Im-Politic: ABC’s Stephanopoulos Peddles Fake News on Mueller and Obstruction

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ABC News, Attorney General, Corey Lewandowski, Deputy Attorney General, Don McGahn, election 2016, George Stephanopoulos, Im-Politic, Jeff Sessions, Justice Department, Mueller Report, obstruction of justice, Robert S. Mueller III, Rod Rosenstein, This Week, Trump, Trump-Russia, White House Counsel, William P. Barr

The trade wars and resulting uproar have of course intensified lately due to President Trump’s threats to tariff Mexican imports to improve Mexico’s performance in helping ease the border crisis, and a New York Times report that his administration was mulling imposing levies on Australia in response to a surge in its aluminum exports to the United States.

But those developments – plus a terrific story in the Japanese press on metals tariffs that I’ll be posting about shortly as well – need to take a back seat today on RealityChek to a flagrant piece of fake news concerning the Mueller report’s conclusions propagated by a major broadcast media anchor that urgently needs to be debunked.

The culprit here is George Stephanopoulos, a top aide to Bill Clinton both during his first presidential campaign and his first term in the White House. The fake news involves his claim, made on yesterday’s This Week program, that in his report on Russian election interference and the responses of President Trump and his aides, the former Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller “laid out four incidents in the obstruction of justice section of the report that met all three criteria for obstruction of justice — an obstructive act, connection to an investigation, corrupt intent.”

His clear intimation was that Attorney General William P. Barr overlooked this major evidence and that his own decision (made in conjunction with his then Deputy, Rod Rosenstein, who decided to authorize a Special Counsel investigation of the above matters in the first place) to decline indicting the President was a transparently political effort to let Mr. Trump off the hook.

In fact, however, not only did the Mueller fail to identify four such incidents. The single set of incidents that could possibly qualify as an obstruction charge slam dunk – the President’s alleged efforts to remove Mueller himself as Special Counsel – was awfully weak beer.  Stephanopoulos might have two other groups of incidents in mind as well, but the case for so describing them is even feebler.

Before we proceed, however, keep in mind that in order to produce an obstruction conviction, a any prosecutor needs to convince a jury, as with all criminal trials, that the defendant is guilty “beyond a a reasonable doubt.” In addition, in order to decide to indict or to recommend an indictment, a government prosecutor must decide that “the admissible evidence will probably be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction….”

As I noted in my May 30 post, the Mueller report found “substantial evidence” that Mr. Trump committed obstructive acts in efforts to have Mueller fired (Vol. II, pp. 87 and 88). Ditto for the “connection to an investigation” and “corrupt intent” criteria for obstruction charges. (Vol. II, pp. 88-90).

But as I also noted, “even the substantial evidence [on the allegedly obstructive act count] simply ‘supports a conclusion.’ And there may be less to that conclusion than meets the eye. For couldn’t the presidential order to [then White House Counsel Don] McGahn to call Rosenstein have reflected…concerns about Special Counsel team conflicts of interest?”

Regarding the critical matter of intent, Mueller wrote (Vol. II, p. 89) that “Substantial evidence indicates that the President’s attempts to remove the Special Counsel were linked to the Special Counsel’s oversight of investigations that involved the President’s conduct- and, most immediately, to reports that the President was being investigated for potential obstruction of justice.”

That verb “indicates,” though, is pretty wishy-washy, especially considering the (properly) tough standards long established by U.S. criminal law and Justice Department policy for bringing an obstruction charge. Why didn’t Mueller write that this substantial evidence “shows” or “demonstrates” that these Mueller-removing actions were linked to his ongoing investigation, which threatened the Trump presidency?

The first of the two other possible slam-dunk groups of incidents entails the President’s efforts to curtail the Mueller investigation (as opposed to simply firing the Special Counsel). This episode centers around Mr. Trump’s decision to send former campaign aide and frequent (unofficial) confidant Corey Lewandowski on a mission to tell then Attorney General Jeff Sessions to end the existing investigation into election 2016 and specific Trump-related matters, and concentrate his efforts on whatever foreign meddling might be threatening upcoming elections.

The second such group of events consist of other attempts made by Mr. Trump to direct Sessions to take over the Special Counsel investigation.

The report’s wording convince me, anyway, that Mueller believed that the Lewandowski-related incidents met the obstructive act and link to an ongoing investigation standards. Plenty of evidence is presented regarding intent as well.

But at this juncture, it’s necessary to point to other intent-related considerations that we know were influencing Mueller’s evaluation of these events. Specifically, as Mr. Trump has continually observed, the Special Counsel (Vol, I, p. 9) found no underlying crime (that candidate Trump or any member of his campaign either acted “as an unregistered agent of the Russian government or other Russian principal” or “conspired with representatives of the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 election”). Nor, even though this activity would not constitute a crime, did the investigation “establish that members of the Trump Campaign” even “coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.” (Vol, 1, p. 2).

Although, as Barr noted in his March 24 letter to Congress announcing his decision not to indict Mr. Trump, the absence of an underlying crime does not preclude charging a defendant with obstruction, this absence “bears upon the President’s intent with respect to obstruction.” In other words, as I wrote on May 30, and as Barr made clear in a May 17 interview, Mr. Trump’s actions reflected his belief – which was both sincere and factually grounded – that he was being framed.

And guess what? Mueller agrees! On Vol. I, p. 7, his report states:

“[U]nlike cases in which a subject engages in obstruction of justice to cover up a crime, the evidence we obtained did not establish that the President was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference. Although the obstruction statutes do not require proof of such a crime, the absence of that evidence affects the analysis of the President’s intent and requires consideration of other possible motives for his conduct.”

As for the Trump efforts to ensure that his then Attorney General take over the Mueller investigation, the report doesn’t even come to any identifiable conclusion about whether any obstructive acts were committed. (Vol. II, p. 112)

The only other group of incidents that might legitimately qualify for the “slam dunk” category centered on Trump’s order to McGahn to deny that he had asked him to firer Mueller.

At the same time, Mueller’s conclusion as to whether any obstructive act was committed here is anything but clear, either. As the report notes (Vol II, p. 118):

“The President’s repeated efforts to get McGahn to create a record denying that the President had directed him to remove the Special Counsel would qualify as an obstructive act if it had the natural tendency to constrain McGahn from testifying truthfully or to undermine his credibility as a potential witness if he testified consistently with his memory, rather than with what the record said.”

There is some evidence that at the time the New York Times and Washington Post stories [reporting that such developments took place] were published in late January 2018, the President believed the stories were wrong and that he had never told McGahn to have Rosenstein remove the Special Counsel.”

In other words, the report is acknowledging these could have represented another group of Trump actions motivated by the sincere belief that he was being framed.

At the same time, the report states that “Other evidence cuts against that understanding of the President’s conduct.”

In sum, it’s obvious that contending that Mueller concluded that Mr. Trump was robustly indictable for even one of these sets of incidents rests on the shakiest of ground. Contending that the report found four such sets is nothing less than fiction. And the insinuation of a Barr cover-up is completely beyond the pale. Indeed, taken together, and given the various legal hurdles he needed to overcome to make a legitimate indictment recommendation, it’s obvious why – aside from the Justice Department policy barring the indictment of a sitting President – Mueller didn’t report to Barr that solid grounds existed even for a single obstruction charge.

