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FOCUS: The Department of Justice Thinks That Collusion Is a Crime |
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Thursday, 05 April 2018 10:59 |
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Toobin writes: "Is collusion a crime? That is one of the central questions of the investigation into Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. elections."
The special counsel in the Russia investigation, Robert Mueller, now has the authority, and the legal theory, to bring criminal charges for collusion. (photo: Tin Shen/Xinhua)
The Department of Justice Thinks That Collusion Is a Crime
By Jeffrey Toobin, The New Yorker
05 April 18
 s collusion a crime? That is one of the central questions of the investigation into Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. elections. Even if it could be proved that Donald Trump and his supporters worked with the Russian government, or with Russian citizens, to win the Presidential race, would that activity have violated United States law? It’s long been an article of faith for Trump supporters, and for Trump himself, that collusion is not illegal. As the President told the Times in an interview last December, “There is no collusion, and even if there was, it’s not a crime.”
Now, it appears, Trump’s own Justice Department may have a different view. That conclusion appears in a document released earlier this week, in the course of pre-trial litigation in the case of Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman, on charges including money laundering. Lawyers for Manafort, who has pleaded not guilty to the charges, asked that they be dismissed on the grounds that Robert Mueller, the special counsel, did not have the right to bring them; Manafort’s lawyers assert that the case—which centers on work that Manafort did for the pro-Russia government of Ukraine—was outside Mueller’s jurisdiction.
In response to this claim, Mueller filed a brief that laid out the basis for him to bring the case. As described in the brief, after Mueller was appointed, in May of last year, he asked Rod Rosenstein, the Deputy Attorney General and Mueller’s supervisor, for specific authorization for the areas that he wanted to investigate. In a memorandum issued on August 2nd, Rosenstein spelled out the details of Mueller’s jurisdiction. He said that Mueller had the authority to investigate:
Allegations that Paul Manafort:
Committed a crime or crimes by colluding with Russian government officials with respect to the Russian government’s efforts to interfere with the 2016 election for President of the United States, in violation of United States law;
Committed a crime or crimes arising out of payments he received from the Ukrainian government before and during the tenure of President Viktor Yanukovych.
The second point shows Mueller’s authority to bring the case that he did against Manafort, but the real news is in the first point. That statement could not be clearer that Mueller can examine whether a member of the Trump campaign and the Russians were “colluding,” and thus working together “in violation of United States law.” In other words, according to Rosenstein, collusion would be a crime.
Much of the rest of Rosenstein’s memorandum is redacted. Mueller clearly has the authority to investigate other individuals, but their identities, as well as their possible crimes, are not revealed. Mueller, however, in another part of his brief, makes clear that he has the authority to investigate obstruction of justice—including obstruction of his own investigation. This, too, is a crucial disclosure. But, if collusion is a crime, what crime is it? What criminal statutes forbid collusion? In an article for The New Yorker in December, I explored this subject, and raised several possibilities, including conspiracy to solicit illegal campaign contributions and conspiracy to engage in illegal computer hacking. But Mueller’s subsequent actions give a hint of his own interpretation of the subject. In February, he obtained an indictment of thirteen Russian citizens and three Russian entities for using social media to help Trump win the election. The key charge in the case, which is called conspiracy to defraud the United States, is spelled out this way in the indictment:
Defendants, together with others known and unknown to the Grand Jury, knowingly and intentionally conspired to defraud the United States by impairing, obstructing, and defeating the lawful functions of the Federal Election Commission, the U.S. Department of Justice, and the U.S. Department of State in administering federal requirements for disclosure of foreign involvement in certain domestic activities.
This case, of course, only deals with Russian defendants. But if Mueller were able to prove that Americans worked with the Russians in this kind of endeavor—that is, if he can prove that Americans colluded with the Russians—then he could bring a similar charge against them. On Tuesday night, the Washington Post reported that the President himself remains a subject of the special counsel’s investigation, meaning that his conduct is being scrutinized, but that no decision has been made about whether charges will be brought against him.
Nevertheless, Mueller now has the authority, and the legal theory, to bring criminal charges for collusion. The unanswered question is whether he has American defendants, too.
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I'm Not Sure America Can Survive the Attack of the Moron Pundits |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=11104"><span class="small">Charles Pierce, Esquire</span></a>
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Thursday, 05 April 2018 08:52 |
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Pierce writes: "America's democratic republic has survived wars, including a fratricidal civil war. It has survived plagues, floods, famines, wildfires, mudslides and two Reagan administrations. But, to be perfectly honest, if this Daily Beast story is accurate, I'm not entirely sure it can survive the Attack of the Moron Pundits."
