Does Washington Know the Difference Between Dissent and Disinformation?
Friday, 15 February 2019 09:15
Taibbi writes: "There's nothing particularly odd about the president working with security agencies to come up with a plan to prevent cyber attacks and other foreign incursions. But a provision of the Democrats' first House bill also specifically describes a strategy to combat domestic actors, and its mandate is couched in language that raises questions about its true purpose."
The U.S. Capitol Building is seen at sunset in Washington, D.C., 19 December 2018. (photo: Michael Reynolds/REX)
Does Washington Know the Difference Between Dissent and Disinformation?
By Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone
15 February 19
If not, we should be troubled by a passage buried in H.R. 1, the Democrats’ first House bill
.R. 1, better known as the For the People Act, has won praise from many Democrat-friendly pundits.
The first proposed legislation of the Democratic House would, among other things, expand voting rights by encouraging same-day registration, force presidents and vice presidents to release tax returns, and ban members of Congress from serving on corporate boards.
That’s what makes a provision buried deep in the bill a bit of a head-scratcher.
Page 268 of the bill, which was sponsored by Maryland Democrat John Sarbanes, features “Section 3201: National Strategy to Protect Democratic Institutions.”
The section mandates that the president work with the secretaries of Defense, State, and Education, along with the director of national intelligence, the chair of the Federal Election Commission and the “heads of any other appropriate federal agencies” to develop a “national strategy” against “cyber attacks, influence operations, disinformation campaigns” and other operations that could “undermine the security and integrity of United States democratic institutions.”
There’s nothing particularly odd about the president working with security agencies to come up with a plan to prevent cyber attacks and other foreign incursions. But this provision also specifically describes a strategy to combat domestic actors, and its mandate is couched in language that raises questions about its true purpose.
The president is required to consider the “threat of a foreign state actor, foreign terrorist organization, or a domestic actor carrying out a cyber attack, influence operation, disinformation campaign, or other activity aimed at undermining the security and integrity of United States.”
The strategy would be to prevent “potential consequences, such as an erosion of public trust or an undermining of the rule of law” that could result from such operations. Which makes sense in light of the 2016 elections (and other reported cyber incursions), but the potentially secret nature of the program is unsettling.
The bill states that all of this will be done in conjunction with a timeline that would include metrics, costs and objectives, and this “shall be in unclassified form.” But the bill goes on to say, there “may be a classified annex.”
Classified annexes are a legislative innovation that grew up after the Church-Pike congressional investigations in the 1970s into foreign assassinations and other unregulated behaviors of the intelligence agencies. Classified annexes basically allow for separate secret appropriations for personnel, costs, even directives. Though common, such a provision with this kind of bill would concern any rational observer.
To recap: A bill that’s ostensibly about promoting democracy would mandate the creation of a new, potentially classified Executive Branch directive targeting both foreign and domestic “disinformation” and “influence.” The president, the Defense Department and the security agencies would have a mandate to combat a broad range of activities deemed resultant in an “erosion of public trust” and/or a threat to “democracy.”
The issue this little legislative nugget raises is the same one that’s been hovering around the edges of the national security debate since 2016 — the possibility of leveraging legitimate fears over foreign cyber-attacks into more direct intervention by the government in domestic discourse. Although agencies like the FBI have broad investigatory power, intelligence services are traditionally barred from spying on Americans, raising questions about what role they could have here.
How would we define activity that “erodes public trust”? What would constitute a domestic “influence campaign”? What measures would be allowed in retaliation?
We’ve already seen in the past few years evidence of an increased interest in Washington in regulating the media and the internet, with tech companies asked in a Senate hearing to draw up plans to prevent the “foment of discord.” The only way a secret government strategy to prevent “an erosion of trust” wouldn’t be at least a little scary is if you have complete confidence the government knows the difference between legitimate dissent and improper “influence.”
Andrew McCabe Says the FBI Discussed a Plan to Remove Trump From Office
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=48249"><span class="small">Ryan Bort, Rolling Stone</span></a>
Thursday, 14 February 2019 13:34
Bort writes: "Last month, the New York Times reported that after President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey in May 2017, the bureau opened a counterintelligence investigation to determine if the president was working on behalf of Russia. It was quite the bombshell."
