Covfefe?

Midnight Tweet:  Around midnight the Tweeter-in-chief tweeted “Despite the constant negative press covfefe.”  Covfefe, may be short for “I’m  president, you’re not, sure I’m crazy, learn to live with it” or it could be a cry for help.  In any case it caused a twitter tsunami last night as twitter uses everywhere tried to figure out just what Trump was saying.  At this point there is still no answer.   

Spicey is Back, For Now:  The tense White House environment has also gotten to Spicer. Sounding angry and frustrated he stormed into the daily news conference and spent ten minutes summarizing the remarkable successes of Trump’s Three Religion Tour.  Trump’s trip was “historic,” “unprecedented”  and “extraordinary” and accomplished more for the US than any trip by any other president, ever.  During the Q and A that followed, Spicer went from denying that Kushner had tried to set up back channel communication with the Russians to saying that he might have  but that’s only because back channels are good.  He then launched into a tirade about fake news calling out the BBC and a new NY Times reporter for saying Trump had been rude to the Italian Prime Minister when all he was doing was adjusting his earpiece, the most damning false news that Spicer could cite.  He also attacked the press for using anonymous sources but couldn’t answer why it was okay for Trump to tweet out a favorable Fox article that relied on one unnamed source.  Spicer then cut the press conference off and marched out leaving  behind a stunned group of reporters.

Russia investigations:  The Russia investigations continue to heat up. Add Trump’s long-time friend and personal lawyer Michael Cohen and Trump’s one-time spokesperson and media coordinator Boris Epshteyn to the list of people embroiled in the Russian web.  Cohen who may or may not have carried a secret Ukrainian peace plan that called for the lifting of  Russian sanctions from the Ukraine to Trump last year has been asked to provide information about any connections he’s had to Russian officials to the Intelligence Committees.  A similar request has been made to Epshteyn, Eric Trump’s Georgetown buddy. So far, Cohen is refusing to cooperate with the “overly broad” request.  Michael Flynn, however, is now being more cooperative.  He has agreed to provide the Senate Intelligence Committee with subpoenaed business documents and certain personal documents that he had previously refused to provide.  Kushner is still solving Middle East peace, reorganizing the government, resolving the opioid crisis, heading the White House Russia crisis team, and serving as Trump’s right hand man, but like a duck, under the surface he must or should be paddling frantically.

German Tweets:  Apparently Angela Merkel missed the message that Trump’s trip to Europe was a wild success.  Responding to her weekend statement that Germany could no longer rely on others, Trump stayed on the offensive tweeting that German trade policies are “very bad” for the US and vowed to change the situation.  At least with regard to US-German relations that was the highpoint of the day.  In the afternoon, German intelligence informed the US that it doesn’t want, need, or trust the US for help in securing its upcoming elections from Russian interference.  

Senate Tweet:  On Tuesday Trump tweeted “the US Senate should switch to 51 votes immediately and get Healthcare and TAX CUTS approved, fast and easy,” adding Senate procedures to the list of things he doesn’t know anything about.  Essentially, Trump is trying to pressure Senate Majority Leader McConnell to ditch the filibuster rules that have already been eliminated for judicial appointments even though McConnell is on record saying said that he is not interested in changing the rules for legislative issues. In any case, Trump’s tweet is irrelevant because Trumpcare and tax reform legislation qualify for reconciliation, a budgetary process that allows for passage with only 51 votes as long as legislation is directly related to spending and expenditures and doesn’t increase the deficit.  Since Trumpcare is more or less a large tax cut rather than a healthcare plan and results in a deficit reduction over a ten year time horizon it qualifies for reconciliation.  Likewise, using overly optimistic economic growth rates, Trump’s tax reform plan is deficit neutral over a ten year time horizon as well.  Bottom line, both pieces of legislation could be passed with 51 votes to the extent they stick to the reconciliation rules.  The trick is getting 51 votes for unpopular legislation.  Senate rules are complicated.  Trumpcare is also complicated. Showing again that he is unfamiliar with the nuances of his health care plan Trump also tweeted a call for more spending on health care.       

North Korean Missiles:  The war of words and missiles continues to escalate.  North Korea launched a short-range SCUD missile over the weekend.  Trump responded by tweeting that “North Korea has shown great disrespect…for China, but China is trying hard.” Caring little about China, Kim Jong-Un then said that it plans to send a bigger “gift package” to the US soon and yesterday, the US successfully tested a ballistic defense missile.   

Georgia Six Update:  Though election day is June 20, early voting has started for the Georgia’s sixth congressional election for the seat vacated by Health Secretary Price.  Polls, to the extent they mean anything, show Jon Ossoff, the Democratic candidate up by 7% among likely voters over Karen Handel, his Republican rival.  All eyes and millions of dollars are on this election.    

We'll Always Have Paris

We’ll Always Have Paris:  Two countries are not members of  the Paris Climate Accords, Syria and Nicaragua.  Syria is obviously distracted by the ravages of its civil war and Nicaragua has boycotted the accords because of a belief that the agreement doesn’t go far enough.  A third holdout, Uzbekistan, signed last month.  Before the G7 meetings in Sicily ended Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the European Union reaffirmed their commitment to the Paris agreement.  Only the US didn’t join in the affirmation.  As he left, Trump tweeted that he “will make my final decision on the Paris Accord next week!”  Under pressure from a large group of science doubting Senators who irrationally fear the “economic impact” of saving the environment for future generations Trump, who campaigned on leaving, is leaning towards withdrawal. It is looking more and more likely that the US, which was largely responsible for orchestrating the agreement in the first place, will be joining Syria and Nicaragua but unlike Nicaragua it won’t be because we don’t think the agreement goes far enough. Au revoir Paris, at least for now.

Just Another Blundering American:  Trump made a lasting impression on Europe, but not in a good way.  On Sunday German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that the “times when we could completely rely on others are, to an extent over.” Though she didn’t explicitly mention the US or Trump her realization “had come in the last few days” and her statement was clearly a response to Trump’s oafish behavior and failure to include the Three Musketeers “all for one and one for all” provision in his NATO remarks. One indication that Merkel’s reaction is widely felt is that her chief rival in Germany’s upcoming elections is united with her in opposition to Trump.  Trump for his part, thinks his meetings in Europe went well and takes full credit for pushing the other NATO countries to up their financial contributions.  He said as much when he tweeted “NATO countries have agreed to step up payments considerably, as they should.  Money is beginning to pour in.”  He is either ignoring or unaware that increasing defense spending is a multiyear process and that to the extent that money is “pouring in” to NATO it is mostly the result of Obama era quiet diplomacy.  For some inexplicable reason Trump continues to prefer dictators and strongmen to democracies and historical allies.

Get Outta Here You Crazy Russian:   Russian President Putin visited new French President Macron this weekend ostensibly to push the reset button on the French-Russian relationship.  However, things didn’t go as planned for Putin.  While Macron talked about the need for dialogue he also said that defending Western ideals is France’s priority and he set a red line against continued use of chemical weapons in Syria.  At a press conference following their meeting Putin rejected allegations that Russia had tried to influence the outcome of the French elections but Macron wouldn’t let him get away with his denials. Macron responded that “when media organs spread slanderous falsehoods, they are no longer journalists.” He was directly referring to Russia Today and Sputnik, Russia’s government owned press.  Unlike Trump who still won’t acknowledge Russian interference in the US elections, Macron has no problem calling Putin out.  Macron who faked Trump out during at the NATO meeting by veering to the right to avoid Trump’s first attempt at a handshake, is showing that he may be young and inexperienced as a politician but he is smart and calls them like he sees them.

I’m Shocked, Shocked:  No one in the White House has denied that Kushner had those questionable meetings with Kislyak and Sergey Gorkov, the Russian Spy academy graduate and Putin crony who runs state owned VneshEconomBank.  The party line remains that if those conversations took place, they were just perfectly normal, reasonable attempts to establish a back channel with US adversaries while circumventing US intelligence agencies.  Homeland Security Secretary Kelly said that establishing a secret channel is “a good thing” and added that Kushner is a “great guy, decent guy” and you know he is Trump’s son-in-law so what else can I say.  Senator McCain didn’t buy into the party line, he reiterated his belief that Russia is the number one adversary of the US and said that it is not standard procedure for someone who is not in an appointed position to be having side chats with the Russians.  Among Republicans, Maverick McCain is still an outlier.  Lindsey Graham tried to sidestep the issue by questioning the veracity of the story, suggesting that Kislyak may have just been planting a false story when he told Moscow that Kushner tried to set up a back channel in Russian facilities.  Other Republicans ran with Graham’s narrative and Trump tweet smacked the news for “fabricated lies made up by the #fakemedia.” Democrats and many former intelligence officers are calling for Kushner to lose his security clearance.  Characteristically, Kushner who is rarely heard, kept quiet.

