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Can Republicans Be Trusted to Investigate Trump’s Russia Scandal?

by DellaKaminski Posted on February 27, 2017

Mother Jones

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Last week, news broke that the Senate intelligence committee—as part of its recently launched investigation of both the Russian hacking of the 2016 campaign and contacts between Donald Trump associates and Russia—had sent letters to at least a dozen agencies, individuals, and organizations instructing them to preserve records and information related to the probe. This was one of the first public signs that the Senate committee or the House intelligence committee, which has initiated its own inquiry, had begun any real digging.

But both investigations are proceeding behind a thick veil of secrecy, and there is no way to tell if the Republicans leading these efforts are mounting serious endeavors committed to unearthing facts that might be inconvenient, embarrassing, delegitimizing, or worse for Trump and his White House. So the question remains: Can these committees be trusted to get the job done?

Congressional investigations are not easy tasks. Committees usually are burdened with a wide variety of responsibilities. In the case of the intelligence committees, they are already responsible for monitoring the full intelligence community, which includes 17 different agencies. Veteran members and staffers from these committees routinely say that it’s tough for them to manage the normal oversight. (Watching over just the gigantic National Security Agency could keep a committee busy around the clock.)

Now, these committees have to maintain their current overwhelming duties and also conduct a highly sensitive inquiry. One congressional source says that the House intelligence committee has slightly expanded its staff for the hacking/Trump-Russia investigation. But Jack Langer, the spokesman for Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the chairman of the committee, won’t confirm that. And spokespeople for Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), the chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, did not even respond to a request for comment on the staffing issue.

Langer and the Burr spokespeople also wouldn’t say if the House and Senate intelligence committees are coordinating their efforts. Or if either committee has yet issued any subpoenas. Or if the committees will release public updates on the progress of each investigation. This is a red flag. Questions such as these do not involve classified or secret information. The committees could demonstrate their commitment to full accountability by informing the public about these organizational issues. The desire to shield such details does not bode well.

Jeremy Bash, who was chief counsel for the House intelligence committee in 2007 and 2008 (when Democrats controlled Congress), notes that there are three key elements necessary to ensure the intelligence committees conduct an effective investigation: full-time staff with legal or investigative training devoted to the inquiry; access for members and staff to all relevant documents held by government agencies; and a vigorous effort to conduct a broad range of witness interviews. He points out that past intelligence committee investigations have been hindered when intelligence agencies have not allowed staffers easy access to materials. Indeed, the intelligence committees often get into tussles with the spy services they oversee. Three years ago, the Senate intelligence committee had an explosive fight with the CIA over documents when it was examining the agency’s use of torture. This bitter clash threatened to blow up into a full-scale constitutional crisis.

News reports about the Trump-Russia scandal indicate that US intelligence agencies have material—perhaps surveillance intercepts or reports from human assets—relating to contacts between Trump associates and Russians. The FBI reportedly has been investigating these contacts and presumably has collected information relevant to the committees’ inquiries. Yet often intelligence agencies, looking to protect sources and methods or an ongoing investigation, are reluctant to share such information—even with the committees. (Democratic senators and representatives have repeatedly called on the FBI to release to the public information it has on Trump-Russia interactions.)

Much depends on the chairmen of the two committees. How hard will they push if they encounter a roadblock at the FBI or elsewhere? And how far will they go? Will they devote sufficient resources? Will they issue subpoenas for witnesses not eager to accept a committee invitation? A chairman has much discretion in determining the course of an investigation. Imagine that a staffer has located a witness who might possess significant information but that this witness is now living in South Korea. Will the chairman send staff there to locate the witness and obtain a statement? Or might he say, We have to let this one go?

The most crucial element is how committed the chairman is to uncovering the truth. “The real enemy to an investigation is the time that goes by,” says Bash, who helped oversee an investigation of the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping during his time with the house committee. “People lose interest. Other events intervene. The key thing is to get going fast. There are a hundred ways to slow down an investigation by people or agencies who don’t want it.”

Neither Burr nor Nunes has demonstrated much public enthusiasm for investigating the Trump-Russia scandal. At first, Burr wanted his committee to focus solely on the Russia hacking, not ties between Trump associates and Russia. This was no surprise. Most congressional Republicans have either shied away from or downplayed this subject. And Burr did serve on the Trump campaign’s national security advisory council. But after Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) pushed for a select committee investigation—which would be a more independent inquiry involving a greater number of senators—Burr agreed to widen the intelligence committee probe to cover the Trump-Russia angle. It was obvious that he did so in order not to lose control of the investigation.

