secretary Clinton and some of the comments I made, I do believe that that could place my objectivity in question. I’ve given that thought.
I believe the proper thing for me to do, would be to recuse myself from any questions involving those kind of investigations that involve Secretary Clinton and that were raised during the campaign or to be otherwise connected to it.
Grassley: OK. I think, that’s—let me emphasize then with a follow-up question. To be very clear, you intend to recuse yourself from both the Clinton email investigation and any matters involving the Clinton Foundation, if there are any?
Sessions: Yes.
This exchange has two implications for how one understands the scope of Sessions’ recusal. First, it goes to defining the scope of the recusal that Sessions made on March 2, 2017. If it is a close call whether the Clinton Foundation matter is sufficiently connected to the Clinton campaign for the purpose of understanding Sessions’ recusal, it should be deemed to be sufficiently connected. After all, that’s essentially what Sessions told Sen. Grassley. Second, if the Clinton Foundation matter is deemed outside the scope of the recusal statement that Sessions made back in March last year, then his decision to fire McCabe shows that he failed to honor the promise for a broader recusal which he clearly made to the Senate in its decision to confirm him as attorney general. The same goes for Hillary Clinton’s emails. Sen. Grassley’s questions and Sessions’ answers specifically covered any matters involving that investigation as well.”
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Meanwhile, over at Reuters, Karen Freifeld, Sarah N. Lynch, Mark Hosenball have uncovered some evidence that contradicts Gonzo’s “revised account” of his meeting at which George Papadopoulos’s proposed “Russia contacts” were discussed with Trump campaign officials including Gonzo. It now appears that Gonzo’s story that he immediately and strongly denounced them could be a fabrication. Or just another “memory lapse.”
“WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ testimony that he opposed a proposal for President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign team to meet with Russians has been contradicted by three people who told Reuters they have spoken about the matter to investigators with Special Counsel Robert Mueller or congressional committees.
Sessions testified before Congress in November 2017 that he “pushed back” against the proposal made by former campaign adviser George Papadopoulos at a March 31, 2016 campaign meeting. Then a senator from Alabama, Sessions chaired the meeting as head of the Trump campaign’s foreign policy team.
“Yes, I pushed back,” Sessions told the House Judiciary Committee on Nov. 14, when asked whether he shut down Papadopoulos’ proposed outreach to Russia.
Sessions has since also been interviewed by Mueller.
Three people who attended the March campaign meeting told Reuters they gave their version of events to FBI agents or congressional investigators probing Russian interference in the 2016 election. Although the accounts they provided to Reuters differed in certain respects, all three, who declined to be identified, said Sessions had expressed no objections to Papadopoulos’ idea.
One person said Sessions was courteous to Papadopoulos and said something to the effect of “okay, interesting.”
The other two recalled a similar response.
“It was almost like, ‘Well, thank you and let’s move on to the next person,’” one said.
However, another meeting attendee, J.D. Gordon, who was the Trump campaign’s director of national security, told media outlets including Reuters in November that Sessions strongly opposed Papadopoulos’ proposal and said no one should speak of it again. In response to a request for comment, Gordon said on Saturday that he stood by his statement.
Sessions, through Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores, declined to comment beyond his prior testimony. The special counsel’s office also declined to comment. Spokeswomen for the Democrats and Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee did not comment.
Reuters was unable to determine whether Mueller is probing discrepancies in accounts of the March 2016 meeting.
The three accounts, which have not been reported, raise new questions about Sessions’ testimony regarding contacts with Russia during the campaign.
Sessions previously failed to disclose to Congress meetings he had with former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, and testified in October that he was not aware of any campaign representatives communicating with Russians.
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions testifies before a House Judiciary Committee hearing on oversight of the Justice Department on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., November 14, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas
Some Democrats have seized on discrepancies in Sessions’ testimony to suggest the attorney general may have committed perjury. A criminal charge would require showing Sessions intended to deceive. Sessions told the House Judiciary Committee that he had always told the truth and testified to the best of his recollection.
Legal experts expressed mixed views about the significance of the contradictions cited by the three sources.
Sessions could argue he misremembered events or perceived his response in a different way, making any contradictions unintentional, some experts said.
Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, said Sessions’ words might be too vague to form the basis of a perjury case because there could be different interpretations of what he meant.
