RUTHFULLY YOURS

His voters knew what they were getting, and most support him still.

Why exactly did nearly half the country vote for Donald Trump?

Why also did the arguments of Never Trump Republicans and conservatives have marginal effect on voters? Despite vehement denunciations of the Trump candidacy from many pundits on the right and in the media, Trump nonetheless got about the same percentage of Republican voters (88–90 percent) as did McCain in 2008 and Romney in 2012, who both were handily defeated in the Electoral College.

Here are some of reasons voters knew what they were getting with Trump and yet nevertheless assumed he was preferable to a Clinton presidency.

1) Was Trump disqualified by his occasional but demonstrable character flaws and often rank vulgarity? To believe that plaint, voters would have needed a standard by which both past media of coverage of the White House and the prior behavior of presidents offered some useful benchmarks. Unfortunately, the sorts of disturbing things we know about Trump we often did not know in the past about other presidents. By any fair measure, the sexual gymnastics in the White House and West Wing of JFK and Bill Clinton, both successful presidents, were likely well beyond President Trump’s randy habits. Harry Truman’s prior Tom Pendergast machine connections make Trump steaks and Trump university seem minor. By any classical definition, Lyndon Johnson could have been characterized as both a crook and a pervert. In sum, the public is still not convinced that Trump’s crudities are necessarily different from what they imagine of some past presidents. But it does seem convinced, in our age of a 24/7 globalized Internet, that 90 percent negative media coverage of the Trump tenure is quite novel.

2) Personal morality and public governance are related, but we are not always quite sure how. Jimmy Carter was both a more moral person and a worse president than Bill Clinton. Jerry Ford was a more ethical leader than Donald Trump — and had a far worse first 16 months. FDR was a superb wartime leader — and carried on an affair in the White House, tried to pack and hijack the Supreme Court, sent U.S. citizens into internment camps, and abused his presidential powers in ways that might get a president impeached today. In the 1944 election, the Republican nominee Tom Dewey was the more ethical — and stuffy — man. In matters of spiritual leadership and moral role models, we wish that profane, philandering (including an affair with his step-niece), and unsteady General George S. Patton had just conducted himself in private and public as did the upright General Omar Bradley. But then we would have wished even more that Bradley had just half the strategic and tactical skill of Patton. If he had, thousands of lives might have been spared in the advance to the Rhine.

Trump did not run in a vacuum. A presidential vote is not a one-person race for sainthood but, like it or not, often a choice between a bad and worse option. Hillary Clinton would have likely ensured a 16-year progressive regnum.

The Trump-Russia investigation did not originate with Carter Page or George Papadopoulos. It originated with the Obama administration.

Exactly when is the “late Spring”?

Of all the questions that have been asked about what we’ve called the “Origination Story” of the Trump-Russia investigation, that may be the most important one. It may be the one that tells us when the Obama administration first formed the Trump-Russia “collusion” narrative.

See, it has always been suspicious that the anonymous current and former government officials who leak classified information to their media friends have been unable to coordinate their spin on the start of “Crossfire Hurricane” — the name the FBI eventually gave its Trump-Russia investigation.
The Original Origination Story: Carter Page

First, they told us it was an early July 2016 trip to Moscow by Carter Page, an obscure Trump-campaign adviser.

As we’ve observed, that story became untenable once a connection emerged between the Bureau’s concerns about Page and the Steele dossier. The dossier, compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele, portrayed Page’s Moscow trip as seminal to a Trump-Russia conspiracy to hack Democratic email accounts and steal the election from Hillary Clinton.

It turned out, however, that the dossier was a Clinton-campaign opposition-research project, the main allegations of which were based on third-hand hearsay from anonymous Russian sources. Worse, though the allegations could not be verified, the Obama Justice Department and the FBI used them to obtain surveillance warrants against Page, in violation of their own guidelines against presenting unverified information to the FISA court. Worse still, the Obama Justice Department withheld from the FISA court the facts that the Clinton campaign was behind the dossier and that Steele had been booted from the investigation for lying to the FBI.

It came out of his “inter-agency taskforce” at Langley.https://spectator.org/john-brennans-plot-to-infiltrate-the-trump-campaign/

As Trump won primary after primary in 2016, a rattled John Brennan started claiming to colleagues at the CIA that Estonia’s intelligence agency had alerted him to an intercepted phone call suggesting Putin was pouring money into the Trump campaign. The tip was bogus, but Brennan bit on it with opportunistic relish.

Out of Brennan’s alarmist chatter about the bogus tip came an extraordinary leak to the BBC: that Brennan had used it, along with later half-baked tips from British intelligence, as the justification to form a multi-agency spy operation (given the Orwellian designation of an “inter-agency taskforce”) on the Trump campaign, which he was running right out of CIA headquarters.

