One of the greatest dangers to our Republic is if we drift away from enforcing the rule of law. This is why what has happened to The FBI and the attitude bureaucrats can stiff Congress' ability to conduct overview is very dangerous. Add to this, Obama's use of agencies to break the law, violate rights of citizens set a terrible precedence.
Yes, Obama had a golden tongue but he also had an apparent contempt for our Constitution and that he professedly taught Constitutional Law makes his action either inexpiable and/or very dispiriting.
Now that's a president:
http://safeshare.tv/v/
Finally:
Haley is a comet!!!I t Nikki Haley skewers Mahmoud Abbas at UN Security Council meeting.
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Now for some poignant humor:
a) Marriage changes passion. Suddenly you’re in bed with a relative.
b)Don’t argue with an idiot; people watching may not be able to tell the difference.
c) Why is it that our children can’t read a Bible in school, but they can in prison?
(I think it has something to do with separation and church. When in prison you are totally separated.)
d) Why do I have to swear on the Bible in court when the Ten Commandments cannot be displayed outside?
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Schanzer on Trump and How He Can Help Achieve Peace. (See 1 below.)
More bad advice. (See 1a below.)
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Trump is showing Schumer his version of The Art of The Deal . Democrats have been outfoxed again if they reject Trump's offer. They will look more like Abbas and the PLO. (See 2 below.)
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Why can't America have a peak? Why is "Shifty Schiff "denying us our rights? (See 3 below.)
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1)How Trump Can Help the Palestinians and Promote Peace
The U.N. Relief and Works Agency is a mess. Here’s how the United States can clean it up.
Speaking at a summit with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Davos on Thursday, President Donald Trump ripped into his Palestinian counterpart. He threatened to withhold American assistance if the Palestinians didn’t return to negotiations. “All that money is on the table,” he warned.
This is no empty threat. Washington provides hundreds of millions of dollars in direct assistance to the Palestinian Authority. But don’t forget that the United States is also the largest single-state donor to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), an organization that provides dedicated welfare assistance to the Palestinian Arab refugees from the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and millions of their descendants. The little-known agency was making headlines even before Davos; the Trump administration announced it was withholding some of the agency’s funding, pending reform.
On its face, it would appear that the White House is depriving poor Palestinians crucial aid. But it’s not that simple. Since 1950, Joe Q. Taxpayer has contributed a whopping $6 billion to UNRWA, and more than $1 billion in the last four years alone. As taxpayers, it’s only fair to ask: What are we getting for our money?
The answer would prompt any sane donor to walk away. UNRWA has a staff of more than 30,000 – roughly one per every surviving refugee from the 1948 war, according to some estimates. To put this into proportion: The world’s leading refugee agency, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), serves 17 million people with a staff of just under 11,000.
The contrast in performance metrics of the two agencies is even more striking. UNHCR prides itself on how many refugees it can resettle or integrate into host nations. UNRWA, by contrast, grades itself on how many more people it can put on its welfare rolls. This is why UNRWA, since the late 1950s, has officially recognized the descendants of the original refugees – the children, grandchildren, great grandchildren – as refugees. The result is that UNRWA’s numbers have swelled to over 5 million. This has led to eye-popping budgets, but also an over-inflated refugee problem that becomes harder for the international community to solve with every passing year.
As its largest donor, it would seem like a no-brainer that Washington should ask for some accountability, but that hasn’t been the case until now. A decade ago, when Congress mandated an independent expenditure audit of UNRWA’s cash assistance program – quite literally hundreds of millions of dollars in cold cash handed out to people without regard for terrorist affiliations – UNRWA refused to allow the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to comprehensively audit the books. GAO concluded, “internal UNRWA audits do not assess controls for all cash assistance programs or whether contracts contain antiterrorism clauses.” Amazingly, the State Department forked over its full contribution the following fiscal year.
And the problem doesn’t end with financial audits. During the most recent Israeli war with Hamas in 2014, UNRWA schools were used as launching pads for rocket attacks against Israeli civilians. Prior to that, the headmaster of an UNRWA school was even found moonlighting as a terrorist. Astonishingly, neither event stopped the State Department from writing its lump-sum check.
That’s right: Every year the United States hands over its annual contribution to UNRWA in one lump sum, in the beginning of the year, only to see the agency declare an emergency appeal for more money well before the year’s end. The lack of basic management expectations for UNRWA has become so institutionalized that the State Department budgets for both a regular and emergency contribution in advance.