United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions visits families of opioid overdose victims at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Kentucky in Lexington, Kentucky, U.S. March 15, 2018. REUTERS/John Sommers II
“If you’re talking about false statements, prosecutors look for something that is concrete and clear,” he said.
Other legal experts said, however, that repeated misstatements by Sessions could enable prosecutors to build a perjury case against him.
“Proving there was intent to lie is a heavy burden for the prosecution. But now you have multiple places where Sessions has arguably made false statements,” said Bennett Gershman, a Pace University law professor.
The March 2016 campaign meeting in Washington was memorialized in a photo Trump posted on Instagram of roughly a dozen men sitting around a table, including Trump, Sessions and Papadopoulos.
Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty in October to lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation about his Russia contacts, is now cooperating with Mueller.
According to court documents released after his guilty plea, Papadopoulos said at the campaign meeting that he had connections who could help arrange a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Papadopoulos continued to pursue Russian contacts after the March 2016 meeting and communicated with some campaign officials about his efforts, according to the court documents.
Trump has said that he does not remember much of what happened at the “very unimportant” campaign meeting. Trump has said he did not meet Putin before becoming president.
Moscow has denied meddling in the election and Trump has denied his campaign colluded with Russia.
Reporting by Karen Freifeld, Sarah N. Lynch and Mark Hosenball; Additional reporting by Jonathan Landay in Washington and Jan Wolfe in New York; Editing by Anthony Lin, Noeleen Walder and Jeffrey Benkoe”
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Like Trump, Gonzo is a congenital liar who has been pushing his “White Nationalist alternate world view” for so long that he wouldn’t recognize truth if it hit him in the face. I don’t know if he will ever be held accountable for all of his biased disingenuous deeds. But, at some future point, someone will “unpack” all of Gonzo’s disastrous abuses — immigration, civil rights, criminal justice, prisons — of justice at the Department of Justice and preserve them for history.
“MORE THAN the details of the case, President Trump’s tweet early Saturday celebrating the firing of former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe is what stands out: a marquee of bullying and unseemly behavior by a president. Mr. Trump acts like a nasty, small-minded despot, not the leader of a democracy more than two centuries old in which rule of law is a sturdy pillar. If there is doubt that the timing of Mr. McCabe’s dismissal was driven by political vengeance, Mr. Trump does everything he can to prove the worst with his own sordid words.
This is the language of a banana republic. In nations without a strong democratic foundation, tyrants cling to power by belittling perceived enemies and insulting and coopting other institutions, such as a free press, law enforcement and the military, coercing them into subservience. Just look around the world at practices today in Azerbaijan, Cambodia and Turkey, to name a few. The banana republic playbook has no place in the United States, not in a town hall, not in a statehouse, least of all in the Oval Office.
Mr. McCabe is a 21-year-veteran of the FBI and served as deputy director under James B. Comey, whom Mr. Trump fired earlier. A Justice Department inspector general’s report, not yet public, reportedly found that he authorized the disclosure of sensitive information to the media about an investigation involving Hillary Clinton and then misled investigators. He disputes the allegations, noting that he had authority to share the information and corrected what he told investigators. He previously stepped down from the deputy director’s job and was preparing to retire from the FBI on Sunday, which would have assured him of a full federal pension. The rushed timing of the firing on Friday night by Attorney General Jeff Sessions — whose own job security is perpetually threatened by Mr. Trump — robs Mr. McCabe of that full pension.
As Mr. Trump knows, special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has been reported to be looking into possible obstruction of justice in the firing of Mr. Comey. Mr. McCabe could be a vital witness in such a prosecution. Now the president has attempted to discredit, and lauded the punishment of, a potential witness against him, an affront to the integrity and independence of law enforcement.
Mr. McCabe’s actions as deputy FBI director are hard to evaluate without release of the inspector general’s report, due out this spring. There will be time to judge him then. What is clear today is that the president jumped on Mr. McCabe with unseemly ferocity, tweeting: “Andrew McCabe FIRED, a great day for the hard working men and women of the FBI — A great day for Democracy.”
In fact, the hardworking men and women of the FBI, the Justice Department, the intelligence agencies and elsewhere in government come to work every day to uphold the values of a democratic system based on rule of law — a system that is distinguished by the simple principle that everyone is judged fairly, not by grudge or whim, and that no one is above the law, not even the president.”