In fact, as I also noted on May 30, the following was the most obstruction-friendly conclusion contained in the Mueller report – and it covers the above events related to the attempted Mueller firing:

“[T]here [is] a sufficient factual and legal basis to further investigate potential obstruction-of -justice issues involving the President.” (Vol. I, p. 12)

I.e., after a 2-year probe conducted by as many as 19 lawyers with the assistance of “approximately 40 FBI agents, intelligence analysts, forensic accountants, a paralegal, and professional staff ” that “issued more than 2,800 subpoenas under the auspices of a grand jury sitting in the District of Columbia; executed nearly 500 search-and-seizure warrants; obtained more than 230 orders for communications records under 18 U.S.C. § 2703(d); obtained almost 50 orders authorizing use of pen registers; made 13 requests to foreign governments pursuant to Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties; and interviewed approximately 500 witnesses, including almost 80 before a grand jury,” Mueller simply determined that reasons existed for continuing to investigate. (Vol. I, p. 13) And P.S.: He didn’t call them “substantial.”

If Stephanopoulos simply made a mistake by claiming that Mueller found four full-blown instances of Trump obstruction of justice, that’s fine – as long as he admits the error. Until he does, however, he’ll be as guilty of trafficking in fake news as he seems to believe Mr. Trump is guilty of obstruction.

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Im-Politic: Mueller’s Sin of Omission on Obstruction

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Attorney General, collusion, Don McGahn, election 2016, FBI, Im-Politic, impeachment, indictment, James Comey, Jeff Sessions, Justice Department, Michael Flynn, Mueller Report, obstruction of justice, Robert S. Mueller III, Rod Rosenstein, Russia, Special Counsel, Trump, Trump-Russia, William P. Barr

There’s no longer any legitimate doubt: Nearly six weeks after its release, almost no one with any influence on American public policy or public opinion has actually read the publicly available version of the Mueller report on Russian election interference and possible presidential obstruction of justice. And most of those who have read it either didn’t understand it, or are trafficking in misleading descriptions. P.S. Based on his brief farewell remarks yesterday, that list includes Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III himself.

Those are the only logical conclusions that can be drawn from the continuing insistence that, to quote Mueller, President Trump would have been charged in the report with the crime of obstructing justice but for “long-standing Department policy, [that] a President cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office. That is unconstitutional….The Special Counsel’s Office is part of the Department of Justice and, by regulation, it was bound by that Department policy. Charging the President with a crime was therefore not an option we could consider.”

Was Department policy a major determinant of Mueller’s non-indictment decision? Of course. And Mueller made that clear both in his reports and in his brief public statement. But was it the only determinant? And, by implication, given Mueller’s declaration that his report’s findings did not “exonerate” the President on this score, did Attorney General William P. Barr behave improperly by issuing his own determination that, even leaving aside Justice’s presidential indictment policy, Mueller’s investigation did not produce evidence “sufficient to establish” presidential obstruction?

The answer to both questions is clearly “No.” And it’s not even necessary to rely on Barr’s denial, in his March 24 letter announcing the decision reached by he and then Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, that the determination “was made without regard to, and was not based on, the constitutional considerations that surround the indictment and criminal prosecution of a sitting president.”

It’s not even necessary to believe Barr’s May 1 testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee that, at a March 5 meeting with Mueller, “in response to our questioning, [Mueller stated] that he emphatically was not saying that but for the [Justice Department policy] he would have found obstruction. He said that in the future the facts of the case against the president might be such that a special counsel would recommend abandoning the OLC opinion, but this is not such a case.”

These Barr statements can be ignored because Mueller’s April 18 report itself not only gathered abundant evidence bearing on the obstruction charge. It declared that it was inconclusive. To quote from the report (Volume II, p. 8. All subsequent page references are to this Volume unless otherwise noted.) “The evidence we obtained about the President’s actions and intent presents difficult issues that would need to be resolved if we were making a traditional prosecutorial judgment.” And the report’s detailed discussions of ten Trump-era potential obstruction of justice episodes makes clear that the difficulties arose precisely because his team found significant evidence on both sides of the issue.

As a result, the most obstruction-friendly conclusion that Mueller and his aides reached was

that “there was a sufficient factual and legal basis to further investigate potential obstruction-of -justice issues involving the President.” (p. 12). In other words, an indictment decision was anything but a slam dunk. And after a protracted probe involving the questioning of literally hundreds of witnesses, all that the Special Counsel could state with high confidence was that a case can be made.

Moreover, the report spent so much time weighing the kind of evidence that would be used in a normal obstruction case that an entire section was devoted to summarizing “the law interpreting the elements of potentially relevant obstruction statutes in an ordinary case. This discussion does not address the unique constitutional issues that arise in an inquiry into official acts by the President.” (p. 9)

The obstacles to indicting Mr. Trump for obstructing justice came through loud and clear in the Mueller report’s analysis of what’s often portrayed as the leading candidate for such a charge – the President’s alleged order to his then White House Counsel Don McGahn to fire Mueller. According to the Mueller Report (on p. 87):

“A threshold question is whether the President in fact directed McGahn to have the Special Counsel removed. After news organizations reported that in June 2017 the President had ordered McGahn to have the Special Counsel removed, the President publicly disputed these accounts, and privately told McGahn that he had simply wanted McGahn to bring conflicts of interest to the Department of Justice’s attention….Some of the President’s specific language that McGahn recalled from the calls is consistent with that explanation. Substantial evidence, however, supports the conclusion that the President went further and in fact directed McGahn to call Rosenstein to have the Special Counsel removed.”

It’s perfectly valid to note that the “substantial evidence” cited here surely outweighed in Mueller’s mind the evidence about presidential language recalled by McGahn – evidence that wasn’t even given an adjective. Yet readers are told that even the substantial evidence simply “supports a conclusion.” And there may be less to that conclusion than meets the eye. For couldn’t the presidential order to McGahn to call Rosenstein have reflected the same concerns about Special Counsel team conflicts of interest?

On the question of intent, which matters greatly in obstruction cases, Mueller wrote (p. 89) that “Substantial evidence indicates that the President’s attempts to remove the Special Counsel were linked to the Special Counsel’s oversight of investigations that involved the President’s conduct- and, most immediately, to reports that the President was being investigated for potential obstruction of justice.

I’m not a lawyer, but could someone please explain to me why that “substantial evidence” is so all-fired incriminating? And as for this claim (p. 90) – “There also is evidence that the President knew that he should not have made those calls to McGahn” – that doesn’t exactly strike me as “Lock him up” material.

Muddying the waters even further are the aspects of possible obstruction-related episodes for which the Mueller Report presents no judgment on the evidence in terms of adjectives or other descriptions.

For example, regarding the President’s conduct with respect to the investigation of his (quickly fired) national security adviser Michael Flynn during the transition period, the report simply states (pp. 46-47):

“As part of our investigation, we examined whether the President had a personal stake in the outcome of an investigation into Flynn-for example, whether the President was aware of Flynn’s communications with [Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey] Kislyak close in time to when they occurred, such that the President knew that Flynn had lied to senior White House officials and that those lies had been passed on to the public. Some evidence suggests that the President knew about the existence and content of Flynn’s calls when they occurred, but the evidence is inconclusive and could not be relied upon to establish the President’s knowledge….