While many believe the U.S. should simply end further contributions, the Trump administration has yet to cut a single penny from UNRWA. All it’s done so far is change its method of donations from one lump sum gift to a series of tranches based on performance and reform – while reserving the right to withhold payment if it is not satisfied.
UNRWA’s leadership and supporters are now howling with displeasure. A campaign is now underway to portray the United States as taking food and medicine out of the hands of children and the elderly. It’s worth noting here that this would only be the case if UNRWA has already burned through the $60 million the U.S. doled out a few weeks ago. But also: Since when does a United Nations-run agency have the right to demand an annual gift from the U.S. taxpayer, let alone dictate the schedule on which those gifts are made? These are voluntarily charitable donations, not mandatory assessments.
If the United States is expected to continue as UNRWA’s biggest benefactor, the management of the agency needs to fundamentally change. The United States should assume a permanent role in the agency’s governance. This could include the installation of U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, or (more realistically) one of America’s other capable ambassadors at the U.N. in New York, as its chair. With that title ought to come the basic oversight prerogatives reserved for any non-profit’s board of directors and top donors – establishment of performance metrics, evaluation of key staff, freedom to audit any program or expenditure, and the ability to shape the mission, mandate and future of the organization.
This does not mean that the U.S. should halt funding for those most in need. To the contrary. But there must be a plan to move UNRWA’s 5 million dependents from international welfare to self-sufficiency.
The culture of hopelessness and permanent dependency in the Middle East breeds terrorism and violence. By contrast, economic self-sufficiency and advancement produces peace and tolerance. Today UNRWA stands for the former; under American leadership, it can transform to the latter.
Jonathan Schanzer is a senior vice president at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow him on Twitter @JSchanzer.
Richard Goldberg, an architect of congressionally enacted sanctions against Iran, is senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow him on Twitter @rich_goldberg.
1a)
1a)
The Palestinians get more bad advice
According to most media accounts, President Donald Trump did it again when he met with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in Davos, Switzerland.
When Trump complained that the Palestinians had “disrespected us” when they refused to meet with Vice President Mike Pence during his visit to the Middle East this week, it was cast as just another example of how the president’s thin skin and easily bruised ego was damaging U.S. foreign policy. Just as the administration’s principled decision to finally recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and to begin the process of moving the U.S. embassy there was depicted as a payoff to donors or conservative Christian backers, the withholding of some aid to the Palestinians was put down as just another pointless Trump snit. The mainstream media talking heads and foreign policy establishment “wise men” shook their heads in dismay at Trump’s supposed foolishness in trying to hold the Palestinian Authority (PA) accountable for its support for terrorism as well as for its abandonment of the peace process.
The most interesting point about the reaction to Trump’s comments is that most of those speaking about it acted as if they were unaware or uninterested in PA President Mahmoud Abbas’ Jan. 14 speech in which he cursed Trump, vowed never to negotiate with the U.S. and engaged in a long, bizarre anti-Semitic rant that made it clear Israel’s supposed peace partner considered the Jewish state an illegitimate colonial entity planted in the Middle East by Europe.
That’s hardly surprising because Abbas’s speech got minimal coverage in the mainstream media. So, as has often been the case with the Middle East, those opining on the subject only concentrated on Trump’s alleged sins while never acknowledging that Abbas had trashed the president even though Trump had left the door open for a two-state solution in his Jerusalem statement. Had the Palestinians wanted to restart negotiations with the U.S., they could have done so and perhaps have reaped the benefits of his desire for the “ultimate deal.” The fact that they didn’t said very little about Trump and volumes about their inability to give up their century-old war on Zionism.
The problem this episode highlights isn’t just a Palestinian political culture that is rooted in irredentism rather than a desire to create an independent state. Rather, it is the terrible advice they are getting from Westerners who can’t stand Trump, Israel and Netanyahu.
Reactions to Trump’s latest Middle East comments from liberal Americans as well as Europeans illustrated a dangerous trend. Rather than focus on Abbas’s foolish decision to burn his bridges with the U.S. and his rejection of peace, those damning Trump’s comments about being “disrespected” were essentially telling the Palestinians to ignore the American demands.
As troubling as that might be, even more worrisome was the report that their former U.S. negotiator and ally was also telling them the same thing. As Ma’ariv reported Wednesday, former Secretary of State John Kerry met with Hussein Agha, a Palestinian official close to Abbas in London. At the meeting, Kerry told Agha to pass on to Abbas the message that he should “hold on and be strong” in his dealings with the U.S. Kerry advised Abbas, “He should stay strong in his spirit and play for time, that he will not break and will not yield to President Trump’s demands.”