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Lest there were any doubt about it, by canning McCabe less than 48 hours before his retirement, Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions cemented his position as a person just as small in heart, soul, character, and integrity as he is in stature.
The irony here is rich: What about Gonzo’s own frequent intentional and rather incredibly claimed “lapses” in candor, whether under oath or not?
The call to abolish ICE is, above all, a demand for the Democratic Party to begin seriously resisting an unbridled white-supremacist surveillance state that it had a hand in creating. Though the party has moved left on core issues from reproductive rights to single-payer health care, it’s time for progressives to put forward a demand that deportation be taken not as the norm but rather as a disturbing indicator of authoritarianism.
White supremacy can no longer be the center of the immigration debate. Democrats have voted to fully fund ICE with limited fanfare, because in the American immigration discussion, the right-wing position is the center and the left has no voice. There has been disturbing word fatigue around “mass deportation,” and the threat of deportation is so often taken lightly that many have lost the ability to conceptualize what it means. Next to death, being stripped from your home, family, and community is the worst fate that can be inflicted on a human, as many societies practicing banishment have recognized. It’s time to rein in the greatest threat we face: an unaccountable strike force executing a campaign of ethnic cleansing.
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Read the rest of McElwee’s well-written and very provocative article at the link.
Not going to happen! Yet the out of control misconduct by ICE and its leadership during this Administration certainly helps McElwee make a powerful moral, if not practical political, case for elimination. Definitely worth a read.
Since our previous survey in 2014, some presidential legacies have soared (Barack Obama’s stock has climbed into the Top 10), while others have fallen (Andrew Jackson toppled to 15, out of the Top 10).
And President Trump? Let’s say that, according to the 170 members of the American Political Science Association’s Presidents and Executive Politics section who filled out our survey, he has at least three years to improve on an ignominious debut.
Presidential Greatness Rankings
James Buchanan, who was at the helm as the United States careened into civil war, was dislodged from his position as our nation’s worst president by our current president, Trump.
His Oval Office predecessor, Barack Obama, shot into the Top 10, up from 18th in the previous survey. Ulysses S. Grant also got a bump, up seven places from 2014, perhaps owing to a strong assist from Ron Chernow’s recent masterpiece.
The biggest declines were for Bill Clinton, arguably the result of contemporary scorn for his treatment of women, and Andrew Jackson, for evolving attitudes on his treatment of Native Americans.
Overall rankings.
Presidents since World War II in boldface.
Presidents whose rank changed since last survey
0 = FAILURE
50 = AVERAGE
100 = GREAT
2014 RANK
CHANGE
IN RANKING
UP OR
DOWN
TOP 10 IN 2018
1. Lincoln
95
2. Washington
93
3. F.D. Roosevelt
89
4. T. Roosevelt
81
5. Jefferson
80
6. Truman
75
7. Eisenhower
74
8. Obama
71
8. Clinton
–5
9. Reagan
69
9. Jackson
–6
10. L.B. Johnson
69
10. Wilson
–1
11. Wilson
67
11. Reagan
+2
12. Madison
64
12. L.B. Johnson
+2
13. Clinton
64
13. Madison
+1
14. J. Adams
63
14. Kennedy
–2
15. Jackson
62
15. J. Adams
+1
16. Kennedy
62
16. Monroe
–2
17. G.H.W. Bush
61
18. Monroe
61
18. Obama
+10
19. McKinley
55
19. Polk
–1
20. Polk
54
20. Taft
–2
21. Grant
53
21. McKinley
+2
22. Taft
52
22. J.Q. Adams
–1
23. J.Q. Adams
52
23. Cleveland
–1
24. Cleveland
51
24. Ford
–1
25. Ford
47
25. Van Buren
–2
26. Carter
45
27. Van Buren
44
27. Coolidge
–1
28. Coolidge
42
28. Grant
+7
29. Hayes
42
29. B. Harrison
–3
30. G.W. Bush
40
30. Hayes
+1
31. Arthur
40
31. Garfield
–3
32. B. Harrison
38
32. Arthur
+1
33. Nixon
37
33. Taylor
–2
34. Garfield
37
34. Nixon
+1
BOTTOM 10
35. Taylor
33
35. G.W. Bush
+5
36. Hoover
33
36. Tyler
–1
37. Tyler
31
37. Fillmore
–1
38. Fillmore
28
38. Hoover
+2
39. Harding
25
39. W.H. Harrison
–3
40. A. Johnson
25
40. Pierce
–1
41. Pierce
23
41. A. Johnson
+1
42. W.H. Harrison
19
42. Harding
+3
43. Buchanan
15
44. Trump
12
Methodology: Each expert was invited to rate each president on a 0-100 scale, with 0 = failure, 50 = average, and 100 = great. Scores were then averaged for each president, with presidents then ranked in order of highest average to lowest.
