Monthly Archives: May 2017

New York Times

Can Donald Trump Be Trusted With State Secrets? New York Times On Monday, Americans learned that President Trump shared with the Russians highly classified intelligence about the United States fight against the Islamic State. Mr. Trump jocularly passed secrets obtained by Israel to Kremlin representatives in a ... Donald Trump is his administration's own worst enemyWashington Post This Isn't the First Time President Trump's Handling of Classified Information Raised Alarm BellsTIME Senate Republicans Have No Idea How to Continue to Cover Up for the PresidentSlate Magazine Charlotte Observer -Newsweek -Aljazeera.com -Washington Post all 1,890 news articles »

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Can Donald Trump Be Trusted With State Secrets? - New York Times

New York Times

Donald Trump, Israel, Erdogan: Your Tuesday Evening Briefing New York Times President Trump asked the former F.B.I. director, James Comey, to close the investigation into Michael Flynn, his former national security adviser, according to a memo Mr. Comey wrote at the time. Mr. Comey, above, logged the request in February ... and more »

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Donald Trump, Israel, Erdogan: Your Tuesday Evening Briefing - New York Times

New York Times

Donald Trump, Ransomware, North Carolina: Your Tuesday Briefing New York Times High-ranking administration officials denied the reports. Mr. Trump has the legal authority to disclose secrets, but such comments could jeopardize intelligence sharing and open the president who criticized Hillary Clinton's handling of classified ... and more »

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Donald Trump, Ransomware, North Carolina: Your Tuesday Briefing - New York Times

President Donald Trump looks on after signing a memorandum in the Oval Office on April 27.

Olivier Douliery - Pool/Getty Images

Donald Trump began the 115th day of his presidency embroiled in yet another scandal of incredible scope and consequence, the second such occurrence in as many weeks. On Monday, the Washington Post broke incredible news: During a closed-door meeting with two Russian officialsForeign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyakthe president revealed highly classified information regarding operations against the Islamic State. According to the Post, the information the president relayed had been provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government. The New York Times reported on Tuesday that this ally was Israel, actualizing fears from Israeli officials, who previously worried that a President Trump would leak intelligence to Russia, which might then find its way to Iran.

Jamelle Bouie isSlates chief political correspondent.

As Trump, his staff, and his allies have asserted in the wake of this revelation, its within his rights as president to unilaterally declassify intelligence. Theres no question the president has the right to share this information, just as he had the right to fire now-former FBI director James Comey. He even has the right to tweet details of major operations or unmask covert operatives. In that regard, when the president does it, it isnt illegal. But this isnt a question of legality or authority; its a question of norms and protocol, of temperament and discretion, of actions that may constitute an abnegation of duty that could equate to high crimes and misdemeanors.

On that score, Trumps loose lips are like his impulsive action against Comey: evidence that, on the most fundamental level, he is not fit for high office. Indeed, hes never been fit for high office. And as we debate the means to hold him accountable for this latest action, its worth tackling a different question: How can we prevent another Trump in the future?

By all accounts, President Trump didnt reveal this information as an official action with the Russian government. He did so as a casual boast, a way to win affirmation and praise, like a child eager to please a teacher. In his meeting with Lavrov, Trump seemed to be boasting about his inside knowledge of the looming threat, reports the Post. I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day, the president said, according to an official with knowledge of the exchange.

Its not shocking that Donald Trumpa reality television star and poster boy for crude excessis manifestly unsuited for an office that even at its least challenging, requires unusual patience and ability. That much was apparent throughout the presidential contest, from the moment he announced his campaign to his eventual triumph in the general election. What is shocking is how little the Republican Party seems interested in reining this in. Despite the weight of Trumps transgressiona dangerous contempt for discretion, on the heels of an authoritarian push against the independence of federal law enforcementGOP lawmakers are largely silent, frustrated with the drama but unwilling to challenge the presidents grossly abusive behavior.

