Trump and the Russian Bounties to Kill US Soldiers

Submitted by Ben Bache on

On June 26, 2020 the New York Times reported that, in the midst of the peace talks to end the war in Afghanistan, Russian military intelligence offered bounties to the Taliban for killing US troops. While Russia is understood by US and Afghan officials to support the Taliban, a bounty for killing US servicemen in Afghanistan would represent what the Times called "a significant and provocative escalation," and would be the first time Russian intelligence was "known to have orchestrated attacks on US troops."

Two days later Trump tweeted "Intel just reported to me that they did not find this info credible, and therefore did not report it to me or @VP," and that Pence had suggested it was “Possibly another fabricated Russian Hoax.” Congressional Democrats were briefed on the topic on  June 30 by White House staffers, but House Majority Leader Steny  Hoyer told reporters they "... did not receive any substantive new information." Hoyer also said he had told chief of staff Mark Meadows that he wanted to hear directly from the intelligence sources." On July 1 Trump again called the reports a hoax "by the newspapers and the Democrats," and asserted that "the intelligence people ... didn't believe it happened at all."

Trump's Deadly Cornavirus Bungle

Submitted by Ben Bache on

"Nobody ever expected a thing like this,” Trump said in a Fox News interview on Tuesday, March 23. To the contrary, starting in 2016, in the aftermath of the Ebola crisis of 2014-2015, the National Security Council had initiated a project to develop a "Playbook for Early Response to High-Consequence Emerging Infectious Disease Threats and Biological Incidents," aka "the pandemic playbook."  The playbook outlines hundreds of tactics and decisions to be considered when confronting a pandemic including consideration of availability of personal-protective-equipment (PPE) for healthcare providers,  recommendation that the federal government work to detect potential outbreaks, and consider invoking the Defense Production Act.

The Trump administration was made aware of the document's existence in 2017, but -- whether by choice or ineptitude -- it was "thrown onto a shelf" according to a government official interviewed by Politico, who worked in the Obama and Trump administrations.

Among its many recommendations, the playbook contains a set of key questions and decisions to be addressed as soon as there is a "credible threat" of a pandemic, which in the case of COVID19 would have been in early to mid January when the virus was spreading in China....

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Impeachment

Submitted by Ben Bache on

On December 18, 2019 History.com's "day in history" feature recorded the impeachment of President Donald J. Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Trump was only the third US president to be impeached. While Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller's report had provided substantial evidence of misdeeds, its narrow focus, and constrained application by the Justice Department helped prevent any direct consequences to Trump. On August 12, 2019, however, a government staffer registered a formal "whistleblower complaint" concerning Trump's month-long effort to pressure the government of Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter. A central focus of the complaint was a phone call on July 25 between Trump and Ukrainian Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, as well as White House attempts to cover up the call and other events. The complaint led eventually to impeachment in the US House of Representatives by a vote of 230-197-1 on the abuse of power charge, and 229-198-1 on the obstruction of Congress charge. Trump was later acquitted in the US Senate by votes of 52-48 on the first count and 51-49 on the second, with Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, becoming the only senator from an impeached president's party in US history to vote for conviction.  

Associated Press impeachment coverage.

C-SPAN's impeachment coverage.

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Mueller Report

Submitted by Ben Bache on

Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller's Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election was released on the Internet, April 18, 2019. The report identified "sweeping and systemic" Russian interference in the 2016 US elections, including a social media "information warfare" campaign favoring the Trump campaign, hacking of databases and release of stolen materials. Russia also targeted election-related databases in several states, and gained access to millions of voter registration records. 

The report produced more than three dozen indictments and seven guilty pleas or convictions. Fourteen other criminal matters were referred to elements of the Justice Department....

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T Is For Toddler, T Is For Trump

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"It has never existed," the New York Times' Maggie Haberman wrote in June about the hope being expressed in Washington for an imaginary person who could keep Trump in line. "... [P]eople keep cycling through, looking for ways, in the campaign and now." In June some were hoping the kindergarten-teacher-in-chief would be the First Lady; this month the talk was of retired Marine general John F. Kelly, Trump's new chief of staff. John Kelly Quickly Moves to Impose Military Discipline on White House, the New York Times proclaimed on August 3, only to be answered barely two week later by the Washington Post headline Trump's lack of discipline leaves new chief of staff frustrated and dismayed.

Incompetence Trumps Malevolence

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"Who's making the decisions in the White House?" Senator John McCain asked reporters on February 14. "Is it the 31 year old?" he continued, alluding to Trump adviser Stephen Miller. "Is it Mr. Bannon? Is it the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff? I don't know." The "whole environment is one of dysfunction in the Trump administration," McCain said.

"“I’ve consulted many people in town about analogies and comparisons and nobody can come up with any," Bill Galston, former Deputy Assistant to President Clinton, now at the Brookings Institution told the Guardian. "Our seismographs are broken.... We appear to have a president who cannot distinguish chaos from order. There are amateurs doing a job that only professionals can do, and even then often not successfully."

Sebastian Gorka, So-called Terrorism Expert

Submitted by Ben Bache on

Sebastian Gorka is a deputy assistant to the President, serving as an adviser on national security. Still unknown to many Americans, Gorka gained some notoriety recently when he was found to have worn a medal associated with Miklos Horthy to an inaugural ball. Horthy led the Hungarian government from 1920 to 1944. The World Holocaust Remembrance Center, Yad Vashem, describes his government as anti-semitic, noting that it was the first government in post-World War I Europe to institute a quota on the number of Jews who could enter university. Although Horthy later resisted Hitler's more extreme measures, such as construction of ghettos, and concentration camps, he is revered by the far right Jobbik party in Hungary. The Jobbik party, which sponsored a statue of Horthy unveiled in 2013, has "stoked anti-semitism" in Hungary, "vilifying Jews and Israel in speeches in parliament," according to Reuters.

Gorka, whose specialty these days seems to be media appearances and his own celebrity, does not have the Top Secret or Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information (TS/SCI) security clearance that would normally be expected of someone leading a government unit responsible for counterterrorism intelligence. Colin Kahl, who was a national security adviser in the Obama administration, wrote recently in Foreign Policy that he was unable to confirm that Gorka had a security clearance at all.

National Security Adviser, Conspiracy Theory Fan, Shared Classified Information Without Authorization

Submitted by Ben Bache on

The Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, known informally as the National Security Adviser, is the chief adviser to the president on national security issues. Consistent with the pattern of appointees whose political positions or temperaments seem antithetical to the mission of the agencies or positions they've been appointed to fill,  Trump's designated National Security Adviser, Retired U.S. Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, has been investigated for passing classified information without authorization, and has promoted conspiracy theories and fake news.

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