Greatness Rankings by Party
On partisan-votes lines, Democrats ranked Ronald Reagan nine places lower than Republicans, while Democrats place Obama 10 places higher.
Counting only Republican votes, William McKinley — best known for winning the Spanish-American war, for defeating William Jennings Bryan twice in contests for the White House and for being assassinated by the anarchist Leon Czolgosz — holds a spot in the Top 10.
Independents admire George H.W. Bush, ranking him higher than Obama.
Trump doesn’t get much of a lift from Republican-only vote: Even in their eyes, he’s a bottom-five president.
Democratic scholars
Independents/other
Republican scholars
Presidents since World War II in boldface.
These scholars skew somewhat to the right.
TOP 10
0
AVG.
100
0
AVG.
100
0
AVG.
100
1. Washington
94
1. Lincoln
96
1. Lincoln
94
2. Lincoln
94
2. F.D. Roosevelt
94
2. Washington
91
3. F.D. Roosevelt
83
3. Washington
93
3. F.D. Roosevelt
83
4. T. Roosevelt
77
4. T. Roosevelt
83
4. T. Roosevelt
79
5. Reagan
76
5. Jefferson
82
5. Jefferson
79
6. Jefferson
70
6. Obama
78
6. Eisenhower
77
7. Eisenhower
68
7. Truman
78
7. Reagan
75
8. Truman
67
8. L.B. Johnson
75
8. Truman
74
9. McKinley
64
9. Eisenhower
74
9. Madison
65
10. Jackson
64
10. Wilson
72
10. J. Adams
64
11. G.H.W. Bush
63
11. Madison
67
11. G.H.W. Bush
64
12. Wilson
61
12. Kennedy
67
12. Obama
63
13. Polk
60
13. Clinton
66
13. L.B. Johnson
63
14. Taft
60
14. Reagan
65
14. Clinton
62
15. Clinton
59
15. J. Adams
64
15. Wilson
62
16. Obama
57
16. Monroe
62
16. McKinley
61
17. J. Adams
57
17. Jackson
62
17. Jackson
61
18. Monroe
56
18. G.H.W. Bush
59
18. Monroe
60
19. L.B. Johnson
56
19. Grant
53
19. Kennedy
58
20. Cleveland
55
20. J.Q. Adams
53
20. Taft
56
21. Coolidge
52
21. Polk
52
21. Polk
56
22. Madison
52
22. McKinley
50
22. Grant
54
23. G.W. Bush
52
23. Cleveland
49
23. Cleveland
54
24. Kennedy
50
24. Carter
48
24. J.Q. Adams
52
25. Grant
49
25. Taft
48
25. Coolidge
50
26. Ford
49
26. Ford
46
26. Ford
49
27. J.Q. Adams
49
27. Van Buren
44
27. Van Buren
47
28. Hayes
44
28. Hayes
39
28. Hayes
45
29. Nixon
42
29. Arthur
39
29. Arthur
44
30. Hoover
41
30. G.W. Bush
37
30. Garfield
42
31. B. Harrison
39
31. Nixon
37
31. G.W. Bush
42
32. Carter
39
32. B. Harrison
36
32. Carter
41
33. Van Buren
38
33. Coolidge
36
33. B. Harrison
40
34. Arthur
36
34. Garfield
34
34. Taylor
37
Lighter circles = below average
BOTTOM 10
35. Garfield
36
35. Taylor
31
35. Hoover
37
36. Taylor
34
36. Tyler
31
36. Nixon
36
37. Tyler
33
37. Hoover
29
37. Tyler
32
38. Harding
32
38. A. Johnson
27
38. Fillmore
30
39. Fillmore
29
39. Fillmore
26
39. Harding
26
40. Trump
25
40. Pierce
24
40. Pierce
25
41. A. Johnson
21
41. Harding
23
41. A. Johnson
23
42. Pierce
19
42. W.H. Harrison
19
42. W.H. Harrison
19
43. W.H. Harrison
19
43. Buchanan
16
43. Trump
16
44. Buchanan
14
44. Trump
8
44. Buchanan
14
Methodology: Each expert was allowed to self-identify as either Republican, Democrat, Independent, or Other. The results of those who self-identified were later analyzed independently to allow comparisons across partisan groups.