Round Up the Usual Suspects:  Now that Trump is back from Spring Break, he is getting down to business and refocusing on his leaky, disorganized White House operation.  Rumors abound that he is reaching out to the usual suspects, including Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie, to help with crisis management.  Bannon’s star may be ascending again and this weekend the supposedly banished Nazi-sympathizer Sebastian Gorka issued a few statements on behalf of the administration. Communications Director Mike Dubke has resigned and Sean Spicer, who is still sulking about being excluded from the meeting with the Pope, may be kept in a locked closet or a White House bush, while daily press conferences are cancelled, led by Huckabee-Sanders, kept off TV, led by various senior White House officials or all of the above.  It has also been suggested that Chief of Staff Reince Priebus will be dispatched to serve as the US Ambassador to Greece, assuming that Trump can find another supplicant willing to serve as his Chief of Staff.   

Human Life is Cheap:  Sadly two men were attacked and killed and one was wounded in Portland, Oregon when they tried to help two women who were targeted by an anti-Muslim lunatic.  Trump waited days to respond to the attack before finally tweeting out a condemnation of the “violent attacks in Portland.”  His tweet came from his less frequently used, official POTUS account.  Wonder if he even knows he sent that tweet?  

Back Channels

Back Channels:  This is bigly.  Last December, in a meeting also attended by former security adviser Michael Flynn, Jared Kushner tried to arrange a secret, back channel communication facility with Russian Ambassador Kislyak to facilitate conversations with Moscow about Syria strategy and other policy issues.  Kushner wanted Kislyak to host the facility at the Russian Embassy because he thought that Russia’s cryptologic systems would allow them to avoid US oversight. They also discussed the possibility of having a discrete meeting in a foreign country. Kislyak was “overheard” reporting Kushner’s request to Moscow and even he thought it was unusual.  The Washington Post became aware of Kushner’s request when they received a letter from an undisclosed informant in December but it took them until this week to confirm details.  If true, it’s hard to believe that Trump wasn’t aware of Kushner’s activities and it would explain why Trump was so reluctant to fire Flynn and why he continues to support him.  Kushner “accidentally” omitted his meeting with Kislyak on his security clearance forms.  Yesterday, the Republican and Democratic heads of the Senate Intelligence committee reported that they have now requested all of Trump’s Russia-related campaign files.

More Undisclosed Meetings:  Last night, Reuters reported that Kushner also “forgot” to mention at least three other contacts with Russians.  Among other things, the FBI is examining whether the Russians “suggested to Kushner that relaxing economic sanctions would allow Russian banks to offer financing to people with ties to Trump.” When asked about these additional calls, Kushner’s lawyer said that Kushner “participated in thousands of calls in this time period.  He has no recollection of the calls as described.”  In and of themselves the meetings and calls, while very disturbing, may not be illegal, but failing to mention them on security forms is a bigly problem.   Oddly enough, it’s been reported that together with Steve Bannon, Kushner, who is either incredibly naïve or very duplicitous is supposed to head up Trump’s Russian crisis team which only makes sense to Donald J. Trump.  One of the first tasks of the crisis team may be to subject all of Trump’s tweets to  legal review, which may be the least of their problems.      

That Foreign Meeting:  It doesn’t appear that a “back channel” was ever set up in Kislyak’s cone of silence but, as reported in April, after the Kislyak discussion a Trump emissary made an odd overseas trip.  Blackwater founder Erik Prince, brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, travelled to the Seychelle islands in early January for a meeting with a close Putin associate. Prince, a friend of Flynn, went in his place because it would have been harder for the more visible Flynn to keep his travel plans below the radar.  Again, the reported purpose of this mission was to arrange for back channel communications between the Trump team and Putin.  The meeting was arranged by a United Arabs Emirates Prince, not to be confused with Erik, who is not royalty but is a member of the billionaire Mercer family.  Together with Kushner’s Kislyak conversation, this is either the plot of a really bad movie or these guys are all crazy and the rest of us are living a bizarre nightmare.      

The European Trip:  Trump should have stayed in the Middle East, which despite Saudi maps and Trump’s limited knowledge of geography, does include Israel, or he should have tried treating our European allies with the deference that he accorded the Saudi sheiks.  His bull-in-a-china shop approach to diplomacy hasn’t been going over all that well in Europe.  He may have insulted Germany by calling them out as bad or evil depending on the translation, he’s publicly chastised all of them for underpaying their NATO dues, he’s upset the Brits over leaked Manchester pictures (although that one probably wasn’t his doing), and he shoved the Montenegro leader.  Whether he’s in cahoots with Putin or not, he’s mostly been adhering to the Putin playbook leaving economic adviser Gary Cohn, Secretary of State Tillerson and Security Adviser McMaster doing clean-up in aisle Trump. Cohn had to explain that if he said Germany was bad, Trump was only referring to their trade practices, Tillerson had to assure the Brits that contrary to evidence Trump really can keep secrets and McMaster, who thought he got the “all for one and one for all” provision included in Trump’s NATO speech, has had to provide reassurance that Trump would honor NATO’s Article 5 mutual defense commitment.   

Paris Climate Accords:  European allies are also very concerned about the state of the Paris Climate Accords and have been spending a considerable amount of time trying to educate Trump on climate change science.  The Pope, who not so subtlety gifted Trump his encyclical on climate change during their Vatican meeting, is also pushing for Trump to keep the US in the accords.  Cohn and Tillerson are on team Paris Accords as well.  However, a group of 22 Republican Senators including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are urging Trump to make a clean exit from the Paris agreement. Trump’s decision is expected soon.  

From the Peanut Gallery:  Former Speaker of the House John Boehner, who describes himself as a longtime Trump friend,  took a moment out of his happy retirement routine of relaxation, red wine and cigarettes to say that most of what Trump has done so far is a disaster.  Clinton, speaking at her alma mater Wellesley’s graduation ceremony, compared Trump to Nixon.  Despite her election loss, she hasn’t lost her sense of humor.

Enjoy Memorial Day!

The In-Law

The Son-in-Law:  The unnamed close Trump adviser who is under investigation in the Russia probe is none other than Jared Kushner, renaissance man.  Kushner is under FBI scrutiny but is not necessarily a suspect.  The FBI is focusing on his meetings with Ambassador Kislyak and a Russian banker and their interest may extend beyond collusion to possible financial matters, a focus that strikes fear in the hearts of major real estate magnates everywhere.  Kushner is in a different category than Manafort and Flynn who are formally considered “subjects under investigation.”  It’s not clear if Kushner will be able to continue in his roles as Middle East peacemaker, solver of the opioid crisis, and shadow Secretary of State.  It’s also not clear if he will be able to keep his security clearance or continue talking with his father-in-law.  Trump is in the process of setting up an internal war room operation to vigorously beat back any and all claims of Russian collusion.

NATO Meetings:  Boorish Trump is back.  At a ceremony dedicating a 9/11 memorial outside of NATO’s new headquarters, that also honored victims of the recent Manchester bombing, Trump lectured his fellow NATO leaders, calling them out as deadbeats for not fully meeting their financial commitments and omitting language that explicitly stated that the US would honor NATO’s Article 5 mutual defense pledge.  Prior presidents have pressured NATO members to increase their funding so Trump’s comments were not totally out of line, but his forceful delivery as part of the dedication were misplaced and not well received.  Given Putin’s expansionist rhetoric and Crimea land grab, NATO members, particularly those from the Baltic States, were anxious to hear Trump reaffirm the US commitment.  Later in the day Sean Spicer, who may be disembarking from the Trump train soon, cleaned up the Article 5 omission when he said that Trump is “fully committed to NATO’s  collective defense.” Ironically, to date, the only time that Article 5 was invoked was after the 9/11 attacks.  When the leaders lined up for a group photo, Trump shoved the leader of Montenegro, NATO’s newest member, out of the way as he jockeyed for a position in the center of the front row.  Maintaining good relations with strategic allies, not so important, but a photo-op is a photo-op. 