Fox anchor Lou Dobbs. (photo: Fox News)
I'm Not Sure America Can Survive the Attack of the Moron Pundits
By Charles Pierce, Esquire
5 April 18
Lou Dobbs is reportedly advising the president.
 merica’s democratic republic has survived wars, including a fratricidal civil war. It has survived plagues, floods, famines, wildfires, mudslides and two Reagan administrations. But, to be perfectly honest, if this Daily Beast story is accurate, I’m not entirely sure it can survive the Attack of the Moron Pundits.
As such, [Lou] Dobbs doesn’t get to just interview and socialize with the president; he is involved in some of the administration’s more sensitive discussions. During the first year of the Trump era, the president has patched in Dobbs via speakerphone to multiple meetings in the Oval Office so that he could offer his two cents, according to three sources familiar with these conversations. Trump will ask Dobbs for his opinion before and after his senior aides or Cabinet members have spoken. Occasionally, he will cut off an official so the Fox Business host can jump in. Dobbs, these sources all independently recounted, has been patched in to senior-level meetings on issues such as trade and tax policy—meetings that featured officials such as senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, former top economic adviser Gary Cohn, former chief strategist Steve Bannon, trade adviser Peter Navarro, and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.
The president* gets every day off to a flying stupid by enjoying Executive Time with the Fox News morning show, Three Dolts On A Divan. Now, we discover that Lou Dobbs, a man whose trolley departed the tracks and flew into a sun a decade ago, has been calling into policy discussions.
We made jokes about government-by-talk-show for a long time in 2015 and 2016. Those jokes are now not funny any more. It’s only a matter of time before Cabinet meetings are interrupted by commercials for hair-loss products and auto glass.
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American Taxpayers Are Helping to Fight Someone Else's War in Yemen. It's Time to Stop It. |
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Thursday, 05 April 2018 08:40 |
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Alperstein writes: "We're helping fight someone else's war in Yemen - and the blood is on our hands."
Children in Yemen. (photo: Hani Mohammed/AP)
American Taxpayers Are Helping to Fight Someone Else's War in Yemen. It's Time to Stop It.
By Olivia Alperstein, OtherWords
5 April 18
American taxpayers are helping to fight someone else’s war in Yemen, and the blood is on our hands.
 e’re helping fight someone else’s war in Yemen — and the blood is on our hands.
Since March 2015, the United States has supported a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that’s intervening in a civil war in Yemen. The war has resulted in massive civilian casualties and the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.
The war has killed more than 10,000 Yemenis and wounded more than 40,000, the majority of them civilians. Over 3 million Yemenis are displaced, millions more have contracted cholera, and some 14 million are at risk right now of starving to death.
These aren’t empty statistics. They’re crimes, which we’re enabling.
American weapons — including American bombs — are helping to wage the war in Yemen. Saudi Arabia is a close U.S. ally in the Middle East, so many American lawmakers have turned a blind eye to American involvement in this humanitarian crisis of epic proportions.
“This war has created refugees, orphans, and widows,” said Senator Bernie Sanders as he took the Senate floor recently to call for an end to U.S. support for a war most Americans know nothing about.
Sanders, an independent, and Senator Mike Lee, a Republican, recently co-authored a bipartisan resolution to pull the U.S. out of this three-year-old war. Unfortunately, that resolution failed in the Senate, despite significant support from outside organizations and in the House of Representatives.
Yemen’s fate hangs in the balance as the world watches heart-wrenching scenes of hospitals being bombed and stick-thin children crying because they’re hungry. There’s another major cholera outbreak, and medical officers lack enough supplies to treat people.
This isn’t the country Yemenis know and love. Yemenis and Yemeni Americans like Mokhtar Alkhanshali, a coffee merchant known the Monk of Mokha, have shared haunting stories of their lives in Yemen and the country they remember — and the war that’s taken so much from them.
We’ve been here before. The United States has given foreign allies supplies, funding, and weapons that have supported human rights atrocities around the world.
Most Americans can’t even point out Yemen on a map, but that hasn’t stopped us before. It’s not even our war, but that hasn’t stopped us before either.
We’re helping our allies in Saudi Arabia and the UAE create the most horrific humanitarian crisis on earth. And when innocent Yemenis flee, they face the prospect of being barred from the United States, where the Trump administration is still trying to enforce its travel ban against Yemen and other Muslim countries.
It’s time to end our participation in this carnage. The United States supplies a significant portion of the money, intelligence, weapons, and logistical support that fuels the Saudi-led bombing campaign. If we withdraw that support, we could potentially force our allies to abandon the war entirely.