Next on Mt. Rushmore
Which president deserves to have his likeness carved next into Mt. Rushmore’s granite cliff? Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the overwhelming favorite, selected by two-thirds of our respondents.
Franklin
Roosevelt
Barack
Obama
James
Madison
Lyndon
Johnson
66%
7
5
4
4
2
2
10
Others
Ronald
Reagan
Dwight
Eisenhower
William
McKinley
Methodology: Respondents were asked if they were to add one president to those currently represented on Mt. Rushmore, who would it be, and then allowed to select any past or current president. The number and percentage of times each president was selected was then calculated.
Mt. Rushmore by Party
It wasn’t just Democratic support that would carve F.D.R. on Mt. Rushmore: All groups, including Republicans, named him as most deserving of that honor.
Roosevelt, the godfather of presidential liberalism, received more than twice as many votes from Republicans as Ronald Reagan, his conservative counterpart.
Democratic scholars’ vote:
Barack
Obama
Lyndon
Johnson
James
Madison
Franklin
Roosevelt
75%
11
3
3
8
Others
Independent/others’ vote:
Ronald
Reagan
Dwight
Eisenhower
William
McKinley
Franklin
Roosevelt
57%
9
9
6
19
Others
Republicans’ vote:
Ronald
Reagan
James
Madison
Franklin
Roosevelt
43%
19
10
29
Others
Methodology: Using the previously discussed self-identified partisanship breakdowns, the number and percentage of times each partisan group selected each president was calculated in the same way as the overall results.
Trump’s initial rating places him in an ignominious category, but dozens of presidents have had slow starts and have course corrected to improve their public esteem. Beyond his reputation or ranking, Donald Trump’s very presidency may alter perceptions of presidential legacies as his unique approach to the office continues to surprise.
Brandon Rottinghaus is a professor of political science at the University of Houston. Justin S. Vaughn is an associate professor of political science and director of the Center for Idaho History and Politics at Boise State University.
“Even among some of Donald Trump’s allies, there is a sense of astonishment at the White House’s handling of Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. “It’s like no one took down the Gambino family,” Steve BannontoldChris Whipple in a book adaptation the Hive published this week. “Mueller’s doing a roll-up just like he did with the Gambinos. [Paul] Manafort’s the caporegime, right? And [Rick] Gates is a made man!” Indeed, Mueller, who led the F.B.I. takedown of the infamous crime family in the early 1990s, famously cutting a deal with Sammy the Bull to flip on mob boss John Gotti, appears to be executing what some have called a “Gambino-style roll-up.” First, he flippedformer Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos; then, he turnedousted national security adviser Michael Flynn. Now, CNN reports, Mueller appears to be in the final stages of a plea deal with Gates, Trump’s former deputy campaign chairman and a longtime business associate of Manafort, who was indicted alongside him last fall.
The White House reportedly views Gates’s testimony as a threat to Manafort, and not to the president. “There’d be no anxiety here,” a White House official told CNN when asked about the possibility that Gates will cut a deal. The charges against the two, after all, had nothing do with Russian collusion; the 12 counts included failure to register as a foreign agent, false and misleading statements related to that registration, and seven counts of improper foreign financial reporting—all as part of a broader conspiracy to launder millions of dollars from their consulting work in Ukraine into the United States. Manafort has pleaded not guilty, and is fighting the charges. But Gates, who has also pleaded not guilty, has been grappling with financial troubles and difficulties with his legal team. According to CNN, he has been in plea negotiations with Mueller’s team of F.B.I. investigators for about a month, and has already given an interview in which he would have revealed any knowledge he might have of criminal activity that could be traded for leniency or immunity in sentencing.
