"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.
Decency — that’s the first word that comes to mind when thinking of George H.W. Bush. He was a decent, self-effacing, funny, nice man. And he brought those traits to the presidency.
In a long interview I conducted with him as part of a series on former presidents reflecting on the Constitution, he said something like “I don’t want to namedrop” at several points, when telling a story about visiting his own son in the White House. When recounting an anecdote about the fall of the Soviet Union, which he helped engineer, he would say, “I don’t want to brag.”
He took very much to heart his mother’s dictum to “be a good sport,” and not blame others for your own shortcomings. He said he thanked God for that motherly advice when he suffered defeat in 1992 because “it hurts to lose, it feels wonderful to win.”
SLIDESHOW: Photos:George H. W. Bush through the years
It was tough for Bush to score many wins in his presidency as he faced a Congress run by a large and increasingly partisan Democratic majority. He did squeak out votes of approval to use the U.S. military to drive Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait and felt strongly that it would have been wrong to pursue the invader back to Baghdad.
Taking issue with the “Monday morning quarterbacks” who questioned that decision, he stated firmly, “I don’t believe in mission creep and I don’t believe in going back on your word to Congress and I don’t believe in going back on your word to the United Nations.”
Greg Mathieson/REX/Shutterstock
Decency.
Bush disagreed often with members of Congress, but he never demonized them. Many were his friends. One of his best buddies was Bob Strauss, a fellow Texan, who served as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, while Bush held the same role at the Republican National Committee.
It was during the Watergate scandal and Bush thought he deserved combat pay, “it was the worst job in the world.”
Strauss called him and told him that his position was like “making love to a gorilla,” the former president told me in the cleaned-up version.
“You can’t stop until the gorilla wants to.” The party chairman soon found himself faced with the dicey task of advising the Republican president to resign. It was the decent thing to do.
Gregory Rec/Portland Press Herald via Getty Images, file
When the Soviet Union disintegrated, Bush appointed Strauss as the first ambassador to the new Russia though, as the Democrat told the president, he had never voted for him for anything.
In those difficult years in the White House Bush knew there was one person who always had his back — his wife Barbara. When I said to him that first ladies are often unsung heroes he laughed, “She’s sung. And you know what the boys call her? The Enforcer, even the president calls her that.”
Reveling in the fact that his wife was “100 percent behind anything I did,” Bush did admit that he was reamed out for loudly declaring that he hated broccoli, though his stance “liberated every 4 year old.”
The affection that the Bushes felt for each other in their 73 year marriage heartened the nation when Mrs. Bush died but it was not just her affection that her husband appreciated, it was also her wisdom. Presidential wives “play a very influential role…they can make an enormous difference,” according to the husband of one First Lady and the father-in-law of another.
In his long career serving the country, President Bush came to know many of the people who chose his path. His view: “I believe public service is a noble calling and most members of Congress are honorable people.” He added, “I’ve found that most people serve for the right reasons.”
He certainly did, whether you agree or disagree with his policies, he served because he thought it was the right thing, the decent thing, for a dedicated American citizen to do.
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!
“Donald Trump’s choice for his next CIA director was involved in its infamous torture program, a history that is already beginning to complicate her confirmation before the only panel to thoroughly investigate torture: the Senate intelligence committee.
The intended elevation of Gina Haspel, who would become the first woman to lead the CIA, comes as part of a broader reshuffling of Trump’s foreign-policy team that one diplomat told The Daily Beast was likely to enable Trump’s “worst foreign-policy instincts.”
Mike Pompeo, the current CIA director, will succeed Rex Tillerson at the State Department, in the Cabinet reshuffle, elevating Haspel.
Haspel, whom under Pompeo became the agency’s deputy director, briefly ran the off-the-books prison in Thailand used as a torture laboratory for the earliest detained terrorism suspects. There, in 2002—including while Haspel ran the so-called black site—the man known as Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times; stuffed into a wooden box barely bigger than a coffin; had his body shackled in painful contorted positions; and had his head slammed into walls.
“If Ms. Haspel seeks to serve at the highest levels of U.S. intelligence, the government can no longer cover up disturbing facts from the past,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), a member of the intelligence committee who opposes her nomination, told The Daily Beast in a statement Tuesday.
“Ms. Haspel’s background makes her unsuitable to serve as CIA director. Her nomination must include total transparency about this background,” Wyden added.
“While Haspel ran the so-called black site, one man was waterboarded 83 times; stuffed into a wooden box barely bigger than a coffin; and had his head slammed into walls.”
