Tag Archives: clinton

Hillary Clinton Is Out of Fucks

Mother Jones

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Hillary Clinton appeared at Recode Wednesday in conversation with founders Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher, and to steal a headline from myself, she is out of fucks.

It was fascinating to watch. She didn’t hold back. You can watch the full thing below or continue on for some highlights.

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Here are some good bits, courtesy of the recode live blog:

On emails!!!

“The over riding issue that affected the election that I had any control over — because I had no control over the Russians. Too bad about that — was the use of my emails. The way that it was used was very damaging. The New York times covered it like Pearl harbor.

On Goldman Sachs speeches

“I have to say, Walt I never thought someone would throw out my entire career…because I made a couple of speeches…Men got paid for the speeches they made…I got paid for the speeches I made…I take responsibility for every decision I made, but that’s not why I lost”

On the vast right-wing conspiracy
“What is hard for people to accept, although now after the election there’s greater understanding, is that there are forces in our country…who have been fighting rear guard actions for as long as I’ve been alive…We were on a real roll as a country despite assassinations, despite setbacks, expanding rights to people who never had them in any country was frankly thrilling. I believe then as I believe now that we’re never done with this work. Part of the challenge is to maintain the focus and energy to move forward but you have to understand the other side is never tired either.”

On fake news
“Fake news…lies that’s a good word too…The other side was using content that was just flat out false and delivering it in a very personalized way. Above the radar screen and below.”

On the DNC

“I inherit nothing from the Democratic party. It was bankrupt. It was on the verge of insolvency. I had to inject money into the DNC for it to keep going.”

On the RNC

“They raised…best estimates are close to $100 million…to build this data foundation. They beta tested it. They ran hundreds of thousands of surveys. Trump becomes the nominee and is given this tried and true…platform.”

On Russia collusion
“I think it’s fair to ask how did that actually influence the campaign and how did they know what messages to deliver. Who told them? Who were they coordinating with or colluding with?…The Russians in my opinion could not have known how best to weaponize that information unless they had been guided by Americans.”

“Within one hour of the Access Hollywood tapes being leaked, the Russians or say Wikileaks—same thing—dumped the John Podesta emails. They were run of the mill emails. “Stuff that were so common. Within one hour they dumped them and then began to weaponize them. They had their allies like Infowars say the most outlandish, absurd lies you could imagine. They had to be ready for that.”

On Putin

“It’s important that Americans…understand that Putin wants to bring us down. He was an old KGB agent.”

On Obama

“Barack Obama saved the economy and he doesn’t get the credit he deserves, I have to say that because people don’t know that.” Clinton re: democrats not investing in creating content.

This post is being updated.

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Hillary Clinton Is Out of Fucks

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Republicans Focus on Protecting Trump at Russia Hearing

Mother Jones

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The Republicans still are not serious about investigating the Trump-Russia scandal. That message came through resoundingly when the House Intelligence Committee held a public hearing on Tuesday morning with former CIA chief John Brennan. (Actually, this was not officially a committee hearing. Democrats on the committee were informed earlier that this would be considered a “task force” hearing because the Republican chairman of the committee, Rep. Devin Nunes, could not appear because he had recused himself from the Russia investigation.)

At the witness table, Brennan told a harrowing tale. As CIA director last summer, he saw what was happening with the hack-and-leak attack on the Democratic National Committee, and he reviewed top-secret intelligence and concluded that Russia was mounting this assault to disrupt the election, hurt Hillary Clinton, and help Donald Trump. He also at the time was aware of intelligence that showed contacts between Trump associates and Russia, and that caused him to conclude a thorough FBI investigation was warranted. He testified, “I saw interaction” that warranted concern.

This was a big deal. In March, then-FBI chief James Comey revealed during testimony to this committee that in July 2016 the bureau launched an investigation of contacts between Trump associates and Russia. Now the CIA head from then was stating that there was clear intelligence that justified that probe. He also revealed that in early August he was so concerned about the Russian operation he spoke to the head of Russia’s FSB, the country’s intelligence service, and warned him to knock it off. Brennan also revealed that in August and September he briefed a small number of congressional leaders and shared with them top-secret intelligence about Moscow’s effort to subvert the election in part to benefit Trump. (This means that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan knew many details about the Russian operation but didn’t challenge or correct Trump’s continued public assertions that Russia was not necessarily the culprit in the DNC hack.)

Yet once again Republicans did not focus on the main elements of the story. When the Republicans on the committee had the chance to question Brennan, they did not press him for more details on Russia’s information warfare against the United States. Instead, they fixated on protecting Trump.