Nunes, who was an adviser to Trump’s transition team, initially showed little eagerness for this assignment, as well His announcement in late January that he would proceed with the investigation came only after Burr’s change of heart—and followed weeks of public pressure from Rep. Adam Schiff, (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee. Skepticism regarding the willingness of Burr or Nunes to lead robust, wherever-it-goes investigations is hardly unfounded.

On Friday, the Washington Post reported—and the White House confirmed—that Burr and Nunes had been enlisted by the Trump administration to be part of its effort to counter news stories about Trump associates’ ties to Russia. Their participation in this spin campaign has undermined their claims of independence. And on Saturday—in response to Rep. Darrell Issa’s (R-Calif.) surprising call for a special prosecutor to investigate the Trump-Russia connections—Nunes dismissed Issa’s demand, saying, “This is almost like McCarthyism revisited. W’’re going to go on a witch hunt against, against innocent Americans?” He added, “At this point, there’s nothing there.” That’s not the manner in which the head of an independent investigation should be talking about the inquiry. How does Nunes know who’s innocent or not—or whether there’s nothing there—at this point?

In recent weeks, Democratic members of both committees told me that, at least for the time being, they were hoping for the best and taking Burr and Nunes at their word when they claim they are committed to conducting thorough investigations, holding public hearings, and releasing public findings. These recent actions of Burr and Nunes may change that perspective. Schiff has said he will release public updates on the progress of the House committee’s inquiry, though he has not issued one yet.

On the Senate side, Democrats say that the effectiveness of the investigation may depend on McCain. He is not a full member of the Senate intelligence committee, but as chair of the Senate armed services committee, he is an ex officio member of the intelligence committee. In that regard, he has the same access as a full member to the investigation’s materials, and he can monitor the inquiry. Should he conclude the investigation is not proceeding vigorously, he will be in a position to publicly shame Burr and revive his demand for a select committee probe. Of course, Democrats on the Senate and House intelligence committees could do the same, but they won’t have the same political standing to pull that sort of move.

For weeks, Democrats on both sides of Capitol Hill have called for an independent bipartisan commission—similar to the well-regarded 9/11 commission—to investigate this affair. This inquiry would operate outside of the congressional committee system—meaning outside of GOP control. Naturally, the Republican congressional leadership has opposed the move and has declared that it’s just fine to let the intelligence committees do their work. And McCain and Graham have yet to endorse the Democrats’ proposal. But that is a card McCain could play if the Senate investigation does not meet his standards. Still, every time there is a development in the Trump-Russia story—such as last week when it was reported that the Trump White House asked the FBI to knock down the news stories saying that Trump associates had interacted with Russian intelligence—Democrats renew their call for an independent commission that would be distant from congressional politics.

Even with the FBI investigating, the congressional investigations are crucial. The FBI inquiry is either a counterintelligence probe or a criminal investigation (or maybe both). Neither of those are designed or intended to provide a full accounting to the public. An FBI criminal inquiry (usually) only yields public information if someone ends up being charged with a crime and the case goes to trial. And in such instances, the only information that emerges is material necessary for the prosecution of the case. That could be a small slice of whatever the bureau obtained.

A counterintelligence investigation aims to discover and possibly counter a foreign actor’s effort to target the United States with espionage, covert action, or terrorism. These sort of probes tend to stay secret unless they result in a criminal case. (Perhaps a spy is discovered and arrested, or a would-be terrorist indicted.) In an unusual move, the intelligence community, at President Barack Obama’s direction, did release some of its assessments regarding the Russia hacking. But whatever the FBI and other intelligence agencies may be investigating, their efforts are not likely to produces a comprehensive public accounting of this double scandal: Vladimir Putin’s attack on the US election and the interactions between the president’s crew and the foreign power that waged this political warfare.

As of now, that’s the job of the two congressional intelligence committees. Both are under the direction of Republicans who have supported Trump and participated in White House spin efforts. Both are moving forward cloaked by their customary secrecy. And both have yielded no indications yet that they will produce the investigations and public findings necessary to resolve these grave matters.

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Can Republicans Be Trusted to Investigate Trump’s Russia Scandal?

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"Get Out" Is the Horror Flick America Needs Right Now

by JanineVerran500 Posted on February 24, 2017

Mother Jones

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“Do they know I’m black?”

That’s the question photographer Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) asks his white girlfriend Rose (Allison Williams) before they venture off to meet her parents for the first time. She assures him everything will be fine. But Chris is rattled. Whether that assurance is enough in this faux-postracial America underpins the social commentary behind comedian Jordan Peele’s subversive horror film, Get Out, which opens Friday. The color of one’s skin—and how others respond to it—matters, whether or not the love itself is colorblind.