“Our investigation accordingly did not produce evidence that established that the President knew about Flynn’s discussions of sanctions before the Department of Justice notified the White House of those discussions in late January 2017. The evidence also does not establish that Flynn otherwise possessed information damaging to the President that would give the President a personal incentive to end the FBI’s inquiry into Flynn’s conduct.

“Evidence does establish that the President connected the Flynn investigation to the FBI’s broader Russia investigation and that he believed, as he told Christie, that terminating Flynn would end “the whole Russia thing.”

No bottom line is presented.

Similarly (p. 154), the report’s discussion of the “nexus” issues raised by presidential conduct toward his former lawyer and all-around fixer Michael Cohen (focusing on the obstruction-relevant possibility that an individual being investigated knew that certain actions could bear on certain official proceedings ranging from judicial or grand jury actions to Congressional probes) simply observed:

“The President’s relevant conduct towards Cohen occurred when the President knew the Special Counsel’s Office, Congress, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York were investigating Cohen’s conduct. The President acknowledged through his public statements and tweets that Cohen potentially could cooperate with the government investigations.”

One powerful overall conclusion, though, can easily be reached after reading the entire Mueller Report, and it bears on the crucial obstruction-related consideration of whether an individual acted with corrupt intent. As Barr observed in a May 17 interview with Fox News, Mr. Trump’s actions sprang from the genuine – legally non-corrupt – conviction that Mueller’s investigation of his record, along with the Obama administration’s surveillance of his campaign and the presidential transition, was a “witch hunt and a hoax.”

Continued Barr:

“[A]t the time, he was saying he was innocent and that he was being falsely accused. And if you’re falsely accused, you would think [it] was a witch hunt. … He has been hammered for allegedly conspiring with the Russians. And we now know that was simply false…. I think if I had been falsely accused, I’d be comfortable saying it was a witch hunt.”

At least as important, the Mueller Report itself supports this interpretation in many instances. For example:

“[U]nlike cases in which a subject engages in obstruction of justice to cover up a crime, the evidence we obtained did not establish that the President was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference. Although the obstruction statutes do not require proof of such a crime, the absence of that evidence affects the analysis of the President’s intent and requires consideration of other possible motives for his conduct.” (p. 7)

“Multiple witnesses recalled that the President viewed the Russia investigations as a challenge to the legitimacy of his election.” (p. 47)

“[Then Attorney General Jeff] Sessions said he had the impression that the President feared that the investigation could spin out of control and disrupt his ability to govern, which Sessions could have helped avert if he were still overseeing it. (p. 51)

“On Saturday, March 25, 2017…the President called [Director of Intelligence Daniel] Coats and again complained about the Russia investigations, saying words to the effect of, “I can’t do anything with Russia, there’s things I’d like to do with Russia, with trade, with ISIS, they’re all over me with this.” (p. 56)

“In addition to the specific comments made to Coats, [the CIA Director Mike] Pompeo, and [then National Security Agency Director Admiral Michael] Rogers, the President spoke on other occasions in the presence of intelligence community officials about the Russia investigation and stated that it interfered with his ability to conduct foreign relations.” (p. 57)

“The evidence shows that the President was focused on the Russia investigation’s implications for his presidency- and, specifically, on dispelling any suggestion that he was under investigation or had links to Russia.” (p. 61)

“Evidence indicates that the President was angered by both the existence of the Russia investigation and the public reporting that he was under investigation, which he knew was not true based on [then FBI Director James] Comey’s representations. The President complained to advisors that if people thought Russia helped him with the election, it would detract from what he had accomplished.” (p. 61)

President Trump “told Comey that ‘he was trying to run the country and the cloud of this Russia business was making that difficult.'” (p. 61)

“The President…told McGahn that the perception that the President was under investigation was hurting his ability to carry out his presidential duties and deal with foreign leaders.” (p. 62)

“According to [then White House adviser Stephen K.] Bannon, the President said the same thing each time: ‘He [Comey] told me three times I’m not under investigation. He’s a showboater. He’s a grandstander. I don’t know any Russians. There was no collusion.'”

“We also considered why it was important to the President that Corney announce publicly that he was not under investigation. Some evidence indicates that the President believed that the erroneous perception he was under investigation harmed his ability to manage domestic and foreign affairs, particularly in dealings with Russia.” (p. 76)

“The President wanted Sessions to disregard his recusal from the investigation, which had followed from a formal DOJ ethics review, and have Sessions declare that he knew ‘for a fact’ that “there were no Russians involved with the campaign” because he ‘was there.’ The President further directed that Sessions should explain that the President should not be subject to an investigation ‘because he hasn’t done anything wrong.'” (p. 97)

“[T]he President knew that the Russia investigation was focused in part on his campaign, and he perceived allegations of Russian interference to cast doubt on the legitimacy of his election.” (p. 97)

“[T]he evidence does not establish that the President was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference. But the evidence does point to a range of other possible personal motives animating the President’s conduct. These include concerns that continued investigation would call into question the legitimacy of his election….” (p. 157)

As I wrote in an April 21 post, I believe that, because he had no reason to believe that a nearly complete version of his report (whose only required audience was the Attorney General) would be made public, Mueller acted perfectly appropriately in including a judgment that his investigation did not exonerate Mr. Trump on the obstruction question. For he was trying to impart information to Barr.

But Mueller has done the country a grave disservice by stressing the Constitutional barriers to indicting the President on this score. His report plainly demonstrates that he and his staff spent enormous amounts of time probing the traditional legal bases for an obstruction charge, and found considerable evidence to support decisions both to indict and not indict had Justice Department policy permitted such a step to be considered. And his farewell remarks yesterday were an inexcusable missed opportunity to clarify these matters.

As for Barr’s decision to file no obstruction charges, he and Rosenstein just as plainly saw the amount of evidence supporting such a conclusion, and quite reasonably judged that the obstruction allegations could not be proved “beyond a reasonable doubt” had Justice’s reading of the Constitution permitted a case to be brought. Moreover, as Barr’s May 17 press interview demonstrates, he believed that the President’s relevant words and deeds stemmed from his conviction that he was being framed – a conviction borne out by Mueller’s findings not only that the evidence was “not sufficient to support criminal charges” on any grounds against any Trump campaign officials who had contacts with the Russian government, but that no members of the campaign had “coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.” (Vol I, pp. 9,2)

Now that Mueller’s investigation is finally, officially, totally over, Congress, of course, has every Constitutional right to launch impeachment proceedings. For impeachment charges can properly include deeds that are not strictly speaking crimes. But it’s crucial to note that, from a legal standpoint, Mr. Trump is now in the clear. And although technical objections like Mueller’s can be raised to the President’s “no collusion, no obstruction claims,” his own report shows that they’re more than accurate enough.

Im-Politic: Where’s the Collusion?

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2016 election, collusion, Donald Trump Jr., Hillary Clinton, Im-Politic, Jeff Sessions, Michael Flynn, Robert S. Mueller III, Russia, Russia-Gate, Special Counsel, Trump

Although you wouldn’t know it from the Mainstream Media coverage (see the especially egregious front page or home page of yesterday’s Washington Post), the biggest story told by the Justice Department indictments of Russians said to have meddled in American politics and the 2016 presidential election was not the additional evidence of this campaign’s existence, and how it undermines President Trump’s numerous statements denying or belittling Moscow’s efforts.

