Category Archives: Trump
Unaccountable Washington Politics
Deputy U.S. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein wrote a memo laying the groundwork for the firing of FBI Director Comey. He says Comey was unaccountable. Here’s a version of Rosenstein’s memo published in The Atlantic.
But Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe writes in the The Washington Post that Trump obstructed justice when he fired Comey. He thinks Trump should be impeached.
Meanwhile, Senat minority leader Chuck Schumer is demanding a special prosecutor to investigate any possible Trump/Russian caper.
No Accounting for the Unaccountable
Gerald Seib calls this a “troubling undercurrent for Trump.” He quotes a WSJ/NBC poll saying, “The survey found a strong desire, cutting across political affiliations, for an independent commission or a special prosecutor to get to the bottom of Russia’s role in the 2016 election.”
Deep State Russian Dragnet
Daniel Henninger in the WSJ calls the Obama/Lynch decision to allow the NSA to spread raw intel to the other 16 agencies the Rosetta Stone for the Russia story:
As with Hillary’s server, there is a Rosetta Stone for the Russia story. It is the Barack Obama/Loretta Lynch decision in January to sign rules permitting the National Security Agency to disseminate “raw signals intelligence” to 16 other intelligence agencies without privacy protections for individuals.
Russian Dragnet
Two months later, it was reported by the New York Times that Obama administration officials had done this to dispense information across the intelligence bureaucracies “about possible contacts between associates of President-elect Donald J. Trump and Russians.”
Of course, those “contacts” leaked into the water-collection barrels of the entire Washington press—either from officials inside 17 U.S. intelligence agencies or from Obama officials themselves, such as it-wasn’t-me Susan Rice.
The predictable tumult from the Obama-originated mass leaks then intimidated Congress into sending the House and Senate intelligence committees chasing after these “suggestions” of collusion.
Beyond Mike Flynn and Carter Page, why haven’t we seen more leaks pushing past the original stories? Why have the leakers gone silent, unless they leaked everything they had? Indeed why hasn’t there been a mega-dump into the press by now of all the original NSA “raw signals intelligence” à la the Pentagon Papers?
Instead, calls are now bubbling up from this swamp—what else can you call it?—to appoint a special prosecutor, presumably to get to the bottom of the Russian collusion swamp, though without subpoena powers in Moscow.
Trump Tax Plan
Washington Swamp Tour Guide
Ann Coulter thinks The Washington Swamp is winning.
In her latest column, titled Swamp People 47; Trump 0, she says, “If this is the budget bill we get when Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the presidency, there’s no point in ever voting republican again.”
Meanwhile Vice President Pence got past Mr. Snerdley, the call screener, only to have Rush Limbaugh ask him, “Mr. Vice President, why vote Republican.”
And finally WSJ‘s Daniel Henninger asks, What is a Republican for?
If, after voters delivered control of Congress to them in 2016, these same Republicans can’t – or will not – produce an ObamaCare reform, those voters may reasonably ask in 2018: Why do we need these people?What is a Republican for?
Update: The House narrowly passed a bill to repeal and replace ObamaCare.
Federal Funding Sanctuary Cities
President Trump cracked down on sanctuary cities. He ordered restrictions on federal funding to cities that refuse to turn over undocumented immigrants to the feds. Federal District Court Judge William Orrick, blocked his order.
Last year President Obama threatened to pull federal funding from schools that don’t provide transgender restroom facilities. Trump revoked that rule in February.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton had sued over the bathroom issue on the grounds that Obama had bypassed congressional authority. Judge Orick used the same reasoning to block Trump’s sanctuary order.
