Cowardice of congressional Republicans

Michael Gerson is a former speechwriter for George W. Bush and an op-ed columnist for the Washington Post.   His article is titled:   "The cowardice among Republicans is staggering."

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". . . . "Releasing the memo . . . ended in a pathetic fizzle. . .  Nunes (R-­Calif.) deserves his own exhibit in the hackery hall of fame. This was a true innovation: . . .  created and released for the consumption of Fox News. . . .

"The existence of reckless partisans such as Nunes is hardly surprising. The nearly uniform cowardice among elected Republicans is staggering. . . .  The Republican-led Congress is now an adjunct of the White House. The White House is now an adjunct of Trump's chaotic will.

"And what to make of Ryan? . . .  By his recent actions, the speaker has provided political cover for a weakening of the constitutional order. He has been used as a tool while loudly insisting he is not a tool. The way Ryan is headed, history offers two possible verdicts: Either he enabled an autocrat, or he was intimidated by a fool. I believe Ryan to be a good person. But the greatest source of cynicism is not the existence of corrupt people in politics; it is good people who lose their way.

"The United States Congress is an institution of great power. . . .  But now it watches as Trump makes the executive branch his personal fiefdom. It stands by — or cheers — as the president persecutes law enforcement professionals for the performance of their public duties. . . .

"Trump has made a practice of forcing people around him to lower their standards and abandon their ideals before turning against them when their usefulness ends. . . .  A generation of Republicans will end up writing memoirs of apology and regret.

"The political damage to the GOP as the party of corruption and coverup should be obvious as well. This is a rare case when the rats, rather than deserting a sinking ship, seemed determined to ride it all the way down.

"But it is damage to the conscience that is hardest to repair. For Republicans, what seemed like a temporary political compromise is becoming an indelible moral stain. . . . By defending Trump's transgressions, by justifying his abuses, Republicans are creating an atmosphere in which corruption and cowardice thrive.

"How can this course be corrected? . . . .  If there is nothing for which Ryan and other Republican leaders will risk their careers, there is nothing in which they truly believe."

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Michael Gerson has always been known as a man of conscience and morality.  He stood out in the Bush era -- he could never be on the inside in the Trump era.

Are there any Republicans in congress who still have hold of a moral compass, or even a simple belief in the Constitution?    John McCain is one.   Where are the others . . . and will they speak up now, finally?

Ralph

Trump: "It's un-American not to applaud my State of the Union speech."

At a campaign-style speech in Cincinnati on Monday, President Trump tore into Democrats who didn't applaud or give him standing ovations during his State of the Union speech last week.   Calling them "un-American," perhaps even "treasonous," he said, "They certainly didn't seem to love our country very much."

Why am I still shocked at what this man reveals about his concept of the presidency?   Especially after those coerced, nauseating rounds of praise from his cabinet officers, telling him how great he is and what a "blessing" it is to work for him (Priebus).  Trump puts into words exactly what a full-fledged dictator demands in action.   How far is it from words to action?   Let's hope we don't ever have to find out.

Collateral damage of the attacks on FBI

Many experienced, career professionals have already left the FBI as a result of Trump inspired attacks on the integrity of the institution:   Sally Yates, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, and others whose names have not become as familiar.

Here's the latest resignation, from John Campbell, a supervisory special agent.  He announced his resignation in the New York Times on Friday:

"After more than a decade of service, which included investigating terrorism, working to rescue kidnapping victims overseas and being special assistant to the director, I am reluctantly turning in my badge and leaving an organization that I love.  Why?   So I can join the growing chorus of people who believe that the relentless attacks on the bureau undermine not just America's premier law enforcement agency but also the nation's security.  

"My resignation is painful, but the alternative of remaining quiet while the bureau is tarnished for political gain is impossible," Campbell concluded.

Nunes memo backfires

Four Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee have distanced themselves from the use President Trump is trying to make of the Nunes memo to discredit the Mueller investigation.   In contrast, these four -- one of whom is Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), who read the documents and helped Nunes draft the memo -- are saying that it has nothing to do with the Mueller investigation, echoing what Speaker Paul Ryan said before it was released.

In addition, former CIA Director John Brennan said on Sunday's NBC "Meet the Press" that Nunes had selectively used information to accuse law enforcement officials of improper use of materials.  "It's just appalling and clearly underscores how partisan Mr. Nunes has become.  [Nunes] "has abused the chairmanship of the [Intelligence Committee]," Brennan said.