In his directorial debut, Peele, known for his previous foray in the sketch comedy show Key & Peele, carries us through the uncomfortable situation of the first encounter with the significant other’s parents. Except that in this case, Chris encounters Rose’s warm yet overly polite parents in a secluded, rural estate. Dean Armitage (Bradley Whitford), a neurosurgeon by trade, explains at one point how he would’ve voted for Obama for a third term and felt the need to let Chris know his father ran alongside Jesse Owens in the 1936 Olympics. Missy, a hypnotherapist, welcomes Chris with open arms. At a social gathering of the Armitages’ rich, predominantly white friends (with the exception of one Asian man and a dapper, strange “brother” named Andrew, played by Lakeith Stanfield), Chris must smile and nod. Equally as unsettling are the zombielike behaviors of the Armitages’ help, a black groundskeeper and q maid plucked from a time long past.

What begins as a comedy guided by paranoia and discomfort takes a sinister turn, morphing into a psychological thriller about what Peele calls “the universal monster that is racism.” I spoke with the director about his social satire and why there aren’t not enough horror flicks for black and Latino audiences.

Mother Jones: At Sundance, you talked about how the idea for Get Out arose out during the 2008 presidential primaries. What was it about that moment that sparked the idea?

Jordan Peele: Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were competing for the Democratic nomination, so there was this sort of understanding of gender civil rights and racial civil rights, and we were looking at the two in terms of one another. It got me thinking about my favorite movies—Rosemary’s Baby and The Stepford Wives—which are these thrillers that pulled off amazing commentary about gender. It got me wondering why there’s not a quintessential racial horror film since Night of the Living Dead. That set me off on the path.

MJ: Do you think this film will resonate differently now that Donald Trump is our president?

JP: I do. The conversation about race is inevitable. It’s one that people know that we have to have and continue to have. It’s very uncomfortable to talk about race. It often devolves before it begins. I think Get Out is resonating now because people are facing this problem, but want to do it in a fun way, if possible.

MJ: So much of the movie is grounded in discomfort and paranoia around social situations, from Chris’ first meeting with the Armitages to the huge gathering with friends. How much of that is grounded in your own experience?

JP: That’s something every black person I’ve talked to certainly recognizes. Most minority groups would see some version of this. I would also imagine women feel this way. Race is a universal flaw in humanity. So yes, I’ve been in many situations where I’ve felt like the outsider because of the color of my skin.

MJ: What do you mean when you say race is a universal flaw in humanity?

JP: It’s in our DNA. Back when we were Neanderthals or whatever, we evolved to think along tribal lines. Survival was based on this idea of who are we and who are the others who will come and take our resources. I think it’s an animal and a human thing that we all see in terms of us vs. them, and race is a very easy way to separate who is us and who is them. I just think racism is within each and every one of us. It’s everyone’s responsibility to figure out how they deal with this kind of obsolete instinct.

MJ: Watching this movie reminded me of the first time I went to my girlfriend’s megachurch in rural Michigan. You get that sense of “Are they staring at me?”

JP: Laughs. Yeah, sure. Which side of the interracial relationship are you?

MJ: I’m Puerto Rican. She’s white.

JP: Oh yeah, see, this is why I need to do a Latino Get Out next! It’s the same experience, this feeling of being the other. I’m sure you’ve been in situations as a Puerto Rican man where people are approaching you and the first thing they say is, I don’t know, using their limited knowledge of Spanish or their favorite food or somehow talking about Mexicans or something. It comes from a nice place. People are putting out their olive branches and trying to connect and trying to tell you, “Yeah, it’s okay. We can talk. We can find common ground.” What they don’t understand is that those conversations add up for us. They add up to a greater truth that I think we are faced with on a day-to-day basis as minorities, which is: We are the color of skin first and people second—even in these more pleasant conversations.

MJ: How did you decide to take that paranoia and transition it into something more sinister?

JP: I modeled this after some of my favorite movies. With a horror movie, you’re making a metaphor. You’re making a personalized nightmare for the protagonist. That’s what this is. It’s meant to get crazy to relay what the inner state and inner fears are representing.

MJ: Bradley Whitford, who plays Rose’s father, Dean Armitage, recently said that Get Out was a look at “unconscious, white liberal racism.” Do you agree with that?

JP: It’s a look at racism. The villains happen to be white liberals. Well, they don’t just happen to be—it explores a type of racism that I’ve seen in that group. But the movie is about the universal monster that is racism and the fact that it does take different forms. On the one hand, at its worst, it’s violence, it’s incarceration, it’s some form of true oppression. It also has sides of it that are, on the surface, harmless. For me, that doesn’t mean it’s not part of the same human demon.

MJ: What role did comedy play in shaping Get Out?

