RUTHFULLY YOURS

Following the FBI’s shocking raid Monday at the home, office, and hotel room of President Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, Republican lawmakers are rallying behind the still-unjustified investigation into whether Trump’s campaign colluded with the Russian government to influence the 2016 presidential election. (Like just about everything else the probe has produced so far, the Cohen matter appears unrelated to anything Russian.)

Senators Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) will partner with Senators Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) to introduce legislation that would protect Special Counsel Robert Mueller if Trump fires him. The bill would give Mueller a 10-day window to “seek expedited judicial review of a firing.”

GOP leaders offered their verbal support: Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R-Iowa)—whose committee is investigating possible misconduct into how the Obama Justice Department obtained a FISA warrant to spy on the Trump campaign—said it would be “suicide for the president to want, to talk about firing Mueller.” Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) warned “the consequences of [firing Mueller] are some that not even the president can anticipate. And I think it would be a mistake.”

NeverTrumpers, who fantasize about Mueller hauling the president out of the White House in handcuffs, have formed yet another group to solidify congressional support for the special counsel. On Wednesday, “Republicans for the Rule of Law” aired an ad during “Fox and Friends”—Trump’s must-watch morning program—that touted Mueller’s credentials and urged viewers to call their representatives to demand they “protect the Mueller investigation.” (The ad conspicuously did not mention Trump-Russia election collusion, the crime Mueller was hired to investigate in May 2017.)

Republicans for the Rule of Law is led by Bill Kristol, editor-at-large of The Weekly Standard, and NeverTrump’s de facto leader. Kristol has the opposite of the political Midas Touch: Everything and everyone he promotes—from the Iraq War to Sarah Palin to Evan McMullin—are losers. So it’s unsurprising that Kristol’s latest effort again misses the mark.

Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel in May 2017 in reaction to a media still gripped by near hysteria over the inexplicable defeat of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.

For nearly a year before Mueller’s appointment, leaks had spread about collusion between Russia and the Donald Trump campaign that supposedly cost Clinton a sure victory.

Most of these collusion stories, as we now know, originated with Christopher Steele and his now-discredited anti-Trump opposition file.

After almost a year, Mueller has offered no evidence that Trump colluded with the Russians. Aside from former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, a few minor and transitory campaign officials have been indicted or have pleaded guilty to a variety of transgressions other than collusion.

Ironically, the United States has often interfered in foreign elections to massage the result. Recently, Bill Clinton joked about his own efforts as president to collude in the 1996 Israeli election to ensure the defeat of Benjamin Netanyahu. “I tried to do it in a way that didn’t overtly involve me,” Clinton said.

The Obama Administration did the same in 2015, when it used State Department funds to support an anti-Netanyahu political action group.

Since Mueller’s investigation began, a number of top FBI and Department of Justice officials have either retired, or were reassigned or fired.

With the exception of former FBI Director James Comey, all left their jobs due to investigations of improper conduct that took place during the 2016 election cycle. Most were under a cloud of suspicion for lying, having conflicts of interest or misleading investigators.

Mueller is reaching the crossroads of his investigation and faces at least four critical decisions.

Senator Thom Tillis (R., N.C.) criticized Mark Zuckerberg Tuesday for omitting information related to the Obama reelection campaign’s exploitation of user data in a statement the Facebook CEO prepared prior to his Congressional testimony.

The two-day hearing was prompted by reports that the Trump-linked data firm Cambridge Analytica improperly obtained 87 million Facebook users’ data. As a result, Zuckerberg’s prepared statement, which doesn’t include any information about data breaches between 2007 and 2013, focused primarily on that recent breach, as did the questions he faced in Congress.

Breaking from the pack, Tillis recommended that Zuckerberg “expand” his “timeline” while addressing the issue of data protection to include the 2012 Obama campaign’s similar data-exploitation scheme, which officials openly bragged about to widespread adulation in the press.

