The Commentariat -- Nov. 17, 2018
Afternoon Update:
Chris Rodrigo of the Hill: "President Trump on Saturday rejected reports that his administration is considering extraditing a foe of Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan.... NBC News reported Thursday said that the Trump White House had directed the Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI to reexamine a request from Turkey to extradite [Fethullah] Gülen.... Trump's comments on Gülen echoed those of other administration officials since the release of NBC's report." Mrs. McC: Maybe the NBC report was the result of an administration trial balloon that popped.
The Gentlelady from Mississippi. Ashton Pittman of the Jackson Free Press: "U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith accepted a donation from Peter [Z]ieve, a businessman in Washington state known for his white supremacist views, just days after a video published by Bayou Brief surfaced in which she says she would be 'on the front row' if a supporter invited her to 'a public hanging' '#Zieve donated $2,700, the max donation an individual can make, to Hyde-Smith’s campaign on Nov. 14. Progressive newsletter Popular Info first reported the donation.... Zieve donated over $1 million to Donald Trump in 2016." Mrs. McC: Hyde-Smith's campaign did not say whether or not it would return Zieve's donation. Trump evidently kept the money.
*****
Paranoid-in-Chief. Maggie Haberman & Katie Rogers of the New York Times: "In one conversation after another [Donald Trump] has asked aides and advisers a pointed question: Is Mike Pence loyal? Mr. Trump has repeated the question so many times that he has alarmed some of his advisers. The president has not openly suggested dropping Mr. Pence from the ticket and picking another running mate, but the advisers say those kinds of questions usually indicate that he has grown irritated with someone.... Some Trump advisers, primarily outside the White House, have suggested to him that while Mr. Pence remains loyal, he may have used up his utility.... Mr. Trump has never completely forgotten that during the 2016 campaign Mr. Pence issued a disapproving statement the day after the infamous 'Access Hollywood' tape was made public...."
Commander-in-Chief? Not So Much. Helene Cooper, et al., of the New York Times: "He canceled a trip to a cemetery in France where American soldiers from World War I are buried. He did not go to the observance at Arlington National Cemetery on Veterans Day. He has not visited American troops in Iraq or Afghanistan.... Rhetorically, Mr. Trump has embraced the United States’ 1.3 million active-duty troops as 'my military' and 'my generals' and has posted on Twitter that under his leadership, the American armed forces will be 'the finest that our Country has ever had.' But top Defense Department officials say that Mr. Trump has not fully grasped the role of the troops he commands, nor the responsibility that he has to lead them and protect them from politics.... On Thursday, Mr. Trump spent less than an hour in a pre-Thanksgiving visit to the Marine Barracks in Washington, three and a half miles from the White House.... On Wednesday, it was Defense Secretary Jim Mattis who visited American troops on the border with Mexico in the latest military deployment under Mr. Trump’s watch." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... The Daily Beast: "In an interview with Fox News’ Chris Wallace, President Trump claimed that he was simply too 'busy' to visit Arlington National Cemetery on Veteran’s Day — but his public schedule and tweets suggest otherwise.... The president admitted he probably 'should have done that,' but claimed he was 'extremely busy on calls for the country.'... Trump’s public schedule for Nov. 12 said the president had 'no public events scheduled.' He also tweeted a total of eight times that day.” --s ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: According to Leonnig & Dawsey of the WashPo (story linked below), Trump spent four hours Monday with his lawyers working on his answers to Bob Mueller's questions. The reporters do write that the session was "broken up by phone calls the president had to take." But the claim that he was "extremely busy on calls for the country" is far-fetched inasmuch as his main activity was covering up his involvement in answering questions about his ties to illegal Russian election-meddling. Obviously, Trump made a choice well before Monday to devote the day to his own interests rather than to giving up part of it to remember military veterans...
... Christopher Rugaber of the AP: "At a veterans’ event Thursday, [Trump] said the unemployment rate for former service members is its best in 21 years. He’s not even close. It’s only a one-year low. And it was even lower 18 years ago, under President Bill Clinton.... The veterans’ unemployment rate fell to 2.9 percent in October, the latest data available, but that is still above the 2.7 percent rate reached in October 2017, also under Trump. That was the lowest joblessness rate for veterans in nearly 17 years.... In May 2000, veterans’ unemployment dropped to a low of 2.3 percent, and he hasn’t reached that. In any event, it’s impossible for Trump to claim an achievement not seen in 21 years on veterans’ unemployment. The data on joblessness for vets only go back 18 years, to 2000." --safari: To summarize: In just one week, the presidunce* manages to disrespect the historical importance of our troops overseas, couldn't summon the courage to visit Arlington Cemetery due to temper tantrums, and then lies directly to Veterans' faces when he's finally forced to meet with them.