The Travel Ban:  The largely conservative Fourth Circuit Court refused to lift the injunction holding up Trump’s travel ban.  The court said that “when the government chooses sides on religious issues, the inevitable result is hatred, disrespect and even contempt towards those who fall on the wrong side of the line.”  In other words, if you spend your whole campaign calling for the banning of Muslims, it’s hard to convince the court that your travel ban is not just a veiled Muslim ban.  The ever persistent, somewhat xenophobic Jeff Sessions announced that the Justice Department will appeal the case to the Supreme Court.  

And the Winner Is:  With almost 75% of the votes already cast by mail, Wednesday night’s beat down of a Guardian reporter by Republican Greg Gianforte had no impact on the outcome of the Montana special congressional election,  As expected, Gianforte  beat his Democratic opponent, Rob Quist,  by about 7 percentage points.  His margin of victory was significantly  smaller than Trump’s twenty point lead in the presidential election which may be a harbinger of things to come in the 2018 mid-term elections.  During his victory speech Gianforte finally apologized for choking and slamming the reporter to the ground but it didn’t really sound sincere and it doesn’t look like he will face any significant penalty for his actions as Paul Ryan has already said that while trying to kill people, even members of the liberal press, is bad he is sure that Gianforte will fit right in with the rest of the Republican crowd in the House.  It will be interesting to see how Gianforte copes with the legion of reporters who will make it their job to provoke another violent response in the boisterous Congressional catacombs.     

New FBI Director: Former Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman who had been Trump’s first choice to replace Comey as FBI Director has taken himself out of contention. Lieberman, who is of counsel at the same law firm as Marc Kasowitz, the lawyer retained by Trump to help him with the Russia investigation, said it wouldn’t be appropriate for him to be  FBI Director given his colleague’s role.  Trump had thought that Lieberman’s confirmation would be a bi-partisan slam dunk, but Democrats are still annoyed with Lieberman for endorsing McCain over Obama and for holding up Obamacare until a public option was dropped from the legislation so his confirmation had not been a sure thing.  Former FBI Agent Richard McFeely pulled himself out of contention last week.  Finding an acceptable candidate willing to take the Trump loyalty oath is complicated. 

Oops He Did It Again

Russian Influence:  During the presidential campaign, American spies listened in on conversations between Russian officials as they discussed efforts to exploit their relationships with Trump aides in order to exert influence over Trump. The Russians were caught discussing how they hoped to use former campaign manager Manafort and security advisor Flynn to shape Trump’s positions on issues important to Russia. It’s worth noting that at the Republican convention Manafort was influential in modifying the Republican Platform’s position on the Ukraine so that it was more favorable to Russian interests. Other members of the Trump team who had frequent contacts with Russian officials, oligarchs and government owned banks were likely targeted as well.  Yesterday it was also revealed that, like Jared Kushner, Attorney General Sessions failed to disclose his three meetings with Russian Ambassador Kislyak on his security clearance forms.  Trump just retained Marc Kasowitz to represent him on issues related to the Russia investigation,  Kasowitz also represents a Russian bank in an ongoing US lawsuit and a Russian billionaire with close ties to Putin.

Weirder and Weirder:  Last July FBI Director Comey announced that Hillary Clinton would not be indicted for using her private email server and then, because he promised Congress he would let them know if he received any other evidence, right before the election he announced that there were additional emails on the Anthony Weiner computer before saying that they weren’t significant.  After that Trump won the election.  Everything Comey did was unusual because indictment decisions generally rest in the hands of the Attorney General and announcements are only made if someone is actually indicted.  Last night, it was reported that Comey felt he had to go public with the decision not to indict because he had been shown  evidence that Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, former head of the DNC, had sent emails to several colleagues saying that then Attorney General Lynch would do what she could to prevent Hillary from getting indicted.  It turns out that the evidence was fabricated probably by the Russians, the Wasserman-Schultz emails never existed, and that the FBI had questioned the validity of this so called “evidence” from the start.  Still Comey was so concerned that the bogus evidence would be leaked, tainting his investigation and decision not to indict Clinton, that he went ahead with the announcements anyway.  The rest is history. 

Beating Up Reporters in Montana:  Last night Greg Gianfonte the Republican candidate in today’s special congressional election assaulted Ben Jacobs, a reporter for the Guardian, when Jacobs asked a question about the new Trumpcare scoring report.   Gianfonte body slammed Jacobs, breaking his glasses and injuring his elbow. Gianfonte’s spokesperson claimed the assault was justified because the “liberal journalist” was “aggressive.”  Unfortunately for Gianfonte, Jacobs caught the whole incident on audiotape and reporters from Fox News who witnessed the incident confirmed Jacobs account of the assault. Overnight Gianfonte was charged with misdemeanor assault and lost the endorsement of three local newspapers.  It’s not clear if beating up a reporter is a good or bad thing in Montana but since more than half of the anticipated votes have already been cast by mail, it’s unlikely that Gianfonte’s actions will have much, if any, impact on the election that he is supposed to win.   

What’s the Score:  The Congressional Budget Office released its new Trumpcare scoring report on Wednesday.  The conclusions of this report aren’t dramatically different than the old report: the Trumpcare legislation that was passed by Congress is still a disaster.  The CBO expects about 23 million people will lose their insurance for a ten year savings of  $119 billion; last time around the numbers were 24 million and $150 billion respectively.  Essentially the CBO report concludes that Trumpcare would mean slightly less government savings and slightly more insurance coverage but would price out many with pre-existing conditions and would eliminate access for many people with low incomes.  About $1 trillion, mostly from tax cuts, would result in a $1 trillion reduction in health care spending.  A team of Republican Senators is currently rewriting Trumpcare legislation so at least for now this is all academic.

Trump-a-nomics:  The Trump budget plan isn’t just harsh it’s also based on faulty math and Alice in Wonderland economics.  The budget double counts $2 trillion, using it to both reduce the budget deficit and pay for proposed tax cuts. When asked about this Budget Director Mulvaney actually said that they did the double count “on purpose” because there were other areas where they were probably too conservative.   Additionally, by assuming an overly optimistic 3% growth rate, the plan projects that the federal deficit will be eliminated in ten years. The consensus among mainstream economists is that a 3% growth rate is unachievable, particularly when growth spurring immigration is being curtailed.  

Saudi Arabia:  Three Israeli-American reporters were supposed to cover Trump’s trip to Saudi Arabia.  Their participation in the press pool had been approved by the White House.  The reporters were set to join the official press plane to Riyadh until Trump officials informed them that they were no longer invited because the Saudi embassy had refused to grant them visas due to their affiliation with Israeli media outlets.  The Trump administration could have stood up to the Saudis but instead went along with the visa denials in order to keep with the narrative that the “moderate” Saudis  will help with Trump’s grand Israeli-Palestinian peace plan and Trump remains dismissive of press freedom anyway.

Oops He Did it Again:  Trump discussed a few things when he spoke with his good friend Philippines President Duterte.  He congratulated him for his murderous drug crackdown, he invited him for dinner at the White House and he revealed the secret location of two US nuclear submarines.  Oops!   

Tick, Tick, Tick.....

Vatican Visit:  In 2013  a boastful Trump illogically tweeted “the new Pope is a very humble man like me, which probably explains why I like him so much!” Their relationship quickly went downhill during the 2016 campaign when Pope Francis reacted to Trump’s plans to build his beautiful Mexico border wall by saying that anyone who thinks only of building barriers instead of bridges is not Christian.  Wednesday, shortly after a Philippine transcript of Trump praising Philippine President Duterte for his murderous drug crackdown was released, the Pope and Trump, who disagree over virtually everything from the environment to the treatment of refugees, met for twenty-eight minutes.  So much to discuss, so little time.      

Intelligence Chiefs on Russia:  Current and former intelligence chiefs testified yesterday in front of three different Congressional committees and all agreed that Russia interfered in the election and that frequent Trump team contacts with the Russians were “troubling” to put it mildly.  Former CIA Director John Brennan’s testimony at a House Intelligence committee hearing was the most damning.  He said that it should be “clear to everyone that  the Russians brazenly interfered in the 2016 elections.”  He added that contacts and conversations between Russia and people involved in the Trump campaign “left open the possibility that Russian officials may have been successful in recruiting some of the aides.” When pressed by Republican Trey Gowdy, who was trying to get him to say that there was no evidence of Trump team collusion, Brennan responded that the CIA collects information, the FBI deals with evidence and that he had passed a lot of really concerning intelligence onto the FBI, enough for the FBI to initiate its counter-intelligence investigation.  Gowdy’s aggressive efforts to get Brennan to dismiss assertions of collusion with the Russians failed miserably.  In an appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats wouldn’t say that Trump had asked him to deny evidence of Russian collusion but implied that he would answer that question in the affirmative if asked it again in a closed session at one of the intelligence committees.  Similarly, in testimony before an Armed Services subcommittee NSA chief Mike Rogers wouldn’t deny he had been pressured by Trump.  Trump has retained attorney Marc Kasowitz to help him “deal” with the Russia investigations.  Kasowitz has previously represented Trump for cases related to his divorce records, real estate transactions and fraud at Trump University.    

