R E S P E C T

Silencing Critics:  In most respects reaction to the announcement that Trump is stripping former CIA Director John Brennan of his security clearance has gone as expected.  Most Republicans shrugged, a few including Senators Lindsay Graham, John Cornyn, Rand Paul, and John Kennedy said that he deserved to lose the clearance citing what they view as his politicization of  intelligence and intense criticism of Trump as an appropriate justification for Trump’s action. Only Senator Corker who called Trump’s action banana republic like and Senator Collins who said that though she didn’t really like Brennan’s criticism she thought he was entitled to say what he wants, even if it’s imprudent, came out against Trump’s action. For his part Brennan responded to Trump’s action with a scathing rebuke in a New York Times op-ed, one where he said that Trump’s “claims of no collusion are, in a word, hogwash.”  He went on to write that “the only questions that remain are whether the collusion that took place constituted criminally liable conspiracy, whether obstruction of justice occurred to cover up any collusion or conspiracy, and how many members of ‘Trump Incorporated’ attempted to defraud the government by laundering and concealing the movement of money into their pockets.”  The usually restrained Senator Burr, the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence committee viewed those comments as a step too far, saying that Brennan should have expressed those views more forcefully, to the extent they are based on fact, during his Senate testimony, going on to say that Trump has the right to take away security clearances.  That said, many of Brennan’s peers are up in arms about Trump’s action.  One of them, retired Admiral William McRaven, the highly esteemed, heroic SEAL who led the raid on Osama bin Laden said that “few Americans have done as much to protect the country as Brennan,” he went on to ask Trump to revoke his security clearance in solidarity with Brennan. Last night twelve former senior intelligence officers from both parties, including former CIA Directors Michael Hayden, Leon Panetta, William Webster, Porter Goss, David Petraeus and George Tenet, several of the agency’s former deputy directors and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, slammed Trump’s “ill-considered and unprecedented” decision issuing a joint statement saying that his action and the threats of similar action against other former officials has nothing to do with who should and should not hold security clearances — and everything to do with an attempt to stifle free speech.” That said, the Washington Post reports that Trump plans to strip a few more people of their clearance, especially anyone with any knowledge of anything related to his alleged obstruction or collusion.  Senators Warner and Blumenthal fear that  this is part of his plan to end the Mueller investigation and that at some point he will remove Mueller’s teams clearances making it impossible for them to do their work. As to Omarosa Manigault, Trump’s other surprisingly effective irritant, she’s not going away. Yesterday, she released another taped conversation from her personal archives, an archive that may include more than one hundred or so tapes.  Despite the Trump team’s assertion that they hadn’t really offered her a job to work on the 2020 campaign, the tape confirms that Lara Trump, son Eric’s wife, did offer her a position.  As Omarosa had previously asserted, Lara is heard offering her $15,000 per month for a job that entailed little if any work with the added bonus that she would get to live anywhere she wanted because coming to the campaign office wouldn’t be a priority, in fact it wouldn’t even be all that desirable. Proving her Trumpiness, Lara responded by saying that the job offer had nothing to do with silencing Omarosa but was offered because the Trump family liked her so much and was shocked and disheartened when Chief of Staff Kelly fired her from her White House position because they had no idea he was going to do that, going on to say that at the time they knew nothing about all those violations of ethical standards that Kelly cited as the reason for her dismissal.  Also, she’s shocked and furious that Omarosa violated her trust by taping their conversation. For his part Trump has asked Attorney General Sessions to arrest her and his lawyers are trying to prevent the further distribution of her book.

#FreePress:  Yesterday, in an editorial entitled Journalists Are Not the Enemy the Boston Globe wrote that “A central pillar of”  Trump’s “politics is a sustained assault on the free press. Journalists are not classified as fellow Americans, but rather “The enemy of the people.” This relentless assault on the free press has dangerous consequences.”  Heeding their call to join in to counter Trump’s daily onslaught against the #FreePress, more than 400 other newspapers followed suit, writing similar editorials, all with different words but all pushing back at Trump’s characterization of the press as the enemy.  Trump responded by doubling down, first tweeting that the Boston Globe was guilty of collusion for coordinating its free press message with all of those other papers. He misstated information about the Boston Globe and its finances but then truth and accuracy isn’t part of his agenda.  He then added that “There is nothing that I would want more for our Country than true FREEDOM OF THE PRESS. The fact is that the Press is FREE to write and say anything it wants, but much of what it says is FAKE NEWS, pushing a political agenda or just plain trying to hurt people. HONESTY WINS!” Later in the day the Senate responded with one of their resolutions, this one intended to "reaffirm the vital and indispensable role the free press serves," nice but kind of toothless given the power of Trump’s hostile statements something that was proven later in the day when the Boston Globe received death threats serious enough to warrant a warning to its employees and extra security from the Boston Police.  Sadly, right now it looks like that honesty, real honesty, has taken a back seat to hatred and Trump’s war against free speech.

Manafort Update:  The Manafort jury started deliberating yesterday but went home before reaching a decision.  Before departing for the evening they sent four questions to the Judge, including one where they asked him how to define reasonable doubt and another where they asked for his help mapping Manafort’s alleged crimes to the specific indictments, something that the judge had refused to do earlier and refused to do again.  On first blush, their question concerning reasonable doubt appeared to favor the defense case since their argument is that there is not enough definitive proof that Manafort did the things that we all know he did because, despite all of the documentation, Rick Gates, his partner who testified for the prosecution, is a pretty nefarious guy too.  That said, most of the former Federal Attorneys serving as trial pundits, weren’t all that concerned.  They report that questions like the ones asked are fairly typical and that requesting a definition of reasonable doubt is the most common question asked by juries.  They also say that it’s a good sign that the jury asked the questions at the end of the day, since in their view that means that the jury is being methodical about their deliberations.  Of course, all of this is just supposition.  Only the jury members know what they are thinking, the rest of us, including twitching Trump, will have to wait until they announce a verdict.  

Trump Wishlist:  Senate Majority Leader McConnell plans to start hearings on the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh after Labor Day. Despite the precedent set during hearing for Justice Elena Kagan’s nomination, he doesn’t plan to wait for release of all of Kavanaugh’s documents because he’s McConnell and he sets and changes the rules as he sees fit. Though it’s unlikely that they will be able to do much about it, Democrats aren’t all that happy with his approach.  Yesterday, Minority Leader Schumer announced plans to sue the National Archives to force officials to honor a Freedom of Information Act request for all of Kavanaugh’s documents, including anything from the three years that Kavanaugh worked as White House staff secretary for George W Bush.  To date, citing the volume of relevant documents Archive officials have said that it would be impossible, or more likely just difficult, for them to comply on a timely basis.  Yesterday, a video of Kavanaugh speaking about his concurrence with the departed Justice Anthony Scalia’s  “originalist” constitutional views surfaced.  Though Kavanaugh doesn’t explicitly say that he would overrule Roe v Wade or Obergefell v Hodges, he leaves the distinct impression that since he agrees with Scalia’s conclusion that neither reproductive rights nor same sex marriage are explicitly guaranteed by the Constitution, he’d be open to overturning both. No comments so far on that from either Senator Collins or Murkowski who despite their pro-choice positions will probably say that it’s not a bigly problem.  As to Trump’s military parade, the one that he’s wanted ever since he was feted with one during his trip to Paris, the military announced it’s been put off to some unspecified date probably because estimates of its cost have skyrocketed to $92 million, $80 million more than originally planned.  That’s a lot of ostrich vests.   

RIP Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul and so much more.