Here, its worth a point about the office of the presidency itself. We talk now of the imperial presidency and the dangers within, but American fear of presidential powerthat wariness toward and suspicion of the chief executivefar predates the national security state and its vast bureaucracy. In his essays defending the office of the president, Alexander Hamilton frequently battled with the idea that the constitutional convention was crafting some vehicle for Asiatic despotism. In Federalist 67, for instance, he assured readers that the authority of the presidenta magistrate, in his wordsare little different in conceptin few instances greater, in some instances lessfrom those of the governor of New York.

But Hamiltons defense of the presidency wasnt just about the formal powers of the office and their necessity. He was also confident in the means used to select a president. The process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications, he wrote in Federalist 68. The presidential election was, itself, a safeguard: The judgment of the electorsand by extension the judgment of the people who chose themwould ensure a president who exercised the powers of his office with virtue and restraint.

Our modern system for choosing presidents is extra-constitutional, neither proscribed nor precluded, but it relies on that same basic idea that the election processand all that it entailswill ensure the selection of someone with the requisite qualifications.

With Trump, it failed. And that failurelike the present failure to hold the president accountable for his actionsbelongs primarily to the GOP, which offered Trump as a choice to the nation at large. At every turn during the presidential primary, Republican lawmakers and elites sought to accommodate or pacify Trump, giving him the legitimacy he craved. Outlets like Fox News boosted Trump as much as possible, and his competitors saw him as a wild card to use, not a legitimate threat for the nomination. After he captured the prize, those leaders and lawmakers acquiesced and endorsed, sending a key signal to Republican voters; that Trump was mainstream, that Trump was safe, that Trump could be president. By the time he reached the general election, Trump was just another nominee; a major-party candidate who, by the law of averages, had a chance to win the White House. The same dysfunction and myopia that led Republicans to stick by a nominee who all but confessed sexual assault has led them to a similar place with a president who divulges sensitive information on a whim.

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I first posted this for Lubber sometime last year (had to find it): Wyoming 584,183 Population 3 Electoral votes 194,728 Population per electoral vote California 38,800,000 Population 55 ... More...

All of this implies an answer to our question. You prevent a second Trumpthe election of an unstable demagogue to the most powerful office in the worldby fixing the Republican Party, its processes, its procedures, and its culture. But thats far easier said than done. The GOPs embrace of Donald Trump is the natural endpoint of a movement politics that holds ideology as inviolable dogma, that conflates the interests of the nation with that of the party, and that treats opponents as illegitimate. Its a kind of politics that tolerates profound damage to our institutions and our security to pursue narrow ideological goals like tax cuts; that puts the world in danger rather than break partisan unity.

I wrote last week that theres little Trump could dooutside of rejecting tax cuts or nominating a pro-choice judgethat would split him from the party he represents. Even with Vice President Mike Pence as a replacement, a turn against Trump would cripple the Republican agenda and potentially the party itself. The Republican Party is committed to achieving both power and its ideological goals at all costs, and this commitment is a stress test for our democracy. While we already know our institutions cant prevent a Trump from taking office, this is a test of resilience: Can they stop the worst and repair the damage? As we witness another week of scandalanother attack on our norms and standardsits hard to say that we will pass that test.

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Donald Trump Is a Stress Test for Democracy and We Are Failing - Slate Magazine

Jason Sattler, Opinion columnist Published 3:22 p.m. ET May 16, 2017 | Updated 5 hours ago

A bombshell report by the Washington Post cites government officials who reportedly say the President discussed classified information with Russians. USA TODAY

President Trump, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan , Washington, March 1, 2017.(Photo: Evan Vucci, AP)

If you arent wondering whats going on between President Trump and Russia, maybe you arent paying attention. Maybe youre a Republican member of Congress. Or maybe theres nothing to wonder about, because we've seen it all on TV.

