Showing posts with label national security. Show all posts
Showing posts with label national security. Show all posts
Friday, November 22, 2019
'Fiona Hill Is President Donald Trump's Worst Nightmare' | Morning Joe | MSNBC
The panel discusses Fiona Hill's testimony Thursday before the before the House Intelligence Committee. Aired on 11/22/19.
Wednesday, November 13, 2019
FOCUS: Dan Rather | The Week Ahead Will Be Unprecedented
12 November 19
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12 November 19
FOCUS: Dan Rather | The Week Ahead Will Be Unprecedented
Dan Rather, Dan Rather's Facebook Page
Rather writes: "We do not know what the week ahead will bring, but we do know it will be unprecedented. To be sure the specter of Nixon and Clinton hang over an impeachment process moving onto the public stage. This time, however, feels far different."
Dan Rather, Dan Rather's Facebook Page
Rather writes: "We do not know what the week ahead will bring, but we do know it will be unprecedented. To be sure the specter of Nixon and Clinton hang over an impeachment process moving onto the public stage. This time, however, feels far different."
EXCERPT:
My mood is complicated. As a reporter, this a story unlike any in our history. I hope to do it justice. As an American citizen, however, I am struck by sadness, a deep, deep sadness, that we have come to this point. In previous times, we weren't being as driven apart by social media. What will that mean for these hearings? We didn't have a political party with its own propaganda operation, like we do with the President and Fox News. We didn't have such cravenness, such widespread stink of corruption, so much platently undemocratic instincts by those who have sworn an oath to the Constitution.
Yet despite all these obstructions to the process of justice, we are where we are because brave, patriotic Americans stood up and said what the President did was wrong. They will now say so in front of cameras, and posterity. The Democrats in the House, in contrast to the President's smokescreens, have largely comported themselves with restraint and a clear sense of purpose. It will be up to them to pierce the fog of deceit and paint a narrative that shapes public opinion.
Monday, October 28, 2019
'Pure insanity': Intelligence veterans are floored by Barr's 'off the books' overtures to foreign officials about the Russia probe
This Fat Bastard needs to be disbarred and impeached.
- Intelligence veterans were puzzled by reports that Attorney General William Barr personally urged foreign officials to cooperate with a Justice Department investigation into the origins of the Russia investigation.
- "This is unheard of," one former senior Justice Department official who worked closely with the former special counsel Robert Mueller when he was FBI director, told Insider.
- The Washington Post reported that Barr had already made overtures to British intelligence officials about the matter and traveled to Italy last week to ask senior Italian officials to cooperate with the inquiry.
- The New York Times reported that Barr also asked President Donald Trump to ask the Australian prime minister to cooperate with the investigation. And Trump named Barr as his personal envoy when making a similar request in July to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
- "There are people at DOJ whose whole job is to coordinate investigative efforts with foreign governments," a longtime former federal prosecutor told Insider. "Makes a person wonder why Barr didn't trust them to do this stuff. Something he didn't trust career DOJ people to do? Something more political than justice-related?"
The Washington Post reported Monday that Barr had already made overtures to British intelligence officials and last week traveled to Italy, where he and John Durham, the US attorney in charge of investigating the Russia investigation's origins, asked senior Italian government officials to assist with Durham's work. The report said it was not Barr's first trip to Italy to meet with intelligence officials.
"This is unheard of," one former senior Justice Department official who worked closely with the former special counsel Robert Mueller when he was FBI director, told Insider.
John Sipher, a longtime former CIA clandestine-services officer, agreed.
"This is pure insanity," he wrote on Twitter. "First of all its really dumb to think foreign services trust Barr more than their regular interlocutors. Also, it is crazy that people like Barr actually believe large groups of people were secretly conspiring in an election." Sipher was referring to Trump and his allies' claims that senior officials in the FBI and the Department of Justice manufactured the Russia investigation to undermine his chances at winning the 2016 race.
Robert Deitz, a former top lawyer at the CIA and the National Security Agency, also said he hadn't heard "of so much involvement by the attorney general in this sort of investigation."
"This is work for the gumshoes," he told Insider. Barr's involvement is all the more unusual, Deitz added, given Durham's reputation. "I have worked with John Durham. He is absolutely a straight shooter. What he says one can rely on."
Durham is one of three people tasked with investigating the roots of the Russia investigation. The Justice Department's inspector general, Michael Horowitz, is looking into the FBI's application for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant to surveil a top Trump campaign aide, Carter Page, who was suspected of acting as an unwitting foreign agent during and after the 2016 campaign.
