The Commentariat -- June 10, 2019
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
Hill: "Former President Nixon White House counsel John Dean will testify before the House Judiciary Committee about lessons learned from special counsel Robert Mueller's report at a hearing scheduled for 2:00 p.m. on Monday."
Mexican Foreign Minister Says Trump Lied about Deal. Michael Shear & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "The Mexican foreign minister said Monday that no secret immigration deal existed between his country and the United States, directly contradicting President Trump's claim on Twitter that a 'fully signed and documented' agreement would be revealed soon. Marcelo Ebrard, Mexico's top diplomat, said at a news conference in Mexico City that there was an understanding that both sides would evaluate the flow of migrants in the coming months. And if the number of migrants crossing the United States border was not significantly reduced, he said, both sides had agreed to renew discussions about more aggressive changes to regional asylum rules that could make a bigger impact.... Mr. Trump has insisted for several days that the agreement reached with Mexico Friday evening is a strong one, rejecting criticism that it largely called upon the Mexicans to take actions to reduce the flow of immigration that they had already agreed to months earlier."
Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "The Justice Department, after weeks of tense negotiations, has agreed to provide Congress with key evidence collected by Robert S. Mueller III that could shed light on possible obstruction of justice and abuse of power by President Trump.... The exact scope of the material the Justice Department has agreed to provide was not immediately clear, but the committee signaled that it was a breakthrough after weeks of wrangling over those materials and others that the Judiciary panel demanded under subpoena. The announcement appeared to provide a rationale for House Democrats' choice, announced last week to back away from threats to hold Attorney General William P. Barr in contempt of Congress. The House will still proceed on Tuesday with a vote to empower the Judiciary Committee to take Mr. Barr to court to fully enforce its subpoena, but even that may no longer be necessary, the panel's leader [Jerry Nadler] said.... Mr. Nadler said he expected the department to begin sharing some of the material Monday afternoon and that all members of the committee would be able to view it privately."
Trump Whines:
... David Jackson & Nicholas Wu of USA Today: "... Donald Trump attacked the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Monday for criticizing him over tariffs, claiming again that the threat of tariffs pressured Mexico into a new agreement to stop illegal border crossings. 'If we didn't have tariffs, we wouldn't have made a deal with Mexico,' Trump told the CNBC financial news network. Trump called into CNBC after an official with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said the president's threat to hit Mexico with tariffs -- as well as tariffs he has imposed on China and other countries -- was counter-productive." ...
... Caitlin Oprysko of Politico: "... Donald Trump intensified his defense of the widely panned agreement his administration struck with Mexico, even calling in to a cable news show for nearly half an hour Monday to try to sell the deal as a victory. After a weekend of railing against news reports poking holes in his claims -- some of which are so far unsubstantiated -- that Mexico had agreed to significant new concessions on immigration enforcement to avert tariffs, the president took to the airwaves to argue his case.... He dismissed the dire economic consequences experts had warned of had the 5 percent tariffs gone into effect, while mischaracterizing who would have been hit hardest by the levies, which almost always are passed on to consumers." ...
... Brett Samuels of the Hill: "President Trump on Monday accused technology companies like Facebook and Google of discriminating against him, adding that there's 'something going on in terms of monopoly.'... "I can tell you they discriminate against me," Trump said when asked about companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon. 'People talk about collusion. The real collusion is between the Democrats and these companies because they were so against me during my election run.'" More on the tech companies linked below. ...
... Chris Rodrigo of the Hill: "President Trump on Sunday ripped Democrats ahead of testimony from John Dean, a former White House counsel for President Nixon who proved pivotal during the Watergate scandal. 'The Dems were devastated -- after all this time and money spent ($40,000,000), the Mueller Report was a disaster for them,' Trump tweeted Sunday evening. 'But they want a Redo, or Do Over. They are even bringing in @CNN sleazebag attorney John Dean. Sorry, no Do Overs -- Go back to work!'... Democrats in the House Judiciary Committee will grill Dean on Monday in an attempt to shine a spotlight on the unsavory details about Trump's conduct contained in special counsel Robert Mueller<'s report."