The Republicans zeroed in on the issue of whether Trump and his associates colluded with any Russians involved in the attack on US democracy—to push Brennan to say he had not seen concrete evidence of such conspiring. Reps. Tom Rooney (R-Fla) and Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) grilled Brennan repeatedly on this point. They posed the same basic query: Did you see any evidence that Trump or his associates plotted with Russians? “I don’t do evidence. I do intelligence,” Brennan replied. Still, they kept pressing him. They were obviously hoping he would state that he had not come across any such evidence so Trump and his champions could cite Brennan as a witness for their claim no collusion occurred.

In the face of this questioning, Brennan repeatedly stated that the intelligence he saw regarding contacts between Trump associates and Russia was worrisome and deserved full FBI scrutiny. So the Republicans failed in their mission to provide cover for Trump—and they ended up highlighting the legitimacy of the FBI inquiry begun under Comey.

A similar effort fell flat. Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) questioned Brennan about the intelligence community assessment released in early January that concluded the Russian clandestine operation was designed to assist Trump. He several times asked Brennan if there had been evidence contrary to this conclusion that was not included in the report. Brennan explained that the assessment was the result of a thorough interagency process that looked to develop a consensus position. Still, King seemed to suggest that the assessment might be open to question. And Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) asserted he had reviewed raw intelligence, and he insisted the information supporting the assessment that Moscow had preferred Trump was not as solid as the intelligence community maintained. Here were Republicans trying to find wiggle room for Trump.

Rooney took another stab at undermining the dominant narrative of the Trump-Russia scandal. He asked whether the Russians had been rooting for Clinton to fail or for Trump to win. “It was both,” Brennan replied. Rooney suggested that the Russians had gathered information damaging for Clinton’s campaign that it did not release, and he asked Brennan, what would that mean for the conclusion that Russians were trying to help Trump? It appeared as if Rooney thought this would be an a-ha! moment: If the Russians sat on anti-Clinton material, well, that must be an indicator they hadn’t’ engaged in cyber-skullduggery to help Trump. Brennan shot this down with a simple reply: Since the Russians, like many others, believed Clinton would win, they might have been holding on to that material to damage her once she became president.

Rep. Michael Turner (R-Ohio) also tried to race to Trump’s rescue. Complaining that some Democrats on the committee have publicly said they have seen evidence of Trump-Russia collusion, Turner asked Brennan if it would be accurate to characterize the intelligence Brennan saw when he was CIA chief as evidence of collusion. Brennan responded that this would not be an accurate characterization. Turner smiled, as if he had just blown a hole in the Democrats’ case. Moments later, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) asked Brennan if he had seen the evidence and material shared by the FBI with the House Intelligence Committee in classified meetings. No, he had not. So Turner had proved nothing.

Perhaps the most absurd act of GOP distraction came when Rep. Ben Wenstrup (R-Ohio) raised an episode from 2012, when President Barack Obama was caught on a hot mic telling Dmitry Medvedev, then the president of Russia, that he would have more flexibility to negotiate with Vladimir Putin after the US presidential election. Calling this moment “pretty disturbing,” Wenstrup asked Brennan, “Would you question that interaction?” Brennan didn’t take the bait and said he had nothing to say in response. Wenstrup suggested that perhaps this should be investigated. Brennan didn’t reply.

Gowdy finished up his questioning by concentrating on leaks and the unmasking within top-secret reports of Americans picked up incidentally by US intelligence surveillance. This has become a favorite topic of Republicans looking to defect from the core features of the Trump-Russia scandal. And Gowdy, a bit defensively, noted he had waited until the end of the hearing to pose these questions so the claim could not be made that Republicans are “hyperfocused” on the matter. Yet compared with previous hearings, Gowdy was restrained in declaiming leaks. This time he did not suggest, as he has before, that journalists should be prosecuted for publishing stories containing classified information.

When the hearing ended, the Republicans departed the room quickly. A few Democratic members lingered. One complained about the slow pace of the committee’s investigation. Another pointed out that Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas), who’s leading the committee’s Russia investigation in Nunes’ absence, had barely participated in the hearing. Conaway had opened the hearings without any reference to the interactions between Trump associates and Russia, but he had presented a prayer that invoked Jesus. As one Democrat noted, Conaway did not ask a single question during the proceedings. “That tells you all you need to know,” this member said.