FBI Director Andrew McCabe, waits to speak at a press conference to announce the results from the Justice Department's annual national health care fraud takedown at the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., 13 July 2017. (photo: Jim Lo Scalzo/Shutterstock)
Andrew McCabe Says the FBI Discussed a Plan to Remove Trump From Office
By Ryan Bort, Rolling Stone
14 February 19
The former FBI director described the pressure to protect the Russia investigation after Trump fired James Comey, and notes the 25th Amendment has been on the table
ast month, the New York Times reported that after President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey in May 2017, the bureau opened a counterintelligence investigation to determine if the president was working on behalf of Russia. It was quite the bombshell.
The man who would have launched such an investigation was Andrew McCabe, who took the reins of the FBI following Comey’s ouster only to have Trump replace him with Christopher Wray three months later. McCabe has mostly stayed silent since he left the bureay, but on Sunday he will appear on 60 Minutes to promote his new book, The Threat. On Thursday, 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley said on CBS The Morning that the short-lived FBI director not only confirmed that he launched a counterintelligence investigation into the president, but that the FBI discussed whether it was possible to remove Trump from office using the 25th Amendment, which outlines a process for a president to be stripped of his powers should he be deemed unfit to serve.
“There were meetings at the Justice Department, in which it was discussed whether the vice president and a majority of the cabinet could be brought together to remove the president of the United States under the 25th Amendment,” said Pelley. “These were the eight days from Comey’s firing to the point that Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel. The highest levels of American law enforcement were trying to figure out what to do with the president.”
"The most illuminating and surprising thing in the interview to me were these 8 days in May... There were meetings at the Justice Dept, in which it was discussed whether the VP and a majority of the cabinet could be brought together to remove the POTUS under the 25th Amendment" pic.twitter.com/cs0gBdYoSB
McCabe also described the sense of urgency among FBI officials following Comey’s firing, and that he felt it necessary to take action immediately after it happened. He feared that unless he fortified the Russia investigation, there was a danger it could be abandoned if he were to be removed from his post and replaced with someone loyal to the president.
“I met with the team investigating the Russia cases and I asked the team to go back and conduct an assessment to determine where are we with these efforts and what steps do we need to take going forward,” said McCabe. “I was very concerned [about putting] the Russia case on absolutely solid ground in an indelible fashion [so that if] I were removed quickly or reassigned or fired, the case could not be closed or vanish in the night without a trace. I wanted to make sure our case was on solid ground and if somebody came in behind me and closed it and tried to walk away from it, they would not be able to do that without creating a record of why they made that decision.”
NEW: In his first interview since being fired, former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is telling @60Minutes why he opened up investigations involving President Trump. @ScottPelley reports: pic.twitter.com/wGmtcPFyvq
Around the same time Pelley previewed his interview with McCabe, The Atlanticpublished an excerpt from The Threat. It, too, contained several revelations regarding the days that followed Comey’s firing. McCabe writes of how puzzled he was to receive a call on an insecure phone line from “Don Trump” the day after Comey’s firing. “You know — boy, it’s incredible, it’s such a great thing, people are really happy about the fact that the director’s gone, and it’s just remarkable what people are saying. Have you seen that? Are you seeing that, too?” McCabe remembers the president saying. “I received hundreds of messages from FBI people — how happy they are that I fired him. There are people saying things on the media, have you seen that? What’s it like there in the building?”
This concerned McCabe not only because FBI employees were dismayed by the firing, but because it presidents don’t typically converse with FBI officials, as investigations need to be carried out without any “suspicion that someone who wields power has put a thumb on the scale.” Also distressing was the president’s fury that Comey was allowed to fly home on a government plane. “The president flew off the handle,” McCabe writes. “That’s not right! I don’t approve of that! That’s wrong! He reiterated his point five or seven times.”
The reason for the call, however, was to invite McCabe to the White House to discuss the idea of Trump visiting the FBI to reassure employees of his support for the bureau. McCabe thought this was a terrible idea, but, later that day, while sitting in the Oval Office with Trump, then-chief of staff Reince Priebus and then-legal counsel Don McGhan, he felt pressured to endorse it. Like Comey did in his 2018 book A Higher Loyalty, McCabe likened Trump’s tactics to that of a crime boss.
