Where's That Nobel Prize?

Good News Bad News:  First the good news, very early this morning Secretary of State Pompeo’s plane landed at Andrews Air Force base with three special passengers, the Americans who had been held hostage by Kim Jong Un in North Korea. Trump also landed, fresh from the White House with Melania in tow.  At the same time VP Pence arrived from wherever he’d been.  While the arriving Pompeo plane was positioned on the runway with a big American flag set behind it to make for a good TV picture, Trump went on board to welcome the freed guys home.  After they had all disembarked Trump told the greeting crowd and press corps that he would bet the network news that they had never had ratings like this at 3 AM before.  Trump’s reality TV tendencies aside the return of the three is great news however, its important to realize that from Kim Jong Un’s standpoint returning hostages in exchange for concessions is standard operating procedure.  He has done this before and if things don’t work out during his upcoming negotiations with Trump he will probably grab a few new hostages to use for  future advantage.  Even if the negotiations don’t go well, Kim has already gotten part of what he wants.  He’s managed to get an American president to agree to sit down with him one on one, and in his eyes that means that he is being treated like the big man and world nuclear power that he believes he is.  As to Trump, after bragging that he had managed to do what others have not, he did temper his enthusiasm just a little by saying that there is no guarantee that the negotiations will work out.  Concerns are building that Trump will cede the Korean peninsula to China, withdrawing the US troops stationed in South Korea in exchange for anything that Kim Jong Un has to offer.  Hopefully, Trump who may be just a little too eager to have a major international accomplishment, won’t give too much away to secure the Nobel Prize that he believes he already deserves.  The last guy who hoped to get a Nobel for his denuclearization efforts was former Secretary of State Kerry, and we know how that turned out.   Now for the bad news, Trump’s other international decision has already started to earn dividends and not in a good way.  Israel and Iran are doing the tit-for-tat thing with bombs and missiles.  Israel has been bombing Iran controlled targets in Syria and Iran forces have now done something they have never done before, they fired rockets at Israel. Overnight Israel retaliated with more bombs.  Separately Saudi Arabia announced that they will advance their nuclear ambitions if Iran restarts it’s nuclear centrifuges.  Escalation and more nukes, not a good thing but something that should have been anticipated.  Where’s that much needed Plan B?      

The Cohen Catastrophe:  The Cohen story continues to build.  It turns out that he obtained far more money from the assortment of corporations aiming to buy access to Trump than was indicated in the papers that Stormy Daniels lawyer Michael Avenatti released on Monday.  While admitting that they had paid Cohen $1.2 million, more than was previously reported, Novartis explained that their prior CEO had been approached by Cohen and that they hired him for his expertise in health care only to realize that he knew nothing about the subject but then out of concern that ending their contract early would offend Trump, they continued to honor their agreement by making all of the required payments.  ATT concerned that they had too closely aligned themselves with Clinton, decided to work with Cohen in an attempt to set things straight with Trump.  They ended up paying Cohen $600,000 for his valuable insights, far more than the $200,000 first disclosed.  Korea Aerospace, fresh off of a scandal related to their accounting procedures claimed that they had hired Cohen for his accounting advice.  Cohen knows little if anything about corporate accounting but Korea Aerospace is up for a major US defense contract so the reality is that they thought a little cozying up to Cohen was well worth the expense.  Columbus Nova, the investment company controlled by Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg explained away its  $500,000 expenditure as a consulting fee to Cohen for his brilliant real estate advice.  Its worth nothing that Vekselberg is a partner of German Khan, another Russian oligarch who is also the father in law of Alex van der Zwaan, the Skadden lawyer who started his prison sentence yesterday, the one that he got after he was caught lying to Special Counsel Mueller.  Squire Patton and Boggs, the global law and lobbying firm that cancelled its arrangement with Cohen when his problems went public, said that their relationship with Cohen had been somewhat disappointing, he only brought in a few not very impressive clients.  One of those clients was US Immigration Fund, a firm that specializes in helping rich foreigners obtain EB-5 visas, not so coincidentally the firm also helped Jared Kushner’s sister arrange her trip to China, the trip where she got caught bragging about her family connections as she attempted to market Kushner condos in exchange for promises of visas. ATT, Vekselberg, and Novartis have all revealed that they’ve already been interviewed by Mueller’s team.   For their part Cohen and his lawyers have struck back at Michael Avenatti, while claiming that his information was largely false they’ve simultaneous accused him of releasing Cohen’s private banking information, an admission that the information was substantially accurate.  They are also asking Judge Kimba Wood to ban him from participating in Cohen’s legal proceedings as punishment for his actions and for “trying” the case in public.  As to the accuracy and source of the Avenatti information, Cohen’s lawyers are a little bit correct.  In addition to revealing information about some of the payments that were wired to Cohen’s accounts the Avenatti material includes a few small payments that were made to a few other guys named Michael Cohen leading some to think that someone who did a “Michael Cohen” search of the US Treasury suspicious activity databases may have been the source of the material.  Avenatti has not disclosed his source but he may have to come forward with more details soon especially if he gets called before the Judge.  In the meantime, a less than happy Treasury Department has launched its own investigation in an attempt to identify the leaker.

Torturous History:  Yesterday, Gina Haspel, Trump’s nominee to replace Mike Pompeo as Director of the CIA was on the Hill going through the torture of a confirmation hearing.  There is no question that Haspel has the chops to be the CIA Director, the problem is that part of those “chops” involve supervising one of those black sites where torture of terrorist captives took place, real torture.  Her subsequent writing of the memo that called for the destruction of the tapes of those waterboarding sessions has turned into a bigly problem for her.  During the public portion of her hearing, Haspel did pretty well for a while but then she started parsing words and providing evasive answers to questions about torture and how she would respond to Trump if he directed her to resume the CIA’s torture program.  Haspel’s responses were vague and less than responsive and though she agreed that torture was a bad thing, she refused to say that it was immoral.  After watching her testimony on TV, Senator John McCain, a guy who knows a lot about torture, concluded that he’d had enough of her, he released a statement saying "I believe Gina Haspel is a patriot who loves our country and has devoted her professional life to its service and defense. However, Ms. Haspel's role in overseeing the use of torture by Americans is disturbing. Her refusal to acknowledge torture's immorality is disqualifying. I believe the Senate should exercise its duty of advice and consent and reject this nomination."  Most Democrats agree with McCain’s concerns about Haspel’s history and vague responses, however West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, facing an uphill battle for reelection, says that he will support her.  Her nomination will go to the floor for a vote.

Other Stuff:  Devon Nunes, the chairman of the disreputable House Intelligence Committee continues to wage his war against the Mueller investigation.  Together with Congressman Trey Gowdy he is fighting for the release of some highly sensitive information about the investigation, including the identity of one of the FBI’s most important sources.  The Judiciary Department has been trying to keep that information from Nunes and Gowdy out of fears that revealing their source will put him in danger and will impact the intelligence agencies ability to credibly guarantee anonymity to others.  They are scheduled to meet with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein today for “further discussions.”  Separately, under pressure from Congressman Elijah Cummings, Gowdy, as Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, has threatened to subpoena the Justice Department official responsible for the controversial addition of the immigration status question to the 2020 Census.  That official has been dodging testifying because he knows that the addition of the question would have a chilling effect on census participation. Separately a number of House Republicans are planning to push for House Speaker Paul Ryan to bring up DACA legislation.  They believe that, together with their Democratic colleagues, they have the votes to force a vote to resolve the DACA standoff.