Tucker Koherty & Tanya Snyder of Politico: "The Transportation Department under Secretary Elaine Chao designated a special liaison to help with grant applications and other priorities from her husband Mitch McConnell's state of Kentucky, paving the way for grants totaling at least $78 million for favored projects as McConnell prepared to campaign for reelection. Chao's aide Todd Inman, who stated in an email to McConnell's Senate office that Chao had personally asked him to serve as an intermediary, helped advise the senator and local Kentucky officials on grants with special significance for McConnell -- including a highway-improvement project in a McConnell political stronghold that had been twice rejected for previous grant applications.... Chao's designation of Inman as a special intermediary for Kentucky -- a privilege other states did not enjoy -- gave a special advantage to projects favored by her husband, which could in turn benefit his political interests. In such situations, ethicists say, each member of a couple benefits personally from the success of the other." Mrs. McC: Mitch is corrupt, as is his wife. Who would have suspected?
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "On Friday, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg gave a ... speech ... at a judicial conference in New Paltz, N.Y. There was little in her remarks to hearten liberals. She started by noting the most fundamental change at the court. 'Justice Kennedy announced his retirement,' she said. 'It was, I would say, the event of greatest consequence for the current term, and perhaps for many terms ahead.' ... Justice Ginsburg's concluding comments seemed to foreshadow a closely divided case in which she will be on the losing side. 'Speculators about the outcome note that last year, in Trump v. Hawaii, the court upheld the so-called travel ban in an opinion granting great deference to the executive,' she said, referring to a 5-to-4 decision in which the court's four liberals dissented. 'Respondents in the census case have argued that a ruling in Secretary Ross's favor would stretch deference beyond the breaking point.'"
Juan Cole: "Two structural constraints are operating with regard to [a bipartisan Congressional] attempt to cancel the Saudi arms deal. One is that a majority of Republicans in both houses of Congress have been unwilling to criticize Trump or to work against one of his presidential initiatives. The other is that Congress has on too many occasions found ways of offloading its own constitutional responsibilities onto the president. This way of proceeding, has often reduced the exposure of congressmen with regard to issues controversial in their districts. But Trump has taken advantage of all of these accumulated presidential de facto powers to sidestep Congress, and it is time for the latter to confront the president and strip him of these unconstitutional prerogatives." More on this, by NBC News, linked below.
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Trump Claims Mexico "Deal" Has Secret Parts, Also Critics Are Mean. David Cohen of Politico: "As critics continued to suggest the U.S. deal with Mexico didn't accomplish much..., Donald Trump tweeted Sunday morning there is more to the agreement than meets the eye. 'Importantly, some things..... .....not mentioned in yesterday press release, one in particular, were agreed upon. That will be announced at the appropriate time,' the president wrote in a string of four tweets. Trump was defending his newly announced agreement with Mexico in the face of reporting that much of what was in the deal was not new. In his tweets, he directly attacked the New York Times and CNN, calling them 'the Enemy of the People.'... Appearing on 'Fox News Sunday' soon after Trump's tweetstorm, acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan was asked about the president's tweets, but offered few specific details.... Forty minutes after his string of tweets, Trump ... [tweeted,] 'If President Obama made the deals that I have made, both at the Border and for the Economy, the Corrupt Media would be hailing them as Incredible, & a National Holiday would be immediately declared. With me, despite our record setting Economy and all that I have done, no credit!'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Good idea, Donnie. Let's have a national holiday for the Paris Climate Agreement (oops, you pulled the U.S. out of that); the Iran Nuclear Agreement (oops, you backed out of that, too) & the Affordable Care Act (oops, you tried to repeal that & you're undermining it now).