“In this moment, I felt the way I’d felt in 1998, in a case involving the Russian Mafia, when I sent a man I’ll call Big Felix in to meet with a Mafia boss named Dimitri Gufield,” McCabe writes. “The same kind of thing was happening here, in the Oval Office. Dimitri had wanted Felix to endorse his protection scheme. This is a dangerous business, and it’s a bad neighborhood, and you know, if you want, I can protect you from that. If you want my protection. I can protect you. Do you want my protection? The president and his men were trying to work me the way a criminal brigade would operate.”
“Don Trump” also seemed to be sending a message to McCabe on the phone, when he brought up his wife’s failed Virginia state Senate campaign, describing her as “a loser.”
McCabe says Trump brought up his wife's state Senate loss in their first conversation after Comey's firing.
It was all but guaranteed that Trump would attack McCabe within hours of the CBS This Morning briadcast. Along with Comey, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page and Bruce Ohr and a handful of others, McCabe is a fixture of the president’s routine attacks on the Justice Department. Trump lashed out at the latest former official to make their way into the news a few minutes before 10 a.m., right in the meaty part of Executive Time.
“Disgraced FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe pretends to be a ‘poor little Angel’ when in fact he was a big part of the Crooked Hillary Scandal & the Russia Hoax – a puppet for Leakin’ James Comey. I.G. report on McCabe was devastating,” Trump tweeted. “Part of ‘insurance policy’ in case I won. Many of the top FBI brass were fired, forced to leave, or left. McCabe’s wife received BIG DOLLARS from Clinton people for her campaign – he gave Hillary a pass. McCabe is a disgrace to the FBI and a disgrace to our Country. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Disgraced FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe pretends to be a “poor little Angel” when in fact he was a big part of the Crooked Hillary Scandal & the Russia Hoax - a puppet for Leakin’ James Comey. I.G. report on McCabe was devastating. Part of “insurance policy” in case I won....
....Many of the top FBI brass were fired, forced to leave, or left. McCabe’s wife received BIG DOLLARS from Clinton people for her campaign - he gave Hillary a pass. McCabe is a disgrace to the FBI and a disgrace to our Country. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
It goes without saying that McCabe and the president hold different opinions of how to make the United States great.
“People do not appreciate how far we have fallen from normal standards of presidential accountability,” McCabe writes in The Threat. “Today we have a president who is willing not only to comment prejudicially on criminal prosecutions but to comment on ones that potentially affect him. He does both of these things almost daily. He is not just sounding a dog whistle. He is lobbying for a result. The president has stepped over bright ethical and moral lines wherever he has encountered them. Every day brings a new low, with the president exposing himself as a deliberate liar who will say whatever he pleases to get whatever he wants. If he were ‘on the box’ at Quantico, he would break the machine.”
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=50160"><span class="small">Jalal Abukhater, Al Jazeera</span></a>
Thursday, 14 February 2019 13:34
Abukhater writes: "Under a debilitating siege for more than a decade, Gaza has been rightfully declared the biggest open-air prison in the world."
Palestinians walk next to the Israeli wall in Bethlehem, March 27, 2015. (photo: Ahmad Al-Bazz/Al Jazeera)
Palestine's Other Open-Air Prison
By Jalal Abukhater, Al Jazeera
14 February 19
Here is what a West Bank Palestinian resident has to go through every time s/he tries to get out of home.
nder a debilitating siege for more than a decade, Gaza has been rightfully declared the biggest open-air prison in the world. But there is another, similar, prison in Palestine that is less obvious because it suffers from a different kind of siege, undeclared and indirect: the West Bank. Every Palestinian who resides there and holds official Palestinian identification papers is a prisoner in their own home.
Freedom of movement is non-existent for the vast majority of the population because of a myriad of Israeli policies aimed at restricting it to the bare minimum. The situation is certainly shocking yet seems to be largely ignored by the world, especially by our Israeli neighbours.
Movement and life in the West Bank are governed by the whims of the Israeli security apparatus, which has set up hundreds of checkpoints, gates, artificial barriers, forbidden and segregated roads and of course, the 700km separation wall, as the Israelis call it, or apartheid wall, as we call it.
So what is it like for a Palestinian who tries to go anywhere in the West Bank?