This Russia Thing, Ctd.
Carol Leonnig & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "President Trump on Friday said he has answered a set of questions from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III 'very easily,' and his lawyers are signaling that the president expects to turn over his written answers in the coming days.... The president’s comments, which he made to reporters gathered in the Oval Office for a bill signing, came after his lawyers postponed submitting his answers on Thursday, as they had considered doing.... Trump stressed Friday that he answered the questions personally, not his lawyers. 'My lawyers aren’t working on it. I’m working on it,' Trump said. 'My lawyers don’t write the answers.' The president has met with lawyers nearly every day this week in sessions to review his answers, including a four-hour session Wednesday that was frequently interrupted by other business. Trump spent more than four hours meeting with his attorneys Monday, broken up by phone calls the president had to take, and 90 minutes Wednesday night, according to people familiar with the sessions.... Trump also was asked Friday about recent tweets that seemed to betray a sense of frustration. He called the Mueller probe 'illegal' and said, without evidence, that Mueller’s team was 'screaming and shouting at people, horribly threatening them to come up with the answers they want.' 'I’m not agitated,' he said Friday. 'It’s a hoax.'” ...
... Trump claims the questions are perjury traps: if you misstate what the weather was on a certain day, prosecutors will charge you with perjury:
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Actually, no. Prosecutors don't bring perjury charges for inconsequential mistakes. Also, there's not a chance Trump answered the questions "by himself." What were his lawyers doing during those hours-long meetings? Watching Trump diligently write out his answers in childish block letters? Calling out for Big Macs? ...
... Pamela Brown of CNN: "... Donald Trump and his legal team have taken issue with some of the questions from special counsel Robert Mueller that cover the transition period after the 2016 election, believing it could be off limits under executive privilege as they pertain to the presidency, according to a source familiar with the negotiations. The source would not explicitly say whether the President answered those questions other than to say that there are "responses" to all of the questions that were asked." Mrs. McC: So maybe the "very easily"-executed answers to many of Mueller's questions looked a lot like this:
Devlin Barrett of the Washington Post: "Lawyers challenging the appointment of Matthew G. Whitaker as acting attorney general asked the Supreme Court on Friday to step in and declare that someone else should serve in the role. The filing by lawyer Thomas C. Goldstein, who earlier this week filed a motion in federal court on behalf of Maryland’s attorney general challenging Whitaker’s appointment, is a novel attempt to undo President Trump’s choice to lead the Justice Department after Jeff Sessions was forced out as attorney general on Nov. 7." ...
... Jed Shugerman in a Washington Post op-ed: "President Trump’s appointment of [Matt] Whitaker [as acting attorney general] is a steep drop off a slippery slope of corruption. It’s time to make the Justice Department more structurally independent from presidents and their meddling. Unfortunately, there are even precedents for presidents appointing crony attorneys general as protection from investigation.... [Shugerman runs down the rogue's gallery.] Congress should act to reform and restructure the Justice Department. Congress created the department in 1870 in part to insulate government lawyers and prosecutors from patronage politics and party manipulation. The past century has betrayed those designs.... Because the attorney general has always served a 'quasi-judicial' function, Congress has the power to make that office more independent from presidential control." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Trump believes in corruption. This is classic:
... Anita Kumar of McClatchy DC: "President Donald Trump will meet with Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi — who is on his short list be his next attorney general — while he vacations at his Mar-A-Lago resort in Palm Beach for Thanksgiving next week, according to a source close to the president.... Bondi was a Trump surrogate during the 2016 presidential campaign and, more recently, a member of the president’s Opioid and Drug Abuse Commission.... Bondi received a $25,000 campaign donation in 2013 from a charity run by Trump as her office was looking into complaints from customers of Trump University.... Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee had requested the Justice Department to look into whether Trump paid off Bondi. She denied that the two actions were connected." --s
Matthew Mosk & Allison Pecorin of ABC News: "More than three dozen sealed criminal indictments have been added to the federal court docket in Washington, D.C. since the start of 2018.... Several legal experts told ABC News the number of sealed cases awaiting action right now is unusual. Fourteen were added to the docket since late August alone, a review by ABC News has found.... And the inadvertent discovery on Thursday night of what appear to be secret charges pending against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has drawn fresh attention to the mystery. Legal experts told ABC News that the sealed cases could be tied to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election and possibly part of a quiet effort to protect his investigation from any premature effort to shut it down." ...