What this means for the White House isn’t exactly clear. While Manafort’s reign as campaign chairman and Gates’s role as his deputy were short-lived, the duo oversaw a series of events and interactions that have come under intense scrutiny in the ongoing Justice Department probe. Manafort and Gates ran the Trump campaign in the summer of 2016, during which Donald Trump Jr. held his infamous Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer. They were also on board during the Republican National Convention, where a number of Trump campaign officials and surrogates met with Russian officials and campaign officials altered the language of the official G.O.P. platform on Ukraine to be more sympathetic to Russian interests. While Manafort was replaced by Bannon after The New York Times alleged that handwritten ledgers showed millions in undisclosed cash payments designated for Manafort in Ukraine—a claim Manafort denies—Gates continued to work with the Trump campaign through the transition, and served as a senior official on Trump’s inaugural committee.”
For now, the most significant facts in the case remain under lock. Adam Schiff, the top ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday that the panel has discovered evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians during the 2016 campaign, as well as evidence of subsequent obstruction. “There is certainly an abundance of non-public information that we’ve gathered in the investigation,” Schiff toldreporters. Whether that information is actionable remains to be seen. According to the White House’s own budget request, the administration expects Mueller’s investigation to continue well into next year, despite repeated assurances from the president’s legal team that it was approaching a conclusion. If Gates has the goods, perhaps it will end sooner.
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No, the “Don of Con” isn’t “in the clear” as he incredibly asserts. In fact, it appears that the noose is slowly tightening. Exactly the kind of “dangling in the wind” to which The Don likes to subject those subordinates whom he suspects of disloyalty.
“Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” And, there’s so much smoke surrounding The Don, his family, and his current and former associates right now that it’s a miracle nobody in the White House has succumbed to smoke inhalation.
FRIDAY’S FEDERAL grand jury indictment of 13 Russians for conspiracy to interfere illegally in the 2016 presidential election presents powerful evidence that Moscow staged an attack on the United States’ democratic political process. The facts, doggedly accumulated by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III despite much hostility from President Trump, show that the Russians’ goal was to foment “distrust towards the candidates and the political system in general,” as the indictment puts it. And the chosen means was “information warfare,” reportedly waged via provocations on social media and the occasional in-person grass-roots activity. It began in 2014 and involved Russians engaging in political activities under false, sometimes stolen, identities; no Americans wittingly cooperated with this particular plot, though some did so unwittingly, according to the indictment.
The indictment thus undercuts any lingering suggestion that Russian interference is a myth or a hoax, and Mr. Trump, who has often suggested as much, should have acknowledged the new evidence Friday. Instead, his first reaction was to claim vindication on Twitter. “The Trump campaign did nothing wrong,” he wrote, adding, “no collusion!” This was inappropriate on two levels.
First, though the indictment did say that there was no knowing American collusion with the Russian social media campaign, and though it did not say that it affected the results, it also showed that the vast majority of Russian propaganda supported Mr. Trump’s campaign and attacked that of his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. You would think Mr. Trump would take a moment to repudiate that support, even in hindsight, and to declare that no foreign power has a right to campaign secretly against an American candidate.
Second, Mr. Mueller has not finished his investigation and has not ruled out the possibility of collusion. We don’t yet know whether Donald Trump Jr.’s eagerness to meet with Russians offering “dirt” on Ms. Clinton’s campaign was an isolated incident. Nor has the special counsel yet weighed in on the question of possible obstruction of his investigation by President Trump.
Meanwhile, the evidence of a Russian assault on the U.S. election is a serious development in and of itself that any responsible president would respond to in a serious way. Such an attempt to delegitimize the American system could only have gone forward with the knowledge and approval of Russian President Vladimir Putin. It reflected the Kremlin’s all-too-accurate judgment that a divided and polarized U.S. electorate would be vulnerable to the same sort of dirty tricks Russia has pulled in Europe. In a statement, Mr. Trump declared that “we cannot allow those seeking to sow confusion, discord, and rancor to be successful,” though he strangely blamed not Russia, but rather “outlandish partisan attacks” by his opponents, which, he said, “further the agendas of bad actors, like Russia.” The only message he should be sending now, both to the American people and to Moscow, is that Mr. Putin is responsible and that the U.S. government will respond to his covert attacks with appropriate retaliation.