The numbers
According to Israeli rights organisations B'Tselem, as of January 2017, there were 59 permanent checkpoints within the West Bank and 39 on its periphery to control the movement of people in and out of it.
Then there are the "flying checkpoints", which the Israeli military sets up temporarily on any given Palestinian road. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), there were some 4,924 flying checkpoints on West Bank roads between January 2017 and July 2018 alone.
All this, in addition to hundreds of other barriers such as dirt mounds, concrete blocks and gates lying at the entrance to most villages in the West Bank.
Apart from that, Palestinians are barred from entering or using land (even if it's theirs) within the so-called Area C - a territory outlined in the Oslo Accords where most illegal Israeli settlements are located and which constitutes about 61 percent of the West Bank.
For example, 270 of the entire 291 hectares that belong to the Palestinian village of Wadi Fukin near Bethlehem are designated as Area C. Palestinians who live there rely almost entirely on agriculture for their livelihood and struggle on a daily basis to access their lands. In fact, they have to get an Israeli permit to go work their land.
Talking about permits - Palestinians need one in order to leave the West Bank. Those are mainly given to people in important positions (big businessmen and politicians) who have the right financial records or political credentials and to poorer Palestinians, who provide Israelis with much-needed cheap labour, especially in the construction business.
The rest of the Palestinian population can only leave if they are issued a permit for medical or family reasons - and those are rare and easily revoked. In 2017, some 700,000 Palestinians (including labourers in Israel) applied for permits to leave the West Bank in total; about 560,000 got them and the rest were rejected.
You have probably guessed by now that all these restrictions imposed on the Palestinians have a disastrous effect on the economy. One World Bank paper estimated that placing one checkpoint a minute away from a town decreases employability of a Palestinian resident by 0.5 percent and his/her hourly wage by 5.2 percent.
The combined impact of all checkpoints in 2007 in the West Bank was a loss of $229m or six percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) in that year. Another World Bank study found that all these restrictions cost the local economy $3.4bn, or 35 percent of the GDP in 2011. And - if you're wondering - the combined cost of all deleterious aspects of the Israeli occupation cost Palestinians $9.46bn (that was 74 percent of Palestinian GDP in 2014).
And this is just the economic impact; what about the human cost?
The experience
In the West Bank, you regularly run into people who have never entered Jerusalem, despite living less than an hour away. You would also meet many Palestinians who hold American or European passports, are able to travel most of the world without a visa, but find it impossible to get a permit to visit Jaffa, for example, which is just 20km away.
I have three Palestinian friends with foreign passports (French, American and Russian), whom I can never host in my house in Jerusalem. On paper, all three don't need a visa to enter Israel (and the Palestinian territories), just like the hundreds of thousands of French people, Americans and Russians, who visit the place every year. But the Israeli authorities know they have Palestinian IDs, so they block them from entering; and since they are neither politically important nor rich, they can't get a permit either.
Apart from not being able to leave the West Bank, travelling within it is a nightmare. Checkpoints are arbitrarily opened and closed to control Palestinian movement. There is never an official reason given, but most of the time it is to facilitate traffic for Israeli settlers in the area, just to make our lives miserable or to impose a rather pernicious form of collective punishment on the Palestinian population.
The Beit El checkpoint at the northern entrance of Ramallah and Jaba at the southern one are two great examples. My friend Manar, who lives in Deir Dibwan, a village 4km outside of Ramallah, has to drive for an hour on average when there is no traffic to get to her job in the city. However, that commute gets exponentially longer when the Beit El checkpoint is closed to non-VIP card holders (and it often is). In theory, she can take multiple alternative routes that could cut the commute time down to 10 minutes, but those can be used only by Israelis.
David, a colleague of mine who commutes from Aboud, a Christian town about 18km northwest of Ramallah, is often late to work because "the gate was shut". The gate is an unmanned Israeli installation at the entrance of Deir Ibzi town, just outside of Ramallah, which he has to pass through.
The frequent closure of that gate doubles or triples the distance for commuters in over 10 towns and villages lying within the Ramallah district. It gets closed quite often because it is meant to facilitate the movement of Israeli settlers at peak hours. So on any given day, that the gate would be shut, say, when David leaves Ramallah to go home at 4pm, it would still be shut at 5pm when his cousin tries to cross, and then it would be open again at 7pm, then shut around 10pm when his brother tries to cross.