“When you do your research on Cambridge Analytica, I would appreciate it if you would start back from the first high-profile national campaign that exploited Facebook data,” Tillis said.

The North Carolina lawmaker then cited a former Obama campaign staffer’s tweet, which was sent after the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke, and recounted how Facebook employees were surprised by the breadth of user data the campaign was able to scrape, but let them continue to do so because of their shared political leanings.

“I also believe that that person who may have looked the other way when the whole social graph was extracted for the Obama campaign, if they are still working for you, they probably should not,” Tillis scolded. “At least there should be a business code of conduct that says that you do not play favorites. You are trying to create a fair place for people to share ideas.”

The FBI agents who carried out the raid on Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s office were seeking records related to the infamous Access Hollywood tape, among other information, three people briefed on the contents of the federal search warrant told the New York Times.

The warrant specifically sought evidence that Cohen suppressed damaging information about then-candidate Donald Trump, though it remains unclear what Cohen’s role was in containing the fallout from the tape, which showed Trump bragging about grabbing women by the genitals years earlier.The raid on Cohen’s office, which was reportedly approved by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, occurred after Special Counsel Robert Mueller came across evidence of wrongdoing that fell outside the purview of his probe and passed that information along to the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

A Tuesday Times report revealed that the authorities were also seeking evidence related to Cohen’s payment of $130,000 in hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels, who claims to have engaged in an affair with Trump shortly after his marriage to wife Melania.

The payment raised questions about a possible election-law violation, as Daniels’s attorney and others have alleged the payment constitutes an illegal in-kind contribution from Cohen to Trump’s campaign.

Do the Grand Inquisitor and his leftist cheerleaders understand what they’re sowing?

When Watergate blew up and Richard Nixon resigned the presidency in 1974, the U.S. dodged a bullet. Because honorable Republicans like Howard Baker and Elliot Richardson put country above party, Nixon saw the light, and the U.S. was spared the trauma of almost certain impeachment by the full House and conviction by the Senate. A presidency ended unnaturally without the institution of the presidency suffering damage.

Had Nixon hung tough and taken his chances in the dock, no one could have predicted the domestic and international consequences of an American administration paralyzed, adrift, and leaderless. The only certainty: Our adversaries would seize the moment to challenge us.

Almost forty-five years later, bitter and dishonorable people are waging a campaign to remove, by any means necessary, a president not credibly accused of anything warranting impeachment. Mueller, the Grand Inquisitor, is hip deep in garbage, hoping to find something nasty and smelly to take down his target. If honorable Democrats exist, none (as far as I know) has stepped up and said, “Wait. Are we sure it’s in the country’s best interest to cheer Mueller on and hope he finds a reason to decapitate the administration?”

Unlike the principals in Watergate who calmed the country, the cabal working to prosecute and delegitimize Trump appears unconcerned by the poison it’s injected into the body politic. Its members are oblivious to the damage being done to our institutions as they wage their jihad. Or maybe Trump-hatred is so blinding that they don’t care about setting a dangerous precedent for opposition to future administrations.

In the here and now, the danger is real. Trump’s ankle-biters seem unaware the world is watching the circus in Washington. Bad actors like Iran, Russia, and China see the president besieged and wonder if now is the time, while he’s distracted, to try for some advantage. Kim Jong-un may calculate that it is not in his interest to deal with a president whose clout is diminishing by the day.

Members of Congress took turns lashing Mark Zuckerberg this week for Facebook ’s myriad screw-ups. The CEO showed contrition, but his apologia has raised important questions about the government’s failures.

Democrats who were once enthralled with Silicon Valley fell out of love with Facebook following reports that Russian trolls used its platform to promulgate fake news and ads to support Donald Trump in 2016. Then came news that a political firm linked to the Trump campaign may have misappropriated data on 270,000 users and their 87 million friends collected by a third-party app.