Instead, it was the evidence that, after eight months of investigation, Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III has presented no reason to believe that anyone connected with the Donald Trump’s presidential campaign colluded with Russia to help him win the White House; that what his probe has found is a Russian meddling campaign with multiple, overlapping objectives that aimed to help several 2016 presidential hopefuls and roil American politics in many ways even (and especially?) after Election Day; and that this apparent Russian effort began long before anyone other than (possibly) Mr. Trump thought he would seek the presidency.

Interestingly, finding number two dovetailed with my post from a week ago, which spotlighted a New York Times story which made the point about Russia’s post-election aims going far beyond propping up President Trump.

Despite the media focus on the indictment’s description of the Russian campaign and its contrast with the president’s alleged indifference to it, it’s crucial to remember that this document is an indictment, not a legal conviction. The defendants still deserve the presumption of innocence when their day in court comes (assuming any will ever stand trial).

And despite the media focus on the Trump denial angle, it’s even more important to recognize how devastatingly the indictment undermines the collusion charge that’s constituted the main fear about Russia’s interference.

First, the indictment makes only one mention of any contacts of any kind between anyone involved in the Trump campaign and these alleged Russian operatives. It comes in paragraph 45:

“Defendants and their co-conspirators also used false U.S. personas to communicate with unwitting members, volunteers, and supporters of the Trump Campaign involved in local community outreach, as well as grassroots groups that supported then-candidate Trump. These individuals and entities at times distributed the [interference] ORGANIZATION’s materials through their own accounts via retweets, reposts, and other means. Defendants and their co-conspirators then monitored the propagation of content through such participants.”

Of course, the word “unwitting” is decisively important. It means that, the view of Special Counsel Mueller, the Trump-ers who were communicating with the Russians had no idea that they were dealing with agents of a foreign government. So by definition, they couldn’t have been colluding with Moscow.

Just as important, even though by now of course Mueller and his team know about controversial contacts between obvious agents of the Russian government and various Trump-ers that previously have ignited major controversy, the indictment never mentions them. These include the Russian U.S. ambassador’s two encounters with then-Senator Jeff Sessions, which ultimately led to Session’s recusal as Attorney General from the “Russia-Gate” investigation and Mueller’s appointment in the first place; and his conversations with former Trump administration national security adviser-designate Michael Flynn during the transition.

Nor does it mention the meeting in Trump Tower in New York City between one of Mr. Trump’s sons, his son-in-law and now senior White House aide Jared Kushner, and then-Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, with a lawyer Donald Trump, Jr. was told was “a Russian government attorney.” Trump, Jr. was also told that this attorney (who, for what it’s worth, has denied any connections with the Kremlin) was offering what was described by the Trump, Jr. friend who instigated the eventual meeting as

“some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father. This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump…..”

Reportedly, the Special Counsel is investigating the meeting. But also, reportedly, his focus is not on the event itself but on statements that the President himself and top aides made on the subject that appear to be misleading, and that therefore could represent obstruction of justice. Obstruction of course is a serious offense, but the Trump Tower meeting itself clearly is more germane to the all-important collusion charges.

Moreover, the Special Counsel has had full access to the contents of all the wiretapped conversations between the other aforementioned prominent Trump supporters or advisers and the Russians with whom they met. (According to the CNN post linked above, the Trump Tower meeting was not wiretapped.) And apparently – again after months of investigation – nothing said at these meetings has convinced Mueller and his staff that collusion, or any indictable offense related to the Russia-Gate narrative, took place.

The second way in which the indictment undermines the collusion charge is by specifying that Mr. Trump was not the only political candidate that the Russians supposedly sought to bolster in the 2016 campaign, and that they actually began working against him immediately after the election.

According to paragraph 2, the Russian defendants:

“conspired with each other (and with persons known and unknown to the Grand Jury) to defraud the United States by impairing, obstructing, and defeating the lawful functions of the government through fraud and deceit for the purpose of interfering with the U.S. political and electoral processes, including the presidential election of 2016.”

In paragraph 6, the indictment states that “Defendants posted derogatory information about a number of candidates, and by early to mid-2016, Defendants’ operations include supporting the presidential campaign of then-candidate Donald J. Trump…and disparaging Hillary Clinton.” This charge restates the preceding point that supporting Mr. Trump was not the interference operation’s only goal. So does paragraph 10 (e), which refers to the Russians’ “stated goal of ‘spread[ing] distrust towards the candidates and the political system in general.”

Paragraph 33 accuses Moscow of writing “about topics germane to the United States such as U.S. foreign policy and U.S. economic issues. Specialists were also instructed to create ‘political intensity through supporting radical groups, [social media] users dissatisfied with [the] social and economic situation and oppositional social movements.”

Paragraph 43 refers to “operations primarily intended to communicate derogatory information about [Democratic nominee] Hillary Clinton, to denigrate other candidates such as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and to support Bernie Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump.” (Green Party candidate Jill Stein was also identified, in paragraph 46, as a politician backed by the operation.)

It’s clear that one of the Russians’ top priority was defeating Clinton. And the possibility still remains that Moscow believed it had so compromised Mr. Trump – e.g., through the salacious, though unverified, information in the Steele Dossier (compiled by a former British intelligence agent whose work of course was funded by the Clinton campaign) – that its ultimate aim was a Trump victory and an American president it could blackmail and manipulate on an ongoing basis.

Yet there’s another more obvious explanation for the anti-Clinton focus: She was widely viewed not only as the overwhelming favorite to win the Democratic nomination, but as the overwhelming favorite to win the fall election. Indeed, the latter belief lasted till election night itself. In other words, had one of the other Republican candidates defeated Trump, and become fully competitive with Clinton, it stands to reason that they would have become a major Russian target, too.

Further, the narrative emphasizing that the Russians viewed Mr. Trump as an ideal Manchurian Candidate completely falls apart upon considering two other indictment findings. First, the Russian interference campaign was conceived considerably before Mr. Trump declared his presidential candidacy – which on that day in 2015 was, to put it mildly, viewed as a long shot.

As stated in paragraph 3, “Beginning as early as 2014, Defendant ORGANIZATION began operations to interfere with the U.S. political system, including the 2016 U.S. presidential election.” More specific references to a gearing up period in 2014 can be found in paragraphs 9, 10 (d) and (e), 29, 42, 58 (a), and in numerous descriptions of indicted individuals joining the operation and of their specific activities.

Moreover, as common sense would indicate, for an operation (especially one this substantial) to be running in 2014, planning, and the original formulation of the plan, would have needed to start even earlier. That’s why in paragraph 10, the indictment tells of the umbrella organization registering as a “Russian corporate entity” with the Russian government “in or around July, 2013.” If you had any inkling then that a Trump candidacy in 2016 was remotely conceivable, patriotism should impel you to join a U.S. intelligence agency immediately.

The second finding undercutting the idea of placing a manipulable traitor in the White House is the evidence presented that, almost immediately after Election Day, the Russians began stoking and coordinating both pro- and anti-Trump activities. You can read about them in paragraph 57. And then ask yourself how “protesting the results” of the election and fostering the idea that “Trump is NOT my President” were supposed to enable the victor to aid and abet a pro-Moscow agenda, as opposed to reducing his effectiveness?