JP: I used my skill set in comedy to plan the scares in this movie. The entire premise has satirical overtones, like Stepford Wives. It makes an ironic commentary on the way we are. The last is the comedic-relief element; I bring in the Rod character (Lil Rel Howery) not only to release the tension, but also to satisfy this urge for somebody to say what we’re all thinking.

MJ: What is that ironic commentary on the way we are, in your view?

JP: It’s the fact that this is a horror movie about race, the notion that there might be some sinister modern form of slavery going on. Which is obviously ironic when you pair it with the notions of there are live-in servants in the house. There’s also satire and irony in some of the cultural choices within the movie. It’s a movie that has lacrosse sticks and bocce ball and bingo, all kinds of specifics that are stereotypically alien to an African American. And we find a subversive, darker take on those. That’s like the darkly funny stuff.

MJ: Okay, so why aren’t there more horror movies for black and Latino audiences?

JP: We haven’t done enough work to encourage minorities to strive to make movies. Hollywood is a place full of white male directors—there are many good ones. We just haven’t nurtured our voices. Since Straight Outta Compton, we’ve seen a big renaissance where untapped voices are getting their platforms to try some elevated work. I’m thinking of Donald Glover with Atlanta, Issa Rae, Ava Duvernay, F. Gary Gray, Ryan Coogler. It’s a relatively new realization in Hollywood that films with that sort of minority perspective can make money if you give us a shot.

MJ: When asked by the New York Times what scared you the most, you said, “Society is the scariest monster.” Why is that?

JP: When people get to together, we’re capable of the most beautiful, amazing things. But we are also capable of genocide. We can convince ourselves to do things in conjunction with one another that we wouldn’t have been able to do as an individual. You think of things like scapegoating or neglect of people’s suffering based on how close to us they are. How we act with each other really reveals our most animal instincts.

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"Get Out" Is the Horror Flick America Needs Right Now

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Republican Election Commissioners Just Released Key Legal Documents—Nearly a Decade Too Late

by HattieCloud2 Posted on February 24, 2017

Mother Jones

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A strange thing happened last week at the Federal Election Commission, the nation’s watchdog for campaigns and elections. On Friday evening, the FEC’s three Republican members quietly released a slew of missing legal memos related to cases dating back as far as 10 years. The commissioners gave no reason for why they decided to act now, after a decade of silence on the cases in question.

But it turns out that the newly released memos were the result of a Freedom of Information Act request recently filed by Mother Jones. The request was a modest one and asked only for a list of all such overdue legal documents at the FEC. That list would show every case for which FEC commissioners had failed to perform a customary part of their jobs: explaining to the public why they had voted a certain way on cases that had come before the agency. Dismiss a complaint, open an investigation, assess a fine—whichever way a commissioner decides, he or she is expected to explain that decision in a memo made available to the public.

In a move that perplexed several legal experts, the FEC denied our FOIA request. Yet soon after that, the FEC’s three Republican commissioners hastily wrote and released to the public 11 of these long-overdue legal memos. When Mother Jones asked the three Republican commissioners if our FOIA request had anything to do with their decision to act, two of them, Lee Goodman and Matthew Petersen, confirmed that it had. “Most of these were on the back burner as our reasons were either already clear or changes in the law made the issues moot,” Petersen says. “Your request was a useful reminder to bolster the record with formal statements.”

Congress created the FEC in the 1970s to police campaign-related abuses and enforce election laws passed in the wake of Watergate. Unlike most federal agencies, the FEC has an even number of commissioners—six—divided equally by political party. In today’s hyper-partisan environment, with frequent 3-3 deadlocks on key votes, it’s hard not to see the FEC as an institution designed to fail. (The commission will be without a sixth member now that Democrat Ann Ravel has announced her resignation, effective March 1.)

But for most of its 40-year history, the FEC worked mostly fine. The commissioners regularly found the four-vote majority they needed to act—to investigate potential wrongdoing, assess fines against lawbreakers, and provide guidance to candidates, committees, political parties, and other outfits looking to get involved in federal elections. That began to change in the mid-2000s. Three new Republicans came aboard who took a more ideological approach to campaign finance laws and free speech. Led by then-Commissioner Donald McGahn, who is now President Donald Trump’s White House counsel, the Republicans often voted in lockstep to block enforcement actions. A Public Citizen analysis found that the FEC hit a 3-3 vote on enforcement actions roughly 1 percent of the time between 2003 and 2007. In 2008, deadlocks rose to 10 percent. In 2013, they hit a peak of 23 percent. “For nearly every case of major significance over the past several years, the Commission has deadlocked on investigating serious allegations or has failed to hold violators fully accountable,” outgoing Democratic Commissioner Ann Ravel wrote in a recent report titled Dysfunction and Deadlock.