We have already watched Trump tell NBC Newshe was thinking about the FBI's Russia investigationwhen he fired FBI James Comey. We've seen him beg Vladimir Putin'sgovernment to hack Hillary Clinton's emails jokingly. We saw him repeatedly embracewhat former FBI Special Agent Clint Watts called Russian active measures at televised rallies. Now he confirms that yes, he did indeed sharesensitive intelligence information with Russian officials in the Oval Office.

Despite his peacocks strut of Russian connections, Trump still seems desperate to squelch the investigations into his campaign.And he just may do it, because he currently has something PresidentNixon never did immunity by congressional majority.

Five months into the Trump presidency, the swamp is still bubbling over. But weve already drained our strategic reserve of Watergate analogies.

In this history replayed as farce, 18 missing minutes of recordings becomes 18 days of the president knowing his national security adviser might be compromised by the Russians before firing him, a Saturday Night Massacre moves to Tuesday (where it presumably got better TV ratings) and the madman in Oval Office brags about having secret tapes on Twitter instead of hiding them.

Of course, there are still profound differences between Nixons follies and Trumpspotentially far worsefoibles.

For instance, Watergate was about a third-rate burglary of little practical consequence in one of the biggest landslides in American history. And our current catastrophe involves foreign meddling with possible collusion by the campaign of the current commander in chief in one of the closest elections ever, swung by about 60,000 votes in just three states.

And don't forget the hugest difference between Watergate and now:Nixon faced a Democratic Congress. Even so,the whole calamity tookforeverto ripen. More than two years passed from the burglary at the Watergate hotel on June 17, 1972 to Nixons resignation on Aug.9, 1974.

Donald Trump's Russia blunder is horrifying

How the White House Russia secrets endanger Donald Trump

You could argue that Russiagate is moving faster than the greatest scandal in presidential history. Consider what happened in just a three-day period last week. First Trump fired Comey. Then he met with the Russian ambassador and foreign minister in the Oval Office and not only let in a Russian photographer while keeping out the U.S. press, he gave his gueststhat highly classified information.

Trump capped it off by turningMay 11, 2017into a date thatcould go down in American history as the newJune 23, 1972, the day Nixon insisted CIA officials tell the FBI to kill the Watergate investigation.

On that day, NBC broadcast an interview in which Trumpdirectly contradicted his administrations reasoning for firing Comey. He said he "decided to just do it" regardless of a recommendation fromthe deputy attorney general and added, I said to myself I said, you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story. He also said that afterlearning national security adviser Mike Flynn could be blackmailed by the Russians, he waited 18 days to fire him because it did not sound like an emergency.

Meanwhileon Capitol Hill, in a hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the assembled leadership in the intelligence community answered with a collective"yes" when asked if they stood by their conclusions thatRussian intelligence agencies were responsible for the hacking and leaking and using misinformation to influence our election."

POLICING THE USA:Alook atrace, justice, media

Comey firing justly knocks FBI off its pedestal

For some reason, this president not only does not share his intelligence communitys alarm about a country determined to undermine our democracy, he mocks it. This kind of disdain for his experts suggests a divide in executive branch unlike anything weve seen in recent history.

And with few exceptions, at least for now, Republicans in Congress are going along. This is how we got a bungled investigation of Russias meddling in the House trailing another in the Senate that isled by a member of Trumps transition team, and a House speaker who prioritizes tax breaks for the rich over everything includingbasic oversight.

By firing Comey, Trump has stunted the closest thing to a trusted investigation into Russias involvement in the 2016 election. According to an NBC/Wall St. Journal poll, 65% had confidence in the FBIinvestigation compared to 40% for efforts by Congress.That same poll found 78%of Americans want an independent probe of the meddling.

To get that, we need what Nixon had a Democratic Congress.

Republicans stuck with Trump after theAccess Hollywoodtape revealed him beating his chest over things Mike Pence's wife wouldn't let Penceread about. And they won big. They won't learn their lesson unless they feel the pain at the ballot box.

Jason Sattler, a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors, is a columnist forThe National Memo.Follow him on Twitter@LOLGOP.