And John Huber, the US attorney in Utah, is reviewing other aspects of the Russia investigation.
To date, there is no evidence that the DOJ or the FBI acted improperly while investigating the Trump campaign.
Earlier Monday, The New York Times reported that Barr asked President Donald Trump to urge Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison to cooperate with the inquiry as well. Trump is said to have called Morrison in recent weeks and relayed Barr's request. The Associated Press reported that the call was one of a "number of times" Trump made similar calls at Barr's behest.
And in a July 25 conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump repeatedly pressured Zelensky to work with Barr and Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to help discredit the Russia investigation as well as to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
The call is at the center of an explosive whistleblower complaint that a US intelligence official filed against Trump. It mentioned Giuliani 31 times and described him as a "central figure" in Trump's efforts. It added that Barr "appears to be involved as well."
Read more: Trump told 2 top Russian officials in 2017 that he wasn't bothered about Russia's election meddling
It's "absolutely very unusual for the AG to get involved in making such requests," Patrick Cotter, a former federal prosecutor who was part of the team that convicted the Gambino crime family boss John Gotti, told Insider.
"There are people at DOJ whose whole job is to coordinate investigative efforts with foreign governments," he added. "Makes a person wonder why Barr didn't trust them to do this stuff. Something he didn't trust career DOJ people to do? Something more political than justice-related?"
Elie Honig, a former federal prosecutor from the Southern District of New York, echoed that view.
"There are established procedures through which DOJ can and does coordinate with foreign governments and prosecutors," he told Insider. "It'll be important to figure out if the AG went through these proper channels or tried to do it off the books, so to speak."
In May, the president granted Barr broad authority to declassify materials related to the roots of the Russia investigation.
"The attorney general is one of the most respected people in this country, and he has been for a long period of time," Trump told reporters at the time. "He is going to look at a lot of documents. Some he might find interesting — maybe he'll find none interesting. He can look. And I hope he looks at the UK, and I hope he looks at Australia, and I hope he looks at Ukraine."
Barr's close involvement in Durham's investigation, as well as his apparent involvement in discussing the matter with officials in Australia, the UK, and Ukraine, illustrates the importance he places on Trump's calls to "investigate the investigators."
Current and former officials also told The Post they were frustrated Barr had taken on such an integral role in investigating what they characterized as baseless conspiracies and allegations of misconduct.
Indeed, it's not the first time the attorney general has endorsed the president's theories without evidence.
He alleged in May that the FBI crossed "a serious red line" by investigating Trump's campaign.
A month earlier, he said he believed the FBI was "spying" on the Trump campaign, echoing a popular conspiracy theory in right-wing circles.
"I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal," Barr said, adding that he believed "spying did occur."
When lawmakers pressed Barr on that, he acknowledged he didn't have information to support his claim, saying, "I have no specific evidence that I would cite right now — I do have questions about it."
In March, he circumvented Mueller's team when he determined that Trump did not obstruct justice in the Russia investigation, even though prosecutors found 11 potential instances of obstruction and emphasized that their report "does not exonerate" the president and that if they had confidence Trump did not commit a crime, they would have said so.
And in 2017, before Trump tapped him to be attorney general, Barr sent a memo to the Justice Department claiming Mueller's obstruction inquiry was "legally insupportable."
Friday, October 25, 2019
Cornyn: Not a bad idea to get U.S. troops out of the way if Turkey planned to ‘ethnically cleanse the Kurds' , The #ImpeachmentInquiry is following the 2015 House Rules implemented by REPUBLICAN Speaker Boehner.
Translation:
Let’s be chicken-****s after our allies suffered 11,000 dead doing what we asked them to do.
Let’s be chicken-****s after our allies suffered 11,000 dead doing what we asked them to do.
The Texas Republican isn’t happy about the abruptness of the U.S. withdrawal but defended Trump’s move, even if it left Kurdish allies unprotected.
Updated Thursday at 12:15 p.m. with Cornyn calling the Turkish invasion “inevitable” and Democrats blasting him.
WASHINGTON — Texas Sen. John Cornyn defended the president’s abrupt decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, arguing Wednesday that with Turkey intent on ethnic cleansing of the Kurds — longtime U.S. allies in the fight against the radical Islamic State — the move had merit.
“If Turkey was planning on coming into northern Syria and trying to ethnically cleanse the Kurds, and U.S. troops were caught in the middle, I am not completely convinced that it was a bad idea to get them out of harm’s way,” Cornyn said.