President Trump continues to insist the Democrats are responsible for any story relating to Russian interference in the 2016 election.(Video: Meg Kelly/Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
The grand jury’s indictment shows how far Russia is willing to go to manipulate and discredit our democracy. Mr. Trump’s own intelligence chiefs warned this week that the 2018 election is under threat. Given the baffling and inexcusable absence of presidential leadership, Congress must step up to defend the nation.”
****************************************
An “inexcusable absence of presidential leadership.” Sorry, I don’t find that “baffling” or surprising at all. In fact, it’s a depressingly accurate and succinct description of Trump’s entire “Joke Presidency.”
Trump’s own intelligence officials, including National Security Advisor Gen. McMaster are all warning of the seriousness of the threat Russia poses to our electoral integrity and national security. Trump is, as normal, focused entirely on trying (totally unsuccessfully) to cover his own behind. This is a guy who up until now has been calling Russian interference with the 2016 Election “a hoax” and “fake news.”
And, there is zero chance that the spineless and complicit GOP-controlled Congress will step into the breach. They are too busy looting our country before Armageddon comes!
There is, however, one way available to all of us to save our country! Throw the GOP scoundrels, enablers, and “Fellow Travelers” out of office. A Democratic Congress is the best hope for the people to take back control and save America from Putin, Trump, and the “New American Oligarchs” and “Kleptocrats” who are enabling both of them!
Otherwise, we all ought to start studying Russian. Because we’re all going to need it to communicate with our “future real rulers” in Moscow!
In the final weeks of the 2016, election, Donald Trump’s behavior toward women became a topic of national interest. The Access Hollywood tape had just been published, leading to a slew of allegations from more than a dozen women that Trump had engaged in unwanted touching and sexual advances. Amid the charged atmosphere, The Wall Street Journalreported that American Media Inc., the publisher of the National Enquirer, paid $150,000 in August for exclusive rights to a story about a former Playboy model’s alleged affair with Trump, which it never ran. (A.M.I. C.E.O. David Pecker is a close friend of the president.) Now, details of the relationship have been made public, revealing a pattern of behavior when it comes to the sitting president of the United States.
While Karen McDougal story was buried, the New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow obtained an eight-page handwritten document outlining her interactions with Trump, which McDougal confirmed she had written. According to Farrow’s report, McDougal and Trump first met at a party at the Playboy Mansion in June 2006, after a taping of The Apprentice. McDougal wrote that Trump “immediately took a liking to me, kept talking to me—telling me how beautiful I was, etc. It was so obvious that a Playmate Promotions exec said, ‘Wow, he was all over you—I think you could be his next wife.’” At the time, Trump had been married to Melania for less than two years, and his son, Barron, was months old.
After the party, McDougal said that she and Trump began an affair. Trump reportedly met McDougal at the Beverly Hills Hotel when he was in Los Angeles and regularly flew her to public events, but without leaving a paper trail. McDougal alleges that Trump once tried to pay her for sex: “He offered me money,” she wrote. “I looked at him (+ felt sad) + said, ‘No thanks—I’m not ‘that girl.’ I slept w/you because I like you—NOT for money’—He told me ‘you are special.’” McDougal is the second woman to make such allegations on the record. (In a statement, the White House called McDougal’s allegations “an old story that is just more fake news” and said the president denied there was a relationship.)
Though certain details of the report are more eyebrow-raising than others—McDougal allegedly ended the affair due in part to Trump’s “offensive” comments about African-Americans—the most serious ramifications are a matter of national security. While some of the seedier allegations in Christopher Steele’s Trump-Russia dossier have not been verified, the central thesis of the dossier seems increasingly likely: that Trump’s long history of alleged affairs make him uniquely susceptible to blackmail. Pecker’s A.M.I. told The New Yorker, “the suggestion that A.M.I. holds any influence over the President of the United States, while flattering, is laughable.” But the real worry isn’t whether the president’s friends, like Pecker or attorney Michael Cohen—who told the Hive he spent $130,000 to keep another alleged affair quiet—have power over the president. It’s whether additional alleged affairs and cover-ups are known to foreign governments, like Russia. If Rob Porter’salleged history of domestic abuse and Jared Kushner’smountains of debt were concerning enough to delay their ability to get permanent security clearances, then Trump’s history is a five-alarm fire.