... Julian Barnes, et al., of the New York Times: "Soon after he took over as C.I.A. director, Mike Pompeo privately told lawmakers about a new target for American spies: Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks.... The C.I.A. began last year to conduct traditional espionage against the organization, according to American officials. At the same time, federal law enforcement officials were reconsidering Mr. Assange’s designation as a journalist.... Mr. Pompeo and former Attorney General Jeff Sessions unleashed an aggressive campaign against Mr. Assange, reversing an Obama-era view of WikiLeaks as a journalistic entity. For more than a year, the nation’s spies and investigators sought to learn about Mr. Assange and his ties to Russia as senior administration officials came to believe he was in league with Moscow. Their work culminated in prosecutors secretly filing charges this summer against Mr. Assange.... A prosecution of Mr. Assange could pit the interests of the administration against Mr. Trump’s. Mr. Assange could help answer the central question of the investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III: whether any Trump associates conspired with Russia to interfere in the presidential race."
Real Bad News for Fake-New-Faker-in-Chief. Michael Grynbaum & Emily Baumgaertner of the New York Times: "A federal judge on Friday directed the White House to restore the press credentials of Jim Acosta of CNN, a win for media advocates and news organizations in a major legal test of press rights under President Trump. The judge, Timothy J. Kelly of Federal District Court in Washington, ruled that the Trump administration had most likely violated Mr. Acosta’s due process rights when it revoked his press badge after a testy exchange with the president at a news conference last week. The ruling was a significant but narrow victory for CNN. Judge Kelly, who was appointed by Mr. Trump, declined to weigh in on the First Amendment issues cited by the network, and the White House has the right to appeal. For now, Mr. Acosta can resume working on the White House grounds.... Other legal issues raised in the case were expected to be addressed in later court sessions." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McC: Sarah Sanders immediately issued a statement about "decorum," then lied about the ruling: "Ms. Sanders claimed in her statement that 'the court made clear that there is no absolute First Amendment right to access the White House.' But Judge Kelly did not rule on the First Amendment issues because he granted the temporary return of Mr. Acosta’s pass on due process grounds." ...
... This was all very upsetting to Lou Dobbs. Pilar Melendez of the Daily Beast: "Minutes after a federal judge ordered the White House to reinstate CNN reporter Jim Acosta’s press pass, Fox Business Network host Lou Dobbs took to Twitter to bash the decision, contradicting his network’s company line in the process. 'Outrageously puerile reasoning and ruling: Our district courts are filled with farcical excuses for judges,' Dobbs tweeted.... And so on. "The rant came two days after Dobb’s bosses at Fox News publicly backed CNN’s lawsuit against the Trump administration, filing a supportive amicus brief with other major news networks." Also too, as noted above, Trump appointed this particular "farcial excuse for a judge."
** Julian Barnes of the New York Times: "The Central Intelligence Agency has concluded that the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, ordered the killing of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, according to American officials. The C.I.A. has made the assessment based on the crown prince’s control of the Saudi Arabia, which is such that the killing would not have taken place without his approval, and has buttressed its conclusion with two sets of crucial communications: intercepts of the crown prince’s calls in the days before the killing, and calls by the kill team to a senior aide to the crown prince." ...
... ** Shane Harris, et al., of the Washington Post: "In reaching its conclusions, the CIA examined multiple sources of intelligence, including a phone call that the prince’s brother Khalid bin Salman, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, had with Khashoggi, according to the people familiar with the matter.... Khalid told Khashoggi ... that he should go to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to retrieve the documents and gave him assurances that it would be safe to do so. It is not clear if Khalid knew that Khashoggi would be killed, but he made the call at his brother’s direction, according to the people familiar with the call, which was intercepted by U.S. intelligence.... President Trump has resisted pinning the blame for the killing on Mohammed, who enjoys a close relationship with Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser. Privately, aides said, Trump has been shown evidence of the prince’s involvement but remains skeptical that Mohammed ordered the killing.... The CIA’s assessment of Mohammed’s role in the assassination also tracks with information developed by foreign governments...."