Subsequently declassified CIA medical files assessed that Abu Zubaydah was likely willing to cooperate with his interrogators before his waterboarding, as he had with his FBI interrogators, who did not torture him.
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Years later, Haspel drafted an instruction to CIA officers in the field to destroy videotapes of torturous interrogations at the site. Though the Justice Department later declined to bring charges, the destruction of the tapes was widely considered in human-rights circles to be a key moment in covering up the torture—and it prompted the Senate intelligence committee’s landmark 2014 investigation, which occurred amid the backdrop of the agency spying on the work product of the Senate investigators.
A former deputy CIA director and harsh critic of the inquiry, Michael Morell, later wrote that she did so “at the request of her direct supervisor and believing that it was lawful to do so. I personally led an accountability exercise that cleared Haspel of any wrongdoing in the case.”
Wyden and his Senate intelligence committee colleague, Martin Heinrich, a New Mexico Democrat, wrote to Trump last year, during Haspel’s elevation to deputy director, to say her “background” in the torture program “makes her unsuitable for the position.”
They requested that information on Haspel’s specific role in the torture program, included in a classified letter they sent, be released. It never was.
“We have really serious concerns about her heading the CIA. It was already troubling that she was appointed to be deputy,” said Laura Pitter of Human Rights Watch. “Someone with that kind of history should not be made to head an organization with as much power and responsibility, often carried out in secret, like the CIA has.”
It appeared early Tuesday that human-rights groups considered fighting Haspel’s nomination to be a key priority.
“Gina Haspel was a central figure in one of the most illegal and shameful chapters in modern American history. She was up to her eyeballs in torture: both in running a secret torture prison in Thailand, and carrying out an order to cover up torture crimes by destroying videotapes,” said Christopher Andrews, the deputy director of the ACLU’s Washington office.
“An additional concern that the Senate must address is whether Haspel has the independence needed for a CIA director, since she has never left the agency. This question is even more pressing as the House intelligence committee has made clear that it no longer takes its oversight responsibility seriously.”
Haspel’s involvement in the black site became an issue in a court case brought by CIA torture survivors (and the family of a man who froze to death in CIA custody). The defendants in that case were Bruce Jessen and James Mitchell, the contractor psychologists who designed the torture program, who sought to compel Haspel’s deposition as part of their argument that the CIA, and not them, was the primary architect of Langley’s post-9/11 torture regime.
But Haspel, referred to in initial court filings as “Gina Doe,” was never deposed. The Justice Department fought Mitchell and Jessen on her court appearance. The two contractors settled the case in August.
Like every sub-leadership CIA official in the Senate intelligence committee’s torture report, references to Haspel are pseudonymous and, even then, heavily redacted. But the committee chairman, Richard Burr of North Carolina, has been an opponent of the torture report, seeking to recover it during the Obama administration to prevent its ultimate release. Accordingly, and with the current GOP majority on the committee, Haspel’s confirmation as CIA director is more likely than not.
“Before and after his confirmation as CIA director, Mike Pompeo has demonstrated a casual relationship to truth and principle.”
— Sen. Ron Wyden
Haspel’s elevation is a blow to a different member of the intelligence committee: Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican and Trump ally, whom a round of leaks last year suggested was Trump’s choice to run CIA after Pompeo switched to State.
Pompeo has long been a Trump favorite to take over for Tillerson: Pompeo has been the Iran hawk as close to Trump as Tillerson was distant—a relative Iran dove and, unlikely for a recipient of a medal of friendship from Vladimir Putin, willing to call out Russia for election interference that Trump denies ever happened.
Wyden said he opposed Pompeo’s appointment to the State Department as well.
“Before and after his confirmation as CIA director, Mike Pompeo has demonstrated a casual relationship to truth and principle. He has downplayed Russia’s attack on our democracy, at times contradicting the intelligence community he is supposed to represent. He has also made inconsistent and deeply concerning statements about torture and mass spying on Americans,” Wyden said.”
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Yup, “Gina the Torture Queen” and “Mikey P” sound like exactly the kind of unethical lawless sycophants who will fit nicely into Trump’s “Band of Misfits” (a/k/a the “White House Sycophants Society,” a/k/a “Trump Cabinet”).
And, the GOP as a party long ago abandoned human rights, civil rights, Constitutional rights, honesty, ethics, or even basic qualifications as criteria for confirming Cabinet picks in the Age of Trump. The “Party of Putin” simply doesn’t care any more unless there is some personal gain involved for them or their bankrollers.