The CIA was furious about the leak, but never denied the BBC’s story. To Congress earlier this year, Brennan acknowledged the existence of the group, but cast his role in it as the mere conduit of tips about Trump-Russia collusion: “It was well beyond my mandate as director of CIA to follow on any of those leads that involved U.S. persons. But I made sure that anything that was involving U.S. persons, including anything involving the individuals involved in the Trump campaign, was shared with the bureau.”

But if his role had truly been passive, the “inter-agency taskforce” wouldn’t have been meeting at CIA headquarters. By keeping its discussions at Langley, Brennan could keep his finger wedged in the pie. Both before and after the FBI’s official probe began in late July 2016, Brennan was bringing together into the same room at CIA headquarters a cast of Trump haters across the Obama administration whose activities he could direct — from Peter Strzok, the FBI liaison to Brennan, to the doltish Jim Clapper, Brennan’s errand boy, to an assortment of Brennan’s buddies at the Treasury Department, Justice Department, and White House.

The bogus tip from Estonia led the group into its first cock-up: sending FBI agents to sniff around the computer server connected to Trump Tower. After that effort flopped, Brennan’s group had to go back to the drawing board (on the electronic intelligence front, it had already hatched plans for national security letters and FISA warrants). Someone in the group must have proposed blasting a swampy old CIA source and Hillary supporter, Stefan Halper, into the Trump campaign orbit to see if he could catch a couple of minor campaign volunteers out in collusion.

John Brennan, director of the CIA during the Obama administration, is running for cover. He could be facing criminal charges for his role in the Deep State cabal that sought to interfere in the 2016 presidential election and then to undermine the legitimacy of the duly elected president of the United States, Donald Trump. Acting in desperation as the noose tightens around him, Brennan tweeted a warning to House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, claiming they will “bear the majority of the responsibility of the harm done to our democracy” if they don’t stop President Trump from continuing along his “disastrous path.” The “disastrous path” to which Brennan took such umbrage was the president’s own tweet on Sunday, in response to news reports that an FBI informant was hovering around members of Mr. Trump’s campaign and asking them questions under false pretenses. President Trump demanded “that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes – and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration!”

Brennan is evidently unfamiliar with the U.S. Constitution. Here is a simple explanation for the man who once voted for the Communist Party candidate for president, Gus Hall, even though Hall by then had been a long-time enthusiastic supporter of the Communist Soviet Union’s hardline expansionist policies. The Department of Justice is part of the Executive Branch of the U.S. government. Under Article II of the Constitution, Mr. Brennan, the president of the United States is the head of the Executive Branch. The president, therefore, is acting within his constitutional authority to order the Department of Justice to undertake an investigation of possible abuse of power for political purposes within the Executive Branch over which he now presides.

In his controversial tweet on Sunday, President Trump indicated that he would direct the Justice Department to investigate “whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes—and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration!”

Is the president hinting that he thinks Michael Flynn, a top campaign consultant who briefly served as Trump’s national security advisor, was the target of FISA-authorized surveillance during the campaign or presidential transition—or during both?

Recently released documents—the final House Intelligence Report and the trove of memos authored by former FBI Director James Comey—contain clues to support that suspicion. In his memo dated February 8, 2017, Comey relays this exchange at the White House with then Chief of Staff Reince Priebus:

He then said he wanted to ask me a question and I could decide whether it was appropriate to answer. He then asked, “Do you have a FISA order on Mike Flynn?” I paused for a few seconds and then said that I would answer here, but that this illustrated the kind of question that had to be asked and answered through established channels. I said the answer [redacted]. I then explained that the normal channel was from DOJ leadership to the WH counsel about such things.

The next sentence is redacted. Comey continues: “I explained that it was important that communications about any particular case go through that channel to protect us and to protect the WH from any accusations of improper influence.”

Flynn resigned on February 13 amid reports he lied to Vice President Mike Pence about phone conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in December 2016. (Details about the call were illegally leaked to the Washington Post in January 2017. The leaker has not yet been identified or charged.)

So why did the Justice Department redact Comey’s answer? It’s fair to assume that if his answer was “No,” there would be no need to conceal it. Also, why would Comey instruct Priebus to follow proper “channels” of inquiry to avoid accusations of “improper influence” if the answer was no? And not just a regular “No.” More like an Are-you-fricking-kidding-me-of-course-not! kind of “No.”

The unredacted version of the House Intelligence Committee’s report on Russian meddling in the 2016 election, released earlier this month, also dropped a little bombshell about Flynn.

It’s not improper political interference for the chief executive to direct that evidence of executive-branch misconduct be probed.

On Sunday, President Trump tweeted a “demand” that the Justice Department investigate political spying in the 2016 campaign. This replays the political-spying controversy that surfaced in late February. Right now, the issue involves the Obama administration’s use of at least one confidential informant — a spy — to snoop into the opposition party’s presidential campaign; back in February, the issue was the Obama administration’s electronic surveillance — by FISA eavesdropping warrants — for the same purpose.

