For months, through the election and after, Donald Trump has been able to find something new to distract the press and public. All the way back to last summer, when stories of Trump’s Russian entanglements were drowned under attacks on a Gold Star family, it seemed there was always somewhere Trump could go, and nowhere he wouldn’t go, to drag the cameras away from his Putin bromance.
After a week in which it seems every member of Trump’s regime admitted to an embarrassing encounter with the Russian ambassador that they they somehow forgot to talk about, or straight up lied about, Trump raised the stakes on distractions with a “look over there!” that in some ways matches the scale of what he’s distracting from.
On Saturday morning, Donald Trump sent out a series of tweets accusing President Obama of ordering wire taps (actually “tapps”) on his phone previous to the election. As evidence of this amazing, bigger than Watergate level scandal Trump offered … nothing. Instead, he made a comment about Arnold Schwarzenegger—which, just incidentally, also appears to be a lie—then went to play golf.
It was a performance showing such a casual disregard for reality that even usually Trump-friendly venues are wincing. Trump, who earlier kicked most of his advisers into the weeds for the weekend for failing to make the Russia story go away, reversed course and called an all hands on deck meeting.
Ted Mann at the Wall Street Journal.
Mr. Trump had been scheduled to dine Saturday evening with Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross at Mar-a-Lago. In an update, the president’s staff said the two also would be joined by Messrs. Sessions, Bannon and Kelly, as well as policy adviser Stephen Miller and the White House counsel, Don McGahn, turning the dinner into a session of the president’s inner circle. …
Though this seems like such an over-the-top accusation that Trump can’t possibly walk away from, a quick reminder:
This isn’t the first time Mr. Trump has offered allegations of election-related misdeeds without evidence. He has also claimed that he lost the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton because “millions” of votes were cast illegally in the 2016 presidential election, including those by illegal immigrants. There is no evidence for that, and election officials, including Republicans, say it didn’t happen.
Come on in. Let’s read some pundits.
Colbert King on Trump’s latest delusions of persecution.
Some problems are hard to solve. President Trump’s assertion that President Barack Obama was tapping his phones prior to the election is not one of them.
The media, of course, is dutifully reporting denials of Trump’s charges from Obama’s spokesman and sources in the intelligence community.
And, as expected, Trump supporters are jumping to his defense with the argument that the media eagerly takes the word of Trump’s critics whenever they attack him, but won’t — unfairly — give credence to what Trump has to say.
At this point, there’s a reason for not giving credence to what Trump has to say. It’s not called bias, it’s called experience.
Trump can settle the whole thing immediately.
Release the evidence that backs up the charge.
Of course, Trump could claim that the evidence is classified. But as it happens he has the authority to declassify any information (the best evidence that the US government isn’t sitting on a stack of alien encounters? Trump hasn’t released them to provide a distraction). So if Trump’s statements were based on any real evidence, anything at all, there’s no reason not to put it out there.
Michael Shear and Michael Schmidt and the flip side of Trump’s far-reaching authority.
A senior White House official said that Donald F. McGahn II, the president’s chief counsel, was working to secure access to what Mr. McGahn believed to be an order issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court authorizing some form of surveillance related to Mr. Trump and his associates.
The official offered no evidence to support the notion that such an order exists. It would be a highly unusual breach of the Justice Department’s traditional independence on law enforcement matters for the White House to order it to turn over such an investigative document.
On other words, Trump’s chief counsel is on a fishing expedition in the Department of Justice, searching for any FISA warrants that might possibly be connected to Trump. That’s step one in making them go away. Like a thousand other things in government, there’s no law that prevents this, there is only precedent—and that’s stopped exactly zero Trump actions so far. The idea that the White House won’t directly affect actions at DOJ is just tradition. The idea that the Attorney General won’t squash actions by the FBI is just tradition. Tradition is dead (and no, that article wasn’t really an editorial, but … it’s that kind of weekend).
Philip Lacovara and Lawrence Robbins have experience dealing with people like Jeff Sessions.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions made a seemingly false statement under oath during his confirmation hearing. Admittedly, not every potential perjury case gets prosecuted, and Sessions may well have defenses to such a charge. But as lawyers at the Justice Department and attorneys in private practice who have represented individuals accused in such cases, we can state with assurance: Federal prosecutors have brought charges in cases involving far more trivial misstatements and situations far less consequential than whether a nominee to be the nation’s chief law enforcement officer misled fellow senators during his confirmation hearings.