Even if he disagrees with Trump, for a former secretary of state should openly seek to undermine U.S. foreign policy with a foreign leader in this manner is outrageous and a break from accepted behavior every bit as much as Trump’s tweets and often bizarre comments. But more than that, it is terrible advice. Instead of counseling Abbas and the Palestinians to avoid peace talks, Kerry ought to be urging them to negotiate with Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
But given the fact that he never held Abbas and the Palestinians accountable for terrorism or for repeatedly blowing up the negotiations he kept trying to sponsor while he was in power, why would we think he would do so now? Kerry believed the only path to peace involved brutal U.S. pressure on Israel to make dangerous territorial concessions for which he never seemed prepared to demand the Palestinians give up a culture of terror and hate that was the true engine of the conflict.
The report of the meeting—which was confirmed by the PA if not Kerry—also said that the former secretary of state predicted Trump might not last out his term in office. This is highly unlikely but even if true, do Kerry or the Palestinians think Pence would be less friendly to Israel than Trump or be more inclined to be give them a pass for paying salaries and pensions to those convicted of terrorist crimes? That Kerry also speculated about running again for president in 2020 is a sign that he is just as delusional about politics as he is about the Middle East.
It’s also ironic that liberals are mocking Trump’s talk of being insulted by Abbas when they were often so quick to back up President Barack Obama’s accusations that Netanyahu insulted him and Vice President Joe Biden. In point of fact, Abbas really did insult Trump personally as well as demonstrating his contempt for the history of the Jews. Obama’s insults—such as the one about the announcement of a housing project in Jerusalem during a Biden visit to Israel—were ginned up spats designed to create the “daylight” Obama wanted between the U.S. and the Jewish state.
The consequence of the messages being sent to the Palestinians by Kerry and other Trump critics is that they needn’t budge an inch from their rejectionism. Many world leaders have been telling them the same thing for decades. They continue to believe that all they have to do is “stay strong,” as Kerry put it, without recognizing that the long war against Israel is lost, and someday the world will hand them Israel on a silver platter.
It is the Palestinian people, who suffer under a cowardly dictator like Abbas and the terrorists of Hamas, who pay the price for this evil counsel. And they will continue paying for it until they realize they’d be better off listening to an alleged foe like Trump than to a friend like Kerry.
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of JNS. Follow him on Twitter at: @jonathans_tobin.
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2) The President's Immigration Compromise is Reasonable and Supportable
By Erick Erickson
Yes, some will get citizenship. But there will be an overall reduction in immigration.
Democrats are already screaming that this is not enough and many of the President's supporters are screaming that it is too many. Senator Tom Cotton tells me he does not expect the President would ever agree to go higher, but I look at this is as a starting point for negotiation.
Were associates of President Trump, members of his campaign, or even Trump himself, subjected to foreign-intelligence surveillance (i.e., do the FISA applications name them as either targets or persons whose communications and activities would likely be monitored)?
Was information from the Steele dossier used in FISA applications?
If Steele-dossier information was so used, was it so central that FISA warrants would not have been granted without it?
If Steele-dossier information was so used, was it corroborated by independent FBI investigation?
If the dossier’s information was so used, was the source accurately conveyed to the court so that credibility and potential bias could be weighed (i.e., was the court told that the information came from an opposition-research project sponsored by the Clinton presidential campaign)?
The FBI has said that significant efforts were made to corroborate Steele’s sensational claims, yet former director James Comey has acknowledged (in June 2017 Senate testimony) that the dossier was “unverified.” If the dossier was used in FISA applications in 2016, has the Justice Department — consistent with its continuing duty of candor in dealings with the tribunal — alerted the court that it did not succeed in verifying Steele’s hearsay reporting based on anonymous sources?
2) The President's Immigration Compromise is Reasonable and Supportable
By Erick Erickson
Yes, some will get citizenship. But there will be an overall reduction in immigration.
To be honest, the White House senior staffer who briefed several of us on this immigration plan sounded like he had a gun to his head. I expect there are victims of cannibals who were more enthused about being somone's meal that this staffer was about the number 1.8 million.
That is the number, a compromise multiple people at the White House would like it noted, that the President is comfortable giving citizenship to. They would be DACA recipients or DACA eligible people. The original number floated by people in the know was less than 700,000, but the White House expanded the DACA window and, concurrently, expanded the number of people eligible.