There are also major checkpoints, such as Container and Za'tara, which can completely paralyse the West Bank. When Container is closed, it cuts off a third of the West Bank population living in the south, including big cities like Bethlehem and Hebron, from Ramallah and the north. Similarly, Za'tara checkpoint blocks traffic in and out of the entire northern regions of the West Bank, including cities such as Nablus, Tulkarem and Jenin.
I know of Christian families in al-Zababida, a Greek Orthodox town near Jenin, who, for example, have struggled to reach Bethlehem, just 85km away, for Christmas pilgrimage because of delays at the Za'tara and Container checkpoints. Meanwhile, foreign pilgrims can enter Bethlehem via eight different routes, including via Jerusalem, and on certain days can probably fly in from abroad and get there faster than Palestinian Christians.
But controlling Palestinian movement through checkpoints and other barriers is not enough for the Israelis, so they have taken to constructing alternative roads for us. There are, of course, al-Mu'arajat and Wadi al-Nar "highways", connecting the north to the Jordan Valley and the south of the West Bank respectively, and now there is the newly opened Route 4370, commonly known as "apartheid road", which connects the villages of Anata and Azzayim and which has a high concrete wall separating Jewish drivers from the Palestinian ones. All of the above-mentioned byways are designed to keep Palestinians off Israeli roads that cut through the West Bank, such as Highway 1 and Highway 60.
With the ever-changing closures, restrictions, separation and isolation, it is hardly surprising that it can feel really suffocating in the West Bank for many Palestinians. And, since many of us are unable to leave or go elsewhere, we should at least be able to find somewhere to breathe and relax in our own land. But even recreational spaces are becoming increasingly scarce in the West Bank.
Back in 2011, some friends and I went out to have a picnic in the hills of al-Walaja village in Bethlehem governorate. I remember walking down from the village, passing what many think is the oldest olive tree in the world, to get to Ein Haniya spring, where we sat down and had a wonderful time. Today, we can no longer go there. The spring was included in an Israeli national park area, a segment of the apartheid wall was built right near that tree, and a checkpoint was moved on the road just ahead of it, so now Palestinians can no longer pass.
These are just a few examples from my life of how my friends and I have been affected by Israel's massive mechanism to control and limit Palestinian movement in the West Bank. But there are many others, and many that are worse.
Think of all the sick people who have suffered or died in traffic before reaching hospitals, all the relatives who have missed weddings or funerals, all the employees who have lost jobs because they've been late, all the poor farmers who have not been able to put bread on the table because they've lost all their produce stuck at a checkpoint for a whole day.
This is the suffocating and oppressive daily reality in our open-air prison called the West Bank.
FOCUS: How Ilhan Omar Nailed Elliot Abrams for Iran-Contra Lie
Thursday, 14 February 2019 12:45
Cole writes: "Ilhan Omar (D-MN) grilled Elliot Abrams yesterday, holding his feet to the fire about his having lied to Congress (to two counts of which he pleaded guilty) and about his support for far right wing forces in Central America responsible for massacres (forces Abrams characterizes as 'democratic,' confusing oppressive elite hegemony with rule of the people)."
Rep. Ilhan Omar questioned Elliot Abrams, the Trump administration's special envoy to Venezuela in congress on Wednesday. (photo: Patrick Robertson)
How Ilhan Omar Nailed Elliot Abrams for Iran-Contra Lie
By Juan Cole, Informed Comment
14 February 19
lhan Omar (D-MN) grilled Elliot Abrams yesterday, holding his feet to the fire about his having lied to Congress (to two counts of which which he pleaded guilty) and about his support for far right wing forces in Central America responsible for massacres (forces Abrams characterizes as “democratic,” confusing oppressive elite hegemony with rule of the people).
Omar as a Somali refugee has strong views about the history of US imperial interventions in and destabilization of countries of the global South. That sort of seasoned anti-imperialism grounded in hard personal experience is almost never voiced in the halls of Congress. But on the face of it, it is hardly alien to the American experience. Mark Twain was scathing on the US invasion of the Philippines (a cruel and disastrous episode actively celebrated by the Neoconservatives). It is now hard to remember that “empire” was a dirty word to Americans, proud of their egalitarian republicanism, right up until the Federal government went imperial in 1898. Abrams in contrast glories in empire, having been part of the Project for a New American Century that plotted out our current Forever Quagmire and still cannot see it for the white elephant it is.