Uh, huh. But where is the person who is going to press this? Not Congress, which just got through sputtering at Democrats and making Elizabeth Warren sit down and shut up for A) being a woman, B) saying things about Sessions, and C) see A. Certainly not Trump, who is still pissed that Sessions even bothered to recuse himself.
As any number of witnesses have learned the hard way, it is a federal felony to lie to Congress. Under Title 18 of the U.S. Code, Sections 1001 and 1621, perjury before Congress is punishable by up to five years imprisonment. To prove that offense, a prosecutor would have to establish that Sessions’s answer was false, that he knew it was false when made and that the subject matter of the answer was “material” to the congressional inquiry in which he was testifying.
Those elements all appear to be present. The element of falsity is established by the conceded fact that he did “have communications with the Russians” during the Trump campaign. And there can scarcely be any doubt that the subject matter of Sessions’s answer was highly material to the Senate’s consideration of his nomination. Any suggestion that he participated in the suspected interaction between Trump campaign personnel and the Russian government was, and remains, a matter of grave concern.
If enough evidence makes it around the firewalls being built inside the Trump regime to show the magnitude of Trump’s connections to Russia, then someone may come back to mop up Sessions, but Trump and Sessions are in a mutual support pact. Neither falls alone.
Gail Collins has a Sessions session.
It’s bad enough to think the nation’s chief law enforcement officer would dodge the truth when cornered. But it’s worse if he leaps in, waves his hand and lies voluntarily. We now know that Sessions had seen Kislyak at the convention — although, of course, that was in Cleveland. He also had met with the ambassador in his Senate office in September, when the issue of possible Russian interference in the campaign had long been in the news.
I’m more than happy to scrub the Cleveland meeting from Sessions’ record. After all, Kislyak is both his nation’s ambassador and its top spy. It’s his job to be a face in every crowd he can enter. It’s more the personal invite to visit the Senate office for one-on-one time — a circumstance in which Sessions may be unique — that seems concerning.
Jill Abramson thinks it’s worth putting Beauregard on the barbie.
During the campaign, Sessions was one of the loudest voices calling for a special counsel to be appointed to investigate Hillary Clinton’s emails. He signed a petition calling for one after his predecessor as Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, held a private tête-à-tête with Bill Clinton at a particularly sensitive point in the federal investigation into Clinton’s emails.
Now it’s his own tête-à-tête with the Russian ambassador at a sensitive point in the 2016 campaign that is sparking demands for a special counsel to investigate the unfolding scandal over Russian meddling in the US election. Sessions’ belated recusal will do little to quell them. Democrats are already calling for his resignation. Recusal was the mildest step that could be taken.
But as we know, Donald Trump never handled thousands of routine emails. Instead he exchanged hundreds of millions of dollars in Russian funds. So that’s okay.
For his part, President Trump calls the Russia imbroglio “a witch hunt.” It’s a hunt for sure – for the truth.
Accept no alternatives.
Dana Milbank has a whiplash-inducing guide to Trump’s Russia connections.
President Trump got to know Russian President Vladimir Putin “very well,” but he doesn’t “know Putin.”
Putin sent Trump “a present” and they spoke, but Trump has “no relationship with him.”
Trump has “nothing to do with Russia,” but his son has said “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets” and “we see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.” …
There was “no communication” between Trump’s team and Russia during the campaign and transition, except for communication with Russia by Trump’s future national security adviser, his future attorney general and his son-in-law and two others.
Just two others? There was future Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson. Campaign chair Paul Manafort. Campaign foreign affairs adviser Carter Page. Campaign military adviser J. D. Gordon. Trump’s personal attorney … Hey, maybe it would be easier to list the ones who didn’t talk to Russia. Hope Hicks? Has Hope showed Putin her bullet necklace yet? Seems like something he would like.
For a genuine guide to the whole Trump / Russia situation, you can’t do much better than the one prepared last week by Jen Hayden.
Kathleen Parker notes the hole that Democrats have fallen into ...
The GOP went through this same sort of infighting and navel-gazing on the national level several years back. After losing the presidency to Barack Obama in 2008, it regrouped, reformed itself and became disciplined. Now it has taken the House, Senate, White House and most of the nation’s governorships, while also successfully gerrymandering congressional districts that have given Republicans the advantage in many states — at least until the next redistricting after the 2020 Census.