When FEC commissioners vote on a case to go against what the agency’s lawyers recommend, they are required to publish a legal justification—a Statement of Reasons, in agency jargon—for why they voted the way they did. These memos educate the public on the legal underpinnings of the commission’s decisions and give outside parties a basis to sue the agency if they disagree. But starting in the mid-2000s, the FEC’s Republicans simply stopped explaining many of their decisions. Some or all of the Republican commissioners failed to write Statements of Reasons in 25 such cases over a 10-year span, according to an unofficial tally obtained by Mother Jones earlier this month. (The tally shows that Democratic commissioners had no overdue Statements of Reasons.)

Larry Noble, a former FEC general counsel who now works at the Campaign Legal Center, a group that supports tighter political donation limits and more transparency in elections, says that failure to file Statements of Reasons is longstanding problem that has worsened over time. “Delaying them deprives the public of knowing what’s going on or why commissioners did what they did,” Noble says.

A few weeks ago, Mother Jones filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking the FEC’s own list of all overdue legal Statements of Reasons. In its February 17 denial letter, an FEC official cited FOIA Exemption 5, which shields from disclosure “documents covered by the attorney work-product, deliberative process, and attorney-client privileges.”

Two hours after the denial, the FEC posted its weekly digest. It included the 11 Statements of Reasons authored by Republican commissioners relating to old cases. The documents were all signed and dated within a four-day span last week, and each one is only several pages long, unlike the lengthy, footnote-laden documents typically produced by the commissioners and their staffs.

Ellen Weintraub, the senior-most Democratic commissioner at FEC, applauded the release of the 11 legal memos. “I am pleased on behalf of the American people that they are finally getting some kind of explanation for the commission’s failure to act in so many cases,” she says.

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Republican Election Commissioners Just Released Key Legal Documents—Nearly a Decade Too Late

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Meet the Latest Trump Aide Who’s Even Worse Than All the Other Trump Aides

by PedroFljuqey Posted on February 21, 2017

Mother Jones

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The White House is like a rotten onion these days: every time we peel back a layer, it smells worse and worse. First we all heard about Steve Bannon, the Breitbart News CEO who plays the Rasputin role in the West Wing, whispering in Donald Trump’s ear about Muslim terrorists and Mexican rapists. Then we all learned about Stephen Miller, the 31-year-old wunderkind who is, if anything, even more glib and hardcore than Bannon. Now we’re all learning about Sebastian Gorka:

For years, Gorka had labored on the fringes of Washington and the far edge of acceptable debate as defined by the city’s Republican and Democratic foreign policy elite. Today, the former national security editor for the conservative Breitbart News outlet occupies a senior job in the White House and his controversial ideas — especially about Islam — drive Trump’s populist approach to counterterrorism and national security.

….For him, the terrorism problem has nothing to do with repression, alienation, torture, tribalism, poverty, or America’s foreign policy blunders and a messy and complex Middle East. “This is the famous approach that says it is all so nuanced and complicated,” Gorka said in an interview. “This is what I completely jettison.”

For him, the terror threat is rooted in Islam and “martial” parts of the Koran that he says predispose some Muslims to acts of terror. “Anybody who downplays the role of religious ideology . . . they are deleting reality to fit their own world,” he said.

Last month, as he celebrated at the inaugural ball…Gorka said he had one last message for America’s troops — “the guys inside the machine” — and its enemies. He turned toward the host, his medal glinting in the TV lights. “The alpha males are back,” he said.

It’s a sewer in there. But here’s the funny thing: Gorka might well be right but for entirely the wrong reasons. Young men who live in a wide swath of the world stretching from North Africa to Central Asia probably are more prone to violence than they are in the developed North. But it has nothing to do with Islam. That’s just the handiest thing to latch onto. It’s all about lead:

The Trumpies got struck down for temporarily banning immigration from a set of seven seemingly arbitrary countries, so instead they should create a rule that temporarily bans immigration from any country that phased out leaded gasoline later than, say, 2001. They might have to fiddle a bit with the numbers, which they have plenty of experience doing, and maybe add some weird second condition in order to get only the countries they want, but with a little creativity they could make it work. And it’s not based on ethnicity, religion, or even nationality. You’re welcome!

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Meet the Latest Trump Aide Who’s Even Worse Than All the Other Trump Aides

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Reality Begins to Set in on Obamacare—For Both Sides

by zB7bB4yB6a Posted on February 20, 2017

Mother Jones

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Reality is setting in:

For seven years, few issues have animated conservative voters as much as the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. But with President Barack Obama out of office, the debate over “Obamacare” is becoming less about “Obama” and more about “care” — greatly complicating the issue for Republican lawmakers.