Laura Meckler of the Washington Post: "Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Friday released her long-awaited rewrite of rules governing campus sexual harassment and assault allegations, narrowing the cases schools must investigate and giving the accused more rights. The proposed regulation replaces less formal guidelines created under President Barack Obama that tilt more toward accusers. DeVos rescinded the Obama measure a year ago. Under the proposal, fewer allegations would be considered sexual harassment and schools would be responsible only for investigating incidents that are part of campus programs and activities and that were properly reported. Accused students would be entitled to lawyers and cross-examination." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Trump, Ricardel Insult Estonia. Jennifer Jacobs of Bloomberg News: "... Donald Trump offered to nominate Mira Ricardel as ambassador to Estonia after First Lady Melania Trump forced the deputy national security adviser out of the White House, according to two people familiar with the matter. Ricardel turned down the posting to the Baltic state, two of the people said. The president wants to find her a good position, and she’s been presented nearly a dozen jobs from which to choose, according to a senior White House official." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Can This Marriage Be Saved? Michael Isikoff of Yahoo! News: "George T. Conway III, the husband of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, said the Republican Party has become 'a personality cult' under President Trump and that he would 'move to Australia' rather than vote for the president again. 'I don’t feel comfortable being a Republican anymore,' Conway said in ... about his decision to drop his party registration earlier this year....' Asked if he thinks the president is fully stable, Conway responded: 'No comment.'” (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Tal Kopan of The San Francisco Chronicle: "The number of undocumented immigrant children in government custody has topped 14,000 for the first time, a rise that shows no signs of slowing as the Trump administration enforces policies that are keeping them in government facilities longer. There were 14,056 unaccompanied immigrant minors in Department of Health and Human Services custody on Friday, according to a government source familiar with the number.... The reason is that children who arrive unaccompanied in the U.S. are spending more time in holding facilities before they can be released to suitable adults, often family members.... ICE confirmed in September that it had used that information to arrest undocumented adults who came forward to take custody of children. Previous administrations didn’t look into people’s immigration status when deciding whether to release children into their care, but that changed under President Trump." --s
Alexia Fernández Campbell of Vox: "A group of House Democrats will introduce a bill on Friday to help protect millions of nurses and other health care workers from the high rates of violence they experience on the job. The new bill, called the Workplace Violence Prevention for Health Care and Social Service Workers Act, would require hospitals, nursing homes, rehab centers, and jails to develop a workplace safety plan to protect their workers from violence they experience at the hands of patients — a surprisingly common phenomenon. The bill would also require employers to record and investigate all complaints of violence, and prohibits retaliation against employees who call 911. A draft of the bill was shared with Vox." --s
John Bresnahan of Politico: "The House Ethics Committee has formally sanctioned two members — GOP Rep. Mark Meadows (N.C.) and Democratic Rep. Ruben Kihuen (Nev.) — over sexual harassment-related allegations, the latest sign that fallout from #MeToo movement continues to be felt on Capitol Hill. Meadows was found to have violated House rules 'by failing to take appropriate steps to ensure that his House office was free from discrimination and any perception of discrimination.' This case grew out of an investigation into Meadows' former chief of staff, Kenny West. Meadows kept West on his payroll even after learning of credible harassment allegations against the former aide.... Kihuen, who announced his retirement as the #MeToo movement swept Capitol Hill last year, was found to have 'made persistent and unwanted advances towards women who were required to interact with him as part of their professional responsibilities.' Both lawmakers were reproved by the bipartisan Ethics Committee, the least serious form of punishment it can mete out."
Elana Schor of Politico: "Chuck Grassley plans to trade his Senate Judiciary Committee gavel to lead the Finance Committee next year, he said on Friday — leaving Lindsey Graham in line to replace him as chairman." Mrs. McC: Oh, great. Now Lindsey can go ballistic for as long as he wants every time Democrats find fault with Trump's usual low-par nominees. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Election 2018
David Graham of The Atlantic: "As the outstanding races continue to gradually come in, they are changing the way the midterm elections look. Instead of the 'blue wave' that pundits predicted before Election Day, it’s more like a blue tide — rolling slowly but inexorably in and washing Republicans away.... With the late results in, Democrats have netted 36 seats. In the six remaining races, Democrats lead in three and Republicans lead in three, so if the results hold, Democrats will end up gaining 39 seats — at the high end of the range of predictions heading into Election Day." --s
Florida.
Georgia. Alan Blinder & Richard Fausset of the New York Times: "Stacey Abrams ended her Democratic bid to become governor of Georgia on Friday, acknowledging that she did not have the votes to beat her Republican rival, Brian Kemp, but sounding a defiant note by declaring that an 'erosion of democracy' had kept many of her backers from the polls. The narrow defeat of Ms. Abrams, who would have become the first black woman to be elected governor anywhere in the United States, as well as the apparent loss of Andrew Gillum, who sought to become Florida’s first black governor, at once illuminated the vestiges of Southern history and demonstrated how demographic changes have taken hold across the region and begun to reshape its politics."