For all I know, a new collusion bombshell charge, or an actual smoking gun, could be produced tomorrow in the media. New Mueller announcements or the various Congressional probes may seal the collusion case as well – perhaps with new evidence about the activities of Sessions or Flynn, or other individuals implicated in these events in various ways. (Although again, why haven’t the contents of the wiretapped conversation sufficed?)

But as long as they don’t, especially given the intense hostility of the President’s opponents – including those inside the government – the collusion case is going to look increasingly flimsy, and increasingly political. For if there really might be a traitor in the Oval Office, there’s simply no time to lose.

In the meantime, the “Russia-Gate” theory that looks best is the one I described last week – a chaos-focused operation aimed at whipping up as much American political division and sheer anger as possible, through whoever could advance this goal at any given moment, and whoever prevailed in 2016. Perhaps it’s too cynical (and partisan) to venture that the longer the scandal charges remain in the air, the more the Democrats and Trump’s establishment Republican foes benefit. But there’s no doubt that, the longer the Russia-Gate fight drags on, the better for Moscow and all of America’s foreign adversaries.

Im-Politic: The Trump-ers and the Russians

Tags

2016 election, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Im-Politic, Jeff Sessions, Logan Act, Michael T. Flynn, Russia, Sergey Kislyak, Trump, U.S. intelligence, Vladimir Putin

The more I read about the firestorm that has erupted over possible contacts between officials of and advisers to President Trump’s campaign for the White House, his transition team, and members of his new administration on the one hand, and the Russian government and/or its agents on the other, the less sense any of it makes to me.

That goes double – at least – for the charge that is only rarely made explicit but that is central to this entire uproar: that Trump’s outsider nature and supposedly authoritarian, anti-democratic instincts opened the door to an alliance with Russian leader Vladimir Putin that aided his November victory. More specifically, insinuations have been made that figures either officially or unofficially associated with Mr. Trump “colluded” with the Russians in their efforts to undermine Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid.

Of course, the fire keeps getting fueled by the failure of the supposed Trump-ist conspirators to provide forthright answers to questions about their recent contacts with Putin’s aides and surrogates. By their own belated admissions now, the president’s briefly serving White House national security adviser Michael T. Flynn and his Attorney General, former Senator Jeff Sessions, held either meetings or communications with Russia’s ambassador to the United States during the transition and campaign, respectively, that they did not originally acknowledge.

Nothing could have been easier, the entirely reasonable argument goes, than for them to have been up front right away. Flynn, for example, is alleged to have broken with an important American tradition that only one person serves as president at a time when he spoke with Ambassador Sergey Kislyak about America’s anti-Russia sanctions. It’s true that former President Obama’s second term ran through midday, January 20, and that he and his officials alone possessed the authority to conduct the nation’s foreign relations. In addition, Flynn might have violated a law preventing private citizens from interfering with official American diplomacy – though it’s unclear whether the Logan Act applies to transition team officials like Flynn at the time.

But wouldn’t the former general have been much better off – let alone Mr. Trump – had he simply stated that he broached the subject of sanctions (as opposed to simply introducing himself and starting to get acquainted) because Russia is an important country and he wanted to help the administration hit the ground running?

And Sessions has now stated that his original answers at his Senate confirmation regarding such meetings assumed that the questions were focused on meetings dealing with his position in the Trump campaign and that concerned campaign matters. But why engage in such Clintonian parsing if everything was on the up and up?

After all, his first such contact with Kislyak took place at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, at a meeting co-sponsored by the Obama State Department. The second – also with Kislyak – took place in his Senate office, in September. As a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, what could be more natural than a lawmaker meeting with a representative of a major power? The answer? “Nothing.” Such events have become routine – and should be, if Congress is to play the important role in foreign policymaking assigned it by the Constitution. How difficult would it have been for Sessions to make these points in the first place?

One obvious retort is that the president’s enemies are so loaded for bear that even such reasonable explanations wouldn’t have satisfied them – and were likeliest to egg them on further. But it should be equally obvious that the real political prize here is the American middle, which historically has a knack for distinguishing the truth-tellers from the fear-mongers.

Even more bizarre, however (and that’s a high bar!), is the more fundamental notion that the Russians thought a concerted effort to fix the U.S. election was a stroke of genius. That may indeed have been the case – I sure don’t have any inside info on the Kremlin. But let me count the biggest reasons why Putin should have laughed out of his office anyone who made this proposal.

First, with his KGB background, Putin of all people should know that it’s almost impossible to keep any significant secrets in the American political world, let alone one this big. One major reason, of course – this plan would have had to have been kept from any number of foreign intelligence services as well, if only because so many other national governments have big stakes in American presidential elections, too.

Second, precisely because of these excellent chances of discovery, the upside of any successful election rigging would have been severely limited. Had Clinton won, after all, at least for the medium term, Moscow would have guaranteed that Barack Obama’s successor would have taken much harder-line anti-Russian positions across the board in American foreign policy. But even had the alleged plot succeeded, every word or action taken by Mr. Trump suggesting a more conciliatory policy would – as has been clear already – have come under the harshest suspicion. Indeed, the new administration has faced continuing heavy pressure to demonstrate what might be called some anti-Russia street cred – on top of already having named some prominent Russia hawks to key posts.

Third, the cost-benefit calculus of a political interference campaign looks even worse upon recalling the conventional wisdom that Mr. Trump was heading toward an historic defeat at the polls. Why take major chances on behalf of such a likely and big loser? In this vein, it’s fascinating to note that the January American intelligence community report on the Russian influence campaign suggested that the Kremlin (as with so many others) anticipated a Clinton win as late as election night.

Fourth, if Russian intelligence was even minimally competent, it would have known that a Trump presidency would have been more favorable to Moscow even without actively cooperation with his presidential campaign. For Mr. Trump had long criticized U.S. foreign policymaking for picking needless overseas fights that too often turned into bloody and hideously expensive quagmires (like the second Iraq war). And for even longer he had insisted that America’s military actions abroad be restricted to crises where the nation’s security was directly threatened.

But as indicated above, the American intelligence community has stated that Putin – although concerned about a “backfire” effect from direct Putin praise of candidate Trump – did in fact order precisely this kind of anti-Clinton, pro-Trump “influence campaign”. Given all the claims from every quarter of American politics that the Russian leader is a diabolically dangerous mastermind, this decision simply adds to my list of “Russia-gate” developments that I find completely mystifying.

Not that my own befuddlement means that there’s no fire behind any of this smoke, or that Russian interference in U.S. elections should be accepted simply because it might have been ineptly conceived or carried out. (What if Moscow or others one day get the hang of this?) Until and unless much more serious disclosures emerge, however, it could well mean that Trump-haters and the Mainstream Media need to hold their hysteria about the Trump-Russia connection. And the president and his team stop needlessly shooting themselves in their feet.

Im-Politic: No Learning Curve for America’s Left on Immigration

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American Muslims, Angela Merkel, assimilation, Attorney General, Cory Booker, Democrats, Elizabeth Warren, Germany, Hillary Clinton, Im-Politic, Immigration, Jeff Sessions, Jeremy Corbyn, Labour Party, liberals, Marketwatch.com, Muslims, national security, Obama, Open Borders, progressive, Social Democratic Party, terrorism, Trump, United Kingdom

I keep waiting for America’s self-styled progressives to start recognizing that they’re going absolutely nowhere in national politics until they abandon their devotion to Open Borders policies, and start responding to their fellow citizens’ legitimate economic and especially security concerns about mass immigration.