….As liberals overwhelm congressional town hall-style meetings and deluge the Capitol phone system with pleas to protect the health law, there is no similar clamor for dismantling it, Mr. Obama’s signature legislative accomplishment. From deeply conservative districts in the South and the West to the more moderate parts of the Northeast, Republicans in Congress say there is significantly less intensity among opponents of the law than when Mr. Obama was in office.

Intensity is the key word here, since actual opinions about Obamacare don’t seem to have changed more than a eyelash over the past seven years:

But the intensity of opinion has changed. With Obama out of office, the Republican base doesn’t care as much. Hating Obamacare was mostly just a way of hating Obama. Likewise, the Democratic base cares more. They spent the past seven years griping about how weak Obamacare was—no public option, too friendly to insurance companies, subsidies too low, blah blah blah—under the apparent assumption that it didn’t matter that practically no one was passionately defending the law. With Trump in office, Democrats have finally figured out that it matters, and congressional phones are now ringing off the hook.

So reality has set in for everyone. The Republican rank-and-file has finally figured out they never really cared all that much about taxing the rich an extra three points to provide health care for everyone. The Democratic rank-and-file has finally figured out that Obamacare is a pretty good program and it’s worth fighting for.

But did we really have to elect Donald Trump to figure this out?

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Reality Begins to Set in on Obamacare—For Both Sides

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NYT: Trump Team Had "Repeated Contacts" With Russian Intelligence During the Presidential Campaign

by KathieZxckyniu Posted on February 15, 2017

Mother Jones

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ZOMG!

Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials.

American law enforcement and intelligence agencies intercepted the communications around the same time that they were discovering evidence that Russia was trying to disrupt the presidential election by hacking into the Democratic National Committee….The intercepts alarmed American intelligence and law enforcement agencies, in part because of the amount of contact that was occurring while Mr. Trump was speaking glowingly about the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin….The officials said the intercepted communications were not limited to Trump campaign officials, and included other associates of Mr. Trump.

….Officials would not disclose many details, including what was discussed on the calls, which Russian intelligence officials were on the calls, and how many of Mr. Trump’s advisers were talking to the Russians.

This is from Michael Schmidt, Mark Mazzetti, and Matt Apuzzo at the New York Times. If Trump thought that firing Michael Flynn was going to stop the recent bloodletting, he thought wrong.

Just to make this clear: At the same time that Russian intelligence was hacking various email accounts in order to sabotage Hillary Clinton, multiple members of the Trump team had repeated phone calls with senior Russian intelligence officials. And during this entire time, Trump himself was endorsing a foreign policy that appeared almost as if it had been dictated to him by Vladimir Putin.

As a number of people have pointed out, the American intelligence community has all but declared war on Trump since his inauguration. I hardly need to spell out why this is dangerous. At the same time, it’s sure becoming a lot clearer why they’re so alarmed by the guy.

And by the way, I shouldn’t miss this chance to flog my favorite hobbyhorse again: FBI Director James Comey, who knew all about this, pushed hard not to make it public during the campaign. Instead he considered it more important to inform Congress that he had discovered additional copies of Hillary Clinton’s emails on Anthony Weiner’s laptop. Priorities.

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NYT: Trump Team Had "Repeated Contacts" With Russian Intelligence During the Presidential Campaign

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Here’s the Real Reason Democrats Spent So Much Energy Trying to Defeat Betsy Devos

by ValeriaDriscoll Posted on February 10, 2017

Mother Jones

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Why were Democrats so hellbent on stopping the confirmation of Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education? Jonathan Chait reviews the possibilities today and points out that the federal government has a fairly small impact on education. This is true:

So if the Department of Education doesn’t have that much klout, why worry so much about DeVos? Here is Chait’s conclusion:

Her candidacy struck an authentic note of fear in the Democratic grassroots….DeVos frightened middle-class Democrats because she seemed to pose a threat to their children and their schools (a threat she is unlikely to carry out). Meanwhile, Price will be trying to snatch health insurance away from millions of Americans too poor or sick to buy it, Puzder will be grinding labor rights into dust, Sessions will be attacking voting rights and protections from police abuse for minorities, and Pruitt will be turning the EPA into a vassal of oil and coal interests.

Meanwhile, over on the right, it’s an article of faith that Democrats are puppets of the teachers unions, and that’s why they spent a lot of political capital opposing DeVos rather than other, far more dangerous characters.