Tick, Tick, Tick: The Senate Intelligence Committee will be issuing two subpoenas for Michael Flynn’s businesses in order to compel him to hand over documents.  Stymied by Flynn’s earlier refusal to release personal documents, the Committee is instead seeking business documents which are not covered by the Fifth Amendment’s protection against self-incrimination.   They are leaving open the possibility of contempt charges.  The Flynn “bomb” keeps ticking.

Dead on Arrival:  To quote dozens of members of Congress from both sides of the aisle, Trump’s harsh budget plan which was largely written by the very conservative Heritage Foundation, is dead on arrival. Congressman Mark Meadows, a member of the right wing Freedom Caucus, said “getting rid of meals on wheels is a bridge too far” even for him.  Senator McCain wants more for defense and Democrats took the opportunity to point out that that the budget plan breaks many of Trump’s promises while impacting his voters the hardest. It’s not uncommon for Congress to reject a President’s budget plan but pushback for Trump’s plan, sounds louder and more bipartisan than usual.  In any case, the Trump plan will be used as a guide for budget deliberations and Senate McConnell has admitted that he will need Democratic cooperation so the fight has just begun.

Montana Election:  The special election for Department of the Interior Zinke’s former congressional seat takes place on Thursday.  The election, which was supposed to be an easy win for Greg Gianfonte, the Republican candidate, is now polling much closer than expected. Bernie Sanders has been campaigning with Democrat Rob Quist, the somewhat flakey folk singer and first time candidate.  Their focus has been health care not the Russian investigation.  A Republican loss in this Republican stronghold would be shocking but even a narrow win will send a scary message to the GOP though they will likely celebrate any win as an affirmation of Trump’s policies.  Stay tuned.

Trump Doth Protest Too Much

The Road Trip:  Trump’s first day in Israel went largely according to plan.  He was warmly welcomed at the airport where Bibi managed to keep his ministers in line.  Trump visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre before moving on to the Western Wall for a prayer moment and  photo-op.  He pressed the Israelis to seek peace with the Palestinians and promised that his new very good friend Saudi King Salman would invite Israel to a sword dance as soon as a peace agreement is reached.  Today Trump took his pitch to Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.  In the aftermath of last night’s horrific Manchester attack, he began his speech by expressing solidarity with England and the bombing victims.  Reflecting the audience and McMaster’s ban on using inflammatory words to describe terrorists,  he called the bombers losers, a significant step down from what he really wanted to say.  If all goes according to Trump’s plan, a Palestinian-Israeli peace agreement will be signed by Friday because negotiating a beautiful Middle East peace is very, very easy.  Trump did experience two small hiccups yesterday. First, Melania refused to hold his hand after they disembarked from Air Force One because hand holding is not covered in their post-nup.  Second, he inadvertently confirmed that he did betray Israel’s intelligence to the Russians by blurting out that he “never mentioned the word or the name Israel” when he gave Lavrov and Kislyak Israel’s top secret intelligence.  “They’re all saying I did, so you have another story wrong.”  Intelligence officials from Israel and the US are now looking for ways to share information without bringing Trump into the loop.

Flynn and Friends:  Monday was not a good day for former security adviser Flynn.  First he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination by refusing to provide any of the documents that have been subpoenaed by the Senate Intelligence Committee. As a result, he now faces the risk of being held in contempt by Congress.  Later in the day, Representative  Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Ethics Committee, released information showing that Flynn lied to the Pentagon when he failed to disclose the source of his Russian income and his contact with Putin during his security clearance renewal.  Unlike Flynn, former campaign manager Paul Manafort and erstwhile Trump friend Roger Stone have both provided their information to the Senate Committee. 

Trump Doth Protest Too Much:  Trump continues to act like a guy with something to hide.  It turns out that former FBI Director Comey isn’t the only intelligence professional he tried to obstruct.  He also asked Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats and Director of the NSA Admiral Michael Rogers to publicly deny the existence of any evidence of Russian collusion and to use their influence to get Comey to drop the Flynn investigation.  Both of them refused to comply with Trump’s “inappropriate” request and Rogers, like Comey, wrote a memo to the files about it.  Trump is close to hiring a whole team of lawyers to represent him as he responds to the Russia “witch hunt.”  He also may rehire his first campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski and his deputy campaign manager, David Bossie to serve as crisis managers for all things related to the Russian investigation.  

What Party Line:  A number of Republicans are starting to distance themselves from the Trump party line. Governor Christie, who ran Trump’s transition team before being summarily fired and replaced by Mike Pence, threw shade at both Flynn and Trump by saying that he had made it clear to then President-elect Trump that Flynn didn’t belong anywhere near the White House.  UN Ambassador Nikki Haley who has already shown that she has no problem speaking truth, actually expressed her support for the Russian investigation and said that she would do her best to reassure US partners in the Middle East that their secrets remain safe with the Trump administration despite his tendency to accidentally release confidential information.  Haley is on her first international trip and may find Lewandowski blocking her reentry when she tries to return home.

The Swamp:  Trump ran on the promise that he would “drain the swamp” and bragged about the strict rules he would impose to limit lobbyists from moving in and of government.  Instead he has provided waivers to a record number of industry lobbyists to facilitate their placement in agencies and departments where they are now disassembling the rules and regulations they lobbied against.  Unlike Obama, who also provided a few waivers,  Trump is refusing to make his waiver list public by pushing back against requests from the Office of Government Ethics and outside watchdog groups.

The End of Compassion:  Trump’s budget proposal is due to be released today.  Budget Director Mulvaney calls it a “taxpayer first” budget since it prioritizes taxpayers over benefit recipients and dispenses with “compassion.”  Despite Mulvaney’s preferences, it leaves most of Social Security and Medicare alone but, as expected, slashes Medicaid, arts, science, disease prevention, education, and social programs while beefing up defense, homeland security and the wall.  The budget which is only a starting point, assumes that Trumpcare is passed.  On Wednesday when the revised Trumpcare scoring report is released we will learn even more about the end of compassion.   

Thoughts go out to everyone in Manchester.

The Trump Doppelganger

Dave Trump:  Looks like the White House took a page from the movie Dave, replacing @realDonaldTump with Dave Trump for the Saudi Arabia leg of the Three Religion Tour.  A day after receiving a beautiful solid gold medal and enjoying himself in a ceremonial sword dance, “Dave” Trump gave a somewhat thoughtful speech to the Saudis and a group of dignitaries from other Muslim nations.  He stuck with the teleprompter text and managed not to condemn the whole Muslim faith or use the words radical Islamic terrorism. He didn’t mention the Muslim travel ban but then the Saudis who export radical Wahabism aren’t effected by the illogical ban anyway.  The speech, written by  Steven Miller, the automaton who also wrote Trump’s anti-Muslim campaign diatribes, sounded like it had been  heavily edited by national security adviser McMaster who has been working on banning Islamic terrorism from the Trump vernacular.  Except for the omission of any reference to the sorry state of human rights in the region, the Trump speech could have been delivered by Obama or Clinton. The Tweeter-in-Chief was supposed to follow his big speech with an informal one at a twitter forum, but by then someone must have told him that he has to turn his gold medal over to the Smithsonian when he gets home because he bagged the speech part, turning his duties over to favorite daughter, Ivanka.

The Kushner Effect:  Before leaving Washington, Jared Kushner, who may or may not be a person of interest in the Russia investigation, used his influence to shave a few hundred million off the price of a landmark $110 billion sale of “beautiful” US military equipment to the Saudis.  In exchange, the Saudis committed $100 million to a women’s empowerment fund that Ivanka is promoting together with the World Bank.  Ivanka had been planning to take an active role in the fund until it was pointed out that her father had spent a large part of his campaign bashing Hillary’s involvement in the Clinton Foundation as a massive conflict of interest.  The Saudi contribution was announced at a meeting on women’s issues between Ivanka and fifteen prominent Saudi women, all of whom were only able to attend because they had obtained permission slips and rides from their fathers or husbands.   

