No Candor Here

The Spending Bill:  After significant back and forth including a last minute dash to the White House by Paul Ryan who had to deal with a pouting Trump who was upset that he won’t be getting much in the way of Wall funding, Congress has a $1.3 trillion spending bill.  The bill includes $1.6 billion of wall funding, much of which will go to fixing and replacing existing barriers and something called the “grain glitch” fix which corrects one of the boo boos in last year’s tax bill, a change that Democrats agreed to in exchange for an expansion of the low income housing tax credit.  The bill also sends $380 million to the states for the improvement of their election technology.  The bill doesn’t include a DACA fix and doesn’t include the restoration of the Obamacare insurance subsidies that had been promised to Senator Susan Collins in exchange for her vote on the tax bill.  To placate Trump no direct funding for the New York-New Jersey Gateway tunnel is included but the bill will allow several hundred million dollars of transportation funds to be directed towards the tunnel project, a compromise that will allow the tunnel to move forward.  Notably, the bill also includes the Fix NICS provisions that are intended to tighten background checks for gun purchasers and lifts restrictions that had prohibited the CDC from doing research on gun violence.  The gun provisions aren’t much but they are better than nothing and their inclusion in the spending bill is a tribute to the persistence of the Parkland students. The 2000 plus page bill still has to pass through the House and Senate before Saturday to avoid another shut down.  Not everyone is happy with the bill.  Complaining about the process and the size of the bill, Louisiana Senator Kennedy said “Whoever designed this process is not qualified to run a food truck…..It's embarrassing. And as bad as it looks from the outside, you ought to see it from the inside.” Freedom Caucus leader Mark Meadows actually said that “it’s troubling when we get a tunnel and don’t get a wall,” adding that he didn’t remember Trump calling for a tunnel at any of his rallies.

That Bromance:  No one is all that happy about Trump’s conversation with Putin.  The number of Senators criticizing his congratulatory call grew during the day and shockingly a number of the loudest complainers were actually members of the Republican party.  Iowa’s Senator Grassley said “I think Putin is a criminal. What he did in Georgia, what he did in Ukraine, what he did in Baltic, what he’s done in London poisoning people with active nerve gas, that’s a criminal act. I wouldn’t have a conversation with a criminal.”   Majority Leader McConnell said "The President can call whomever he chooses, when I look at a Russian election, what I see is a lack of credibility…… So, calling him wouldn't have been high on my list."  Notably McConnell also expressed strong support for Special Counsel Mueller though he stopped short of supporting any legislation to insure his longevity.  Others including Senator Sasse and Rubio also slammed Trump for congratulating Putin, although both of them directed as much ire towards the leaker who revealed that Trump had been specifically directed by the national security staff to avoid that congratulations.  They both said that the leaker should resign.  As to that leak, Chief of Staff Kelly put out the word that he is absolutely livid about it, which may mean that he was the leaker and he’s hoping that his ire will cover for his guilt.  It’s also possible that the fury about the leak is manufactured, an effort by Trump to distract from the fact that he congratulated Putin.  On the same call Trump agreed to meet with Putin sometime soon, something that came as a shock to his staff.  As of now there are no plans for a meeting but Trump promised, and Putin doesn’t take promises lightly so you never know.  As to the bromance, former CIA Director John Brennan told MSNBC’s Willie Geist that “I think he’s afraid of the president of Russia,” adding “the Russians may have something on him personally that they could always roll out and make his life more difficult.” Brennan is far from alone in voicing his concern, over the weekend retired four star General McCaffrey called Trump a threat to national security.    