I think this is all wrong. On a policy level, opposition to DeVos mostly centered on her devotion to vouchers and charter schools. But if DeVos had been defeated, Trump would simply have sent up another pro-voucher-pro-charter nominee. Defeating DeVos wouldn’t have changed anything.

The real reason Democrats spent so much energy on DeVos is pretty simple: she badly fluffed her Senate testimony, and came out looking like an idiot. Because of this, there was a realistic chance of finding three Republicans to join in opposing her, and thus defeating her nomination. In the end, only two Republicans stepped up, but for a while it looked like Democrats had a real chance at claiming a scalp.

This hasn’t been true of any of the others. There were never any Republicans who might have voted against Sessions or Pruitt or Price, and it’s hard to get the masses psyched up for battle when there’s really no chance of winning. That’s why, relatively speaking, Democrats haven’t mounted as big a campaign against any of Trump’s other nominees.

Depending on how Nannygate and a few other things turn out, it’s possible that Andy Puzder might also look vulnerable when his hearings start. If so, I expect that we’ll see a full-court press similar to what we saw with DeVos. The key variable here is not badness—Trump’s nominees are all bad from a liberal perspective—nor demonstrating loyalty to teachers unions—that’s just gravy—but the realistic possibility of defeating one of Trump’s nominees. That’s where most people want to spend their energy.

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Here’s the Real Reason Democrats Spent So Much Energy Trying to Defeat Betsy Devos

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The Mysterious Disappearance of the Biggest Scandal in Washington

by 2343b4u4u Posted on February 9, 2017

Mother Jones

The biggest election-related scandal since Watergate occurred last year, and it has largely disappeared from the political-media landscape of Washington.

According to the consensus assessment of US intelligence agencies, Russian intelligence, under the orders of Vladimir Putin, mounted an extensive operation to influence the 2016 campaign to benefit Donald Trump. This was a widespread covert campaign that included hacking Democratic targets and publishing swiped emails via WikiLeaks. And it achieved its objectives. But the nation’s capital remains under-outraged by this subversion. The congressional intelligence committees announced last month that they will investigate the Russian hacking and also examine whether there were any improper contacts between the Trump camp and Russia during the campaign. (A series of memos attributed to a former British counterintelligence officer included allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.) Yet these behind-closed-doors inquiries have generated minimum media notice, and, overall, there has not been much outcry.

Certainly, every once in a while, a Democratic legislator or one of the few Republican officials who have bothered to express any disgust at the Moscow meddling (namely Sens. John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Marco Rubio) will pipe up. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi days ago called on the FBI to investigate Trump’s “financial, personal and political connections to Russia” to determine “the relationship between Putin, whom he admires, and Donald Trump.” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), responding to Trump’s comparison of the United States to Putin’s repressive regime, said on CNN, “What is this strange relationship between Putin and Trump? And is there something that the Russians have on him that is causing him to say these really bizarre things on an almost daily basis?” A few weeks ago, Graham told me he wanted an investigation of how the FBI has handled intelligence it supposedly has gathered on ties between Trump insiders and Russia. And last month, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) pushed FBI Director James Comey at a public hearing to release this information. Yet there has been no drumbeat of sound bites, tweets, or headlines. In recent days, the story has gone mostly dark.

Look at the White House daily press briefings. Since Trump entered office, there has been far more back-and-forth between reporters and Press Secretary Sean Spicer on the inauguration crowd size, Trump’s bathrobe, and Melissa McCarthy than the Russia scandal. Trump associates are perhaps being questioned by House and Senate intelligence committee investigators, and the FBI, which according to news reports has looked at possible ties between Trump advisers and Russia, might also still be on the case. Yet this has not been a top priority for White House reporters.

Here are two questions that could have been posed to Spicer at his first briefing:

* Have any past or present Trump associates, inside or outside his administration, been contacted or questioned by the intelligence committees, the FBI, or any other government body investigating the Russian hacking or interactions between Trump’s circle and Russia?

* During the presidential campaign, did Trump or any of his political or business associates have any interactions with Russian officials or Russian intermediaries?

That did not happen. At Spicer’s first briefing, Anita Kumar of McClatchy did ask, “Has the president spoken to any of the intelligence agencies about the investigation into the Russian connections? And will he allow that to go on?” Spicer replied, “I don’t believe he has spoken to anyone specifically about that and I don’t know that. He has not made any indication that he would stop an investigation of any sort.” This was an important question that warranted a response that was less equivocal—and reporters could have pointed that out.

At the next day’s briefing, on January 24, Margaret Talev of Bloomberg asked Spicer about reports that Comey was remaining in his post and whether Comey and Trump had discussed “the Russia investigation and the parameters of that.” Spicer responded, “I don’t have anything on that.” Spicer’s nonresponse didn’t prompt any news.