In any event, the plan overall is totally reasonable, totally responsible, and totally supportable.
The President will agree to citizenship for 1.8 million DACA recipients and, in return, Congress will give him real border security, increases in personnel for immigration and border security, border security on the Canadian border, an end to the Visa lottery and an end to chain migration.
Chain migration should not exist anyway. The President fully supports immigration of a nuclear family, but not all the relatives. That is reasonable. What is drawing complaints from conservatives on this is that the President is offering to grandfather in existing chain migration related visa applications. There are 3.6 million people in the backlog on this and it could potentially take more than a decade to process the whole backlog. As a friend of mine noted, by then Trump will be gone and there will probably be someone worse on immigration suddenly opening the gates again.
The President supports scrapping the Visa lottery and giving the total number of placements available over to a program to expedite immigration of highly skilled workers into the country.
Ultimately, the President might be granting citizenship to 1.8 million, but he wants to curtail the total number of immigrants coming into the country overall. This will pit him against pro-business Republicans and also a lot of Democrats. Also, I am unaware of what the status would be of parents to DACA recipients. But so far I like what I am hearing from the White House. I'm just skeptical anything can pass when the President's base will hate the citizenship bit and the left will hate so much of the rest of it.
I still think there should be a provision for Trump supporters to buy bricks for $100.00 a piece and build an actual, physical wall with them. That would mitigate costs to building a wall and I support a wall.
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3)The Clamor over the Nunes ‘FISA Abuse’ Memo
By Andrew McCarthy
There is a great deal of commentary, some of it hysterical, about a short memo authored by Republican staffers on the House Intelligence Committee under the direction of Chairman Devin Nunes (R., Calif.). The memo is said to be about Obama-era abuses of the executive branch’s surveillance authorities under federal law — specifically, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The contents of the memo are not yet known to the public, so the commentary is the familiar game of shaping reaction to it.
The Republican script is that this was “Watergate on steroids.” The Democratic counter is that the memo is a one-sided partisan summary that takes investigative actions out of context in order to make mountains out of molehills. Unless and until we can read the document, we cannot make a judgment about which of these assessments is true, or at least closer to the truth. We can, however, make some observations about the controversy.
The Claim That the Memo Is One-Sided
The most common complaint is that the memo represents the Republican slant on a dispute that should be above politics. (Yeah, yeah, I know . . . but stop snickering.) Now, maybe the memo will read like sheer propaganda, but this seems highly doubtful. There are extremely good reasons for Nunes and his staff to create a summary, and very easy ways for Democrats to remedy anything that is arguably misleading, so the “one-sidedness” objection appears overblown.
The most common complaint is that the memo represents the Republican slant on a dispute that should be above politics. (Yeah, yeah, I know . . . but stop snickering.) Now, maybe the memo will read like sheer propaganda, but this seems highly doubtful. There are extremely good reasons for Nunes and his staff to create a summary, and very easy ways for Democrats to remedy anything that is arguably misleading, so the “one-sidedness” objection appears overblown.
First, the main questions that we need answered are:
President Trump's 8 Biggest Accomplishments
These are not questions that call for nuanced explanation. These things either happened or didn’t. To provide simple answers to these straightforward questions would not be a one-sided partisan exercise, even if the person providing the answers happened to be a partisan.
FISA proceedings are classified, and applications for surveillance warrants from the FISA court typically include information from classified sources — informants who spy at great risk to themselves, intelligence techniques (e.g., covert surveillance), etc. Disclosing such applications and/or the underlying intelligence reporting on which they are based could thus jeopardize lives, national security, and other important American interests.
Thus, the problem: How do we convey important information without imperiling the sources and methods through which it was obtained?
Fortunately, this is far from a unique problem: It comes up all the time in court cases that involve intelligence matters, and Congress has prescribed a process for dealing with it in the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA). There are various remedies: Sometimes the classified information can be declassified and disclosed without causing danger; sometimes the classified information can be redacted without either jeopardizing sources or compromising our ability to grasp the significance of what is disclosed. When neither of those solutions is practical, the preferred disclosure method is toprepare a declassified summary that answers the relevant questions without risking exposure of critical intelligence secrets and sources. (See CIPA section 4 — Title 18, U.S. Code, Appendix.)
So, far from being unconventional, the preparation of a summary is a routine and sensible way of handling the complicated tension between the need for information and accountability, on the one hand, and the imperative of protecting intelligence, on the other.