Thank You for Your Service, Now Get Out, Ctd. Richard Sisk of the Military Times: "The Government Accountability Office has a recommendation for Immigration and Customs Enforcement: Check to see whether the people it picks up are military veterans before kicking them out of the country. 'We recommended that ICE collect and maintain data on veterans' in accordance with long-established rules at the agency to avoid deporting individuals who may be eligible to stay, the 40-page GAO report states. From 2013 to 2018, ICE failed to follow its own policies requiring agents to consider a veteran's military record before beginning the process of removal from the country, according to the report. Time in service, awards and deployments are all among factors that are supposed to be weighed when making a deportment decision. The policies also call for deportation cases that might involve veterans to be referred to higher headquarters for a decision. Those policies also were not followed, the report states. Officials at the Department of Homeland Security, the parent agency of ICE, said they didn't consider the veteran and non-veteran status in removal proceedings and were unaware of policies to the contrary." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Official White House Fake News. Murtaza Hussain of the Intercept: "In 2018..., Donald Trump was seeking to jettison the landmark nuclear deal that his predecessor had signed with Iran in 2015, and he was looking for ways to win over a skeptical press. The White House claimed that the nuclear deal had allowed Iran to increase its military budget, and Washington Post reporters Salvador Rizzo and Meg Kelly asked for a source. In response, the White House passed along an article published in Forbes by a writer named Heshmat Alavi.... Rizzo and Kelly reported [the story, naming the source]. The White House had used Alavi's article ... to justify its decision to terminate the agreement. There's a problem, though: Heshmat Alavi appears not to exist. Alavi's persona is a propaganda operation run by the Iranian opposition group Mojahedin-e-Khalq, which is known by the initials MEK, two sources told The Intercept.... The MEK is among the most controversial groups seeking to depose the Iranian government. Although today it is mainly involved in political activism and lobbying, the group also has a history of violence." ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: I don't have to tell you that a real White House would seek out & cite U.S. intelligence sources of information on foreign government ops; it most certainly would not rely on the writings of an unknown (and in this case, fake) individual. But the fake newsman is hardly surprising; it's one step worse than Trump making policy decisions based on something he thought he heard on Fox "News." This is the most slipshod, fact-averse White House in modern history. When Dubya falsely claimed Iraq had tried to buy uranium in Africa, it was an international scandal (British PM Tony Blair got pummelled, too), even tho the initial story (which the CIA debunked before Bush told it) had come through intelligence sources. There was a movie about it. And Valerie Plame, the protagonist in the film, whom Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage outted as a CIA undercover operative in the fall-out from the fake story, became a household name & is running for Congress in 2020. I'm not sure major media outlets will even pick up this White House's fake writer story.
White House for Sale. Jon Swaine of the Guardian: "A real estate company part-owned by Jared Kushner has received $90m in foreign funding from an opaque offshore vehicle since he entered the White House.... Investment has flowed from overseas to the company, Cadre, while Kushner works as an international envoy for the US, according to corporate filings and interviews. The money came through a vehicle run by Goldman Sachs in the Cayman Islands, a tax haven that guarantees corporate secrecy.... Kushner resigned from Cadre's board and reduced his ownership stake to less than 25% after he joined the White House, according to his attorneys. He failed to list Cadre on his first ethics disclosure...." --s
Sharon LaFraniere, et al., of the New York Times attempt to pigeonhole Bill Barr: "In a cabinet stocked with government neophytes and placeholders, the deeply experienced [William] Barr is quickly emerging as the most influential figure in the second half of Mr. Trump;s term.... But his rising power over the intelligence community has been accompanied by swelling disillusionment with Mr. Barr among former national security officials and ideological moderates.... Now they see in him someone who has glossed over Mr. Trump's misdeeds, smeared his investigators and positioned himself to possibly declassify information for political gain -- not the Bill Barr they thought they knew."
Michael Schmidt & Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "As the special counsel's investigators pursued the question of whether President Trump tried to impede their work, they uncovered compelling evidence -- a voice mail recording and statements from a trusted witness -- that might have led to him. A lawyer for Mr. Trump, John M. Dowd, reached out to a lawyer for a key witness who had just decided to cooperate with the government, Michael T. Flynn. Mr. Dowd fished in his message for a heads-up if Mr. Flynn was telling investigators negative information about Mr. Trump -- while also appearing to say that if Mr. Flynn was just cutting a deal without also flipping on the president, then he should know Mr. Trump still liked him. But the president's role, if any, remains a mystery.... Investigators for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, declined to question Mr. Dowd about his message, citing 'attorney-client-privilege issues.' The release of the recording last week served as a reminder that ... some tantalizing questions about the president's conduct went unanswered because investigators encountered obstacles or backed off on pursuing leads.... [Former federal prosecutor Joyce] Vance noted that courts have recognized an exception to attorney-client privilege that allows investigators to compel people to testify to a grand jury about such conversations if they are involved in the commission of a crime."