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Republicans Focus on Protecting Trump at Russia Hearing

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President Trump Won’t Take the Cable Car Up to Masada

Mother Jones

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This is getting a lot of snarky play today:

President Donald Trump has canceled a planned visit and speech at the ancient mountain fortress of Masada in Israel after authorities told him that he could not land his helicopter on top of the UNESCO-listed site….Unlike former presidents who have made the trip, such as George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, Trump declined to land the helicopter at a base of the historic site and then take the cable car up, preferring to cancel the visit altogether.

Trump’s Razor, of course, suggests that Trump is just being an asshole. But it’s also possible that he has acrophobia in some form or another, and doesn’t like the idea of swinging in the air from a cable for three minutes. I don’t suppose Trump would ever admit to such a weakness, so we’ll never know unless someone leaks about it. And what are the odds of that in this buttoned-down administration?

Anyway, it’s possible there’s a benign explanation for this. Just saying.

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President Trump Won’t Take the Cable Car Up to Masada

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Republican Senator Doesn’t Want to Run Trump’s FBI

Mother Jones

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One of the leading contenders to replace James Comey as the next director of the FBI withdrew from consideration on Tuesday.

“Now more than ever the country needs a well-credentialed, independent FBI Director,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said in a statement. “I’ve informed the Administration that I’m committed to helping them find such an individual, and that the best way I can serve is continuing to fight for a conservative agenda in the US Senate.”

Cornyn was one of several candidates who interviewed for the position last weekend after President Donald Trump unceremoniously fired Comey on May 9. During an interview last week, the president said Comey was a “showboat” and a “grand-stander” and said that the “Russia thing” was on his mind as he decided to fire the head of the FBI.

The prospect of Cornyn—or any other partisan politician—running the FBI as it investigates the sitting president gave those on both sides of the aisle pause. “John Cornyn under normal circumstances would be a superb choice to be FBI director,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said last weekend. “But these are not normal circumstances.” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said, “The nominee should not be a partisan politician, not part of either party.”

Cornyn’s track record with the Trump/Russia matter justified those concerns, as Mother Jones reported Monday. Although the Texas senator has said the investigation should go on, he has devoted more of his attention to leaks from intelligence sources to the media. He’s also focused on the “unmasking” of disgraced former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn, which Trump supporters have said supports the argument that President Barack Obama had Trump under surveillance during the campaign. Cornyn has also said that the idea that Trump fired Comey because of the FBI’s Russia investigation was a “phony narrative.” He has resisted calls for a special prosecutor in the Russia case even though he wanted one for the Hillary Clinton email investigation.

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Republican Senator Doesn’t Want to Run Trump’s FBI

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One of Trump’s Top Picks for FBI Chief Pooh-Poohed the Trump-Russia Scandal

Mother Jones

President Donald Trump told reporters over the weekend that he would “make a fast decision” on his nomination to replace James Comey, the FBI director he fired in part due to, in Trump’s words, the “Russia thing.” Trump’s sudden and brazen decision to remove Comey amidst the ongoing FBI investigation into possible ties between Trump associates and the Russian government earned him a week’s worth criticism — even from a few Republicans. But at least one of the possible nominees Trump is considering would pose a significant problem. If picked to be FBI director, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) would manage an investigation that he has shown very little interest in seeing pursued.

The idea of nominating a Republican politician to the post has been criticized by members of both major parties. “John Cornyn under normal circumstances would be a superb choice to be FBI director,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said this weekend on Meet the Press. “But these are not normal circumstances.” Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the senior Democrat in the US Senate, echoed Graham’s concerns about Cornyn. “First, the nominee should be not a partisan politician, not part of either party. This demands a serious, down-the-middle investigation,” Schumer said.

Cornyn does have some of the typical resume lines for an FBI director. Before he was elected to the US Senate in 2002, Cornyn served as a district judge in Texas, a judge on the Texas Supreme Court, and as the state’s attorney general. But like many of his GOP colleagues in the Senate, Cornyn has been less than enthusiastic about the FBI’s investigation into the president’s ties to Russia. As a member of the Senate judiciary committee, Cornyn has said that the Russia affair should be investigated, but he has generally focused more on intelligence leaks and the issue of “unmasking“—the process of revealing the identity of an American incidentally caught up in US surveillance of foreign targets—that has been used by Republicans to distract from Moscow’s meddling and to support Trump’s unfounded claim that former President Barack Obama spied on him.

During a May 8 committee hearing on Russian interference during the election—where witnesses John Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, and Sally Yates, the former acting attorney general, talked extensively about the Russian intervention and the national security threat posed by Michael Flynn during his short stint as Trump’s national security adviser—Cornyn used his time to slam Susan Rice, Obama’s national security adviser, for not appearing before the committee, to decry the supposed “unmasking” of Flynn, and to press Yates on why she had refused to defend Trump’s Muslim ban in court. He did not address the main issue at hand: Vladimir Putin’s effort to undermine an American election.