Sadly, nothing could be clearer from recent developments than that the wait will continue indefinitely. Even worse, the U.S. Left seems to be even more clueless on the subject than its counterparts in Europe.

Certainly President Obama remains unrepentant about his own record. In his Farewell Address, he touted his record in fighting Islamic terrorism overseas (not that he used the term), and warned against the dangers of domestic radicalization. But his boast that “no foreign terrorist organization has successfully planned and executed an attack on our homeland these past eight years” once again made painfully clear his neglect of the dangerous impact of already having admitting so many newcomers whose original religion or culture creates huge obstacles to successful assimilation into American society. Why else would he have glossed over the deadly attacks by Muslim immigrants in Boston, San Bernardino, and Orlando?

In fact, according to Mr. Obama, the only Americans who need to learn about current and emerging immigration realities are those in the native-born population – because their fear that some immigrants today could “destroy the fundamental character” of the country is not only obsolete, but bigoted.

Other progressives also seem to be doubling down on efforts to address valid immigration concerns with smears. Can anyone reasonably doubt, for example, that Alabama Republican Senator Jeff Sessions’ appointment as President-elect Trump’s Attorney General would be sailing through the Senate if had not so forthrightly championed immigration realism – and enforcing the nation’s existing laws?

Yes, many Senate Democrats have accused Sessions of harboring racist views and neglecting the rights of a wide variety of discrimination victims. At the same time, none of these alleged transgressions prevented New Jersey Democratic Senator Cory Booker – Sessions’ leading Congressional opponent – from feeling “blessed and honored” just last year “to have partnered with Sen. Sessions in being the Senate sponsors” of a Congressional Gold Medal for the voting rights activists of the 1960s. No one else in the Senate protested, either.

Maybe Booker’s Massachusetts Senate colleague, Elizabeth Warren, is moving in the opposite direction? Not if her declaration that she’s running for reelection is any indication. Warren marked the occasion by vowing to “fight back against attacks on Latinos, African-Americans, Muslims, immigrants, women, and LGBT Americans. Our diversity is what makes our country strong – and on this, there will be NO compromise.” As if all these groups can be lumped in the exact same victimization category.

In fact, the only sign of progress I can detect is that no progressives are urging Mr. Obama or Mr. Trump to quintuple the number of U.S. refugee admissions from war-wracked Middle Eastern countries – as failed Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton proposed.

The contrast with European progressive leaders is stunning. As reported in an insightful column on Marketwatch.com, the head of Germany’s Social Democratic Party – and the country’s vice chancellor in the current coalition government – is calling for “ncreased video surveillance…a ban on fundamentalist mosques as breeding grounds for terrorism, and…an end to freeloading on Germany’s generous child-support subsidies by other European Union citizens.”

Another German progressive leader has slammed Chancellor Angela Merkel for “uncontrolled border opening [and]a police force that has been downsized to the point of inefficiency, that neither has the personnel nor the technical resources that would enable it to cope with the current threat situation,”

Meanwhile, Jeremy Corbyn, who heads the United Kingdom’s struggling Labour Party, is unmistakably rethinking his former opposition to Britain’s decision to leave the European Union in large part because of the grouping’s lax immigration policies. Corbyn had previously opposed “Brexit,” which British voters passed in a referendum in June.

Germany, of course, has experienced Muslim terrorist attacks much bloodier than America’s. The Labour Party seems headed for its worst showing in Parliament since the 1930s. Will it take these kinds of security and political disasters to bring U.S. progressives to their senses on immigration?

Making News: On Connecticut Radio Tomorrow AM…and More!

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Akron Beacon Journal, Clare Goldsberry, economy, Fortune, Jeff Sessions, Lifezette.com, Making News, Ohio, Peter Navarro, Plastics Today, Talk of the Town, The Christian Science Monitor, The New Yorker, The Washington Times, Trade, Trump, WATR-AM

I’m pleased to announce that I will be appearing on “Talk of the Town,” on Waterbury, Connecticut’s WATR-AM radio tomorrow at 11:10 AM EST to discuss the Trump administration and the economy. You can listen live at this link, and I’ll post a podcast of the segment as soon as one is available.

Also, on top of recent appearances on CNBC and the John Batchelor Show, it’s been great to have been interviewed on this and related subjects by numerous journalists over the last few weeks on this and related topics. Here’s an update, in reverse chronological order:

>Click on these links to see two November 11 articles in Fortune and The Christian Science Monitor containing some of my views on new directions U.S. trade policy might take during the Trump years.

>On November 4, Facebook friend and Plastics Today contributor Clare Goldsberry cited some of my research in a pre-election column on many of the daunting problems facing America’s economy.

>That same day, Lifezette.com‘s look at the latest monthly U.S. employment data featured highlights from my own report on the subject.

>On October 31, Lifezette ran a brief contribution of mine on the state of the economy on the eve of the election.

>On October 28, the Akron Beacon Journal‘s piece on the politics of trade in the key swing state of Ohio quoted me on trade’s impact on the state economy. By the way, I suspect the author would want to rewrite that headline if he could!

>On October 26, Lifezette spotlighted my views on the muddle made of trade policy by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

>On October 16, a Washington Times op-ed on trade policy by key Trump advisers Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama and Peter Navarro referenced my observation that corporate funded think tanks engage in the practice of “laundering” the ideas of their paymaster to make them look respectable.

>And on October 12, The New Yorker‘s Adam Davidson portrayed me as one of the (presumably unqualified) non-economists who share many of Mr. Trump’s views on trade. (I reacted, as you may recall, with this post the following day.

Keep checking in with RealityChek for more updates on news appearances and similar events. I can promise you they’ll be coming!

Im-Politic: In Case You Still Think There’s No Special Islam-Related Terrorism Problem

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Department of Homeland Security, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Im-Politic, Islam, Jeff Sessions, Middle East, Muslims, Obama, radical Islam, refugees, right-wing terrorism, Senate Judiciary Committee, Ted Cruz, terrorism

Although American politics remains roiled by the issues of admitting refugees into the country from the war-torn Middle East, and whether the U.S. Muslim population presents an unusual terrorism challenge, evidence keeps mounting that this debate should long ago have been put to rest in favor of greater vigilance.

As I’ve written recently, law enforcement records and officials in Europe show that literally dozens of terrorists – including some involved in recent large-scale attacks – have successfully entered the continent disguised as refugees. The Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest has now released data showing that, as a news report puts it, “hundreds of terror plots have been stopped in the U.S. since 9/11 – mostly involving foreign-born suspects, including dozens of refugees.”

The clear implication, according to subcommittee chair Jeff Sessions, the Alabama Republican who’s a key adviser to his party’s presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump; and subcommittee colleague Ted Cruz of Texas (Trump’s strongest primary season opponent): “[T]he United States not only lacks the ability to properly screen individuals prior to their arrival, but also that our nation has an unprecedented assimilation problem.”

These findings could pose big problems for President Obama and his administration, which has consistently maintained that current American screening is adequate, and who strongly opposes any measures that would focus more tightly and explicitly on Islam-related domestic and international terror threats; and for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, who favors greatly increasing Middle East refugee admissions.