As with any summary, there is always a danger of its being misleading. This, too, is a recurring problem in judicial proceedings, where the need to boil voluminous information down to its essence is obvious. The problem is solved by the so-called rule of completeness: If a party contends that his adversary is taking information out of context or otherwise omitting essential details necessary to an accurate understanding of a document, the party may propose that the necessary context or details be included. An example: Smith tells the police, “I was in the bank but I didn’t rob it.” At the trial, the prosecutor disingenuously suggests to the jury that Smith was implicitly admitting guilt when he told the police “I was in the bank” the day it was robbed. Smith would then be entitled to introduce his complete statement — the “but I didn’t rob it” portion is necessary to the jury’s understanding that, far from implicitly admitting guilt, Smith explicitly denied guilt.
Conforming to House rules, Chairman Nunes has taken pains to make his memo available to all members of Congress before proceeding with the steps necessary to seek its disclosure. Thus, lawmakers have an opportunity to propose the inclusion of details that may be necessary to correct any misimpressions; or Democrats could prepare their own summary in an effort to demonstrate Nunes’s partisan spin. Congressman Nunes is a smart guy, and he clearly knows he will look very foolish if he plays fast and loose with the facts. It is in his interest not to do that, and the careful way he has gone about complying with the rules — rather than leaking classified information, as Trump’s opponents have been wont to do — suggests that his memo will prove to be a fair representation of the underlying information.
On that last point, it would be hard to imagine a more one-sided partisan screed than the Steele dossier. Democrats seem to have had no hesitation about using it as a summary of purported Trump collusion with Russia.
The Failure to Share the Memo with the FBI
The Justice Department and the FBI are reportedly angry that, after they complied with the Intelligence Committee’s demand that they make classified and investigative materials available for inspection, Nunes will not permit the FBI to inspect his memo summarizing that information before moving to disclose it. The irony here is rich.
The Justice Department and the FBI are reportedly angry that, after they complied with the Intelligence Committee’s demand that they make classified and investigative materials available for inspection, Nunes will not permit the FBI to inspect his memo summarizing that information before moving to disclose it. The irony here is rich.
These executive-branch agencies did not cooperatively comply with congressional investigators; they stonewalled for five months. To this day they are stonewalling: Just this weekend, they belatedly fessed up that the FBI had failed to preserve five months’ worth of text messages — something they had to have known for months. An American who impeded a federal investigation the way federal investigators are impeding congressional investigations would swiftly find himself in legal jeopardy.
Moreover, it is not like the Justice Department and FBI did Nunes a favor and are thus in a position to impose conditions; Congress is entitled to the information it has sought in its oversight capacity. There is no Justice Department or FBI in the Constitution; while these agencies are part of the executive branch, they are creatures of statute. Congress created them, they are dependent on Congress for funding, and Congress has a constitutional obligation to perform oversight to ensure that the mission they are carrying out — with taxpayer support and under statutory restrictions — is being carried out appropriately.
Republicans tend to be favorably disposed toward law enforcement’s preferences. They would surely have preferred to have non-confrontational interactions with vital executive agencies led by Republican appointees of a Republican president. Indeed, most
Republicans are puzzled by the lack of cooperation — by the failure of the White House to direct the president’s subordinates to comply with congressional requests for information about potential abuses of power carried out under the prior, Democratic administration.
Republicans are puzzled by the lack of cooperation — by the failure of the White House to direct the president’s subordinates to comply with congressional requests for information about potential abuses of power carried out under the prior, Democratic administration.
This is a reciprocal business. If the Justice Department and FBI want accommodations, they have to exhibit cooperation — do the little things, like maybe remember that congressional subpoenas are lawful demands, not suggestions or pleas. On the record thus far, the committee has every reason to believe that submitting the Nunes memo for review by the Justice Department and FBI will result in more delay and foot-dragging. Clearly, there is a strategy to slow-walk compliance in hopes that events — such as, say, a midterm-election victory that returns the House to Democratic control — will abort congressional investigations of the investigators.
Nunes is wise not to play into that strategy. As he knows, if the House ultimately moves to declassify and publicize information, the chamber’s rules require giving the president five days’ notice. (See Congressional Research Service, “The Protection of Classified Information: The Legal Framework” page 3 and note 23.) Thus, the Justice Department and FBI will have an opportunity to both review the memo and try to persuade the president to oppose disclosure. There’s no reason to hold up the works at this point.
