Winging It

Mueller Time:  Friday as cameras were focused on Trump and his late arrival to tea time with Queen Elizabeth, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appeared on a split screen to announce Special Counsel Mueller’s newest set of indictments in the Russia probe. These indictments specifically name twelve officers from the GRU, Russia’s foreign military intelligence agency, for hacking and publicly releasing emails and documents from the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), and various Hillary Clinton campaign staffers, including most notably campaign chair John Podesta.  The indictments specify that the released emails and documents were posted during the 2016 campaign by Guccifer 2.0, and the DCLeaks website and also provide further information about another entity, one that at least for now, is only referred to as Organization 1, but that is widely understood to be Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks.  The indictments further indicate that Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks were controlled and created by the specified Russian intelligence officers and mentions, though doesn’t specifically name, at least one American individual who was in direct contact with both Organization 1, i.e. WikiLeaks,  and the Trump campaign.  After the indictments were released, while denying that he’s done anything wrong, the nefarious and calculating Roger Stone, Trump’s long term friend and advisor, outed himself as that person.  By providing the names of the GRU officers and the exact timing of their actions, the indictments reveal a significant amount about how deeply US intelligence agencies have infiltrated the Russian intelligence apparatus, a reveal decision that must have been the subject of considerable internal debate within the US intelligence agencies.  The indictments also tie the timing of several of the GRU agents’ actions to some of Trump’s statements as well as the much publicized Don Jr Trump tower meeting with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya.  For example the indictments specifically detail how the timing of the Russian’s first attempt at getting into Hillary Clinton’s email server came just hours after Trump called for the Russians to try to find her “lost” emails during one of his more notable campaign speeches.  That attempt was either a remarkable and too convenient coincidence or reflected signaling from candidate Trump to his Russians partners.  The indictments also reveal more about Mueller’s strategy.  These Russians, unlike the set from the Russian oligarch controlled Internet Research Agency who were earlier indicted for manipulating social media sites, were actual Russian government officials under the direct control of Putin and beyond hacking of the Democrats, their crimes involve incursions into various state election systems. Mueller appears to be working his way to the center of the Trump campaign operation, expectations are that his next set of indictments will directly name US persons, at the very least Roger Stone, and maybe even a Trumpkin or two.  The newest indictments also reveal that some as yet unnamed Florida Republican Congressmen managed to get their hands on some of the information that was obtained by the Russians. Those Congressman may also find their names showing up in future Mueller missives.  As to the timing of Rosenstein’s announcement, though it was a surprise to the rest of us, Trump knew that the indictments were coming since he received a heads up from Rosenstein before he left Washington for the NATO meetings.  Nevertheless he continues to refer to the Russia investigation as a witch hunt and any press coverage of the Russia investigation as fake news because Russian election meddling just didn’t happen.  That message didn’t make it to Trump’s Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats who issued a red alert about attacks on the US digital infrastructure saying on Friday that the warning lights are blinking red again, we are at a critical point.” Adding the digital infrastructure of the U.S. “is literally under attack.” Also on Friday, the State of Maryland revealed that it is now aware that the company responsible for their election technology was acquired by a Russian oligarch, something that they are now looking into, or more accurately panicking about.  As to Trump’s congressional enablers, a few of them, led by Jim Jordan, the former wrestling coach who will do anything to divert attention from his own misdeeds and Freedom Caucus head Mark Meadows, smoother but very much team Trump, plan to initiate impeachment proceedings against Rod Rosenstein as early as today.  The justification for those proceedings is their allegation that Rosenstein has been refusing to provide them with all of the sensitive material about the Mueller investigation that they want to see.  At least for now those proceedings are not expected to succeed though they are likely to get a lot of support from many of Trump’s most dedicated Congressional enablers.  For his part, Congressman Trey Gowdy who had no problem leading the onslaught against FBI Agent Strzok during last week’s hearings, says that he doesn’t support efforts to impeach Rosenstein because if Trump wants to get rid of the persistent Deputy Attorney General he already has the power to just fire him.  As to those twelve GRU agents, don’t expect to see them in a US court anytime soon, if ever. There is no way that Trump will ask for them to be extradited and even if he did, Putin wouldn’t agree to cooperate.         

Putin Meeting:  Trump is moments away from his sit down with Vladimir Putin. Though a number of Democrats tried, rather pointlessly given that they have no sway over Trump, to get him to cancel the planned meeting in light of Friday’s indictments, Trump to no one’s surprise did not.  The meeting which Trump’s team earlier called a summit, is now being referred to by Trump’s press apparatus as just a meeting of friends or wannabee friends.  During a weekend interview Trump said that Putin is just a competitor unlike those guys who make up the European Union and the mainstream press, who he referred to as the real foes. Trump’s team, including US Ambassador to Russia, Jon Huntsman, report that Trump has no agenda for the hour and half meeting, that he plans to wing it and that he doesn’t expect anything of substance to come out of his time spent chatting alone with Putin with no one but their respective interpreters, to the extent that he lets the US interpreter accompany him.  No doubt, Putin has a very detailed and specific agenda and despite his comments and his teams assertions, Trump probably has one as well.  Fears remain that Trump will do something truly alarming like offer up a Baltic state or two, promise to pull from NATO, and/or formally recognize Russian’s annexation of Crimea, because that, like the hacking of the Democratic servers, is really Obama’s fault, or at least that is Trump and Putin’s not so coincidentally similar party lines.  Oddly enough that is also Senator Rand Paul’s assessment. Over the weekend he defended his decision to vote against the Senate resolution endorsing NATO because though he agrees that historically NATO had value, he blames NATO, the Clintons and Obama for triggering Putin’s Ukraine land grab by allowing Russia’s former satellites to become members of NATO.  Trump and Putin are also likely to discuss Syria, with expectations that Trump will continue to cede as much control over Syria’s future to Russia as possible because he really doesn’t want to waste anymore time or money over there, an outcome that sadly isn’t all that different than Obama’s as he too couldn’t quite figure out what to do about Assad and Syria.  Also, the two may actually reach some kind of decision on how to move forward with the extension of the New Start nuclear agreement, an agreement to reduce nuclear arms that was negotiated by of all people, Obama.  Early in his administration Trump dissed the agreement but now that he knows what it is about he seems interested in extending it beyond its 2021 expiration date and he really wants to be able to leave his talk with Putin with at least one accomplishment or something that could turn into an accomplishment.  Anyway, we may have to look to the Russians to find out what gets agreed to during the Putin-Trump sit down because Putin, whose spinmeister skills far exceed Trump’s, is likely to get his version of events out first and besides Trump may agree to something during the meeting without even realizing it and to the extent that happens, Putin will want to firm up any promise with a quick reveal.    

The Kids are Still Not All Right:  With Trump’s meeting with Putin, his disruptive meetings in the UK and Brussels and Mueller’s indictments getting all the attention, its important not to lose sight of the separated children.  Though the Trump administration has started returning them to the parents, they are slow walking the process and as a result of their incompetence and lack of planning, a good number of the children remain in limbo and may never get reunited with their families.  Judge Sabraw who wants the kids returned as soon as possible but no later than July 26,  responded to the government’s most recent reunification plan, a plan provided by Health and Human Services Deputy Assistant Undersecretary Chris Meekins, by saying "It is clear that HHS either does not understand the Court’s orders or is acting in defiance of them.” The judge went on to say that at a minimum, it appears Meekins is “attempting to provide cover” for the government’s own “conduct in the practice of family separation, and the lack of foresight and infrastructure necessary to remedy the harms caused by that practice.”  An indictment of another result of just winging it.