You can readdiverse opinions from ourBoard of Contributorsand other writers ontheOpinion front page,on Twitter@USATOpinionand in our dailyOpinion newsletter.To respond to acolumn, submit a comment toletters@usatoday.com.

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Republican Congress won't rein in Donald Trump - USA TODAY

New York Times

Donald Trump, douard Philippe, Ransomware: Your Tuesday Briefing New York Times And Syria will be on the agenda when President Trump and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey meet at the White House today. Our correspondents tried to dissect the delicate issues Mr. Trump confronts in Saudi Arabia and Israel as he goes on his ...

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Donald Trump, douard Philippe, Ransomware: Your Tuesday Briefing - New York Times

Just in time to distract from the 24-hour Russia-all-the-time news cycle is President Trumps newly announced Presidential Commission on Election Integrity, an entity headed by Vice President Mike PenceMike (Michael) Richard PenceDonald Trump's plan to disenfranchise minority voters Yates: Russia had 'real leverage' over Flynn Overnight Regulation: White House back in court to defend travel ban MORE that will supposedly focus on voter fraud and suppression.

This effort might seem like an inartful attempt to lend credibility to the presidents disproven claims of massive voter fraud in a 2016 presidential election that he won, but its purpose and impact will likely be more pernicious.

Given the GOPs irresponsible history of engaging in voter suppression, the commissions aim could be an attempt to minimize the potential for Democratic gains in the 2018 and 2020 elections by reducing the influence of young people and communities of color.

President Trump may have only recently learned about Historically Black Colleges and Universities, but I am a graduate of Prairie View A&M University, a historically black land-grant college founded on the grounds of a former slave plantation 49 miles northwest of Houston.

Prairie View was most recently in the national news when my fellow alumna the late Sandra Bland met her fatal end in a Waller County jail after being taken into custody for presumably failing to signal a lane change while driving her car just off the campus grounds.

However, the schools pivotal role in a 1979 Supreme Court decision that gave students the right to vote where they attend school is its important but less well-known claim to fame.

That Supreme Court decision should have been the final arbiter of the matter, but Prairie View students black kids attending a black university smack dab in the middle of a county and state where white conservatives are hell-bent on maintaining power have been under assault for their attempts to exercise their legitimate and constitutionally protected right to vote ever since.

My junior year at Prairie View was memorably punctuated in 1992 by the case of the Prairie View 19 fellow students cast their ballot in a local election only to be arrested, booked and indicted by Waller County officials who claimed that they voted fraudulently.

I remember feeling a mixture of anger and sadness when this occurred aggrieved that despite many decades since adoption of the 15th and 19th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution and passage of the Voting Rights Act, our rights as African-Americans were still called into question by white conservatives who wanted the benefit of counting our bodies in the countys census while limiting our ability to exert any modicum of political power.

Indignant and wanting justice, hundreds of us marched the seven miles from our campus to the Waller County Courthouse to protest the students mistreatment and demand their records be expunged. We got some measure of satisfaction when officials agreed to drop the charges. However, my satisfaction was relatively short lived.

In 2004, I was working in Washington, D.C., as a vice president at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation when I learned the Waller County District Attorney Oliver Kitzman was challenging Prairie View students right to vote because he didnt consider them residents of the county a clear violation of the 1979 Supreme Court ruling and a continuation of the persistent pattern of voter intimidation and harassment to which PV students had been subjected.

I asked the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus at the time, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) to step in (full disclosure: he later became my spouse) and he, along with leaderslike Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Leeof Texas, got George W. Bushs Department of Justice to launch an investigation.

Hundreds of students marched to the county courthouse for their constitutional right to vote in 2004, just as we did in 1992. Two federal lawsuits were also launched one challenging the residency requirement and the other challenging the decision of Waller County officials to shorten the early-voting period on the campus. Feeling the heat from these efforts, the Waller County D.A. dropped his opposition.

In 2008, more than 1,000 students marched again when Waller County officials, this time citing budget concerns, reduced the number of early-voting locations from seven to one, placing the only voting location at the Waller County Courthouse seven miles away from campus a major voting obstacle for many students without cars.