In the fortnight since, the key twin questions—what is Trump doing regarding the Russian hacking, and are Trump associates being investigated for interactions with Russia?—have not been regular items on the agenda during the White House briefings. When Trump spoke to Putin by phone on January 28, subsequent media reports noted that the call focused on how relations could be improved. There was no public indication that Trump had said anything to Putin about the Russian intervention in the US election. And in the following days, White House reporters did not ask Spicer about this apparent omission.

There have been plenty of significant topics for journalists to press Spicer and the administration on—the travel ban on refugees and immigrants from Muslim-majority countries, Trump’s plan to dump Obamacare, various nominations and a Supreme Court pick, Trump’s fact-free charge of widespread voter fraud, Steve Bannon’s participation on the National Security Council, Trump’s contentious calls with foreign leaders, the president’s erratic behavior, and much more. But the lack of media attention to the Russia story, at the White House briefings and beyond, is curious. It is true that the intelligence committee probes are being conducted secretly, and there are no public hearings or actions to cover. (Republican leaders on Capitol Hill, hoping to confine this scandal, succeeded in preventing the creation of a special committee or an independent commission to probe this affair—either of which would have probably sparked more coverage than the highly secretive intelligence committees.) Still, in the past, pundits, politicians, and reporters in Washington have not been reluctant to go all-out in covering and commenting upon a controversy subjected to private investigation.

In this instance, the president’s own people may be under investigation, and Trump has demonstrated no interest in holding Putin accountable for messing with US elections in what may be considered an act of covert warfare. Still, there has been no loud demand from the DC media (or most of the GOP) for answers and explanations. This quietude is good news for Putin—and reason for him to think he could get away with such an operation again.

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The Mysterious Disappearance of the Biggest Scandal in Washington

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Management Team at State Department Resigns En Masse

by LibbyEnnor Posted on January 26, 2017

Mother Jones

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WTF?

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s job running the State Department just got considerably more difficult. The entire senior level of management officials resigned Wednesday, part of an ongoing mass exodus of senior foreign service officers who don’t want to stick around for the Trump era.

…Patrick Kennedy and three of his top officials resigned unexpectedly, four State Department officials confirmed. Assistant Secretary of State for Administration Joyce Anne Barr, Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Michele Bond and Ambassador Gentry O. Smith, director of the Office of Foreign Missions, followed him out the door. All are career foreign service officers who have served under both Republican and Democratic administrations.

…In addition, Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security Gregory Starr retired Jan. 20, and the director of the Bureau of Overseas Building Operations, Lydia Muniz, departed the same day. That amounts to a near-complete housecleaning of all the senior officials that deal with managing the State Department, its overseas posts and its people.

…Several senior foreign service officers in the State Department’s regional bureaus have also left their posts or resigned since the election. But the emptying of leadership in the management bureaus is more disruptive…”Diplomatic security, consular affairs, there’s just not a corollary that exists outside the department, and you can least afford a learning curve in these areas where issues can quickly become matters of life and death.”

That’s from Josh Rogin of the Washington Post. Were these people pushed out? Did something happen that caused them to want nothing to do with the incoming regime? Nobody knows. This is very, very peculiar.

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Management Team at State Department Resigns En Masse

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Obama Writes a Thank You Note to America

by Neil4262623928 Posted on January 19, 2017

Mother Jones

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With just one more day as president, Barack Obama published a letter on Thursday thanking Americans for being a source of hope for him throughout the past eight years as commander-in-chief. He expressed gratitude for making him not just a better president but a “better man.” Obama noted that while it was long-established tradition for sitting presidents to leave a letter of advice for his successor, he wanted to take the time to express his gratitude directly to the country first.

“Before I leave my note for our 45th president, I wanted to say one final thank you for the honor of serving as your 44th,” he wrote. “Because all that I’ve learned in my time in office, I’ve learned from you. You made me a better President, and you made me a better man.”

The president also pledged to support Americans “every step of the way” going forth—a promise that appeared to echo remarks he made in his final press conference on Wednesday when he described working as a private citizen to fight against policies that threatened certain “core values,” such as systematic discrimination and efforts to disenfranchise voters. Obama reportedly met with Democratic leaders just last week to discuss his post-presidency plans aimed at fighting Republican gerrymandering in congressional districts.

“All of us, regardless of party, should throw ourselves into that workâ&#128;&#138;—â&#128;&#138;the joyous work of citizenship. Not just when there’s an election, not just when our own narrow interest is at stake, but over the full span of a lifetime.” The letter concluded with Obama’s signature campaign slogan, “Yes, we can.”

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Obama Writes a Thank You Note to America

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