The Claim That the Memo Discredits or Distracts from the Mueller Investigation
Finally, committee Democrats and other critics contend that Chairman Nunes is engaged in a stunt designed to discredit Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, or at least distract attention from its subject matter — Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. These transparently political claims are ill-conceived.
Finally, committee Democrats and other critics contend that Chairman Nunes is engaged in a stunt designed to discredit Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, or at least distract attention from its subject matter — Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. These transparently political claims are ill-conceived.
The memo reportedly addresses an issue that is at least as significant as election meddling by Russia and suspected but unproven Trump-campaign collusion in it, namely: election meddling by the intelligence and law-enforcement arms of government and Clinton-campaign collusion in it. The latter issue involves conduct that predates Mueller’s investigation by more than two years — Hillary Clinton’s criminal conduct having been exposed in March 2015.
If the principal basis for the allegation that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia were shown to be the shoddy, unverified Steele dossier, this allegation would be discredited.Let’s assume for a moment, and for argument’s sake, that there were irregularities in the Obama-era investigation of Trump associates (perhaps including Trump himself). This would discredit Mueller’s investigation only to the extent it is established that the premise of that investigation is traceable to those irregularities. For example, if the principal basis for the allegation that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia were shown to be the shoddy, unverified Steele dossier, this allegation would be discredited — and deservedly so. To the contrary, if it turns out that there are other legitimate grounds for suspecting Trump-campaign collusion in Russian activity that violated American law, those would plainly merit investigation — although we ought to be told what they are.
Moreover, it would remain perfectly legitimate to investigate Russia’s interference in the 2016 election — the counterintelligence purpose that the Justice Department told us was the principal reason for appointing a special counsel. Of course, as we’ve covered many times (see, e.g., here), there are independent reasons for discrediting Mueller’s appointment on this score: (a) The appointment was unnecessary because counterintelligence investigations are not prosecutor work and ordinarily do not have a prosecutor assigned because the aim is not to develop a criminal prosecution; and (b) the appointment was improper because the Justice Department is supposed to specify a crime that has triggered the need for a special counsel, and that was never done here.
Still, my objections on these grounds notwithstanding, the stubborn facts remain that Mueller has been appointed and Russian interference in our election is a worthy subject for investigation.
To the extent Democrats and their media friends caterwaul that the Nunes memo “distracts” from concerns about Russia, this brings us to a longstanding complaint among national-security-minded conservatives: We were warning about Russian perfidy long before the Democrats jumped aboard that bandwagon for patently political reasons. It has always been partisan hackery to mark acceptance of the “Trump collusion” narrative as the price of admission for taking threats posed by Russia seriously.
The moment that the “collusion with Russia” narrative is no longer politically viable (and we may be nearing that point if the Steele dossier is its foundation), Democrats will return to their default appeasement mode and goofy “Reset” buttons. But in the meantime, investigating Russia’s provocations will still be a worthy exercise. And even if there was no need to appoint a special counsel to lead such an investigation, Mueller has been working the issue and his conclusions should prove valuable. They will not rise or fall on the question of whether Obama-era executive agencies abused their powers.
Conclusion
There is no problem a priori with the fact that Nunes’s memo is a summary prepared by Republican members of the Intelligence Committee’s professional staff. There is no need to delay its release by permitting the FBI and Justice Department to vet it; they will have that opportunity in any event when the president is given five days to weigh in on whether the memo should be disclosed. And complaints that the memo is a distraction intended to discredit Mueller’s investigation are meritless political talking points.
There is no problem a priori with the fact that Nunes’s memo is a summary prepared by Republican members of the Intelligence Committee’s professional staff. There is no need to delay its release by permitting the FBI and Justice Department to vet it; they will have that opportunity in any event when the president is given five days to weigh in on whether the memo should be disclosed. And complaints that the memo is a distraction intended to discredit Mueller’s investigation are meritless political talking points.
Republicans have made extravagant corruption claims in recent days; if the memo does not bear them out, many a face will be covered in egg.Democrats contend that Chairman Nunes is engaged in a partisan stunt. The allegation that the Obama administration put the law-enforcement and intelligence arms of the federal government in the service of the Clinton campaign to undermine the Trump campaign is, they maintain, an overwrought conspiracy theory. If that is true, then Democrats — who have had the opportunity to review the memo — should be clamoring for it to be disclosed, not fighting its release. After all, Republicans have made extravagant corruption claims in recent days; if the memo does not bear them out, many a face will be covered in egg.
No one is more aware of this than Congressman Nunes. He is pressing ahead nonetheless. So . . . let’s see what he’s got.
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