McMaster Doubles Down:  The Trump squad was mostly busy with trip plans but McMaster managed to find time to discuss Trump’s controversial Oval Office “Lavrov/Kislyak” meeting again, this time with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. McMaster didn’t deny that Trump had called former FBI Director Comey a nut job but said that the insult was taken out of context, though he didn’t try to explain when it would be appropriate to insult your FBI director in a conversation with Russian adversaries. He added that because Trump was trying to find areas of cooperation with the Russians there was no point in bringing up their interference in the 2016 elections. The once highly respected McMaster has moved over to the dark side.  To avoid any more tough questions, US correspondents were excluded from the White House Riyadh press conference.       

Next Stop Israel:  The Israel phase of the Trump trip is likely to be a little more challenging than the highly orchestrated Saudi portion.  Trump’s trip coordinators have shortened today’s planned airport welcoming reception allegedly because of the heat.  Either Trump has heard that Israeli AC isn’t up to Saudi standards or he has already become unmanageable and his affable doppelganger “Dave” is long gone which doesn’t bode well for Trump’s unrealistic peace aspirations.  Netanyahu is now trying to persuade his ministers, who are already annoyed by the schedule change, the intelligence leak, the refusal to acknowledge Israel’s control of the Western Wall, the size of the Saudi arms sale, the Iran nuclear deal and Trump’s reneging on his campaign promise to move the embassy to Jerusalem, to show up at the airport meet and greet.  As Trump should know by now, Democracies are a little harder to manage than Kingdoms.  Soon enough he will learn that three Israelis at a negotiating table will result in at least four views.  Trump’s trip to the ancient Masada fortress has been cancelled because Israel no longer allows helicopters to land on the ruin’s fragile surface and, unlike his predecessors Bush and Clinton, Trump doesn’t do cable cars.  Trump and Ivanka do still plan a private visit to the Western Wall.  Wonder what prayer will be on the slip of paper he leaves in the Wall?  A call for world peace or something more personal like a call for the end of the Russia investigations?  Tomorrow Trump meets with Palestinian leader Abbas in Bethlehem to broker his “bigger and better” peace deal.

On the Homefront:  Reince Priebus left early to return to Washington, either because he is about to be replaced or because someone has to interview Trump defense counsel candidates and help with the roll-out of Trump’s budget proposal.  Last night, the Washington Post reported that Trump’s budget plan takes another large chunk out of Medicaid and will also seek large reductions in a number of other social safety net programs including SNAP (food stamp) payments.      

Pence at Notre Dame:  Mike Pence gave a few commencement addresses this weekend including one at Notre Dame.  Approximately one hundred graduating students stood up and walked out during his speech, protesting Pence’s views and policies “that target the most vulnerable among us.”  A preview, perhaps, of what Trump will hear when he visits the Pope later this week?      

Calista and Newt:  Last summer, Seth Rich, a DNC staff member was murdered on his way home from work in what appears to have been a random act of violence.  A number of right wing conspiracy theorists claim that Rich was killed because he, not the Russians, had leaked the DNC emails to WikiLeaks.  Local police and the FBI have denied that there is any truth to this nonsense and Rich’s family has spoken out against the “harmful speculation.”  None of this stopped Newt Gingrich from advancing the “fake news” story on Sunday morning’s Fox & Friends show in an effort to detract from the investigation into Russia meddling and Trump team collusion. Gingrich was just trying to show his appreciation to Trump for appointing his wife Calista as Ambassador to the Vatican. 

The Never Ending Week

Takes One to Know One:  The Trump contingent may be off to Saudi Arabia, but the leaks keep coming. Friday afternoon, a source read sections of the transcript of Trump’s Oval Office meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and Ambassador Kislyak to the New York Times.  In it Trump boasted to his Russian buddies that  “I just fired the head of the FBI, he was crazy, a real nut job” before adding “I faced great pressure because of Russia.  That’s taken off.” It’s not clear if Trump made those remarks before or after he gave away top secret, highly valuable Israeli intelligence.  From Air Force One somewhere over the Atlantic, Sean Spicer responded that FBI Director Comey had to be fired because he was impacting the administration’s ability to engage, negotiate, and collude with Russia.  He did not dispute that Trump had called Comey a nut job but he did manage to throw in a condemnation of the leakers.  Somewhere in Moscow, Lavrov and Kislyak are celebrating the fruits of their election interference.    

A Person of Interest:  Not to be outdone by the NY Times, the Washington Post reported that a current White House official, someone close to Trump, has been identified as a significant person of interest as a result of the investigation into possible coordination between the Russians and the Trump campaign. On his evening Hardball show Chris Matthews tried to pry the name out of one of the Washington Post reporters pointing out that Secretary of State Tillerson, AG Sessions and son-in-law Jared Kushner are the only people that he can think of who fall into that category.  Matthews couldn’t get the reporter to budge but his money is on Kushner, Renaissance man.  If that’s true there will be a lot of job openings at the White House soon.  In another statement from Air Force One, Spicer shouted that “as the President has stated before”… “there was no collusion.”  No response from Kushner but, then again, we never hear Kushner talk.   

Comey Will Talk:  The recent appointment of Special Counsel Mueller had raised some doubt as to whether or not former FBI Director Comey would be able to testify before one or more of the Congressional committees that want to hear what he has to say about the events leading up to his dismissal and his conversations with Trump. Friday evening the Senate Intelligence Committee announced that they have won the Comey lottery.  Comey has agreed to testify in an open hearing shortly after Memorial Day.  Assuming that Trump isn’t able to stop him we will soon know more about what it’s like to work for the real nut job.    

More From Rosenstein:   According to The McClatchy Report, when Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein testified before the House on Friday, he revealed that the investigators into the Russia meddling are now also authorized to probe whether White House officials have engaged in a cover-up.  It may be too late, but if there’s still time on that flight to Saudi Arabia, Trump might want to watch All the President’s Men.     

Other Mean Stuff:  Before leaving for his Three Religion Tour, Trump told aides that he wants to end Obamacare subsidiaries in order to hasten its demise.  It’s not clear that Congress, increasingly nervous about the midterm elections, will let him get away with that.  Education Secretary Betsy Devos plans to eliminate a debt forgiveness plan for students who go into low paying service careers like teaching and social work.  Devos is in the process of divesting herself from a loan collection company that specializes in student loans but still puts the industry’s preferences first.   

Brooklyn Half Marathon today!  See you at the boardwalk.  

Retweeting to Form

Retweeting to Form:  Wednesday night, in an effort to appear unfazed by the appointment of Robert Mueller as Special Counsel for all things Russian, the White House released a carefully crafted, measured statement and hid Trump’s tweeter.  Thursday morning Trump unearthed his secret stash of smartphones and ended his brief twitter hiatus by tweet smacking his favorite targets Clinton and Obama before moving on to “this is the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history!”  He stuck to the theme during his pre-scheduled lunch with network anchors adding that the appointment of the special counsel “hurts our country terribly,” though in all likelihood by “our country” he meant himself.  Then in the press conference that followed his meeting with Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos, he went off script and whined that the appointment was “dividing the country” before launching into the old, now discredited, excuse that he had fired FBI Director Comey on the strong advice of Deputy AG Rosenstein, because of his poor, poor performance and due to his unpopularity.  President Santos stood quietly by his side, though it looked like he was mouthing the words:  Ayudame por favor, su Presidente es muy loco.  Trump’s advisers have suggested that the time has come for him to hire outside counsel.

Trump Tweets, Comey Writes Memos:   Comey has remained quiet and now that there is a Special Counsel his congressional testimony may be put off for a while. However, his friends and former colleagues are talking up a storm. Apparently, from the start, Comey was uncomfortable with Trump’s calls and couldn’t get Trump to understand that FBI policy discourages direct communication between the White House and the FBI.  Despite his attempts to “train” Trump to convey messages through his White House Counsel or the Attorney General’s office, the unconventional Trump remained “untrainable” and continued calling Comey.  In addition to asking Comey to “lay off” his good friend Michael Flynn,  he asked him to get federal authorities to put the word out that he was not being investigated.  Trump even got his Chief of Staff Priebus to pressure Comey to make comments exonerating Trump and his associates.  After every one of these conversations, Comey added another damning memo to the files.       

