We begin today’s roundup with The New York Times and its take on Donald Trump’s attacks on the U.S. intelligence community:
In an extraordinary pushback against the president-elect, James Clapper Jr., the director of national intelligence, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he was “even more resolute” in believing that Russia not only hacked the computers of the Democratic National Committee and others but also disseminated classic propaganda, disinformation and fake news.
Flanked by the Pentagon’s top intelligence official and the head of the cyber command, Mr. Clapper acknowledged that the intelligence agencies can at times make mistakes. But he distinguished between presidential skepticism about their findings, which is healthy, and “disparagement” of the professionalism of the agencies, which is perilous for national security.
With his refusal to accept regular intelligence briefings on threats facing this country and his persistent denigration of the intelligence community, Mr. Trump has shown time and again that he worries more about his ego than anything else. He is effectively working to delegitimize institutions whose jobs involve reporting on risks, threats and facts that a president needs to keep the nation safe.
Sean Sullivan at The Washington Post notes that most Republicans at the hearing “seemed keen to avoid drawing links between President-elect Donald Trump and the Russian government”:
The prevailing Republican posture during the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing highlighted the reluctance among many in the GOP to cross Trump, who has voiced skepticism about the CIA’s assessment that Russia interfered to try to help him defeat Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Such reluctance comes after years of widespread Republican distrust of Russia and open questioning of the intentions of President Vladimir Putin and other state leaders.
There were two exceptions Thursday — the committee’s chairman, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), and Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), two longtime national-security hawks who did not hold back from sounding alarms about Russia’s meddling in the election and the implications for the future.
Conservative Michael Gerson calls out hypocrisy on the right about Julian Assange:
Donald Trump’s, Sarah Palin’s and Sean Hannity’s embrace of Julian Assange — who has made a career of illegally obtaining and releasing documents damaging to U.S. interests — is not just a puzzling policy shift. It is the triumph of political tribalism over, well, every other principle or commitment.
All three leaders of right-wing populism once saw the risk. Not long ago, Trump recommended the death penalty for Assange. Now he publicly sides with him against U.S. intelligence services. Palin urged the United States to go after Assange “with the same urgency we pursue al-Qaeda.” Now, we have seen her abject pleading: “Julian, I apologize.” Hannity once called for Assange’s “arrest.” Now he provides a sympathetic platform for Assange’s (and thus Vladimir Putin’s) views.
Let’s be clear about what this means. The president-elect of the United States is elevating a man whom the director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr., holds responsible for putting the lives of operatives in direct danger. The 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee is bowing and scraping to the man who materially aided the Taliban. Fox News is now an outlet for the Russian version of events.
Here’s Paul Waldman at The Week:
[L]et's add in the fact that Trump's people have leaked to the press that they plan "to restructure the Central Intelligence Agency, cutting back on staffing at its Virginia headquarters and pushing more people out into field posts around the world." The Directorate of National Intelligence would also be a target, supposedly because it has become too "politicized."
On this we can see the fingerprints of Michael Flynn, who is to become Trump's national security adviser. Flynn was fired as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, where he was reportedly guilty of gross mismanagement, not to mention the fact that he became consumed with conspiracy theories and feuded with his colleagues, including his boss, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Flynn now has his chance for revenge.
And then there’s this:
Former CIA director R. James Woolsey Jr., a veteran of four presidential administrations and one of the nation’s leading intelligence experts, resigned Thursday from President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team because of growing tensions over Trump’s vision for intelligence agencies.
Woolsey’s resignation as a Trump senior adviser comes amid frustrations over the incoming administration’s national security plans and Trump’s public comments undermining the intelligence community.
Eugene Robinson:
Coming from a presidential candidate, Donald Trump’s misty-eyed admiration of Russia and its autocratic leader was weird. Coming from a president-elect, it’s nothing short of alarming.
I repeat the questions I asked back in September: What’s the deal with Trump and Russia? Does he have financial entanglements with Russian banks, businesses or billionaires that color his views? If not, as he claims, then why won’t he release the personal and business tax returns that could put the matter to rest?
Switching topics, Michelle Ye Hee Lee has a new series up at The Washington Post, “What Donald Trump got wrong on Twitter this week”:
[W]e are launching an occasional feature looking at what Trump got wrong on Twitter in a given week. We will continue to devote full fact-checks of claims Trump makes on Twitter when the fact-check allows for discussion of a substantive policy issue. But as for the rest, we will include them in a round-up on Fridays. We will keep the analysis of each tweet as short as possible, with links to additional information for readers who want to know more. As always, we welcome reader suggestions.
On a final note, Jason Sattler at USA Today writes a piece on liberal rich donors and funding a grassroots movement:
Yes, the left needs a movement that rivals the Tea Party movement’s passion, reach and influence. But rather than happening with the encouragement and funding of the party’s rich donors, it might have to happen in spite of them.
There are some models for this, including the genuinely spontaneous Black Lives Matter movement, the Fight for $15 effort birthed by the Service Employees International Union, and the Bernie Sanders campaign for president, which was able to marshal small donors and large crowds even with much of the Democratic Party’s establishment working against it.
The left needs something better than a Tea Party movement because the party base needs to drag its donors’ economic agenda toward the people and not the other way around. And in American politics, dragging is expensive.
True equality of opportunity that enshrines health care as a right and puts workers on equal footing with their bosses might not have the same obvious economic constituency as eliminating the inheritance tax. But there are more of us than there are of them. And that has to be worth something.