The Deepening Qatar Mystery:  The backstory concerning the Trump administration’s decision to buck traditional US policy by backing Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates over Qatar in their ongoing dispute grows murkier by the day.  Last night, the NY Times reported that George Nader, an “informal” adviser to the UAE who was detained by the FBI while on route to Trump’s one year anniversary shindig, has now been granted immunity by Special Counsel Mueller. Mueller’s original interest in Nader was tied to his involvement in setting up the infamous and equally murky back channel meeting in the Seychelle Islands between Trump surrogate Erik Prince and one or more Russians.  It turns out that Nader is also deeply involved in the Qatar policy mystery. Nader, who has now contributed reams of back up correspondence to Mueller, reports that he cultivated Republican fund raiser Elliott Broidy and that together they influenced Trump to throw his weight behind Saudi Arabia and the UAE in their dispute with Qatar and Iran over Yemen even though that policy shift ran contrary to US interests and put thousands of the US sailors stationed at our important naval base in Qatar at risk. Nader got Broidy on board by “tempting” him with the prospect of $1 billion in contracts for his private security firm, $200 billion of which he actually delivered. Neither Nader or Broidy are “boy scouts,”  Nader is a convicted child molester and Broidy previously plead guilty to  providing $1 million in gifts to NY State pension officials in a scandal that brought down NY Comptroller Alan Havesi which makes his current position as vice chairman of the Trump Victory Fund fairly inappropriate, but then again Trump only hires the best people.  Not only did Nader and Broidy influence Trump’s Middle East policy, they also may be responsible for Trump’s disillusionment with the recently fired Secretary of State Tillerson.  The two pushed for Tillerson’s dismissal and also successfully blocked the appointment of career diplomat Anne Patterson to a Pentagon position. Broidy and Nader are also opposed to the Iran nuclear agreement and by successfully pushing Tillerson to the curb they may well have eliminated the last impediment to Trump killing the agreement on its next “reconfirmation” date.  As to Saudi Arabia, last night in another fairly damning piece, The Intercept reported that Saudi Arabia’s prince Mohammed Bin Salman, also known as MBS, who visited with Trump this week, has been bragging about how he has Jared Kushner “in his pocket,” and though Kushner’s lawyer denies that claim, it’s possible that Kushner would be happy to be in MBS’s pocket, to the extent that it holds money he could extract for his cash strapped  real estate assets.  No doubt, Mueller is looking into this too. 

FBI Wray:  In a rare interview with Justice correspondent Pete Williams, FBI Director Christopher Wray said that he would never let politics influence his decisions but refused to discuss the events surrounding Friday night’s firing of former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.  He also offered no explanation for the unusual acceleration of McCabe’s dismissal nor did he justify the appropriateness of firing him two days before his pension kicked in.  He went on to say that he hasn’t been pressured by Trump, but did not reveal if he follows Trump’s daily tweets especially the ones that relentlessly attacked McCabe and called for his dismissal.  He also didn’t deny that he had threatened to resign earlier in the year. He did say that he takes Russian attempts to disrupt the US power grid very seriously, with an emphasis on the very.  As to McCabe, yesterday it was also revealed that while he was the Acting Head of the FBI he had opened an investigation into Attorney General Sessions over his less than candid testimony about his Russia meetings. Sessions’ lawyer says that as far as he knows that investigation is over, however it’s not clear that anyone knows what Mueller, who would have taken over the inquiry, is really doing.  There is huge irony in McCabe getting canned for “lack of candor” while Sessions remains in office.

Facebook Footnote:  Mark Zuckerberg has finally spoken.  He’s acknowledged that the company really goofed when it came to its interaction and sharing of data with Cambridge Analytica and made things worse by failing to act decisively once it realized that 50 million user accounts had been harvested and used by Cambridge to influence, or at the very least try to influence, the outcome of the 2016 election.  He went on to say that he and the company really, really need to do better. When asked by CNN if Facebook should be regulated, he actually said that maybe it should.  As to Cambridge, its nefarious activities, ownership structure, and the involvement of Steve Bannon, the Mercer Family, Jared Kushner and Brad Parscale, Trump’s data guru, are just another one of those things now being scrutinized by Mueller.               

Election Update:  The results of the Pennsylvania 18 election are now official.  Republican Rick Saccone finally conceded to Democrat Conor Lamb, making him the official winner of the special election, Lamb will be sworn in next week.  Although both Saccone and Lamb plan to run again in November, there won’t be a rematch, with all of the districts in Pennsylvania redrawn by the courts, they are each expected to seek a different seat.