As taxpayers, we’re complicit if we stay silent. Our lawmakers have the power to end this humanitarian crisis, and they must act before it’s too late.
For too many people, it already is.
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Sinclair TV Anchor Suddenly Begins Reading News in Russian |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=9160"><span class="small">Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker</span></a>
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Wednesday, 04 April 2018 13:21 |
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Borowitz writes: "Viewers of the Sinclair station in Akron were startled on Monday when a longtime news anchor, Carol Foyler, inexplicably began reading the evening news report in Russian."
News anchor. (photo: Getty)
Sinclair TV Anchor Suddenly Begins Reading News in Russian
By Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker
04 April 18
 The article below is satire. Andy Borowitz is an American comedian and New York Times-bestselling author who satirizes the news for his column, "The Borowitz Report." 
 iewers of the Sinclair station in Akron were startled on Monday when a longtime news anchor, Carol Foyler, inexplicably began reading the evening news report in Russian.
Foyler, who is not of Russian heritage, greeted her audience with a hearty “Zdravstvuyte,” and then read the evening’s top stories entirely in her newly adopted language.
After racing through the local coverage, Foyler abruptly segued to footage of the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, admiring the launch of his nation’s highly touted new Satan-2 missile.
Viewers flooded the station with complaints, with many expressing alarm that, in the words of one audience member, “something was up with Carol.”
“Maybe she’s taking Russian classes in her spare time, or something like that,” Harland Dorrinson, a loyal viewer of the Sinclair station, said. “Still, it made it really hard to understand the weather.”
Responding to the outpouring of concern about her, Foyler later issued the following English-language statement: “I am being treated well here. My loved ones need not worry.”
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Big Win by Liberals in Wisconsin Is Bad News for GOP and Scott Walker |
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Wednesday, 04 April 2018 13:06 |
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Enten writes: "In another major pre-midterm election, the left has won again - this time in a race for the Wisconsin Supreme Court."
Gov. Scott Walker. (photo: Joshua Roberts/Getty)
Big Win by Liberals in Wisconsin Is Bad News for GOP and Scott Walker
By Harry Enten, CNN
04 April 18
n another major pre-midterm election, the left has won again -- this time in a race for the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Although the elections are officially nonpartisan, that's really in name only. Liberal candidate Rebecca Dallet won by 12 percentage points over conservative Michael Screnock, who was backed by Republican Gov. Scott Walker. It was the first time Democrats won an open seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court since 1995.
This Wisconsin result is merely the latest sign that it's not 2016 anymore and Democrats have momentum heading into the congressional midterms this fall.
One of the most interesting trends in the previous special elections in 2017 and 2018 is how the results correlated with the 2016 and 2012 presidential results. What we might expect is that the more recent election (2016) would be more predictive of the race to race correlation than the one before it (2012). That is, the areas that President Donald Trump did worse in relative to Mitt Romney would continue to trend that way, while Democrats would continue to lose ground in the areas where Trump did better than Romney.
We haven't seen that, however, in these elections. The 2012 electoral map has actually given us a better understanding of how each race will go than the 2016 map. Democrats have actually picked up the most ground in areas where Trump did better than Romney.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court race was not a special election, but it is another example that Democrats would be wise not to give up on areas that swung heavily to Trump. It's not just that liberal candidate Dallet won a state that Hillary Clinton lost and Barack Obama won twice. Dallet won in a number of areas in the state where Trump was able to rack up huge numbers relative to Romney. Counties like Kenosha, which is home to House Speaker Paul Ryan's congressional district and where Trump won and Romney lost by double digits. In Tuesday's election, Dallet won it by 14 percentage points.
Put another way, Democrats might be enticed to put a lot of midterm eggs in baskets where Clinton did better than Obama (i.e. well-educated areas). The results in the elections so far in Wisconsin and other places suggest that may be a mistake.
The outcome in Wisconsin is interesting for another reason: what it could mean for Walker. While Obama was winning the state twice, Walker won the state three times when Obama was president. Indeed, it seemed like Wisconsin had more races built up as bellwethers than almost anywhere in the country during that time.
One of these key Wisconsin races during the Obama presidency was the high profile state supreme court election in 2011. The race was seen as a referendum on Walker who was passing a conservative agenda with the help of the state legislature. The conservative candidate in that supreme court election squeaked by to victory -- and Walker would go on to win two more elections in the following three years.
Walker is on the ballot once again this November seeking a third four-year term. With an approval rating of 47% in the latest Marquette University Law School poll, he could be vulnerable. That could be why Walker seemed to be hitting the panic button on Tuesday night when he tweeted about a potential Democratic wave hitting the state later this year.
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