Abrams’ ability to hold high office and help shape US government policy despite decades of duplicity and complicity in the worst war crimes– including the Iraq War, which killed hundreds of thousands and displaced 4 million and destabilized the region, and ongoing crimes against humanity in Occupied Palestine– tells you all you need to know about how truly corrupt the American political establishment is.
When George W. Bush brought Abrams back into government I was shocked. I asked a congressman I knew how Congress had ever allowed such a thing, since everyone on the Hill in the late ’80s had sworn they’d never allow Abrams to hold high office ever again. The congressman said ruefully that there had been so much turnover that many on the Hill by 2004 didn’t any longer know who Abrams was or that he had pleaded guilty to lying to Congress. We are governed in a fit of absent-mindedness.
Abrams complained when Rep. Omar began by pointing out that he had been convicted of lying to Congress, because she said it was not a question and did not let him respond. He pleaded guilty to the charge. He was strongly censured for it by the Appeals Court of Washington, DC. I mean, he is a bent lawyer that the Better Business Bureau couldn’t recommend to clients, but he gets to tell the Venezuelan people how they will be governed.
He was Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs 1985-89 at the Height of the Iran-Contra Crime. Abrams was part of a cabal in the administration of Ronald Reagan that funneled money to the far right wing “Contras” of Nicaragua who were fighting a dirty war against the Left in that country. Contras were guilty of major crimes, At the time Abrams was championing them, it was publicly known that they were guilty of “a distinct pattern” of murders, kidnapings, assaults and torture of civilians.”
The Congressional Boland Amendment of 1982 tried to stop Reagan from assisting the Contras militarily or in any other way. The Iran-Contra Crooks decided to get around that prohibition by raising money overseas. Fundraising outside the government was permitted in a 1986 amendment, but not for arms.
The Iran-Contra Crime Gang of which Abrams was a part raised money for Contra guns in three main ways. One was that they did fundraising with conservative Muslim states that opposed the international Left. So they got money from high Saudi officials via Adnan Khashoggi, an arms dealer, and they also got money from Brunei.
The second was that they sold $100 million of US arms through intermediaries, including Israelis, to Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran. These sales were illegal and unconstitutional and involve abetting a designated terrorist state.
It is hard to know how much to read into the document, but one exists showing that Abrams sent $300,000 to a known American drug smuggler in Miami to fly “supplies” (arms?) to the Contras, and presumably to ferry drugs back out, though that hasn’t been proved.
The National Security Archive sprang this document from the Reagan administration rogues’ gallery: “On February 10, 1986, Owen (“TC”) wrote North (this time as “BG,” for “Blood and Guts”) regarding a plane being used to carry “humanitarian aid” to the contras that was previously used to transport drugs. The plane belongs to the Miami-based company Vortex, which is run by Michael Palmer, one of the largest marijuana traffickers in the United States. Despite Palmer’s long history of drug smuggling, which would soon lead to a Michigan indictment on drug charges, Palmer receives over $300,000.00 from the Nicaraguan Humanitarian Aid Office (NHAO) — an office overseen by Oliver North, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Elliott Abrams, and CIA officer Alan Fiers — to ferry supplies to the contras”
Also, Abrams personally went and lobbied the Sultan of Brunei for $10 million, which he received. He gave the bank number to Col. Oliver North, the conspirator in chief, so that he could send the money to the Contras, but North is such a sad sack screw-up that he actually wired the $10 million to the wrong Swiss Bank account.
After the events of 1985-89, Abrams was pardoned by George H. W. Bush. He was however forbidden to practice law for one year, given that he is a big fat liar. He appealed that ruling on the grounds that his pardon should have erased the crime. A panel of judges on the DC Court of Appeals found that the pardon did most certainly not erase the crime, but there was one judge who was disinclined to discipline Abrams, so the others made do with issuing him a severe censure. It is sort of like, if Abrams owned a toaster factory and you needed a toaster, they were warning you not to buy a toaster from him because his toasters use substandard materials and will burn you because he is corrupt.