Mr. Zuckerberg’s defense? Facebook was too “trusting.” After the Guardian newspaper reported in 2015 that a Cambridge University researcher had shared data from his personality-quiz app with the political firm Cambridge Analytica , Facebook asked Cambridge Analytica to delete the data. Cambridge Analytica said it had, and Facebook accepted its word.

The incident demonstrated that Facebook’s privacy protections were flimsier than it claimed. In 2011 Facebook settled charges with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over mishandling user data, and Facebook agreed to establish stronger privacy protections and obtain periodic third-party audits. But Facebook has now disclosed that tens of thousands of apps may have obtained data on users and their friends beyond what they needed to operate.

This seems to violate the FTC’s consent decree, as Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal noted. Mr. Zuckerberg waffled in reply that “it certainly appears that we should have been aware that [the researcher] submitted a term that was in conflict with the rules of the platform.” But he said the third-party audits didn’t turn up problems.

The FTC is now investigating Facebook’s privacy controls, but a few questions: Why didn’t the commission ensure years ago that Facebook had established policies to prevent third-party apps from repurposing data? Was the agency too trusting? The Obama campaign app in 2012 exploited data from users and their friends. This may also have violated the FTC consent decree, especially if it shared the data with other liberal groups. Did political considerations influence the FTC’s lax oversight?

These are important questions since Democrats are pressing for more stringent privacy regulations, which Mr. Zuckerberg said he’s open to. But regulation typically benefits incumbents like Facebook that can afford to spend more on compliance while tripping up small competitors. Before establishing new regulations, the FTC should ensure that tech companies abide by their own policies.

Mr. Zuckerberg was also keelhauled for letting Russians exploit the platform in 2016. Facebook has since identified 470 pages and accounts linked to the Russian-controlled Internet Research Agency, which generated at least 200,000 pieces of content over two years. The Russian outfit also bought 3,000 ads on Facebook and Instagram.

The spread of fake news was partly due to Mr. Zuckerberg’s refusal to exercise editorial control over content or pay for quality news. Employing people to sift out junk is expensive, though the increased regulation that may come if he doesn’t also isn’t cheap.

But Facebook can’t be held entirely responsible for Russia’s interference. Only the Justice Department can see across media channels and has the power to investigate election fraud, as special counsel Robert Mueller’s indictment of 13 Russians in February showed.

The Russians began organizing in 2013 and stole American identities. “Beginning in or around June 2014, and continuing into June 2015, public reporting began to identify operations conducted by the [IRA] in the United States,” the indictment says. The Russian operatives also created fake accounts on Twitter and YouTube. Yet the Obama Administration waited until December 2016 to slap sanctions on Russians for hacking Democratic National Committee emails. It doesn’t appear that social- media interference was ever a priority.

While Facebook has endorsed legislation that would require more disclosure for buyers of political ads, the regulatory burden could make it harder for small companies and blogs to sell ads. This could drive more political advertising to Facebook. And it’s unclear how the legislation would prevent identity fraud.

Democrats are bitter that President Trump won the election and are using Facebook as a scapegoat. Facebook is hardly blameless, but neither is the Obama Administration.

Somehow in our time all the problems of human existence have boiled down to one cause: Russian collusion.

What is the main reason Mark Zuckerberg was hauled in front of three committees of Congress? It is because the media connected a long series of dots to suggest the possibility that Russian bots exploited the personal Facebook data obtained by a firm named Cambridge Analytica to . . . put Donald Trump in the White House. Without the link to collusion—an infinitely elastic phrase with no legal meaning—Mr. Zuckerberg never would have had to leave Menlo Park.

The live Zuckerberg testimony was torture, forcing anyone interested to hear innumerable senators and House members share their thoughts on technology. Lowering the bar on Senate discourse below swamp level, Louisiana Republican John Kennedy said the Facebook user agreement “sucks.”

Despite the legislators’ thunderings about regulation, the likelihood of the House and Senate enacting rules for the web is more remote than Halley’s Comet, due back in 43 years. Congress has failed for years to bring royalty payments for creators of music into the digital age. CONTINUE AT SITE