George W. Bushs Justice Department stepped in again to demand the County add three polling places to better accommodate students.

In 2013, not long after a conservative-led Supreme Court gutted key provisions in the Voting Rights Act, Prairie Views student leaders were once again asking county officials to put a polling place on campus.

But this time, with Texass newly enacted Voter ID law in effect a law a federal judge recently ruled was enacted with the explicit intent to discriminate against African-Americans and Latinos they were operating in a climate even more hostile to minority and student voter participation.

Republicans argue that they have a duty to combat voter fraud, even though there is sparse evidence that it exists. However, there is plenty of evidence as Prairie View and other examples like it demonstrate that racially motivated voter suppression is one of the GOPs real goals and that Republicans consistently rely on it to artificially maintain power.

Since voting is the foundation of our democracy, principled Republicans and Democrats should work together to make sure that the constitutional guarantee of a right to vote is real and accessible to every American. We must combat voter discrimination by reinstating and improving the protections that were removed from the Voting Rights Act.

Although one can hold out hope, I have no illusions that Donald TrumpDonald TrumpNine protesters injured after Trump-Erdogan meeting: report Sanders: 'Trump doesn't fully understand' being president Trump disclosure of classified intel may have endangered spy: report MOREs commission, his Department of Justice, led by one Jefferson Beauregard Sessions a man who, like Trump, has been accused of racial discrimination or congressional Republicans would ever take action to protect the voting rights of students or people of color in this political climate.

For todays GOP members who have more power than any time in recent history and who make Bush-era Republicans seem quaint by comparison only operate by one standard: the principle of maximum political advantage. Under this calculation, democracy, the Constitution, integrity, voting rights and human rights are all damned.

Maya Rockeymoore is a political scientist, author, speaker, policy analyst, and social entrepreneur. She is President and CEO of Global Policy Solutions LLC, a social change strategy firm.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.

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Donald Trump's plan to disenfranchise minority voters - The Hill (blog)

President Donald Trump on Tuesday claimed the authority to share facts pertaining to terrorism and airline safety with Russia, saying in a pair of tweets he has an absolute right as president to do so.

An explosive Washington Post story published May 15, 2017, accused President Donald Trump of sharing "code-word" classified information with the Russian ambassador to the United States and its foreign minister during an Oval Office meeting.

Trump has so far said he wanted to share facts about terrorism and airline flight safety.

Whatever the case, Trumps decision to potentially disclose classified information has ledmany to look at the presidents past opinions on the spreading of classified information -- particularly with regards to his 2016 Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

Here are some of the attacks Trump used against Clinton regarding the spread of classified information. We begin with Trumps response to a State Department disclosure that 22 emails containing classified information were on Clintons private email server.

Jan. 29, 2016

"The new e-mail release is a disaster for Hillary Clinton. At a minimum, how can someone with such bad judgement be our next president?"

"What she did is a criminal act. If she's allowed to run I would be very, very surprised."

July 6, 2016

"Crooked Hillary Clinton and her team 'were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.'Not fit!"

July 11, 2016, campaign speech

"This is not just extreme carelessness with classified material, which is still totally disqualifying. This is calculated, deliberate, premeditated misconduct."

July 21, 2016, campaign speech

"The secretary of state was extremely careless and negligent in handling our classified secrets."

"Clintons home email server that she lied to the American people about was a profound national security risk ... Hillary Clinton has bad judgment and is unfit to serve as President."

"150 Clinton E-mails still contain classified information. More sensitive when she was Sec.of State. This is a very big deal."

"Lyin' Hillary Clinton told the FBI that she did not know the 'C'markings on documents stood for CLASSIFIED. How can this be happening?"

"WikiLeaks proves even the Clinton campaign knew Crooked mishandled classified info, but no one gets charged? RIGGED!"

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What Donald Trump said about the spread of classified material during the campaign - PolitiFact