“On October 5, 1986, an American aircraft which was carrying supplies to the Contras was shot down over Nicaragua. ? The downing of the plane, and the capture of its pilot, led to public allegations that notwithstanding the Boland Amendment, the government was continuing to arm and otherwise assist the Contras. ? As a result, Abrams was called to appear before several Congressional committees to explain the government’s position.
On October 10, 1986, Abrams testified as follows before the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations:
In the last two years, since Congress cut off support to the resistance, this supply system has kept them alive. ? It is not our supply system. ? It is one that grew up after we were forbidden from supplying the resistance, and we have been kind of careful not to get closely involved with it and to stay away from it??
I think that people who are supplying the Contras believe that we generally approve of what they are doing-and they are right. ? We do generally approve of what they are doing, because they are keeping the Contras alive while Congress makes its decision, which each House has separately, though obviously final legislation is not yet ready.
So, the notion that we are generally in favor of people helping the Contras is correct.
We do not encourage people to do this. ? We don’t round up people, we don’t write letters, we don’t have conversations, we don’t tell them to do this, we don’t ask them to do it. ? But I think it is quite clear, from the attitude of the administration, the attitude of the administration is that these people are doing a very good thing, and if they think they are doing something that we like, then, in a general sense, they are right. ? But that is without any encouragement and coordination from us, other than a public speech by the President, that kind of thing, on the public record.[2]
At the time Abrams so testified, he knew that Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North had engaged in conversations with people who were supplying the Contras, and that North had asked and encouraged these people to supply the Contras. ? Abrams concealed from the Senate Committee his knowledge of these conversations and of North’s support for and coordination of the assistance being provided to the Contras.
Four days later, on October 14, 1986, Abrams gave the following testimony before the United States House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence:
[THE CHAIRMAN]: ?Do you know if any foreign government is helping to supply the Contras? ? There is a report in the L.A. paper, for example, that the Saudis are.
[MR. GEORGE]:?[3]?No sir, we have no intelligence of that.
[MR. ABRAMS]: ?I can only speak on that question for the last fifteen months when I have been in this job, and that story about the Saudis to my knowledge is false. ? I personally cannot tell you about pre-1985, but in 1985-1986, when I have been around, no.
[THE CHAIRMAN]: ?Is it also false with respect to other governments as well?
[MR. ABRAMS]: ?Yes, it is also false.
(Emphasis in information.) ? In fact, Abrams had personally met with a representative of the Sultan of Brunei to solicit the Sultan’s assistance, and he was aware that the Sultan had agreed to provide ten million dollars to the Contras. ? Abrams had also provided the Sultan’s representative with a Swiss bank account number so that funds for the Contras could be deposited into that account.
On November 25, 1986, Abrams testified before the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. ? Earlier on that day, Attorney General Edwin C. Meese had disclosed at a press conference that the proceeds of sales of arms to Iran had been diverted to the Contras. ? Abrams stated that
I was, until today, fairly confident that there was no foreign government contributing to this. ? But I knew nothing, still don’t know anything, about the mechanisms by which money was transferred from private groups that have been raising it, to the Contras.
(Emphasis added.) ? Once again, Abrams concealed his knowledge regarding the Brunei solicitation, and he misled the Senate Committee with respect to contributions that had been made to the Contras by private organizations and by a foreign government.”
Did Abrams know about the North arms sales to Khomeini? Was he involved personally? Did he lend material assistance to a terrorist regime? Did he facilitate Contra drug smuggling? Did he turn a blind eye to the atrocities committed by the Contra death squads and by the far rightwing government of El Salvador?
What we do know is that Abrams lied with the specific intent of hiding from Congress massive violations of the Boland Amendment.
I don’t know what he was going to say to Ilhan Omar in response to her having rebuked him for the lying.
Whatever it was would almost certainly have been more lies.
Toobin writes: "No one tells a Supreme Court Justice when to retire. But there are currently two retirement dramas under way at the Court - one semi-public and the other semi-private - and they both have the potential to reshape the meaning of the Constitution for decades."
With another Supreme Court vacancy, or two, President Trump’s record and influence on the future of the country will look even more secure. (photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP)
Is Clarence Thomas Ready to Go?