Democrats are readying themselves for that fight, but they’ll need to do more than try to redraw the map. While Democrats were basking in Obama’s sunny smile, Republicans were busy building benches of future leaders, especially at the state attorney general level, where they are now in the majority. The strategy has been to recruit and help elect strong attorneys general who could be groomed to become governors, senators — and possibly presidents.
I got an earful of the other side of this problem when talking with Tallahassee mayor, Andrew Gillum. When I asked Gillum about the chances that he would run for governor, his first response was to note that with Democrats so thoroughly out of power at the state level, Republicans had a steady stream of candidates who had moved through legislature, to statewide offices, establishing familiarity with voters and connections with fundraisers. Democrats were left underfunded, isolated, and without the face time on media that eases entry into a race.
Parker had some recommendations for Democrats, but they’re as bland as an extra large box of bland. Basically talk more about jobs.
Ross Douthat has the solution to racism.
Abolish racial preferences in college admissions, phase out preferences in government hiring and contracting, eliminate the disparate-impact standard in the private sector, and allow state-sanctioned discrimination only on the basis of socioeconomic status, if at all. Then at the same time, create a reparations program — the Frederick Douglass Fund, let’s call it — that pays out exclusively, directly and one time only to the proven descendants of American slaves.
In other words, give a subset of African Americans a one-time payment if they’ll permit racial discrimination against them and every other minority from now till doomsday. Or, dear black people, how much would it take to bribe you into voting for us, just one time … because that’s all it will take.
Maria Antonova points out that Russia is actually a poor, and getting poorer, country.
Donskoy isn’t Russia’s poorest city. The problems here are common in provincial towns: potholed roads, ancient utilities and underfunded health care. Official statistics indicate that the percentage of Russians living below the poverty line — less than $170 per month — has been growing since 2013, and that by mid-2016 they numbered more than 21 million people in a country of 143 million. A report in December on spending by typical provincial families concluded that 70 percent to 80 percent of monthly income goes to essentials like food, medicine and transportation.
Antonova’s stories are touching and provide personal insight into conditions inside Russia — some of which seems remarkably like that of a “rust belt” town taken to extremes. But the fact that Russia’s wealth is concentrated into a very few hands while the majority of people suffer isn’t a reason to give any less scrutiny to Russian involvement with Trump or the election.
Dianne Feinstein on one of the most dangerous ideas ever floated.
Last month, it was revealed that a Pentagon advisory committee authored a report calling for the United States to invest in new nuclear weapons and consider resuming nuclear testing. The report even suggested researching less-powerful nuclear weapons that could be deployed without resorting to full-scale nuclear war. This is terrifying and deserves a swift, full-throated rebuke.
You see, son, we had just a one-third scale nuclear war. That’s why this winter will only last three hundred years and animals as large as rats, though not large ones, are expected to survive. Isn’t that good to know?
Let me be crystal clear: There is no such thing as “limited use” nuclear weapons, and for a Pentagon advisory board to promote their development is absolutely unacceptable. This is even more problematic given President Trump’s comments in support of a nuclear arms race.
Donald Trump would really, really like to blow up something. Please do not make it any easier for him.
Leonard Pitts knew you needed him all along.
Wherever I travel, I make a point of picking up the local paper. Almost always, it is like holding a cancer patient, some stricken friend you haven’t seen in awhile. You are shocked by how thin and flimsy it has become, how little substance remains. Budgets are shrinking, ad revenue is declining, some cities no longer have seven day a week home delivery, some don’t even have seven day a week newspapers.
And now, all of a sudden: “You like me! Right now! You like me!”
Which is to say that lately, I’ve been hearing from readers who say they’ve found renewed appreciation for newspapers as we trudge through the Valley of the Shadow of Trump. They see them as the last line of defense between 2017 and “1984.”
I’m thinking more the difference between 2017 and 476, but go on.
Initially, I didn’t attach much importance to such comments; I thought it was just a few isolated folks. But I’ve since learned that other journalists are hearing the same thing. Amazingly, a number of papers are reporting that subscriptions are up since the November election. The Washington Post has even hung out the Help Wanted sign.
There now. Don’t ever say Trump hasn’t created at least some jobs.