RUTHFULLY YOURS

In one of my favorite Westerns, “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,” Jimmy Stewart reveals to a reporter that he was not the man who killed villain Liberty Valance — a legend that transformed him from a perceived coward to an inspiration hero and resulted in his being elected U.S. senator and ambassador to Great Britain. The seasoned reporter listens to the whole story, but in the end says that he will not print it.

He states the rule simply as “[w]hen the legend becomes fact…print the legend.” In many ways, James Comey is the Jimmy Stewart of the media production of “The Man Who Shot Lying Trump.” From the outset, reporters and Democrats (who had been calling for Comey’s firing or questioning his judgment) declared him to be the man who fearlessly stood up to a president demanding loyalty pledges and discarding legal and ethical standards.

The problem with that narrative is not the criticism of the actions of President Trump, but the consistent efforts to ignore the equally troubling actions of former FBI Director Comey. Yet, if Trump was to be the irredeemable villain, Comey had to be the immaculate hero. The script glitch centered on three allegations — all of which were actively denied by legal experts. First, Comey leaked memos of his meetings with Trump. Second, those memos constituted government material. Third, the memos were likely classified on some level.

Yes, the memos were leaked.

As I previously wrote, various legal experts went on the air on CNN and other cable news programs to dismiss the allegation (that a few of us printed) that Comey “leaked” his now famous memos detailing meetings with the president. Experts declared that leaks by definition only involve classified information — a facially ridiculous position that was widely stated with complete authority. Whether someone is prosecuted for a leak is a different question but a leak is the release of nonpublic information, not just classified information. University of Pennsylvania Law Professor Claire Finkelstein, CNN Legal Analyst Michael Zeldin, Fordham Law Professor Jed Shugerman, and others dismissed the notion that such memos could be deemed “leaks.”

Comey was a leaker, and he leaked for the oldest of motivations in Washington: to protect himself and hurt his opponents. Comey knew he would be called before the Congress and that these memos would be demanded by both his own former investigators as well as congressional investigators. That could have happened in a matter of days but Comey decided to use a friend to leak the content of the memos to the media (after giving the memos to his friend). In doing so, Comey took control of the media narrative and was lionized by the media.

Recently, the Senate Homeland Security Committee released a majority report that correctly referenced the Comey “leaks.” The report detailed a massive increase in leaks against the Trump administration but highlighted the leak by Comey. What makes that reference most troubling is that Comey was the person with the responsibility to find the leakers in the Trump administration. Yet, after the president expressly asked him to find leakers, Comey became a leaker himself. Moreover, as FBI director, Comey showed no particular sympathy to leakers and his department advanced the most extreme definitions of what constituted FBI information.

Yes, the memos were government property.

When some of us noted that these memos clearly fell within the definition of FBI information and thus they were ostensibly government (not private) property, there was again a chorus of experts dismissing such allegations against Comey. Asha Rangappa, a former FBI special agent assured CNN that these constitute merely “personal recollections” and would not fall into the definition of government material. Others joined in on the theme that these were like a “personal diary” and thus entirely his private property. Obviously, removing FBI material would not be a reaffirming moment for the Beltway’s lone, lanky hero. But that is what he did.

Conservative criticism of the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities, like the poor according to Mark the Evangelist, is something we will have always with us. Ever since the endowments were created in 1965, they have been a focus of ire for defenders of fiscal prudence and high cultural standards.

In the 1980s, the chief complaint was against the efflorescence of obscenity and leftish political posturing: the pornographic photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe or the antics of “performance artist” Karen Finley, who pranced about naked skirling about patriarchy and capitalism.

But “Ten Good Reasons to Eliminate Funding for the National Endowment for the Arts,” a 1997 Heritage Foundation report, got to the nub of the issue. The NEA is “welfare for cultural elitists,” Heritage observed, and the same can be said for the NEH. There is nothing wrong with cultural elitists per se, but why should the taxpayers pick up their tab?

A new report from the Illinois-based initiative Open the Books provides an eye-opening look into the size of that tab. The study includes virtually every grant the NEA and NEH have made since 2016, and additional details about the endowments’ activities as far back as 2009. This includes grants to 71 entities with assets over $1 billion, and one grant to a California enterprise that celebrates the work of a Japanese-American artist best known for declaring: “I consider Osama bin Laden as one of the people that I admire.”

Since its founding in 2011, Open the Books has pursued the elusive goal of governmental transparency by collecting reams of data about local, state and federal expenditures. All that information is then made freely accessible online. Their motto: “Every Dime. Online. In Real Time.”

The group’s earlier initiatives include reports on federal payments to so-called sanctuary cities ($26.74 billion in 2016) and the eight superrich Ivy League universities (nearly $42 billion in federal payments, benefits, and tax advantages over the last several years). Harvard alone sits atop an endowment of $36 billion, and altogether the Ivy League controls tax-exempt endowment funds of some $120 billion, equivalent to $2 million per undergraduate. Yet taxpayers are footing the bill for massive subsidies for these institutions, where the cost of attendance now approaches $70,000 per annum.

The latest Open the Books report reveals that in 2016 federal arts agencies dispensed more than $440 million into the collective maw of their clients. Nearly half, $210 million, went to recipients in only 10 states—a predictable lineup of progressive coastal outfits, mostly clustered in California and New York.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a public charity commanding assets worth nearly $4 billion. The museum’s annual gala is a star-studded event, what one publicist called an “ATM for the Met.” The Met raised some $300 million last year, yet it has received more than $1 million from the NEH since 2009. Why?