The Growing Flynn Problem:  Though their friendship only goes back to the campaign, Trump remains oddly committed to Flynn and continues to say that Flynn is a great guy.  Flynn told friends that they are still in touch and that Trump texted him to remain strong in the face of the ongoing investigations.  Despite a growing pile of evidence to the contrary Mike Pence still insists that the White House kept him in the dark about Flynn’s Russian and Turkish connections.  Pence continues to pretend that the letter that Elijah Cummings wrote him warning about Flynn’s Turkish lobbying doesn’t count.  Last week following advice from his military adviser, Trump decided to arm the Kurds in the battle against ISIS.  No one at the White House mentioned that he is following plans Obama tried to put in place during the transition when he sent his adviser Susan Rice to meet with Flynn.  Flynn who had just accepted $500,000 from the Turks, who oppose any cooperation with the Kurds, rejected the strategy.   

Russian Contacts:  Periodically Trump or one of his surrogates, including Mike Pence, deny that anyone from the Trump team had any contact with any Russians.  Then when information is leaked about a conversation or meeting between a Trumpkin and a Russian a Trump spokesman says “oops” we forgot to mention that one. Thursday, Reuters reported that there were at least eighteen “oops” contacts between Trumpkins and Russians, including six calls with Ambassador Kislyak.  Pence who is rolled out to earnestly deny any improper contact whenever asked is either a complicit liar, very cunning or really stupid. He is now raising funds for his future presidential campaign.

First off the Ship:  Republican Representative Jason Chaffetz, Chairman of the House Ethics Committee, is leaving Congress at the end of June to become, what else, a FOX commentator.  Tired of investigating Trump, he would prefer to advance alternative facts, applaud Trump’s accomplishment and maybe cover his downfall.  House Majority Leader Ryan learned about Chaffetz’s career plans and departure date from a reporter at his weekly press conference where he was also asked if Pence was making plans to become President when Trump leaves.   Ryan’s response to that last question was “Good Grief.”  Trey Gowdy, nicknamed the Hillary Slayer for relentlessly going after Hillary Clinton over Benghazi, is expected to replace Chaffetz as Chair of the Ethics Committee.  

Rosenstein Talks:  Rosenstein testified before a closed meeting of the Senate yesterday.  Since the meeting was in the “cone of silence” only a few details emerged.  Rosenstein admits to writing the “fire Comey” memo on his own, but confirms that Trump’s decision to fire Comey predated his memo.  Republican Senator Lindsey Graham says that the Russian probe “is now considered a criminal investigation” and added that going forward it will be more difficult for congressional committees to conduct their individual investigations because they won’t want to interfere with the Special Counsel’s work.  Democrats are a little bummed about that because they want to influence public opinion with as many public hearings as possible.

The Next FBI Director:   Trump still plans to pick his next FBI Director today before embarking on his world tour.  The four finalists in this round of the Apprentice are former Oklahoma Governor and FBI Agent Frank Keating, former FBI Agent and Justice Department spokesperson Richard McFeely, Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe and former Senator Joe Lieberman.  Lieberman is the leading contender in part because Trump thinks he would please both Democrats and Republicans.  Democratic opposition to Lieberman, who testified on behalf of Sessions during his confirmation hearing, is already building.  

The Law of Unintended Consequences

Unintended Consequences:  Last week when Trump fired FBI Director Comey and said that his decision was based on the recommendation of Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein, he thought he had brilliantly deflected blame and hastened the end of the Russian probe in one fell swoop.  Was he ever wrong.  Rosenstein, who had built up a reputation as a highly competent attorney during his years of government service was less than pleased by accusations that he was just another Trump toady and grew increasingly unhappy as Trump’s incriminating tweets, security leaks and attacks on the credibility of the Comey memos reached a deafening crescendo.  Yesterday evening he appointed Robert Mueller, a highly respected attorney and former FBI Director under both Bush and Obama, and ironically a friend and colleague of Comey’s, to serve as Special Counsel for the Russia investigation.  Trump and Attorney General Sessions, Rosenstein’s boss, weren’t told about Mueller’s appointment until one hour before Rosenstein’s announcement.  Rosenstein is still scheduled to testify in a closed door Senate session today about Comey’s dismissal but now instead of being vilified by all the Democrats, he can expect a warm welcome.  The Republicans, who were on record questioning the need for a Special Counsel up until the time that Mueller was appointed, are now on board because at this point they would look even more partisan if they objected.  Last night Trump’s communication team remained in hiding but Trump issued a statement saying that a thorough investigation will confirm that there was no collusion adding “he will never stop fighting for the people and the issues that matter most to the future of the country.”  In other words, he will still try to destroy Obamacare, build a war, defund social services, and reduce his own taxes.  

Vetting Flynn:  Last night, the New York Times revealed that Trump’s transition team knew that former security adviser Michael Flynn was under FBI investigation for secretly working as a paid lobbyist for Turkey because he told them all about it.  Trump who last week told NBC’s Lester Holt that he didn’t know any of this and had just relied on Obama’s vetting, hired Flynn anyway because he likes him a lot and didn’t think it was a problem for Flynn to get access to every government secret. During his short tenure as security adviser, Flynn stopped a military plan that Turkey opposed. NBC reports that Flynn and Paul Manafort are now the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation.

It’s the Press:  Yesterday morning while speaking to graduates at the Coast Guard Academy, Trump went off script and told the cadets that “no politician in history has been treated worse or more unfairly” by the news media and Washington elites than him.  And this was before the appointment of the Special Counsel.  Trump, probably wishes that he could emulate his BFF, Turkey’s President Erdogan and throw a few members of the press corps in jail and manhandle some of those Washington elites.  Erdogan’s thuggish bodyguards viciously beat up a few anti-Erdogan protesters in Washington, DC on Tuesday while Erdogan was lunching with Trump.  After a long delay, the State Department finally issued a strong protest to Turkey.       

Another Russian Connection:  VEB, the Russian state owned bank that Jared Kushner met with in December but then forgot to mention on his disclosure forms, provided some financing for a Trump related Toronto Hotel project. Though the project was presented as a Trump joint venture, the Trump organization says that it doesn’t have an equity interest in the hotel and only licenses its brand and manages the hotel and residences.  Putin was chairman of VEB’s supervisory board.  The bank is now on the US sanctions list and the FBI is investigating its connection to Trump.  

Idle Chatter:  During the presidential campaign Republican House Leader Kevin McCarthy was taped telling a group of Republican representatives that he thought that Putin could be making payments to Trump.  Paul Ryan was so concerned about the comment that he interrupted McCarthy and told the rest of the crowd not to repeat the remarks. Yesterday, McCarthy and Ryan denied that the remarks were ever made until they were confronted with the tape.  They then changed their story and said that McCarthy was just being funny.  McCarthy probably was just joking, but then again some jokes turn out to be true.  In any case, McCarthy whose name has been mentioned as a replacement for Chief of Staff Reince Priebus whose job is reportedly in jeopardy, is probably no longer under consideration.  Putin continued trolling yesterday by offering Congress his “tapes” of last week’s Lavrov, Kislyak Oval Office meeting, the one where Trump leaked valuable intelligence that put an undercover Mossad agent’s life at risk.

FBI Director Finalists:  In between graduation speeches and crisis meetings, Trump has been interviewing candidates for America’s Next FBI Director. Right wing Senator Cornyn, Trump’s first choice, pulled himself out of the running when it became apparent that he wouldn’t be able to get enough votes to pass the Senate.  The list now includes a surprise candidate, former Connecticut Senator and Democratic Vice President nominee Joe Lieberman, who was interviewed on Wednesday.   

The Market is Getting Nervous:  The stock market is starting to catch up with Trump reality.  Yesterday the Dow dropped 373 points as investors belatedly realized that Trump’s plans to spur growth through deregulation and corporate tax cuts will likely be upstaged by all of the pending investigations.    

No Trump Tweets on Wednesday, too many other things going on at the White House.