Critics of Trump’s policy have explicitly accused him of standing aside as Turkey attacked and displaced at least 160,000 members of an ethnic group that sacrificed more than 10,000 fighters in seven years of war with ISIS.
On Thursday, Democrats vying to challenge Cornyn next year blasted him for taking a “cut and run” approach.
“I did not put on the uniform to get out of the way of ethnic cleansing," said combat pilot M.J. Hegar, an Air Force veteran. Said State Sen. Royce West of Dallas, “We protect and work with allies.... Texans don’t run."
At the Capitol, Cornyn did damage control, insisting that he hadn’t meant to imply approval for ethnic cleansing, or for the U.S. giving Turkey a green light to attack the Kurds. “I wasn’t very clear. If the US isn’t committed to stay in Syria, getting our troops out of harm’s way where they might be injured or killed during the inevitable conflict between the Turks and the Kurds was something I was concerned about," he said Thursday.
Cornyn made his initial comments during a call Wednesday with Texas reporters, two hours after Trump announced that he was lifting sanctions against Turkey, which has driven Kurds from a 20-mile deep zone along much of its border with Syria.
“Let someone else fight over this long-bloodstained sand,” Trump said. "Our troops are safe, and the pain and suffering of the three-day fight that occurred was directly responsible for our ability to make an agreement with Turkey and the Kurds that could never have been made without this short-term outburst.”
A senior aide, discussing the Syria policy with reporters after the president’s comments, said that “I don’t think we’ve seen any evidence of ethnic cleansing" but that the U.S. would continue to monitor the Kurds’ situation. “And we would discourage — strongly discourage — any side from forced population removals and ethnic cleansing. That’s just something that doesn’t belong in the 21st century.”
At a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing Tuesday, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas called Trump’s decision to pull out of Syria “precipitous,” for putting Kurds at risk and inviting a resurgence of the ISIS caliphate.
He expressed more dismay after Trump’s announcement Wednesday lifting the threat of sanctions on Turkey.
“Turkey’s incursion is totally unacceptable,” Cruz said. “This invasion endangered our Kurdish partners and unfortunately now risks a resurgence of ISIS. The United States should stand by our Kurdish allies, who have a long history of standing with America against our enemies, and try to stop the chaos that ISIS fighters are taking advantage of by escaping prison.”
Cruz and Rep. Michael McCaul of Austin, the senior Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, have loudly denounced the decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria.
Last Wednesday, the House overwhelmingly approved a resolution disapproving of the move. The vote was 354-60. McCaul co-authored the measure with the committee’s Democratic chairman, Rep. Eliot Engel of New York.
“The abrupt withdrawal of United States military personnel from certain parts of Northeast Syria is beneficial to adversaries of the United States government, including Syria, Iran, and Russia,” the resolution says.
Last Thursday, Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney blasted Trump for abandoning the Kurds, denouncing the abandonment of an ally as “a bloodstain in the annals of American history.”
The United States has a mixed record of intervening in episodes of ethnic cleansing, which refers to the forcible removal of civilians of a particular ethnic group.
In the 1990s, fighting in the former Yugoslavia led to war crimes tribunals. In 1994, members of the Hutu ethnic majority in Rwanda murdered up to 800,000 people, mostly members of the Tutsi minority, during a 100-day genocidal spree.
“As if clearing the way for a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Syrian Kurds wasn’t enough, President Trump seems determined to keep handing political and military victories to Russia and Syria, kowtowing to Turkey, and opening the door for further Iranian expansion in the region,” said New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez, the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“The murderous Syrian regime and the Russian security forces continue to rejoice over their control of almost all remaining autonomous Kurdish territory, in some cases literally standing in abandoned American military posts,” he said. “The only question remaining is whether President Trump is acting directly at the behest of Russian and Turkish leaders, or whether he is willfully blind to his own failures.”
David Petraeus, former CIA director and former commander of U.S. Central Command, which is responsible for the Middle East, was asked Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union if he thought the U.S. was sanctioning ethnic cleansing of the Kurds.
“Well, it certainly is ethnic displacement. And, arguably, it may turn out to be ethnic cleansing,” he said.
He added that Turkey has “legitimate security concerns” about Syrian Kurds who have worked both with the United States in the fight against ISIS and with Turkish Kurd terrorists.
A buffer zone the United States established and patrolled was useful in keeping the adversaries apart, though not to Turkey’s satisfaction. It’s now controlled by Turkey and Russia.