Two days later, after Trump had fired Comey, Cornyn told reporters that it was a “phony narrative” that Trump had fired the FBI director in response to the Russia investigation. A day later, Trump, in an interview with NBC News’ Lester Holt, did say that the Russia investigation was part of his motivation for booting Comey.

Cornyn hasn’t always shown the same reticence to dive into politically sensitive investigations. In September 2015, he asked then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch to appoint a special prosecutor in the Hillary Clinton email investigation. At that time, Cornyn argued that the political appointees in Obama’s Justice Department weren’t capable of mounting an independent investigation. But these days, Cornyn resists calls for a special prosecutor in the Russia scandal. Cornyn’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

In December, Cornyn downplayed the Russia matter on Twitter:

“We’ve got a chance to reset here as a nation,” Graham said over the weekend. “The president has a chance to clean up the mess that he mostly created. He really, I think, did his staff a disservice by changing the explanation. So I would encourage the president to pick somebody we can all rally around, including those who work in the FBI.”

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One of Trump’s Top Picks for FBI Chief Pooh-Poohed the Trump-Russia Scandal

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House Democrats Demand Investigation of Comey Firing

Mother Jones

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Every Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee signed a letter Thursday afternoon to the committee’s chairman, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), demanding an investigation into President Donald Trump’s firing of FBI chief James Comey. The letter calls for hearings featuring testimony from Comey and from two high-ranking Trump administration officials who were involved in Comey’s termination: Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

In explaining why such hearings are necessary, the letter highlights the disjointed and contradictory explanations put forth by the White House over the past two days.

“The dismissal of Director Comey demands a clear and compelling explanation,” the letter states. “To date, the Administration has provided none.” It goes on to note that the administration’s initial justification for Trump’s actions—Comey’s handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails—would have necessitated Comey’s firing months ago. And it notes that while the White House initially portrayed Rosenstein as the person behind the decision, Trump himself acknowledged in an interview with NBC Thursday that “I was going to fire him regardless of Rosenstein’s recommendation.”

The demand by the judiciary committee’s 17 Democrats echoes calls from Senate Democrats, who have requested hearings over Comey’s abrupt dismissal and the appointment of a special prosecutor of oversee the investigation into Russian interference with the 2016 election.

It’s possible that at least some House Republicans will be more willing to investigate the firing than their colleagues in the Senate. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), the chairman of the House oversight committee, on Wednesday asked the inspector general for the Justice Department to look into the circumstances surrounding Comey’s firing. “Previously I asked Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz to review the FBI’s actions in advance of the 2016 election,” Chaffetz said in a statement. “Today I sent a letter urging IG Horowitz to expand the scope of his review to include the decision to fire Director Comey. I look forward to receiving the IG’s findings.” But Chaffetz did not go so far as to schedule a hearing.

Here’s the Democrats’ letter:

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House Democratic Letter (PDF)

House Democratic Letter (Text)

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House Democrats Demand Investigation of Comey Firing

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Trump Defends Decision to Fire Comey and Accuses Democrats of Hypocrisy

Mother Jones

In a series of early morning tweets Wednesday, President Donald Trump angrily defended his decision to fire FBI Director James Comey, taking aim at Democrats for criticizing the stunning development.

Trump’s response comes hours after he similarly railed against Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), after the Senate Minority Leader appeared to suggest the White House was orchestrating a cover-up by firing the man charged with leading an investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, including possible collusion by Trump associates.

Trump’s stated justification for the firing, which cites Comey’s unfair treatment of Hillary Clinton, has been lambasted by Democrats. After all, Trump frequently praised Comey’s actions, saying it “took guts” to reopen the bureau’s probe into Clinton’s use of a private email server less than two weeks before the election. And as recently as last month, the president indicated he supported the former director.

According to reports, however, Trump had been increasingly furious over the ongoing investigations into possible ties between Trump associates and Russia and what he saw as Comey’s failure to defend him.

Dozens of lawmakers, including some Republicans, are now calling for an independent prosecutor to move forward with the probe.

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Trump Defends Decision to Fire Comey and Accuses Democrats of Hypocrisy

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Fox News Just Tweeted the Worst Tweet in the History of Tweets

Mother Jones

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Every day, according to Business Insider, Twitter users send about 300 million tweets. Most of those tweets are bad. This one is the worst. Ever.