And then there's the article by Jonathan Chait on "The Daily Intelligencer," which makes this clarifying corrective.   He wrote that "there is one underlying truth.  The intelligence community truly fears [Trump] and considers him unfit for the presidency.    This is not because the intelligence community is traitorous, or left wing . . .   It is because the IC had early access to a wide array of terrifying intelligence linking Trump and his orbit to Russia.   People who spend their lives protecting their country from foreign threats saw in Trump a candidate who had at some level been compromised by one of them."

Chait then explains that Trump and his allies turned this around causally and claimed that -- because the intelligence community distrusts Trump -- its bias makes their investigation illegitimate.   According to this view, "If they were unbiased . . . they wouldn't be investigating Trump in the first place."

But it's the other way around.   Because of what the investigation revealed, they do not trust Trump to act in the best interests of our country.

As to their claim in the Nunes memo that the justification for the FISA warrant on Carter Page was tainted by bias, legal scholars and counterintelligence officers have explained that the FISA court routinely gets and considers information from biased sources.   That's not unusual or a problem   The application is 50 to 100 pages long, is scrupulously detailed, and all data is put in perspective of the source.    So that central claim of the Nunes memo carries no weight.

Chait also says that the other claim of bias in the memo -- that of the FBI agent Peter Strzok -- is also turned around.    A full review of the email chain shows that the negative comments about Trump as a president are rooted in the knowledge of his possible compromised position vis a vis Russia.

Chait concludes with this:  "Trump has not even bothered to conceal his belief that the memo gives him an excuse to replace Rod Rosenstein . . . with a more plaint figure.   Trump believes to his core that he is entitled to federal law enforcement run by personal loyalists, and that any investigation of him is per se evidence of disqualifying bias.  Nunes's memo places the House Republicans foursquare behind that grotesquely authoritarian belief."

No wonder some House Republicans are starting to jump ship.

Ralph

Response to the Nunes memo: "That's it?"

Folks, these two responses, from James Comey and from John McCain, were in my postscript  to yesterday's post;  but they are so pertinent I want to repeat them today for emphasis.  Oh, and by the way, both men are Republicans.

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When former FBI Director James Comey finally saw the Nunes memo, his reaction was an incredulous, "That's it? . . . [a] dishonest and misleading memo wrecked the House Intel committee, destroyed trust with Intelligence community, damaged relationship with FISA court, and inexcusably exposed classified investigation of an American citizen.   For what?"

Senator John McCain, writing from home in Arizona as he deals with brain cancer treatment, said:   "The latest attacks against the FBI and Department of Justice serve no American interests -- no party's, no President's, only Putin's. . . .  If we continue to undermine our own rule of law, we are doing Putin's job for him."

And from The Guardian's Walter Shapiro:
"Ever since Watergate, the standard for any scandal is whether there is a smokiing gun left next to a corpse.  In the case of the Nunes memo, we lack a body and the gun is a child's toy pistol."

From Carl Bernstein's interview on CNN with Jake Tapper (reported by Mary Papenfuss).   Bernstein, along with Bob Woodward, were the Washington Post reporters who broke open the Nixon/Watergate scandal.

Bernstein warned that the Trump administration may be ushering in the darkest days since Joe McCarthy, who conducted the notorious anti-communist "witch hunts" in the 1950s Cold War era.   He also called the Nunes memo a "disinghenuous partisan document . . . . a red herring intended to derail special counsel Mueller's investigation.

He went on:  "In the whole Cold War, the Russians were not able to do what Putin has done through Donald Trump -- to destabilize the United States and its democratic institutions.   It's stunning.   It's ruinous."    He said he hopes the Republicans will stop following the president in "lockstep" and "get hold of their senses. . . . [and] see how Donald Trump has been manipulated. . . ."

It's your move, Paul Ryan

Just days ago, explaining his support to release the Nunes memo, Speaker Paul Ryan spoke of needing transparency on whether an American citizen's identity may have been exposed inappropriately by a FISA warrant application.  (Oddly, releasing the memo will now give world-wide exposure to that person's identity, so that's an odd reason to give to start with.)  

Ryan went on to say that this is separate from the Mueller investigation and has nothing to do with it -- therefore:  
   "People should not conflate the two."

But conflate the two is exactly what President Trump has done with his Friday morning tweet:

"This memo totally vindicates "Trump" in probe.  But the Russian Witch Hunt goes on and on.  Their (sic) was no Collusion and there was no Obstruction (the word now used because, after one year of looking endlessly and finding NOTHING, collusion is dead).   This is an American disgrace!