“It took 10,000 Syrian Kurd losses, years of effort by our Special Forces. … And then, in a single period of a couple of days, we are abandoning all of that on the battlefield,” Petraeus said.
Cornyn readily agreed that the U.S. withdrawal may have been ill-conceived and hasty.
“They have been fighting alongside of Americans and others to try to contain ISIS. So I have many concerns, but perhaps the overarching concern is [that] President Obama did not have a strategy, and President Trump didn’t inherit one, nor did he come up with a comprehensive strategy,” Cornyn said. “I wish that there had been more consultation with Congress and others and our allies in the region.”
Asked if he was satisfied with Trump’s latest moves, lifting sanctions on Turkey and declaring victory after last week’s withdrawal, Cornyn was cautious: “This thing changes pretty quickly, and we need for this to play out a little bit to have some clarity.”
FOLLOWING REPUBLICAN RULES!
Judge Nap just spelled out the House Rules right where Trump can see them. The #ImpeachmentInquiry is following the 2015 House Rules implemented by REPUBLICAN Speaker Boehner. Sorry, SCIF-busters. Your rules. Just right. #ThursdayThoughts
Thursday, October 24, 2019
FOCUS: Matt Gaetz Brags He Pulled Off Capitol Stunt by Himself, Like a Big Boy
24 October 19
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24 October 19
FOCUS: Matt Gaetz Brags He Pulled Off Capitol Stunt by Himself, Like a Big Boy
Alexi Cardona, Miami New Times
Cardona writes: "So before diving into Rep. Matt Gaetz's recent shenanigans, it's worth noting he is 37 years old and, seemingly, a fully grown adult man."
Alexi Cardona, Miami New Times
Cardona writes: "So before diving into Rep. Matt Gaetz's recent shenanigans, it's worth noting he is 37 years old and, seemingly, a fully grown adult man."
Yesterday the congressman for Florida led a mob of fellow Republicans through a highly secure facility of the U.S. Capitol where Laura Cooper, the Pentagon's top official on Ukraine, was testifying in the impeachment inquiry. The probe revolves around accusations that President Donald Trump enlisted Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden — his political rival — and Biden's son Hunter in exchange for hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the foreign country. Gaetz whined that, despite long-standing protocols, all members of Congress should be allowed to sit in on Cooper's deposition.
The debacle kicked off with a morning news conference where Gaetz protested what he and other Republican lawmakers believe to be a lack of transparency surrounding the closed-door depositions. Gaetz declared he and his colleagues were "going in there."
CNN reported that Gaetz and his gang of two dozen members of Congress barged into the secure room through three doors. Yelling ensued, and Gaetz's merry band of Republican lawmakers refused to leave. Cooper's deposition was delayed by five hours, but she ultimately gave her testimony.
The room Republicans breached, known as the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF), is designed to protect against electronic surveillance and leaks of national security and military information. Smartphones aren't allowed inside SCIFs because their microphones and cameras can be hacked. But several news outlets have reported some members of the Gaetz-led group took their cell phones into the facility.
Only members of the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs, and Oversight committees — those conducting the impeachment inquiry — were allowed in the secure area. Gaetz and others complained that all members of Congress should be included in the inquiry regardless of the committees on which they serve. Stupidly enough, more than a dozen of the legislators who went along with Gaetz's PR stunt serve on the impeachment-overseeing committees and were allowed to attend the hearing, the Washington Post reported.
Yesterday wasn't the first time Gaetz tried to crash an impeachment deposition. Last week, he was booted from a hearing with Fiona Hill, the president's former adviser on Russia.
His most recent caper came two days after Trump said during a Cabinet meeting that Republicans needed to "get tougher and fight" for him, his presidency, and the GOP. So far, Trump hasn't tweeted about yesterday's events, although he retweeted a couple of video clips from the news conference.
Bloomberg reported that Trump knew of the scheme beforehand and approved of it. Gaetz, meanwhile, bragged he pulled off the stunt all by himself, like a big boy. Either way, he's one of the president's most enthusiastic defenders, and he continues to show there isn't much he won't do for Trump.
Beyond committing the crime of smugness, Gaetz orchestrated a serious breach of national security, according to some experts. Mieke Eoyang, a former staff director on the House Intelligence Committee, tweeted, "I cannot emphasize enough how serious this is."
"In 'storming the SCIF' without observing the security protocols, Rep. Gaetz et al, endangered our national security & demonstrated they care more about a political stunt than protecting intelligence information," she wrote.
As of this morning, #ArrestMattGaetz is still trending on Twitter.
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