Trump Is the Worst Kind of Socialist

By Bernie Sanders, The Wall Street Journal

28 June 19

merica will never be a socialist country,” President Trump said as he launched his bid for re-election last week.

That declaration was an effort to frighten Americans and undermine growing support for expanding Medicare and Social Security—two popular programs that have long been derided as “socialist.” Mr. Trump’s declaration hypocritically ignores that he and his Republican colleagues are the nation’s leading purveyors of an insidious form of corporate socialism, which uses government power and taxpayer resources to enrich Mr. Trump and his billionaire friends.

When we defeat Mr. Trump in this election, we are going to end his corporate socialism and use those resources to create a 21st Century Economic Bill of Rights that benefits all people.

Consider the corporate socialism we’ve seen on Wall Street, where the high priests of unfettered capitalism reign. As you will recall, Wall Street’s deification of “free markets” went out the window in 2008 as they watched the financial crisis caused by their own greed and illegal behavior threaten the existence of some of the largest financial institutions in the country. Suddenly, Wall Street became strong supporters of big-government socialism.

They begged the federal government for unprecedented taxpayer assistance, and Congress provided them with the largest bailout in history. The major banks received some $700 billion from the Treasury and trillions in low-interest loans from the Federal Reserve.

Meanwhile, working people all across the country lost their jobs, their homes and their life savings. The most vulnerable were hit the hardest, with the African-American community losing half its wealth.

That was not an aberration. The norm across the corporate world is what the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. called “socialism for the rich, and rugged free enterprise capitalism for the poor.”

If you are a fossil-fuel company, whose carbon emissions are destroying the planet, Mr. Trump and congressional Republicans offer billions in government subsidies, including special tax breaks, royalty relief and funding for research and development. But if you are struggling to pay your utility bill, you get the free market—higher and higher electric bills.

If you are a pharmaceutical company, you make huge profits on patent rights for medicines that were developed with taxpayer-funded research. But if you are a taxpayer, you get the free market and pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs—and in some cases you die because you cannot afford the medication you need.

If you are a monopoly like Amazon, owned by the wealthiest person in the U.S., you get hundreds of millions of dollars in economic incentives from taxpayers to build warehouses, yet you end up paying not one penny in federal income taxes. But if you are a small business that falls behind on your store’s rent, you get the free market—which means you get an eviction notice.

If you are the billionaire Walton family, state and local governments grant you free land and subsidies and build infrastructure for your stores, even as Walmart ’s tax-avoidance schemes drain local towns of public revenues. But if you are a Walmart worker, you get the free market—which means starvation wages.

If you are the Trump family, you got $885 million worth of tax breaks and subsidies for your family’s housing empire, which was built on racial discrimination. But if you are a homeowner struggling to pay your mortgage, you get the free market—which means foreclosure.

The time is long overdue for the U.S. to end corporate socialism for Mr. Trump and the rest of the billionaire class. Instead, those resources should be put to work to ensure shared prosperity by enhancing Social Security and Medicare and investing in roads and bridges, public schools, clean water and clean air.

Mr. Trump believes in corporate socialism to protect the wealth and power of the rich. I believe the U.S. must end corporate socialism and instead fulfill President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s vision of enshrining basic economic rights for all Americans. These include the rights to health care, a living wage, a decent job, a quality education, a secure retirement, affordable housing and a clean environment. We can make this 21st Century Economic Bill of Rights a reality with initiatives like Medicare for All, a $15 minimum wage, a Green New Deal, student-debt cancellation and legislation to expand Social Security.

I recognize that this agenda will face enormous opposition from corporate America and the 1%. They have a vested interest in protecting the corporate socialism that has enriched and empowered them. The wealthiest three families now own more wealth than the bottom half of the country, and they will do everything they can to block our agenda.

But more Americans are noticing the contradiction between coddled socialism for the rich and the destruction of opportunity for everyone else. I am confident that we will be able to build a grass-roots movement that will not only defeat Donald Trump in this election but finally create a government that works for all people, not just the billionaire class.