Well, first, it's not true that nothing was found.  Two campaign staffers have pled guilty and are cooperating witnesses, while two others are now under indictment.

Back to Ryan.    Paul Ryan bears some responsibility for this debacle.   When the head of the FBI and the Deputy AG came to him to plead for his help by stopping Chairman Devin Nunes' demands that they supply him with top secret documents, Ryan sided with Nunes.

Secondly, Ryan totally supported releasing the memo to the public, subject to the approval (including declassifying material in the memo) by the president.   In doing so, he made that little-noticed clarification about not conflating this with the Mueller investigation.

Deaf ears from Republicans -- who only wanted this as a political tool and as a pretext for Trump to fire Rosenstein so he can install a more malleable overseer of Mueller's investigation.

SPEAK  UP,  Speaker Ryan.   You let it happen.   Now it's up to you to try to rein in your attack dogs.    Our democratic institutions are at risk.     You are one of the key people to do something to stop the destruction you helped start.

Ralph

Nunes memo: Is that all there is?

[This is long, but I think worth reading it all.]

President Trump has approved the release of the controversial Nunes memo by the House Intelligence Committee -- meaning that Trump declassified the material contained in it.    So now you can read on the internet what everyone's been talking about.

In truth, after all the hype -- Sean Hannity calling it the most scandalous government malfeasance in history -- it really under whelms.    Let's try to get a little perspective.

We have laws that prevent our government from spying on its citizens.   There are two exceptions.  (1)  If a citizen is inadvertently heard talking to a foreign national, who is legitimately under surveillance.   In so, the American's name is "masked" and can only be revealed if the need meets requirements of necessity.   Or (2) if the FBI has gotten a warrant to spy on an individual citizen from a special FISA Court judge.  The application for this is rigorous, and the judges are specially trained to use the warrant process only for very legitimate and proven national security interests.

The Nunes memo concerns the application process for a FISA warrant obtained for American citizen Carter Page, who was listed by Trump himself during the transition as one of his foreign policy advisers.   The first warrant was obtained in late October 2016, just before the election.   It has been renewed three times, the latest by request of Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein.

The truth is that Carter Page first came to the attention of the FBI in 2013 when he became a "target" of Russian spies working in New York.    It's unclear whether Page was aware he was being used by the Russians, but apparently they were attempting to bring him into their network as an agent working for the Kremlin.   This is usually done over time, beginning with what appear to be innocent contacts -- meeting a businessman with interest in Russia, or oil production, etc.  In this case, they asked him to supply information about the oil industry, which Page gladly gave them.   Mostly it's initially about establishing a relationship, and then they draw you in, with the eventual goal of having something incriminating on you that they can use to manipulate you into ever-increasing leverage.

That's the case with Carter Page.   He has background as a business consultant in oil production, as well as an academic background that made him an ideal target -- invitations to speak at Russian universities were excuses to travel to Moscow, for example.   And Page has admitted that he met a number of high officials in the Russian government.

At one point even after he was listed as a member of the Trump Advisory Board on Foreign Affairs, he made a speech in Moscow in which he reportedly made some anti-US comments.   What the Russians were getting from him, apparently, was information, specifically about US sanctions against Russia, as well as favorable comments about Putin and the Russian government.

Now, to back up a moment:    The FBI had an interest in following Carter Page all the way back to that 2013 connection with the Russian spies -- when he was under FBI surveillance for about 2 years.   That spy ring was eventually broken up and Pages' two contacts in New York were arrested.    Apparently the FBI had no evidence that Page knew he was a target or that he had done anything illegal.

Nevertheless, from 2013 on, he was already a person of interest to the FBI in relation to Russia.   So it did raise concerns when he was named as a member of the Trump transition advisory board in 2016.   This background, his frequent trips to Russia and contacts with high Russian officials, plus perhaps other information we don't know, was all part of the application for a FISA warrant in October 2016 to renew surveillance on Carter Page.

The Nunes memo -- and the hype in the media, with some evidence that the Russians are doing their amplification of it on social media with thousands of fake accounts pumping out bot messages of "release the memo" -- are putting all the focus on the fact that, along with many other justifications -- the FISA application also listed the Steele dossier, which contained some information on Page.

The "big scandal" they're pushing is that the FISA warrant that "violated an innocent citizen's civil rights" was based on an unproved claim (Steele dossier) which was paid for by Democratic sources.   Thus it's all a political witchhunt and proves that the whole Russia collusion story is false.