Just as he did last time, Attorney General Jeff Sessions responded to the president’s agitation by referring the political-spying issue to Inspector General Michael Horowitz. This was the right thing — or, at least, a right thing — to do. Our editorial regarding the previous case explained the guiding principles:

When there are allegations of wrongdoing by Justice Department or FBI officials, federal law and Justice Department protocols require an internal investigation by the units that exist for that purpose — the Office of the Inspector General or the Office of Professional Responsibility.

Sessions was correct to comply with these standards. Arguably, a referral to OPR, rather than the IG, may be warranted. Under federal law, OPR has jurisdiction over allegations of misconduct involving “the exercise of authority to investigate, litigate, or provide legal advice.” There is no doubt, though, that evidence of official malfeasance must be referred to one of these offices. Given that OPR reports directly to the attorney general, while the IG reports to both the attorney general and Congress, Sessions may well have calculated that the IG referral would have more credibility.

These same principles apply now, in the wake of last week’s disclosure that the FBI, under circumstances that remain obscure, used a longtime CIA informant to establish ties with and pry information from three Trump campaign officials, beginning in July 2016.

To elaborate, the president’s Sunday tweet demanded that the Justice Department “look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes,” including whether such monitoring was pushed by “people within the Obama administration!” Trump vowed to follow up this tweet with a more formal directive today.

It sounds harmless to suggest that the Mueller investigation be allowed more time to finish its work. But is it?

Let’s review some history.

Recall that the investigation was begun to learn whether the Trump campaign had gotten help unlawfully from Russia. Justice Department regulations permit appointment of a special counsel only if (i) there is reason to think that a federal crime has been committed, and (ii) investigating it would present a conflict of interest for the Justice Department or there is another overriding public reason to take the investigation outside DOJ.

Because Attorney General Jeff Sessions had worked on the Trump campaign, he recused himself from the matter, and so the deputy — Rod Rosenstein — took the decision to appoint a special counsel. The regulations require that such an appointment recite the facts justifying the conclusion that a federal crime was committed, and specify the crime. However, the initial appointment of Robert Mueller did neither, referring instead to a national security investigation that a special counsel has no authority to pursue.

Although Rosenstein apparently tried to correct his mistake in a new appointment memo, he has thus far refused to publicly disclose a complete copy of it. In other investigations supposedly implicating a president — Watergate and Whitewater come to mind — we were told what the crime was and what facts justified the investigation. Not here.

If the Justice Department and FBI are, as we’ve been told incessantly over the past year, not merely patriots but consummate professionals incapable of being distracted by partisanship or petty Washington intrigues, why are Donald Trump’s antagonists freaking out over the fact that an inspector general will assess whether political motivation tainted an investigation into the president’s campaign? The American people should get a full accounting of what transpired during 2016. Isn’t that what we’ve been hearing since the election?

You believe Trump is corrupt. I get it. But surely anyone who alleges to be concerned about the sanctity of our institutions and rule of law would have some cursory curiosity about whether an investigation by the administration of one major party into the presidential campaign of another major party was grounded in direct evidence rather than fabulist rumor-mongering. Otherwise, any administration, including Trump’s, could initiate an investigation for whatever cooked-up superficial reason it wanted.

Then, when a constitutionally empowered oversight committee demanded information about that investigation, the DOJ could accuse it of “extortion” and stonewall for years.

When the Brits say “ that’s capital!” they’re not referring to a city, font or money. They mean that’s fantastic!”

I spent last weekend in America’s “capital”capital with a lovely and lively friend. She and I visited two museums:

The National Museum of the Marine Corps, located in Quantico, Virginia is the best military museum in the nation. From the Barbary Wars and Revolutionary wars, through the first and second World Wars, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the fire bursts of the Cold War to the recent Afghan, Iraq wars, battle scenes and dioramas with lifelike statues and excellent photographs and narratives, the heroic battles of the American “leathernecks” are displayed. We witnessed an unscheduled and remarkable rifle drill with synchrony, dexterity and discipline. After the drill, the marines relaxed and chatted with the visitors which included many venerable marine veterans. We were there for a full day and vowed to see it again.

The Museum of the Bible, which museum opened on November 17, 2017 documents the narrative, history and impact of the Old and New Testaments. It is a magnificent enterprise. The displays of artifacts and texts, and the narratives of the Bible’s impact on the founding fathers, scientists and philosophers are magnificent. A Galilean village is entirely reconstructed as it was in the time of Jesus. The dioramas and narratives of Jerusalem show the centrality of Jerusalem to the Jewish people. It is still a work in progress and one we definitely plan to revisit.

P.S. It rained non stop but the hotel provided daily copies of the Washington Post which were handy to wipe rain soaked shoes….rsk