By Jeffery Toobin, The New Yorker
14 February 19
o one tells a Supreme Court Justice when to retire. But there are currently two retirement dramas under way at the Court—one semi-public and the other semi-private—and they both have the potential to reshape the meaning of the Constitution for decades.
The public story is that of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Court’s senior liberal. Late last year, she fell and broke three ribs and, when she was being treated, doctors discovered that she had lung cancer, her third bout with cancer. She underwent surgery, apparently successfully, and the Court released word that she would need no further treatment. But, in January, she missed oral arguments for the first time in twenty-five years on the Court, and there is no guarantee that she will be there when the Justices next hear cases, on February 19th. Still, the retirement drama regarding Ginsburg is straightforward. She will hang on for as long as she can, in the hopes that a Democratic President will appoint her successor after the 2020 election.
The more complex drama involves Clarence Thomas, who is seventy years old and the longest-tenured Associate Justice on the Court. With fifty-three Republicans now in the Senate (and no filibusters allowed on Supreme Court nominations), President Trump would have a free hand in choosing a dream candidate for his conservative base if Thomas were to retire this year. The summer of 2019 would seem an ideal time to add a third younger conservative to the Court (along with Neil Gorsuch, who is fifty-one, and Brett Kavanaugh, who is fifty-four). It’s true that Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, would likely violate his Merrick Garland rule and try to push through a nominee in 2020, an election year, but 2019 would be much easier to navigate. So, many conservatives are asking, why shouldn’t Thomas leave now?
It seems that the President may have had the same thought. Trump has shown unusual solicitude for Justice Thomas and his wife, Ginni, a hard-right political activist. The President and the First Lady had the Thomases to dinner, and then Trump welcomed Ginni and some of her movement colleagues to the White House for an hour-long discussion. Even in a conservative White House, Thomas and her team presented some outré ideas, like opposing same-sex marriage and questioning the ability of women to serve in the military. But the President listened as the group asked that more of their allies be given jobs in the Administration. Trump rarely engages in this kind of cultivation, and it’s reasonable to speculate that he’s trying to persuade the Justice that his seat would be in good hands if he decided to leave.
But will Thomas retire? Over the years, he has made little secret of the fact that he doesn’t enjoy the job very much. With a conservative future of the Court secure, why wouldn’t he call it a day after twenty-eight years? Because, according to his friends, he feels an obligation to continue doing the job for as long as he is able, regardless of the political implications of his departure. Of course, no one except Thomas knows for sure what he will do, and that leaves his decision open to speculation.
There seems little doubt, however, about what would happen if either he or Ginsburg leaves in the next year or two. The President would likely nominate as a replacement Amy Coney Barrett, a forty-seven-year-old judge on the Seventh Circuit. A former professor at Notre Dame Law School, Barrett was nominated to the appeals court by Trump, in 2017, and she has already been considered for a Supreme Court seat—the one that went to Kavanaugh. Her politics appear even more conservative than Kavanaugh’s or Gorsuch’s; she has been open in her disdain for the concept of abortion rights for women. She is a devout Catholic and has, in the past, expressed a willingness to overturn precedent, which some observers think makes her even more certain than Kavanaugh and Gorsuch to vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. (Last week, both Justices voted in favor of enforcing Louisiana’s abortion-clinic law, which would restrict access to the procedure; Chief Justice John Roberts’s vote, joined by those of the Court’s four liberals, blocked it.)
Barrett’s personal story is ready-made to weather a Supreme Court confirmation battle. She has seven children, two of them adopted from Haiti and one with special needs. She clerked on the Supreme Court, for Antonin Scalia, and won accolades from her students at Notre Dame. Whatever views she has expressed in the past, she looks like a difficult nominee to defeat, particularly with a loyal Republican majority in the Senate.
As President Trump contends with a combative and energized Democratic majority in the House of Representatives, it’s easy to forget the magnitude of the power that he still wields. Even during the 2016 campaign, he understood the power of judicial appointments to command the support of his political base and to establish a legacy as President. With another Supreme Court vacancy, or two, Trump’s record and influence on the future of the country will look even more secure.
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o one tells a Supreme Court Justice when to retire. But there are currently two retirement dramas under way at the Court—one semi-public and the other semi-private—and they both have the potential to reshape the meaning of the Constitution for decades.