There's a small problem with that, as pointed out by Rachel Maddow:   In the last paragraph of the memo is this sentence:   "The [George] Papadopoulos information triggered the opening of an FBI counterintelligence investigation in late July 2016 by FBI agent Pete Strzok."   Now the context shows that they included this to discredit the whole thing because of their belief in the anti-Trump bias of FBI agent Strzok.   In fact, however, what this shows is that it was not the Steele dossier that triggered the investigation.  It was the much earlier information obtained about Papadopoulos --  fully three months earlier than the October 2016 FISA warrant to spy on Carter Page.

So, as Rachel says:   The memo itself disproves the main thrust of the memo -- that of the corruption of the application for a FISA warrant on Page.

Rep. Adam Schiff, lead Democrat on the House Intel Committee, plus the FBI and Justice Department, in opposing the release, have said that there is other material evidence from the FISA application that justifies the warrant, even without the Steele dossier material.  But the Nunes memo leaves that out.   In addition, Nunes has essentially admitted that he did not read the underlying documents that were listed in the application.

As Chris Hayes put it:   "The memo is not evidence;  it's a book report written by someone who has not read the book."

As to the memo's accusations of Steele's anti-Trump bias, quoting him as expressing his strong feelings, even passion about Trump not getting elected president -- the memo leaves out the context of that statement from Steele.   But it is contained (again as pointed out by Rachel Maddow) in the transcripts of his testimony before congressional committees by the head of Fusion GPS, which commissioned Steele's work.   It quotes Steele having said that his strong opposition to a Trump presidency stemmed from evidence he was finding that Trump could be vulnerable to being influenced by a hostile foreign power. even including possible blackmail.

Schiff has also sounded the alarm that the version of the memo that Nunes sent to the White House is not the same as the memo that the Intel Committee voted to release -- and it's not just cosmetic editing, he says, but material differences.   Thus, according to Schiff, that negates the vote to release it.    But that fell on willfully deaf ears.

Speaker Paul Ryan fully supports the release as a matter of the possible violation of civil liberties of a citizen.   But he did also caution not to conflate this with the FBI's function in general or the Mueller investigation in particular.   They are entirely separate, Ryan says.   That also has fallen on deaf ears -- as has the FBI's impassioned and unprecedented pleas not to release what could be giving damaging information to enemies about our intelligence methods and sources.

The blind partisan position of the Republicans is simply astounding.  Just three weeks ago they voted to renew the FISA warrant process.   Now they're not willing to trust the process they just voted to renew.   If Carter Page has a complaint, the FISA court has an appeal process.   That has not been pursued, as far as we know.

This is total politics cooked up by Nunes -- and most likely the White House itself -- trying to save Trump by obfuscation and false sideshow narratives.  Trump wants it as ammunition to get rid of Rod Rosenstein and possibly Mueller -- and to damage the reputation of both the FBI and Justice, and to discredit whatever damaging report Mueller  eventually files.

The indictment of Rosenstein is that he signed off on the renewal application for the Page FISA warrant, which was the third renewal, required every 90 days.   It's not something he originated, but he did have to certify and back up that findings warranted continued surveillance.   That's it.   That's the whole "case" against Rosenstein.

This is the big crime that has Sean Hannity foaming at the mouth?    That the man who certified a third renewal of surveillance of a man who was originally caught up in attempts to recruit him by Russian spies at least five years ago, who has since then made numerous trips to Moscow, met with high officials in the Kremlin, and given speeches that were at times anti-US in tone and praising Putin -- plus whatever secret information we have no knowledge about.

I am totally underwhelmed -- except by the perfidy and shamelessness of the Republicans -- starting with Donald Trump and going down the list from there.  Trump told the press, "This completely vindicates me."   But, for a man suddenly vincidated, his affect did not match.   Instead of smiles and jubilation -- he looked downright grim and enraged, like a man betrayed by his chief adviser, Sean Hannity.

Ralph

PS:  Meanwhile, when former FBI Director James Comey finally saw the Nunes memo, his reaction was an incredulous, "That's it? . . .  Dishonest and misleading memo wrecked the House Intel committee, destroyed trust with Intelligence Community, damaged relationship with FISA court, and inexcusably exposed classified investigation of an American citizen.   For what?"

Senator John McCain, writing from home in Arizona as he deals with brain cancer treatment, said:   "The latest attacks against the FBI and Department of Justice serve no American interests -- no party's, no President's, only Putin's. . . .  If we continue to undermine our own rule of law, we are doing Putin's job for him."