1. Government re-opened. On the 35th day of the longest government shutdown ever, a deal was reached between President Trump and congressional leaders to fund -- and thus to re-open -- the federal government on a "continuing resolution" for three weeks, until February 15th.
Friday had brought a new sense of urgency, culminating with the air traffic controllers union putting out a statement saying that they were concerned about air safety due to reduced staff showing up for work.
With some skillful negotiating between Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell -- and keeping Nancy Peolsi and Donald Trump in the background -- a deal was agreed to by all parties that will: (1) fund government until 2/15 without including any money for a border wall; (2) form a bipartisan committee to negotiate funding for homeland security; (3) if no deal is reached by 2/15, either another shutdown can occur or President Trump can declare a national emergency.
Or, as one MSNBC commentator suggested, they could just pass a budget without border wall funding and pretend it all never happened. That, of course, would require Trump to accept permanent defeat, after having to swallow the two big defeats this week: (a) having to bow to the public pressure to end the shutdown and (b) being schooled by Nancy Pelosi in the meaning of the word "No" regarding giving the State of the Union speech in the House chambers.
2. Roger Stone indicted. Long-time political adviser to Donald Trump, political operative Roger Stone has been indicted by Robert Mueller on seven felony counts including obstruction of justice, making false statements to congress, and witness tampering. This relates mostly to Stone's communicating with and about the Wikileaks release of the Russia-hacked emails from the DNC and Clinton campaign. Mueller used the indictment, once again, to spell out in some detail what evidence he has, including email communications between Stone and at least one senior member of the Trump campaign, as well as more marginal advisers and operatives connected with the campaign.
So, assuming that Mueller has much more than he actually put in the indictment, this may very well be the link that shows the Trump campaign's involvement in conspiracy with Russia to influence the election of Donald Trump. At least it's the first publicly known evidence of a specific contact between someone from the Trump campaign and Russia, with Roger Stone and Wikileaks as the intermediaries.
Stone is defiant in his denial, as well as his declaration that he "will never testify against President Trump." This remains to be seen, but it also raises questions about whether he has been promised a pardon. As a guest on "All In With Chris Hayes" on MSNBC, however, pointed out, if Trump pardons him, Stone can then be forced to testify fully. If you've been pardoned, you can't then take the 5th amendment to avoid self-incrimination, nor can you be given immunity to testify. So at least Trump can't pardon him without the risk of Roger having to tell all he knows about Trump.
3. Security clearance scandal at White House. News broke on Thursday about security clearances at the White House. It started with reporters staying on the story of why it took so long for Jared Kushner to get his security clearance. It is now revealed that Kushner had to amend his original security application 40 times, because he initially had reported that he had no foreign contacts, but eventually revealed that he had 40, as well as extensive business dealings with foreign individuals and banks, as well as frequent foreign travel --- all of which should have been reported initially.
Because of all this, as well as some questionable business dealings, Jared was initially given a clearance of "secret," which is the third down from the top and superseded by the #2 "top secret" and by the #1 "sensitive compartmented information" (CSI) clearance.
Without going into detail, the FBI does the background check and a specialist group then decides on the level of clearance. They initially gave Jared simply "secret" clearance; but the White House person in charge (a Trump appointee) over-ruled it and gave him a "top secret" clearance. But then he also decided to try to get the #1 CSI clearance, which requires, not just FBI but CIA investigation. The CIA's response was: No way; why did they even give him a top secret clearance?
So reporters looked into the matter. It seems that the White House supervisor, who had been brought over from another department by the Trump team, had not only over-ruled the investigators on Jared; there had been 30 security clearances for White House personnel that he had over-ruled and given a higher clearance to.
This story, by itself, should have major "legs," but it's already gone within 24 hours, given the two big new stories on Friday. Let's hope someone revives it when we calm down from this week.
Of course, the real question, which no one can do anything about, is whether Donald Trump himself could even get the lowest level of clearance -- especially considering his years of dealing with foreign money launderers and foreign mafia investors, to say nothing of his relationship to Putin.
Why do we not require presidential candidates to pass the highest security clearance before they can be an official candidate? It makes no sense.
4. Humiliation for Donald Trump. This has to be the most humiliating week yet for Donald Trump. Stories abound of his intolerance for smart, powerful women. He fears those he can't intimidate, so he tries to put them down by bullying or demeaning them. But there are a few he caves in to, like Ann Coulter, who got him to change a major decision simply by tweeting that he was "dead in the water" if he did what he was planning to do. So he promptly caved.
Then there was the power struggle with Nancy Pelosi about the State of the Union address. It's her prerogative as Speaker of the House to issue the invitation to the president to give his State of the Union message in the House chamber, which she had done in early January. Then, because of the shutdown, she disinvited him, saying they should wait until after the government reopened because of security concerns with reduced staff due to the shutdown.
Trump wrote back -- trying to intimidate her by saying that he had been assured by the DHS and Secret Service that security could be provided so he intended to give his speech at the date and place as originally planned. Pelosi wrote back politely explaining that there would be no joint resolution of the House and Senate during the shutdown (a necessary step to authorize the speech). In effect she was telling him that this was her decision to make and that No means No.
He found out he couldn't bully her. In fact, was politely scolded and put in his place by a strong woman, and he backed down. So it could only have added to his misery this week, when Ann Coulter responded to that with this tweet:
"Good news for George Herbert Walker Bush. As of today, he is no longer the biggest wimp ever to serve as president of the United States."
Now there's a woman who knows how to hurt Trump. But Pelosi knows how to stand up to him -- and preserve a working relationship -- by far the better outcome. Nancy Pelosi is the heroine of the moment; those who opposed her having another term as Speaker should take lessons and be glad she's the one dealing with this bully.
Ralph
4. Humiliation for Donald Trump. This has to be the most humiliating week yet for Donald Trump. Stories abound of his intolerance for smart, powerful women. He fears those he can't intimidate, so he tries to put them down by bullying or demeaning them. But there are a few he caves in to, like Ann Coulter, who got him to change a major decision simply by tweeting that he was "dead in the water" if he did what he was planning to do. So he promptly caved.
Then there was the power struggle with Nancy Pelosi about the State of the Union address. It's her prerogative as Speaker of the House to issue the invitation to the president to give his State of the Union message in the House chamber, which she had done in early January. Then, because of the shutdown, she disinvited him, saying they should wait until after the government reopened because of security concerns with reduced staff due to the shutdown.
Trump wrote back -- trying to intimidate her by saying that he had been assured by the DHS and Secret Service that security could be provided so he intended to give his speech at the date and place as originally planned. Pelosi wrote back politely explaining that there would be no joint resolution of the House and Senate during the shutdown (a necessary step to authorize the speech). In effect she was telling him that this was her decision to make and that No means No.
He found out he couldn't bully her. In fact, was politely scolded and put in his place by a strong woman, and he backed down. So it could only have added to his misery this week, when Ann Coulter responded to that with this tweet:
"Good news for George Herbert Walker Bush. As of today, he is no longer the biggest wimp ever to serve as president of the United States."
Now there's a woman who knows how to hurt Trump. But Pelosi knows how to stand up to him -- and preserve a working relationship -- by far the better outcome. Nancy Pelosi is the heroine of the moment; those who opposed her having another term as Speaker should take lessons and be glad she's the one dealing with this bully.
Ralph
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