The Comey Memos

The Comey Memos:  Trump should have thought twice before firing FBI Director Comey.  The ever diligent Comey memorialized each one of his conversations with Trump with a memo to the files.  Tuesday afternoon the NY Times beat out the Washington Post for Trump bombshell of the day when it reported that one of those memos detailed an Oval Office meeting that took place the day after former security adviser Michael Flynn was fired.  According to Comey’s memo, at the end of the meeting, Trump ushered everyone, including Attorney General Sessions and Vice President Pence, out of the Oval Office before cornering Comey and asking him to “let go” of the Flynn investigation.  Trump, who’s been known to lie now and then, denies that he ever asked Comey to leave Flynn alone.  In response to the news, Representative Chaffetz, Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, sent a letter demanding that the FBI turn over all of Comey’s Trump-related memos and it’s only a matter of time before Comey testifies.  John McCain said “we’ve seen the movie before, it’s reaching Watergate size” and talked about another shoe dropping from his oft mentioned centipede.  House Majority Leader Ryan ran away from reporters and Senate Majority Leader McConnell repeated his confidence in Trump but asked for less drama.  Democrats are throwing around the words obstruction of justice and impeachment.    

Another Day, Another Contradiction:  Tuesday morning, Trump contradicted his advisers and tweeted proudly taking full credit for sharing highly sensitive intelligence with Lavrov and Kislyak, his Russian buddies, because he is president and the president “has the absolute right” to reveal secrets.  Despite Trump’s gleeful admission, National Security Adviser McMaster again tried to play down the significance of Trump’s gaffe suggesting that Trump didn’t know enough about the value of the intelligence to realize that sharing it was damaging.  McMaster further obfuscated by adding that the intelligence wasn’t that valuable anyway but couldn’t come up with an explanation as to why Homeland Security Assistant Tom Bossert raced out of the Lavrov, Kislyak meeting at warp speed to warn the CIA and NSA about Trump’s leak.    

The Source:  Israel, the source of the sensitive information leaked to the Russians, is furious.  According to Debkafile, an Israeli website focused on military matters, the leaked intelligence concerned Israel’s capabilities for intercepting communications and signals and involved highly secret cutting edge technology.  Prior to Trump’s leak, no country outside of the US knew about Israel’s capability. The exposure of the technology to Russia, Syria and Iran’s ally, is seriously damaging to Israel and the war on terrorism. Trump’s team added insult to injury on Tuesday when McMaster refused to acknowledge that the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest prayer site, was part of Israel and Spicer said that it was something that would be discussed when Trump meets with Netanyahu. Earlier in the week, Trump’s advance team had rebuffed Israel’s offer to help with logistics for Trump’s planned visit to the Wall by saying that it was outside of Israel’s purview.  Netanyahu may soon be wishing for the good old days when Obama was president.  Sheldon Adelson is positively apoplectic.

And Then There’s Manafort:   Yesterday, NBC reported that Federal prosecutors have subpoenaed records related to a $3.5 million loan that Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort took out through a shell company last August right after leaving the campaign.  The mortgage loan was made by Spruce Capital, a company owned by Joshua Crane who has partnered with Trump on real estate deals.  Spruce is partially funded by one of those pro-Russian Ukrainian magnates who also contributed to Trump’s campaign.  Manafort repaid the loan in March but there is no record that he ever paid $36,000 of taxes due on the loan.            

Another Autocrat:  Trump welcomed Turkish President Erdogan, another one of his favorite autocrats, to the White House on Tuesday.  Erdogan managed to ignore Trump’s mangled pronunciation of his name, but had a harder time with Trump’s recent decision to arm Syrian Kurds.  Trump embraced Erdogan as a great friend and ignored his domestic crackdown on protesters and the press. 

Upcoming Trip:  If he makes it to the end of the week, Trump will be leaving for his Three Religion Tour, his first international foray since becoming President.  After he meets with the Pope he will be staying in Italy to attend the G7 Summit.  Trump’s advisers have told allies to keep conversations with Trump short and simple because they can’t get him to focus on preparation material, have no idea if he understands any of the issues, and are fearful of another major gaffe.      

Monday night after Trump’s intelligence gaffe was revealed it was reported that a shouting match had broken out at the White House, no doubt they were still screaming last night.  

Bigly Screw-Up

What Was He Thinking:  While bragging about all the neat stuff his advisers tell him, Trump carelessly revealed highly confidential, classified material to Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and Ambassador Kislyak during their Oval Office tete-a-tete last week.  The intelligence concerning the location and nature of an Islamic State terrorist plot had been provided by a US partner under the assumption that it would be safeguarded. Even sharing it with other allies would have required their consent.  Trump’s disclosure puts “sources and methods” at risk and most certainly pissed off the unnamed partner who will think twice before sharing such sensitive information with US intelligence agencies again.  This was a bigly screw-up.  Aides present when Trump went off script were so concerned that they immediately reported what was said to the relevant US intelligence agencies.  One or more people at those agencies was so freaked out that they then leaked his screw-up to the Washington Post and New York Times who, given the sensitivity of the information, limited what they included in their respective papers.  Yesterday evening, after a panicked White House spinning session, carefully parsed non-denial, denials were released by Secretary State Tillerson and Security Advisers  McMaster and Powell.  Their statements were oddly off topic and are being greeted with a high degree of skepticism.  GOP Senator Corker reacted by saying that the “White House is in a downward spiral” and  even Paul Ryan, Trump’s lapdog, expressed concern. No comment from Trump on the irony that he spent months attacking “crooked Hillary” for being “extremely careless” with highly classified information.  Then again, Hillary’s failure to share sensitive intelligence with the Russians may be why Putin threw his support behind Trump.

Trump Words Matter:   Administration lawyers were in court again on Monday challenging a Hawaii judge’s decision to halt Trump’s travel ban.  Once again Trump’s words are coming back to haunt him.  The panel of 9^th Circuit US Court of Appeals judges asked questions about Trump’s campaign statements calling for the banning of all Muslim travel to the US, wanted to know if he had ever repudiated those statements, and questioned if the ban had anything to do with security or whether it was just a ban on Muslims. It doesn’t help the administration’s case that Trump’s call to ban all Muslims remained on his campaign website until last week.    

Voter Rights For All:  Last year, a Federal Appeals court overturned a North Carolina law that imposed stringent ID requirements on voters because it targeted African-Americans under the guise of eliminating the kind of non-existent voter fraud that Trump is always complaining about and Pence is tasked to investigate.  Yesterday, the Supreme Court decided not to hear an appeal of the lower court’s ruling effectively eliminating the restrictive regulations for now. Republican legislators haven’t given up and plan to enact new voting restrictions.  Their efforts will be stymied by the new Democratic Governor who was voted in after the last set of voting restrictions had been signed into law by his predecessor.

Not so Safe Pesticide:  A few years ago scientists at the EPA concluded that the pesticide Chlorpyrifos causes developmental problems in children and that it should be banned.  The Obama administration had been taking steps to ban it but Scott Pruitt, Trump’s EPA head, recently reversed Obama’s decision. On Friday dozens of farmworkers were poisoned by the chemical and told to seek out immediate medical care.  Dow Chemical, who manufactures Chlorpyrifos contributed $1 million to Trump’s inauguration and then asked the Trump administration to set aside the ban and ignore the research showing that the pesticide was harmful because that’s what $1 million buys.

The Hermit Kingdom Strikes Again:  Security experts believe that North Korean hackers were likely responsible for the ransomware hack that froze computers across Europe over the weekend. The attacks were based on vulnerabilities in Microsoft systems that were found by the NSA, stolen and then published by WikiLeaks in March. After the March leak, Microsoft sent out a security patch, but apparently not all users had bothered to update their systems.  Note to PC users, check that your computers have been updated!   

Next Up:  Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will be making a command performance in front of a closed door Senate session Thursday to discuss FBI Director Comey’s firing.  Democrats were already pressing for the appointment of a special prosecutor for the Russia investigation. In light of Trump’s intelligence screw-up Rosenstein should expect more pressure and a testy reception.  Though the White House still won’t confirm their existence, Democrats want to get hold of the Comey “dinner tapes.”  While they are at it, they should also request a copy of Trump’s conversation with Lavrov and Kislyak.  If Trump won’t provide it, they could try asking the Russians for their copy.   

Who's Out, Who's In?