The subcommittee says that its examination of Justice Department records and open source documents (e.g., media reports) shows that between September, 2001 (when the 9-11 terrorist strikes on U.S. targets took place) and 2014, the U.S. Government convicted 580 individuals on terrorism and terror-related charges. And since 2014, according to a Fox News summary of the data, at least another “131 individuals were identified as being implicated in terror.”

Among the 580 convicted, the subcommittee contends, at least 380 were foreign-born, and 244 came from Middle Eastern countries or from other countries with large majority Muslim populations (like Indonesia and Bangladesh).

Less country-of-origin information is available for those implicated in terrorism. Sessions and Cruz blame this situation on the failure of the Department of Homeland Security to provide them with crucial immigration history details.

At the same time, the overwhelming majority of them “claimed allegiance” to Islam-related organizations like ISIS and Al Qaeda. Of the 580 convicted terrorists, 226 claimed allegiance to Islam-related organizations.

Moreover, if you think that these findings reflect the political biases or prejudices of Sessions and Cruz, take a look at similar statistics compiled by the New America Foundation, a Washington, D.C. think tank who no one has ever accused of Republican or other right wing leanings. A database maintained by the organization shows that, since 9-11, “violent jihadist attacks” have killed 94 Americans. That’s nearly twice the 48 the Foundation says were killed in “far right wing attacks” during this period. Moreover, the jihadist strikes have wounded 289, while their right-wing counterparts injured 27.

Interestingly, according to New America, the number of right-wing attacks (18) was nearly twice the number of such Islam-related incidents. And whereas only 13 individuals participated in the jihadist attacks, 32 participated in the right-wing killings.

So it’s possible to look at all these numbers and conclude that, according to many of them, far right terrorism is just as big a problem as the Islam-related and immigration/refugee versions, and that no unusual emphasis on the latter is justified.

But ask yourself this: What is the Muslim population of the United States? How many Middle East refugees have been admitted over the years? How do these numbers compare with the non-Muslim native-born American population? The obvious answers should remove any doubt that terrorism in America is disproportionately linked with the country’s Muslim community, and that denying this reality – which by no means precludes vigorous efforts against other forms of terrorism – can only make the nation less safe.

Im-Politic: The New York Times Fails the Test of Media Bias on Refugees/Terrorism

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ABC News, Al Qaeda, Cato Institute, FBI, Im-Politic, ISIS, Jeff Sessions, jihadists, media, media bias, Middle East, New America Foundation, Obama, radical Islam, refugees, September 11, terrorism, The New York Times

The New York Times has long proclaimed itself to be the nation’s (and maybe the world’s) newspaper of record, dedicating to publishing “All the news that’s fit to print.” But when it comes to its coverage of the debate over admitting refugees from today’s war-torn Middle East, the paper’s approach seems to be “All the news that fits support for leniency.” For twice within the last week alone, The Times has put out features that completely ignore some of the most important facts that have complicated this controversy.

Last Friday, The Times ran an item emphasizing how long refugees from Syria must wait to enter the country, and how many background checks they face. That’s undoubtedly useful information. But did reporters Haeyoun Park and Larry Buchanan even mention the complete absence of independent corroborating information available to the federal or United Nations officials trying to vet them? No. Did their editors believe that such information was pertinent, and that Times readers deserved to know it? Apparently not.

In fact, there’s no evidence that the reporters consulted with specialists on refugee admissions and border security who harbor major doubts about screening’s sufficiency. Nor is there evidence that the editors requested more diverse sourcing. This conclusion seems justified because the only sources of information listed at the item’s end are agencies of an Obama administration that’s been vigorously, and often belligerently, insisting that the vetting situation is under control, and two non-profit organizations that strongly support this position. So the article unavoidably created the impression that not only are current Syria refugee procedures painstaking, but that they are painstaking enough.

Comparable lapses characterize today’s Times offering on “the origins of Jihadist-inspired attacks in the U.S.” According to this article, “All of the Sept. 11 attackers entered the United States using tourist, business or student visas. Since then, most of the attackers in the United States claiming or appearing to be motivated by extremist Islam were born in this country or were naturalized citizens. None were refugees.”

That’s important to know. But it’s at least as important to know that Alabama Republican Senator Jeff Sessions has released a list of 12 vetted refugees who this year alone have been charged or implicated in federal courts of participation in Jihadist attacks in the United States.

In addition, two years ago, ABC News reported that “The discovery in 2009 of two al Qaeda-Iraq terrorists living as refugees in Bowling Green, Kentucky — who later admitted in court that they’d attacked U.S. soldiers in Iraq — prompted the [FBI] to assign hundreds of specialists to an around-the-clock effort aimed at checking its archive of 100,000 improvised explosive devices collected in the war zones, known as IEDs, for other suspected terrorists’ fingerprints.”

ABC then proceeded to quote by name the FBI agent in charge of the bureau’s Terrorist Explosive Device Analytical Center as stating that “We are currently supporting dozens of current counter-terrorism investigations like that.” Moreover, according to the report (which quotes numerous other FBI agents by name), “Several dozen suspected terrorist bombmakers, including some believed to have targeted American troops, may have mistakenly been allowed to move to the United States as war refugees….”

These disclosures don’t invalidate the article’s claim about the great number and severity of the terrorist threats to Americans that have not come from refugees. But they completely invalidate the clear suggestion that tighter restrictions on refugee admissions, which President Obama has so far adamantly refused to consider, can not meaningfully enhance Americans’ security. Nor did either Times piece mention the live possibility that the refugee threat could grow significantly going forward, as the Middle East experiences ever heavier, bloodier conflict, and as the U.S. and other militaries keep failing to put the kind of pressure on ISIS that kept Al Qaeda on the run for much of the post-September 11 period.

Also revealing – and unacceptable: Similar to the first piece, none of the “security experts” quoted in the piece contradicted the Obama line. The only ones mentioned by name come from the New America Foundation, which has a long record of backing the president’s domestic and foreign policies, and the Cato Institute, which has long favored an Open Borders approach to American immigration policy. How difficult would it have been for Times reporters Sergio Pecanha and K.K. Rebecca Lai to find specialists who disagreed? And again, did their editors even make this request?

The point here isn’t that Mr. Obama and his supporters are indisputably wrong and that their opponents are indisputably right about refugee policy. The point is that the issue is complicated, that important evidence can be cited to support both of the groups of approaches that have recently emerged, and that a responsible newspaper would not have pretended that the case for the status quo is airtight. If the powers-that-be at The Times want to make that case (as is of course their right), they should use the editorial page.

Im-Politic: Will Trump Spark a GOP Revolt on Trade Policy, Too?

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2016 elections, Donald Trump, fast track, free trade agreements, illegal immigration, Im-Politic, immigrants, Immigration, Jeff Sessions, Jim Tankersley, legal immigration, offshoring, Republicans, Scott Walker, Ted Crjz, The New York Times, TPP, Trade, Trade Promotion Authority, Trans-Pacific Partnership, wages, Washington Post

Honestly – I’m still trying to make sure that posts about Donald Trump don’t completely dominate RealityChek. But with the Republican presidential front-runner still shaking up American politics and policy on an almost daily basis, especially on the vitally important issues of trade and immigration, what am I supposed to do?

The latest bombshells Trump has dropped into the 2016 election mix have now received extensive coverage from The New York Times and the Washington Post – entailing his talk of tax hikes on key segments of the Republican political donor base, like offshoring multinational companies and hedge fund managers.