Mississippi. Allan Smith of NBC News: "A video surfaced Thursday of Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi saying it might be a 'great idea' to make it harder for some people to vote, and her campaign quickly responded that she was 'obviously' joking. Hyde-Smith, who is in a runoff against Democrat Mike Espy on Nov. 27, made the remark at a campaign stop in Starkville, Mississippi, on Nov. 3. It was posted to Twitter on Thursday by Lamar White Jr., publisher of The Bayou Brief. Smith earlier this week posted video of Hyde-Smith making a comment on Nov. 2 about a 'public hanging' that started a controversy.... Danny Blanton, a spokesman for Espy's campaign, called Hyde-Smith a 'walking stereotype who embarrasses our state.' 'For a state like Mississippi, where voting rights were obtained through sweat and blood, everyone should appreciate that this is not a laughing matter,' Blanton said in a statement." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: That's Senator Cindy there to the left. Now try to picture her back in the 1960s, standing at the front of a crowd of white ladies screaming at little black children on their way to their newly-integrated school. That wasn't hard, was it?
Utah. Paul LeBlanc of CNN: "Two-term Republican Rep. Mia Love on Friday took the lead over her Democratic challenger in Utah's 4th District House race more than a week after election night and after President Donald Trump mocked her for losing. Love leads Democrat Ben McAdams by 419 votes as of Friday evening, CNN results show, giving the congresswoman 50.1% of the vote -- a slim margin above McAdams at 49.9% as votes continue to be counted."
Another Way Man-Made Climate Change Is Devastaing the Planet. Julie Turkewitz & Matt Richtel of the New York Times: "The wildfires that have laid waste to vast parts of California are presenting residents with a new danger: air so thick with smoke it ranks among the dirtiest in the world.... In the communities closest to the Paradise fire, an apocalyptic fog cloaked the roads, evacuees wandered in white masks and officials said respiratory hospitalizations had surged. Nearly 200 miles to the south, in San Francisco, the smoke was so thick that health warnings prompted widespread school closings. Even the city’s cable cars were yanked from the streets. And researchers warned that as large wildfires become more common — spurred by dryness linked to climate change — health risks will almost surely rise."
"Moral Rot". Tara Isabella Burton of Vox: "Activists are castigating Facebook for hiring a public relations firm accused of promoting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and blamed Jewish billionaire philanthropist George Soros for galvanizing some of Facebook’s critics.... Facebook retained the services of the public relations firm Definers Public Affairs, which had been founded by several Republican political operatives. Definers, in turn, helped push the narrative that critics of Facebook were being bankrolled by Soros and his Open Society Foundations.... Facebook has since cut ties with Definers, and its founder Mark Zuckerberg has denied any knowledge of the strategy, telling reporters that he 'learned about this reading the New York Times yesterday.'... But Facebook’s willingness to partner with those who weaponize information — peddling anti-Semitic conspiracy theories when it’s beneficial, then turning around and accusing its opponents of doing the same — reveals the fundamental moral rot at the core of such an ethos." --s
Karen Zraick of the New York Times: "A lawsuit accusing the publisher of the neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer of coordinating a 'terror campaign' of online harassment against a Jewish real estate agent cannot be dismissed on First Amendment grounds, a federal judge in Montana ruled this week. In his ruling denying a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, Dana L. Christensen, the chief judge for United States District Court in Missoula, Mont., wrote that the real estate agent, Tanya Gersh, was a private citizen, not a public figure, and that the publisher, Andrew Anglin, incited his followers to harass her as part of a personal campaign." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Beyond the Beltway
Very Fine People. Noor Al-Sibai of the Raw Story: "Thirty-nine members of the United Aryan Brotherhood and Unforgiven neo-Nazi groups were arrested in a Florida drug trafficking sting — and one had functional pipe bombs in his home. Tampa’s WFTS-TV reported that the multi-agency sting..., a three-year-long investigation, led to the seizure of more than 110 illegal firearms, a rocket launcher and two pipe bombs from the individuals mostly based in Pasco County, Florida. Authorities also seized 'several pounds' of meth and fentanyl.... The United Aryan Brotherhood is, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the nation’s oldest prison-based white supremacist group. The Anti-Defamation League reported that Unforgiven is a Florida-based neo-Nazi prison group....”
Way Beyond
Dan Sabbagh of the Guardian: British PM "Theresa May is battling to halt a growing revolt from the Tory right after half a dozen more backbenchers came out in favour of a no-confidence vote and the organiser of the rebellion publicly predicted more MPs would follow next week.... The number of backbenchers calling publicly for a no-confidence vote in May’s leadership increased to 23. Rebellious MPs said they were confident of reaching the required threshold of 48 letters to Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the party’s 1922 Committee."