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Fox News Just Tweeted the Worst Tweet in the History of Tweets

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This GIF Compares Trump’s Overseas Travel With That of Previous Presidents

Mother Jones

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President Donald Trump has been dubbed the “homebody” president. In his first 100 days in office, he has visited his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida seven times but has rarely ventured elsewhere—and certainly not overseas. Not only has he traveled less domestically than the past two presidents, he hasn’t left the country once since becoming president, taking his “America First” approach quite literally.

For comparison, the animation above shows all of the last four presidents visited at least one country within their first 100 days in office. President Barack Obama made an appearance in nine countries, and George H.W. Bush went to four, according to the Office of the Historian, a government office within the State Department.

Here’s where the presidents went:

George H.W. Bush

Canada
Japan
China
Korea

Bill Clinton

Canada

George W. Bush

Mexico
Canada

Barack Obama

Canada
United Kingdom
France
Germany
Czech Republic
Turkey
Iraq
Mexico
Trinidad and Tobago

But, the drought is soon to break. Trump is planning his first international trip as president in May for a NATO meeting in Brussels. Considering he previously said the organization was “obsolete,” before saying it wasn’t, Trump’s first trip overseas will hardly be a cakewalk.

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This GIF Compares Trump’s Overseas Travel With That of Previous Presidents

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Trump’s Latest Plan to Undo Obama’s Legacy May Be Illegal

Mother Jones

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Sixteen presidents have cemented their legacies by designating new public lands and national monuments, a power granted to them under the 1906 Antiquities Act. President Donald Trump, meanwhile, wants to go in the opposite direction: If he actually follows through on his threat to reverse any monuments created by Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, he’d be the first commander-in-chief to revoke a monument designated by a predecessor. He’d also be stretching the legal authority of his office beyond what Congress ever granted.

Trump’s latest executive order, which he’ll sign at the Interior on Wednesday, directs the department to review 24 monument designations dating back to January 1996. The oldest monument under review is the 1996 Grand Staircase-Escalante monument; the most recent is Bears Ears, a twin rock formation that was President Obama’s last designation. (Both are southern Utah monuments criticized by local and state officials who oppose federal land control and want to keep the areas open for mining, logging, and grazing.) Everything in between, including Obama’s record 554 million acres of land and ocean set aside, will be up for review until August 24, 120 days from when Trump signs the executive order. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke will then recommend legislative or executive changes to monument designations. Trump’s next actions could include shrinking them or revoking their designation entirely.

While Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante are expected to top Trump’s list, environmentalists don’t think the review will stop there. “An attack on one monument is an attack on all of them,” says Dan Hartinger, the Wilderness Society’s deputy director for Parks and Public Lands Defense.

But as Zinke, a self-described Teddy Roosevelt conservationist, admitted on a White House press call on Tuesday night, it’s “untested whether the president can do that.”

That’s because no president has even tried to revoke a national monument since 1938, when President Franklin Roosevelt wanted to reverse Calvin Coolidge’s designation of the Castle Pinckney National Monument in South Carolina. The attorney general at the time, however, decided that the Act “does not authorize the President to abolish national monuments after they have been established.” In the 1976 Federal Land Policy and Management Act, Congress again affirmed that only it had the power to revoke or modify national monuments, says Mark Squillace, a University of Colorado Law professor and expert on the Antiquities Act.

Some presidents have managed to shrink monuments. Woodrow Wilson, for example, shrunk Washington State’s Mt. Olympus National Monument to open up more than 300,000 acres to logging, but he didn’t face lawsuits over the decision as Trump almost certainly will.

Congress has the power to reverse these monuments and has done so in the past, but Republicans in favor of the idea may be wary of the political backlash they would face with such a move. When Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) attempted to introduce legislation transferring 3 million acres of federal lands to states, he drew so much criticism from constituents he back-tracked.

For months, House Committee on Natural Resources Chairman Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) has lobbied the White House to use executive action to reverse Obama’s designation of the Bears Ears monument. The Trump administration and Bishop claim that monuments cost local communities jobs by limiting grazing acreage and logging—though proponents argue that tourism and recreation resulting from the monument declaration have also boosted jobs.

Trump’s executive order isn’t breaking any laws yet—but as he continues down the path to reverse public lands decisions from the Obama and Clinton administrations, environmentalists are already counting on challenging him in court, says the Wilderness Society’s Hartinger. “By reversing protections on a single monument you leave open the question if any of them are permanent.”

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Trump’s Latest Plan to Undo Obama’s Legacy May Be Illegal

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