But the Post article also indicated that an equally important development has been gathering momentum: Some major Republican candidates are starting to criticize Open Borders and amnesty-friendly immigration policies not only on national security, sovereignty, and law-and-order grounds; out of multi-culturalism-related concerns; or based on their role in excessively fueling Big Government and the Welfare State. Instead, these figures are starting to criticize the establishment’s current and favored immigration policies on wage-related grounds. It’s a shift that – finally – opens the way, at least in theory, for these candidates and others to start criticizing the trade policy status quo for similar reasons,and weaken its hold on political Washington.

For years, I’ve been struck by how immigration policy critics have faced the same kinds of powerful opponents as trade policy critics – especially Big Business and the Mainstream Media – yet have achieved much more impressive results. And for just as many years, I’ve been frustrated that even during economically troubled times, these immigration critics haven’t focused their formidable energies and talents on trade measures and decisions that have devastated the jobs and wages of the middle- and working-class Americans so prominent in their ranks. Still more bewildering, many Republican politicians in Washington who staunchly opposed amnesty-friendly immigration reform proposals just as staunchly backed job- and wage-killing trade measures.

Trump has long been one of a handful of national figures who has been as exorcised about Washington’s thoroughly bipartisan trade policy blunders as about its immigration policy failures, and both indictments have been at the center of his campaign. Now it looks like his success to date, and his focus on the pocketbook impact of the establishment’s trade and immigration agenda, has spawned some influential imitators.

Thus, reports Post correspondent Jim Tankersley, Texas Senator Ted Cruz has recently lamented “the enormous downward pressure on wages and employment that unrestrained illegal immigration is providing.” Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has become even more emphatic on the subject, and strongly suggested that legal immigration as a major contributor to wage stagnation as well:

“In terms of legal immigration, how we need to approach that going forward is saying—the next president and the next congress need to make decisions about a legal immigration system that’s based on, first and foremost, on protecting American workers and American wages, because the more I’ve talked to folks, I’ve talked to {Republican Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama] and others out there—but it is a fundamentally lost issue by many in elected positions today—is what is this doing for American workers looking for jobs, what is this doing to wages, and we need to have that be at the forefront of our discussion going forward.”

Cruz actually voted against granting fast track trade negotiating authority to President Obama earlier this year, but animus toward the president rather than economics seemed his main motivation. Indeed, after fast track’s passage, a Cruz spokesman somewhat confusingly declared that “Sen. Cruz remains a strong supporter of free trade and fast-track.” In his only other major trade vote, in 2013, he opposed expanding Buy American requirements for certain federal infrastructure projects.

It’s time for Cruz’ supporters, and those whose support he seeks, to ask him why he thinks admitting large numbers of immigrants from low-income countries like Mexico depresses U.S. wages, but passing trade deals that send U.S. production to such countries – and their low wage workers – has no such impact. Ditto for Walker, who hasn’t voted for any trade agreements, but has strongly endorsed Mr. Obama’s proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal (albeit with some wiggle room).

Indeed, if these candidates aren’t ready to rethink their illogical endorsement of these economically destructive trade policies, I’d advise them to start thinking of some convincing answers soon. Because if the voters don’t yet get the connection, it’s clear that the outspoken Mr. Trump does.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: The Senate’s Messy but Historic Anti-Fast Track Vote

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2016 elections, Africa, AGOA, currency manipulation, fast track, Harry Reid, Jeff Sessions, Mitch McConnell, Obama, Orrin Hatch, Ron Wyden, Senate, TAA, TPA, TPP, Trade, Trade Adjustment Assistance, Trade Promotion Authority, Trans-Pacific Partnership, {What's Left of) Our Economy

So far, the Senate’s vote this afternoon to block debate on granting fast track trade negotiating authority to President Obama stands out mainly for two somewhat contradictory but equally valid reasons.

First, just one look at the actual roll call is enough to remind that even lawmakers’ decisions on the highest profile, emotionally charged issues can be an incredibly nuanced mix of substantive and procedural considerations. For example, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who has helped lead the charge to grant the president a virtual blank check for concluding new trade agreements, voted against proceeding, even though the triumph of the Nays puts fast track’s future in major jeopardy. The reasons reportedly were tactical, related to Senate procedures. Alabama’s Jeff Sessions, one of the few Republicans on Capitol Hill understanding the need for fundamentally new approaches to both trade and immigration policy, is recorded as voting for the measure. Unless that’s a typo, I’m dying to find out why.

Then there’s Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon and ranking minority member of the Finance Committee – which takes the lead on trade issues in the Senate. Wyden brokered a fast track compromise with Republican Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch of Utah that resulted in a bill strongly opposed by most Democrats in both Houses of Congress. Yet Wyden cast a ballot against starting a fast track debate on the Senate floor – avowedly because McConnell and other Republican leaders refused to guarantee strongly enough that related trade measures would be voted on as well. So did several other Senate Democrats who normally support standard trade deals.

Even stranger, these related bills are at best a mixed bag when it comes to affecting trade policy, trade flows and, most important, the U.S. economy’s growth and hiring performance – which could certainly use a helping hand. For example, one is a measure that would fund so-called Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) for workers who lose their jobs because of import competition or trade-related offshoring. These retraining and reeducation programs are widely viewed as chronic failures by those who have studied their results. Their continued popularity in Washington reflects their ability to enable trade deal supporters to claim genuine concern for Americans whose livelihoods they repeatedly vote to devastate. In other words, TAA support historically has provided a measure political cover for trade liberalization votes. But this year so far it’s throwing a major major monkey wrench into the president’s trade agenda.

Another trade-related demand made by fast track opponents is legislative movement on extending a free trade deal with sub-Saharan Africa. Although this arrangement’s impacts on the U.S. economy are modest, it’s involved a sacrifice of American jobs, mainly in the apparel industry, for African jobs. Even those believing that this tradeoff makes sense for U.S. interests should be troubled by how the African deal has become a back door for shipping Chinese-made garments, and clothing made from Chinese, not U.S.-manufactured fabric, into the American market.

At the same time, despite the byzantine array of motives on display, this Senate vote was a genuine milestone. For whatever their narrower and even cynical concerns, Senators who opposed launching the fast track debate had to know that any delay could well doom the measure, and with it any hopes for new trade agreements for the foreseeable future. The reason? The longer these decisions take, the deeper they get pushed into the already unfolding 2016 presidential cycle, when few politicians relish running as champions of current U.S. trade strategies.

Indeed, for all the White House efforts to dismiss today’s events as an “procedural snafu,” this anti-fast track vote represents the first time in decades that the Senate has rejected a major trade policy measure that didn’t require approval in the House as well. (In 2011, the Senate passed a stringent anti-currency manipulation bill, but many of the Yes voters no doubt knew that the measure was going nowhere in the House.)

As a result, Mr. Obama’s trade agenda, including his proposed Pacific Rim trade deal, is by no means dead. Indeed, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, till now a bulwark of opposition to fast track and that Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement reportedly is already trying to figure out how to save the president from complete humiliation. But given the Senate’s usually friendly disposition to standard trade liberalization policies, and given how its reservations may further stiffen the spine of the traditionally balkier House, there can be no doubt that U.S. trade policy history was made today. And given the current strategy’s record of slowing both economic growth and job creation, it’s history that even the most ambivalent, even Machiavellian fast track opponents can be proud to have made.