Dealing With the Devil

Playing for Time:  Over the weekend Trump demanded an investigation into the “spying” on his campaign.  At the same time he weighed in on the dispute between the Justice Department and House Intelligence Chairman Nunes and his faction, the dispute about whether or not he and his cohorts should be provided access to highly classified information connected to the Russian investigation, information that they shouldn’t be allowed to see because of concerns that they will leak it, expose confidential sources and share it with Trump, who is one of the people who is being investigated.  Yesterday, following a “you better show up or else” command from the White House, Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein and FBI Director Wray met with Trump. As a result of the meeting, Rosenstein agreed to permit Congressional leadership, i.e. the Nunes contingent, to “review highly classified and other information” that they have requested.  It’s still not clear what information will be provided nor is it clear whether or not Democratic leadership will be invited to participate in the review.  As he promised on Sunday,  Rosenstein also added an investigation into any “irregularities” related to the FBI surveillance of the Trump team members who were hanging with Russians to the list of things that the Justice Department Inspector General is already reviewing. Rosenstein’s concessions, particularly his agreement to allow the review of confidential documents related to an ongoing investigation, one that is looking into Trump, is unprecedented.  At best he and Wray have decided to cooperate in order to protect their respective jobs, particularly Rosenstein’s, in order to give Mueller more time to complete his investigation.  At worst, he is further empowering Trump and providing him and his defense team with critical information that will help them thwart the investigation. For his part Trump “lawyer” Giuliani, asserts that Trump is just doing what a President ought to do and that he is not doing anything to subvert the investigation into his own activities which is of course preposterous hogwash, to put it mildly.  As to the confidential source who assisted the FBI by cozying up to Trump campaign aides Carter Page, George Papadopoulos and Sam Clovis, his cover has already been burned.  His name is Stefan Halper, the Washington Post describes him as a “well-connected veteran of past GOP administrations who convened senior intelligence officials for seminars at the University of Cambridge in England.”  In that role he contacted the three Trump aides for brief talks and meetings on foreign policy in an attempt to figure out what they were up to.  In other words, contrary to Trump’s disingenuous accusation, he wasn’t inserted into the campaign but was helping the FBI do what they are supposed to do.  As to Rosenstein, his decision to cooperate with Trump is either a shrewd move that will allow the investigation to continue or a tragic concession to a bigly bully whose devilish demands can never be satisfied. Rosenstein is running out of space, at some point he is going to have to say NO to Trump’s demands. That’s when the Saturday Night-like massacre and quite possibly the demonstrations in the street will begin.

Leadership Intrigue:  Rosenstein isn’t the only one who may soon be shown the door.  House Speaker Ryan is also on thin ice. As a result of his announcement that he won’t be seeking reelection he appears to have lost the ability to round up Republican votes for key pieces of legislation.  Last week he couldn’t get his crowd to pass the important farm bill.  Because the bill included new work requirements for food stamp recipients, Democrats weren’t willing to vote for it, leaving Ryan reliant on getting the support from all Republican factions, something that he couldn’t achieve because of demands from the conservative Freedom caucus members who held up their support for the bill in an effort to force a vote on restrictive immigration legislation.  As to immigration legislation, the more moderate wing of the Republican party has also broken ranks with Ryan.  They are teaming with their Democratic colleagues in an attempt to force a vote on several immigration alternatives, in the hope that a more moderate plan will ultimately be passed.  For his part, Ryan doesn’t want to put anything forward that won’t win Trump’s approval.  Behind the scenes a number of Republicans are pushing for Ryan to step down from his post, allowing Kevin McCarthy, his likely successor to assume his position as Speaker.  However, even that plan is complicated.  Though he has a lot of Republican support, McCarthy doesn’t yet have all the votes he would need.  Nevertheless, Budget Director, Mick Mulvaney, himself a former Congressman, wants to see McCarthy’s election pushed forward in part because he’s ready to see Ryan go and in part because by a quirk of House rules calling for the election of a new Republican leader would mandate Democrats to also vote for their party leader. He figures that forcing the Democrats to voice support for Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, the Republican’s favorite punching bag, in the run up to the midterm elections would provide Republicans with a valuable anti-Democratic talking point.  That Mulvaney, already busy dismantling consumer protections and all that budget stuff, can always be counted on to find the time to come up with more nefarious plans.  As of now Ryan has no plans to stepdown early, but you never know.

The War Zone:  The North Korea summit remains up in the air, Trump has woken up to the realization that negotiating with North Koreans and the Little Rocket Man is likely to be difficult and that he might not be able to achieve that denuclearization outcome that he’s promised. South Korean President Moon Jae-in is due to meet with Trump today to discuss the summit.  Moon, the driving force behind talks with North Korea and the guy who would probably deserve a Nobel Prize if an agreement is achieved, is committed to seeing the summit go forward. Moon has some support from the White House trinket team, they have already produced commemorative coins, ones that prominently feature Trump’s name, and what good are coins without a summit?  Solving the trade impasse with China is also complicated.  Apparently, Trump’s trade team has been fighting in private and in public and the Chinese have been doing their best to exploit those divisions.  Overnight, the Secretary of Treasury Mnuchin faction announced that an agreement of sorts has been reached regarding ZTE, the sanctioned Chinese phone company, the one that does business with North Korea and Iran and produces phones that “spy” on users.  Apparently the Chinese have agreed that the company will make major management changes, in exchange the US will lift the sanctions imposed on the company.  In return the Chinese are supposed to lift tariffs on US farm products, although the White House insists that is not a quid pro quo, that President Xi is just removing those sanctions out of the goodness of his heart.  Yesterday, Secretary of State Pompeo weighed in on Iran in a much expected speech.  He didn’t provide much of a Plan B to replace the Iran agreement that Trump pulled out of earlier in the month,  but did demand that Iran  make sweeping changes, from dropping their nuclear program to pulling out of the Syrian civil war, or face severe economic sanctions.  Iran responded by saying that they knew all along that all that Trump really wants is regime change and that they aren’t interested.  One Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander called for the “people of Iran to deliver a strong punch to the mouth of the American Secretary of State and anyone who backs the US.”  British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson tried to be more diplomatic but stated the obvious: a "new jumbo Iran negotiation" would not be "very easy to achieve."  Diplomacy is complicated.

Gun Politics:  The responses to last week’s Santa Fe school shooting have been enlightening, and not in a good way.  Oliver North of Iran-Contra scandal fame, the NRA’s incoming president, has blamed the “youngsters who are steeped in a culture of violence” in which many young boys have “been on Ritalin” since early childhood.  He went on to say that “You are not going to fix it by taking away the rights of law-abiding citizens.”  In other words, guns have nothing to do with school shootings.  Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick also denied that school shootings have anything to do with guns. He blamed the tragedies on abortions and violent video games.  He also argued that schools have too many entrances and exits and that the elimination of doors would solve the whole shooting problem, because who cares about fire safety anyway. He also called for more guns saying “the best way to stop that person is with another person with a gun. But an even better way is four people with a gun to stop that person."  Sigh.