10 Questions Congress Should Ask Mueller

By Barbara McQuade, The Daily Beast

28 June 19

It’s not just about Trump. We need to know more about Russia and more about Barr.

ow that two congressional committees have subpoenaed Special Counsel Robert Mueller to testify, what are the key questions for him? Mueller will appear on July 17 to testify before the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees in open and closed sessions. Here are some questions for the committees to ask.

1. What do we need to know to safeguard our elections from Russia in the future?

Mueller’s most important conclusion in his report was that Russia interfered with our election in “sweeping and systematic fashion.” What are the lessons learned about its social media propaganda campaign and hacking operation that we could use to disrupt such efforts in the future?

The report also states, “Victims included U.S. state and local entities, such as state boards of elections (SBOEs), secretaries of state, and county governments, as well as individuals who worked for those entities. The GRU also targeted private technology firms responsible for manufacturing and administering election-related software and hardware, such as voter registration software and electronic polling stations.” Did the attack impact the outcome of the election? What steps should we take to harden our election infrastructure? Classified aspects of the investigation can be addressed during the closed session.

Mueller’s report states that President Trump attempted to have then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions reverse his decision to recuse himself from the investigation and publicly announce that the investigation would focus on future elections only. If Trump had been successful, he would have prevented Mueller from learning about how Russia attacked our presidential election in 2016. What lessons about the attack that would remain unknown if this attempt to obstruct the investigation had been successful?

2. What were the key findings of your investigation?

During his press remarks, Mueller said that his report is his testimony, but it is clear that many people have not read or absorbed the substance of his report. His testimony is an opportunity to inform the public about some of his key findings. Even if he merely highlights some of his factual determinations, his testimony will raise public awareness about hundreds of links between Russia and the Trump campaign and obstructive conduct to conceal them. Attorney General William Barr seized the narrative when he published his own summary of the report three weeks before its public release, and announced that the special counsel found no “collusion” during his public remarks on the day the report was released, parroting Trump’s terminology.

In fact, the report describes troubling incidents of communicating with Wikileaks about the release of stolen email messages, sharing polling data with Russian intelligence, meeting with Russians for the purpose of receiving “information and documents that would incriminate Hillary” Clinton as “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump,” among others. Mueller’s description of these events would raise public awareness of these incidents. While these acts may not have amounted to the technical crime of conspiracy, they demonstrate a lack of loyalty to the United States that should trouble every American.

3. How was your investigation impeded?

While Barr has stated that the White House was “fully cooperative with the Special Counsel’s investigation,” Mueller’s report tells a different story about members of the Trump campaign and Trump himself. He wrote that “the investigation established that several individuals affiliated with the Trump Campaign lied to the Office, and to Congress, about their interactions with Russian-affiliated individuals and related matters. Those lies materially impaired the investigation of Russian election interference.” He further noted that some witnesses provided incomplete information, deleted text messages, and used encrypted messaging apps that prevented Mueller from discovery all relevant information. Trump himself refused to sit for an interview. Other witnesses invoked their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination, and while they have a constitutional right to do so, they cannot accurately be described as “fully cooperative.”

4. What were the “gaps” in your investigation?

Mueller wrote that in light of these “identified gaps,” in the evidence, “the Office cannot rule out the possibility that the unavailable information would shed additional light on (or cast in a new light) the events described in the report.” Uncooperative witnesses, legal privileges and documents and witnesses located overseas, beyond the reach of grand jury subpoenas, impeded the investigation, according to the report. What questions remain as a result of these gaps in the evidence?

“Did Barr ask you to end the investigation before you thought it was ready?”

For example, the report says that one area that Mueller’s team was unable to fully understand was the sharing of polling data by former campaign chair Paul Manafort to Konstantin Kilimnik, whom the FBI assesses is connected to Russian intelligence. The polling data included information about Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, three states in which Trump won upset victories on election night. Mueller could point the committees toward a path for obtaining information to fill those gaps in his investigation.