Palace Intrigue:  When the reaction to the firing of FBI Director Comey spun out of control last week, the ever introspective Trump blamed his staff, especially the ones he kept in the dark and then fed a misleading rationale.  After setting up his communications staff to sound even more ridiculous than usual, he even went so far as to suggest that he is considering cancelling the daily news conference, replacing them with daily written memos and biweekly news conferences by, none other than, Donald J. Trump, reality star extraordinaire.  Spicer, Huckabee Sanders and Mike Dubke, the infrequently seen communications director, are now treading water and rumors abound that Trump is considering hiring FOX newscaster Kimberly Guilfoyle as his new press secretary.  There have even been some suggestions that he is considering hiring some FOX production people to make the press conferences more professional because FOX is so professional.  Get ready for more smoothly spun alternative facts.  It’s not just the communications team that’s in hot water.  Reportedly, Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, Strategist Steve Bannon, and White House Counsel Don McGahn are on the outs too.  And there’s even been some suggestions that Trump is peeved with some of his cabinet members including  Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, or maybe someone finally convinced him that Ross’ reported Russian business connections are problematic.  Trump is leaving the country at the end of the week for his big Three Religion Tour so unless he plans on throwing a few grenades beforehand, changes could be deferred until his return.

Next Year in Jerusalem, Not:  Another campaign promise hits the dirt.  Looks like the US won’t be recognizing the capital of Israel as the capital of Israel anytime soon.  Secretary of State Tillerson confirmed this weekend that the US will once again extend a waiver of the US law requiring that the embassy be moved to Jerusalem while it assesses the impact that moving the embassy would have on regional peace prospects.   US Ambassador Friedman, who owns a home in Jerusalem and previously stated that he would locate his office there will be living in the official US Ambassador’s residence outside of Tel Aviv and keeping his office in Tel Aviv.  Sheldon Adelson, the Republican mega donator and Trump supporter, is furious about Tillerson’s statements and is shocked to learn that Trump doesn’t always stick to his promises, even when paid millions to do so.  In the same interview, Tillerson also said that with so much to discuss when Lavrov and Kislyak were hanging in the Oval Office, there just wasn’t enough time to discuss election interference because they needed to leave time for selfies.       

Clapper Talks:  Obama era Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, is tired of Trump claims that he said that the Trump campaign did not collude in Russia’s interference with the 2016 election.  This weekend he forcefully debunked Trump’s recent tweet that “when James Clapper himself, and virtually everyone else with knowledge of the witch hunt, says there is no collusion when does it end?”  Trump is referring to the comments Clapper made when he testified in March that he had no knowledge of any collusion at the time he left his position.  Trump consistently ignores that Clapper has also said that he would not be privy to any information gathered since January, nor would he be knowledgeable of what the FBI investigation may have uncovered.  This Sunday, Clapper slapped back at Trump by saying that “our institutions are under assault internally” by Trump who is “eroding” the American system of checks and balances on political power.  Trump may want to think twice before citing Clapper again.   

Sessions in Charge:  Attorney General Sessions was a busy guy last week.  Not only did he help justify Comey’s firing but he’s managed to turn back Obama era criminal sentencing reforms.  Sessions has directed Federal prosecutors to charge defendants with the most serious offenses that can be proved so that they will then be subjected to the longest possible sentences.  Essentially Sessions wants to go back to imprisoning as many drugs offenders, preferably offenders of color, for as long as possible, a practice that has been rejected by those on both sides of the ideological spectrum from Obama to the conservative Koch Brothers, as costly, ineffective and cruel, but Sessions is in charge now and so the clock is being turned back.  Sessions’ busy agenda also included first round interviews of Trump’s list of FBI Director candidates because Sessions, who is supposed to be recused from the investigation of Russian and Trump team collusion, is the right guy to sign off on the person who will be in charge of the investigation.  Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein, who was left holding the bag for last week’s Comey firing, also participated in the interview process providing him with some needed distraction from Democratic leadership’s calls for him to resign or appoint a special prosecutor to take over the Russia investigation.      

Another Missile Launch:  Kim Jong-Un answered Trump’s call for a meeting with the successful launching of a more advanced missile this weekend.  This one may have the capability to carry a nuclear payload. In response, UN Representative Nikki Haley called for still more sanctions.  Trump is President and this is just another  problem that he can’t tweet away.   

Curiouser and Curiouser

The Curious Timeline:  On January 24, security adviser Flynn was interviewed by the FBI about his cozy relationship and sanctions relief conversation with Russian Ambassador Kislyak.  On January 26, after getting a heads up from the FBI, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates warned White House Counsel Don McGahn that Flynn was playing footsie with the Russians and could be a blackmail target.  McGahn immediately updated Trump.  So what did Trump do next?  Having learned that his security adviser was a threat to national security, he didn’t boot Flynn, instead he summoned FBI Director Comey for dinner on January 27.  On January 30, Trump fired Yates.  As to Flynn, Trump did nothing until February 13 when, after being outed by the Washington Post, he fired him for “lying to Pence.”

The Dinner with Donald:  Comey told friends he was concerned about going to a private dinner at the White House with Trump but went anyway because “you can’t turn down an invitation from the boss.”  Over meatloaf and ice cream, Trump not so casually asked if he was a target of the Russia investigation and tried to extract an oath of loyalty from Comey while implying that Comey’s job would be safe as long as he was a team player.  Comey promised honesty not loyalty.  Trump’s version of the dinner is that Comey said he wasn’t a target and that he didn’t ask for a pledge of loyalty.  Comey hasn’t spoken yet but his friends and colleagues say Comey would have said nothing about the investigation.  Last week, with the Russia investigation heating up, Comey requested more prosecutorial resources.  He was fired on Tuesday.

The Tapes:  Comey is still silent, but Trump’s been engaging in a twitter tsunami.  In response to press reports that Comey wouldn’t have said the things that Trump says he said, Trump tweet threatened Comey saying he  “better hope that there are no tapes of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press.”  With that tweet Trump unwittingly unleashed a firestorm. Trump, no student of history, learned nothing from Nixon’s fall.  As of yet there is no confirmation as to whether or not Trump really has wiretapping “microwaves and toasters” in the White house but it sounds like at least one of his lawyers has told him to stop talking about it.  Spicer refused to comment about the tapes in the daily news conference, and Trump stayed mum when asked about them in an interview with Fox’s Jeanine Pirro.  He also told Pirro that though he didn’t ask Comey to pledge his loyalty or first born child, he thought that it would be reasonable to do so which in Trumpspeak is an admission that he did.   If the tapes exist it would be illegal for Trump to have them destroyed.  Senator Dianne Feinstein has already said she wants to subpoena them.  Comey, who apparently has a great memory and a history of documenting troubling meetings by writing memos to the “files” isn’t concerned.   

The Letter:  Trump had his tax lawyers at Morgan Lewis give him an artfully written “certified” letter stating that he owes no debts to Russians, that no Russians have equity investments in his properties and that he has no investments in Russian entities. The letter went on to say that Trump’s only Russia related income was from a beauty contest, the sketchy sale of Florida property to a Russian oligarch and routine condo sales.  Of course the letter says absolutely nothing about investments or loans from shell companies based in Cyprus, the Netherlands, or the Virgin Islands, the way that Russians and others seeking secrecy would invest in real estate assets. Adding to the absurdity of the letter, Morgan Lewis was named Russian Law Firm of the Year in 2016.

The Investigation:   Despite Trump’s continuing assertions that the Russia investigation is a witch hunt, it goes on.  The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FINCEN) has agreed to share financial records with the Senate Intelligence Committee.  The Committee wants to see any information about relevant shell companies, money laundering and property transfers.  The Justice Department has requested former Campaign Manager Paul Manafort’s banking records and are likely looking to learn more about his real estate investments.  NY Attorney General Schneiderman and Manhattan District Attorney Vance are also examining Manafort’s real estate investments. And Democratic Senators Durbin and Feinstein are calling for Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein, this week’s winner of the Trump Blame Game award, to resign if he refuses to name a special prosecutor for the Russia investigation.  Despite Trump’s best efforts, he isn’t doing well at this week’s round of Whack a Mole.

The Next FBI Director:  Trump has started interviewing candidates for FBI Director.  The best way for him to make the uproar about Comey’s poorly timed and executed firing die down would be to replace him with a non-partisan candidate.  But this is Trump and that’s not the way he does things so though he is considering Andrew McCabe, the acting director of the FBI, this weekend’s list of interviewees includes Senator John Cornyn, Majority Leader McConnell’s right hand man, who last week tweet slammed the Democrats “as hypocrites for decrying the firing of a man they’ve also assailed.”   

The Most Revealing Tweet of the Week:  “As a very active President with lots of things happening, it is not possible for my surrogates to stand at the podium with perfect accuracy!...”  Which is Trump’s way of saying he lies, they lie and he sets Pence up to lie.  And that’s okay.