Catherine Belton of Reuters: "A senior American banker [Robert Foresman] ... held a series of prominent roles in Moscow's financial world.... [He] once secretly awarded a shareholding in powerful Moscow investment bank Renaissance Capital to one of Vladimir Putin's closest friends [Matthias Warnig] and brokered meetings for the friend with top U.S. foreign policy officials a decade ago, emails show.... [The] deeply religious conservative ... banker has said it has always been his calling to be a peacemaker between the two nuclear superpowers.... Foresman's relationship with the Kremlin was more complicated -- and more mercantile -- than that of peacemaker.... According to the [Mueller] report, Foresman ... reached out to Donald Trump when the ... campaign was building momentum. In March 2016, Foresman emailed Trump's assistant inviting the presidential candidate to an international business forum in St Petersburg, saying he'd had 'an approach' from 'senior Kremlin officials' about the candidate[.]... Foresman's Moscow connections gained fresh attention recently when the banker was named in ... Robert Mueller's report...." --s
Hannah Rappleye & Lisa Seville of NBC News: "The deaths of three ICE detainees since April, along with the release of several internal and watchdog reports documenting dismal conditions at ICE detention centers, have prompted an outcry from advocates who say the Trump administration is pushing growing numbers of immigrants into a detention system ill-equipped to care for them.... Twenty-four immigrants have died in ICE custody during the Trump administration, according to an NBC News analysis of federal data. At least four others ... died shortly after being released from ICE custody. The number of in-custody deaths remains below the peak of 32 deaths in 2004, the first full calendar year records were kept. The tally does not include migrants, including five children, who have died in the custody of other federal agencies." --s ...
... Mrs. McCrabbie: Here's a hint as to why: ...
... Sheri Fink of the New York Times: "As apprehensions of migrants climb at the southwest border, and dozens a day are taken to community hospitals, medical providers are challenging practices -- by both government agencies and their own hospitals -- that they say are endangering patients and undermining recent pledges to improve health care for migrants. The problems range from shackling patients to beds and not permitting them to use restrooms to pressuring doctors to discharge patients quickly and certify that they can be held in crowded detention facilities that immigration officials themselves say are unsafe. Physicians say that needed follow-up care for long-term detainees is often neglected, and that they have been prevented from informing family members about the status of critically ill patients. Agency vehicles parked conspicuously near hospital entrances, health providers say, are also stoking fear and interfering with broader immigrant care. Doctors typically do not know what rights they might have to challenge these practices.... [Some health systems have policies] that applies equally to immigration detainees and prisoners."
Guardian: "The tree planted by Donald Trump and his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, at the White House as a symbol of their countries' ties has died, according to multiple media reports in France. The oak was given as a gift to the US president during Macron's visit in 2018.... Relations between the two leaders have since frayed -- over issues ranging from Iran to trade &-- and, it appears, the tree has fared little better.... It was a symbolic gesture: the tree came from Belleau Wood, north-east of Paris, where 1,811 Americans died in a ferocious battle in June 1918 during the first world war." --safari: Maybe the roots were poisoned?
They're Sick of Trump's Despotism. Dan De Luce of NBC News: "Two senators plan to introduce a bill Monday designed to force a vote on current and future U.S. arms sales and other military support to Saudi Arabia, saying it was time lawmakers checked ... Donald Trump's attempts to bypass Congress on foreign policy. The bill, sponsored by Sens. Todd Young, R-Ind., and Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who both sit on the Foreign Relations Committee, marks the latest counterpunch by lawmakers who strongly oppose selling weapons to Saudi Arabia and who are outraged at the Trump administration's recent decision to sidestep Congress on an arms deal worth billions of dollars."