***********************************
As some of you might remember, I’m willing to give Stormy Daniels credit for being 1) smarter than Trump; 2) no less honest; and 3) a heck of a lot better “entrepreneur.” I have my doubts about Karen, however. On the other hand, I acknowledge she did eventually get paid $150K for a “tell all” story that was never told. So, perhaps she’s not so dumb after all. Still, consensual sex with the Orange Mop has to raise serious judgment questions.
All things considered, I’d vote for Stormy over Trump or Karen. That is, unless I find out that Stormy is a racist/White Nationalist, which most of those having “close contact” with Trump appear to be. We’ve actually come to the sad point in our wounded democracy when a porn star in the White House would be a “step up” from the sleazy destructive TV reality show con-man who now occupies the position even if he is incapable of actually performing the functions.
We’ve elected the “Confederacy of Clowns.” 🤡 🤡 🤡 Vladi couldn’t be happier. Just like he drew it up!
Sessions runs around the country trashing Dreamers, asylum seekers, lawyers, empowering MS-13, and promoting his White Nationalist agenda while not lifting a finger to prevent Russian meddling in our elections;
DHS is headed by a lightweight sycophant who is more concerned about deporting gardeners and maids and “kissing up” to Trump’s racist agenda than about protecting our country from the active threat by Russia;
We’re standing by and letting Russia run all over us on the world stage;
Vladi is just delighted with the performance of his “Puppet President,” “Agent Devon,” and a host of GOP “Fellow Travelers;”
Trump and his cohorts are out to destroy the career civil service because career civil servants owe allegiance to our Constitution rather than to Trump and his corrupt minions.
Wake up, folks, and vote the GOP out of office, on all levels, before it’s too late for America!
“WASHINGTON — The Justice Department’s No. 3 attorney had been unhappy with her job for months before the department announced her departure on Friday, according to multiple sources close to Associate Attorney General Rachel Brand.
Brand grew frustrated by vacancies at the department and feared she would be asked to oversee the Russia investigation, the sources said.
She will be leaving the Justice Department in the coming weeks to take a position with Walmart as the company’s executive vice president of global governance and corporate secretary, a job change that had been in the works for some time, the sources said.
Sources: Brand left DOJ over fear of overseeing Russia probe 3:40
As far back as last fall, Brand had expressed to friends that she felt overwhelmed and unsupported in her job, especially as many key positions under her jurisdiction had still not been filled with permanent, Senate-confirmed officials.
Four of the 13 divisions overseen by the associate attorney general remain unfilled, including the civil rights division and the civil division, over one year into the Trump administration.
While Brand has largely stayed out of the spotlight, public criticism of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein by President Donald Trump worried Brand that Rosenstein’s job could be in danger.
Should Rosenstein be fired, Brand would be next in line to oversee Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election, thrusting her into a political spotlight that Brand told friends she did not want to enter.
The Justice Department pushed back on NBC’s report.
“It is clear these anonymous sources have never met Rachel Brand let alone know her thinking. All of this is false and frankly ridiculous,” said Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Flores.
Brand has had a long legal career that has spanned several administrations, including under Democratic President Barack Obama and Republican George W. Bush.
In announcing her departure, Attorney General Jeff Sessions described Brand as “a lawyer’s lawyer,” noting that she graduated from Harvard Law School and clerked at the Supreme Court.
In the same statement, Brand said, “I am proud of what we have been able to accomplish over my time here.”
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Undoubtedly, the DOJ under Trump and Sessions has made some great strides in attacking the rule of law, undermining social justice, mal-administering the Immigration Courts, eroding the credibility of DOJ attorneys in court, and generally diminishing the quality and fairness of the justice system in the United States.
While those might give Rachel “bragging rights” over at Wal-Mart or in right-wing legal circles, I don’t see that they are anything to “write home about.” Hopefully, at some point in the future, having served as a politico in the Trump/Sessions DOJ will become a “career killer” for any future Government appointments.
But, in today’s topsy-turvy legal-political climate, it’s still a shrewd “self-preservation” move on Brand’s part. And, she’s somewhat less likely to be stomping on anyone’s civil rights over at Wal-Mart (although you never know when an opportunity to dump on the civil rights of the LGBTQ community, African-Americans, Latinos, immigrants, women, the poor, or to promote religious intelerance might present itself in a corporate setting).
Looking forward to more DOJ reporting from the super-talented Julia! I’ve missed her on the “immigration beat!”