5. Why did Mueller not pursue an in-person interview of Trump?

Mueller attempted unsuccessfully to arrange for an interview with Trump for more than a year. He wrote that an interview of Trump was “vital” to his investigation, and “in the interest of the Presidency and the public for an interview to take place.” Trump refused to participate in an interview and instead submitted responses to written questions. Even then, he responded only to questions about conspiracy, refusing to answer questions about obstruction. More than 30 times, Trump responded that he did not recall or remember. Mueller’s report describes these responses as “inadequate,” “incomplete” and “imprecise.” Why did he let Trump off the hook?

6. Did Barr ask you to end the investigation before you thought it was ready?

Mueller investigated for 21 months before Barr became attorney general. Three weeks later, the investigation ended. Barr was Trump’s nominee for attorney general after he fired Sessions and complained that he wanted an attorney general who could protect him. Last year, Barr sent an unsolicited memo to the Department of Justice, expounding a legal theory that a sitting president can never obstruct justice as a matter of law, a theory that Mueller rejected.

Mueller ended his investigation even though 14 investigations remained ongoing, the president was not interviewed, the trial of Roger Stone had not occurred, and grand jury matters involving Stone associate Andrew Miller and an undisclosed foreign entity remained unresolved. Why did he end the investigation without completing those tasks? Were there other tasks he would have liked to have completed?

7. Why did you send a letter to the attorney general stating that his letter “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this Office’s work and conclusions.”

Barr’s initial letter stated that “[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.” Barr omitted the first part of that sentence from Mueller’s report, which stated, importantly, “Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts…”

What did you have in mind when you wrote the letter to Barr? What aspects of the context, nature, and substance of his work and conclusions did Barr’s letter fail to capture?

With regard to obstruction of justice, Barr’s letter stated that Mueller “leaves it to the Attorney General to determine whether the conduct described in the report constitutes a crime,” and then concluded that it did not. Did Mueller intend to leave it to the attorney general to decide or did he have something else in mind when he said he did not want to “preempt constitutional processes for addressing presidential misconduct” (that is, impeachment)?

8. You wrote that you were bound by the DOJ opinion that a sitting president cannot be charged, but you sought to “preserve the evidence.” What are all of the purposes for preserving evidence?

Mueller wrote that other individuals could be charged, and, in fact, were charged. He also wrote that a president can be charged after he is no longer in office. Did he also preserve the evidence so that the information could be used by Congress to pursue impeachment?

9. If Trump were not a sitting president, do you believe that the evidence would amount to a crime of obstruction of justice?

Mueller’s report describes ten separate episodes of obstructive conduct. The essential elements of obstruction are an obstructive act, a nexus to an official proceeding, and a corrupt intent. He found “substantial evidence” for each and every element with regard to four of those episodes–directing White House Counsel Don McGahn to fire Mueller, asking McGahn to falsely deny reports about that order and to create a false document consistent with the false denial, asking Corey Lewandowski to direct Sessions to reverse his recusal decision and then limit the investigation to future elections and attempting to influence the testimony of witnesses. Mueller wrote that his report did not “conclude that the President committed a crime,” but “it also does not exonerate him.” Mueller believed that because a sitting president could not be charged, fairness required that he not even accuse Trump of a crime. But 1,000 former federal prosecutors have signed a letter stating that if they had seen this behavior committed by any other person, they could conclude that the crime of obstruction of justice had been committed. Does Mueller agree?

10. Have you seen anything about the predication for the case that causes you to believe that it is necessary to investigate the investigators?

Barr has stated that he believed that “spying” on the Trump campaign occurred, that he has “not gotten answers that are … satisfactory” and that some of the facts that he has learned “don’t hang together with the official explanation of what happened.” Did Mueller see anything in his work to suggest that there is merit to Barr’s criticisms? Was the FISA process abused in any way? To what extent was the Steele dossier relied upon? Was any reliance inappropriate? Has the dossier been discredited or verified?