They're Sick of Trump's Despotism. Jonathan Swan of Axios: "Trump's blunt use of presidential leverage to force the Mexican government to harden its immigration enforcement appears to have caused an unintended side effect: U.S. business leaders have begun urgently discussing strategies to claw back the virtually unchecked trade powers that Congress has handed over to presidents during the past 80 years.... Even though the business community is now breathing a sigh of relief that Trump won't be hitting Mexico with new tariffs, the last week of Trump's threats may have a longer lasting effect, according to industry sources who have met with corporate representatives in Washington, leaders of business associations, administration officials, members of Congress and their senior staff.... 'Maybe folks in the White House don't know this, but they freaked out a lot of people,' a trade lawyer involved in these conversations told me. 'This is a real turning point because this is threatening tariffs using an emergency power,' said another top industry source involved. 'That's never been done before. Part of the resources that we want to direct our advocacy to ... is for Congress to take back authority over tariffs.'"
Sophie Weiner of Splinter: "... a new report from the Washington Post shows that ... irresponsible spending extended to members of the [NRA's] board, who often were paid for services by the NRA.... Some of those on the board are industry executives who sell their own wares to the NRA, like Peter Brownell, who was paid $3.1 million for firearms products, according to the Post.... Board members say that getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by the organization they are supposed to police doesn't cloud their judgement." Mrs. McC: Right. The WashPo story is here.
Marc Tracy of the New York Times: "$4,700,000,000.... It's the amount that Google made from the work of news publishers in 2018 via search and Google News, according to a study to be released on Monday by the News Media Alliance. The journalists who create that content deserve a cut of that $4.7 billion, said David Chavern, the president ... of the alliance, which represents more than 2,000 newspapers across the country, including The New York Times.... That $4.7 billion is nearly as much as the $5.1 billion brought in by the United States news industry as a whole from digital advertising last year -- and the News Media Alliance cautioned that its estimate for Google's income was conservative.... The News Media Alliance is making the study public in advance of a House subcommittee hearing on Tuesday on the interrelationship of big tech companies and the media.... Two giant companies -- Alphabet, which is Google's parent, and Facebook -- are major distributors for news publishers.... Their middleman role allows them to take a huge proportion of online ad revenue." A bipartisan bill in the House & Senate would allow news organizations to share the revenue. ...
... Brian Stelter of CNN: "When House members convene on Tuesday for the first of several hearings about the power of Big Tech, they'll be hearing multiple pitches for a bill called the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act. Lobbyists for the newspaper industry are promoting the bill as a way to even the playing field between their businesses and the two giants of the online ad market, Google and Facebook. The bill would provide newspapers and online publishers with a four-year antitrust exemption, allowing them to band together in negotiations with online platforms.... On the House side, the bill is moving forward."
Way Beyond the Beltway
Hong Kong. BBC: "Hundreds of thousands of people have marched in Hong Kong against a law critics fear could let China target political opponents in the territory. The controversial extradition bill would allow suspected criminals to be sent to mainland China for trial. Organisers say there were one million people, which would make it the biggest march in more than 20 years. Police say there were 240,000 at its peak. After it ended, clashes erupted between hundreds of demonstrators and police. Protesters, some wearing surgical masks, tried to break into the Legislative Council complex, throwing crowd control barriers around, and police in riot gear used batons and pepper spray. Some of the protesters and policemen were later seen with faces covered in blood."
Kazakhstan. Joanna Lillis of the Guardian: "Kazakhstan elected [Kassym-Jomart Tokayev] the hand-picked successor of former president Nursultan Nazarbayev with more than 70%t [sic] of the vote, electoral authorities said on Monday, after an election day marred by protests.... Hundreds of people were arrested on Sunday while protesting against the stage-managed election which they aid would deprive them of a political voice. Voters went to the polls to elect a successor to Nazarbayev, the 78-year-old who ruled for three decades before resigning this year. But with the last of the region's communist-era presidents stepping aside rather than stepping down, there are concerns that Kazakhstan is yet to break free of the past." --s