There is also the issue of what public funds are being spent to support. Doubtless many initiatives could be worthy, but a lot of the funded projects are inane, repellent or both.

In the inane category, consider a $10,000 grant in 2016 to Borderlands Theater in Tucson, Ariz. The money went to a series of “site-responsive performances celebrating the saguaro cactus.” Yep, you read that right. Attendees stand or sit with a saguaro cactus for an hour in the middle of the desert to discover what the cactus can teach them. Then they share their experiences on social media. #IFellAsleep?

Many projects are repellent, including several that cannot be described in a family newspaper. But how about this? The New York Shakespeare Festival has been much in the public eye this summer for its production of “ Julius Caesar, ” in which the title character is made to look like the president. One Associated Press report describes the carnage: “He looks like Donald Trump . . . moves like Trump . . . is knifed to death on stage, blood staining his white shirt.” Over the past several years the festival has received some $30 million in taxpayer grants, including more than $600,000 from the NEA. Is political propaganda the right use of taxpayer dollars?

As the search for evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government enters its second year, a senior congressional Republican sees mounting evidence that Russia has been engaged in a long-term campaign to disrupt the energy agenda now promoted by Donald Trump. Today the House Science Committee sent this column the following statement from Chairman Lamar Smith:

If you connect the dots, it is clear that Russia is funding U.S. environmental groups in an effort to suppress our domestic oil and gas industry, specifically hydraulic fracking. They have established an elaborate scheme that funnels money through shell companies in Bermuda. This scheme may violate federal law and certainly distorts the U.S. energy market. The American people deserve to know the truth and I am confident Secretary Mnuchin will investigate the allegations.

He’s referring to Trump Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. On Friday Mr. Smith released a letter that he and Energy Subcommittee Chairman Randy Weber sent to Mr. Mnuchin asking for an investigation of “what appears to be a concerted effort by foreign entities to funnel millions of dollars through various non-profit entities to influence the U.S. energy market.” The two Texas Republicans added:

According to the former Secretary General of NATO, “Russia, as part of their sophisticated information and disinformation operations, engaged actively with so-called nongovernmental organizations – environmental organizations working against shale gas – to maintain dependence on imported Russian gas.” Other officials have indicated the same scheme is unfolding in the U.S.

The letter from Messrs. Smith and Weber also says that according to public sources, including a 2014 report from Republican staff on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, “entities connected to the Russian government are using a shell company registered in Bermuda, Klein Ltd. (Klein), to funnel tens of millions of dollars to a U.S.-based 501(c)(3) private foundation,” which supports various environmental groups.

In response to an inquiry from this column, Roderick M. Forrest of Bermuda’s Wakefield Quin Limited says in an emailed statement:

The allegations are completely false and irresponsible. Our firm has represented Klein since its inception, and we can state categorically that at no point did this philanthropic organization receive or expend funds from Russian sources or Russian-connected sources and Klein has no Russian connection whatsoever.

Leaving aside the specific question of which vehicles Putin’s government uses to conduct influence campaigns, the two Texas Republicans aren’t the only ones who have made the more general accusation that Russia has been funding green front groups to disrupt energy supplies that would compete with Russian oil and gas. If a document posted last year on WikiLeaks is to be believed, Clinton campaign staff summarized in an email attachment Hillary Clinton’s remarks on the subject during a private speech:

Clinton Talked About “Phony Environmental Groups” Funded By The Russians To Stand Against Pipelines And Fracking. “We were up against Russia pushing oligarchs and others to buy media. We were even up against phony environmental groups, and I’m a big environmentalist, but these were funded by the Russians to stand against any effort, oh that pipeline, that fracking, that whatever will be a problem for you, and a lot of the money supporting that message was coming from Russia.” [Remarks at tinePublic, 6/18/14]

Reading further into the speech summaries in the WikiLeaks document, this column is struck by how much more sensible Mrs. Clinton’s private remarks were compared to her public positions:

Clinton Discussed Promoting Oil Pipelines and Fracking In Eastern Europe. “So how far this aggressiveness goes I think is really up to us. I would like to see us accelerating the development of pipelines from Azerbaijan up into Europe. I would like to see us looking for ways to accelerate the internal domestic production. Poland recently signed a big contract to explore hydraulic fracturing to see what it could produce. Apparently, there is thought to be some good reserves there. And just really go at this in a self interested, smart way. The Russians can only intimidate you if you are dependent upon them.” [International Leaders’ Series, Palais des Congrès de Montréal, 3/18/14]

Hillary Clinton obviously knows the terrain and perhaps Mr. Mnuchin (whose department holds expertise in tracking international financial flows) should start his inquiry by interviewing the former secretary of State. He might also gain some insights into Russia’s strategy to handicap competing sources of fossil fuels by talking to former Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta.

Mr. Podesta has been back in the news lately after President Trump oddly tweeted from Germany to report that “everyone” at the G20 was talking about the former Clinton and Obama aide’s response to last year’s theft and disclosure of Democrats’ emails. CONTINUE AT SITE

Celebrities, academics, and journalists have publicly threatened or imagined decapitating Donald Trump, blowing him up in the White House, shooting him, hanging him, clubbing him, and battering his face. They have compared him to Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin. And some have variously accused him of incestuous relations with his daughter and committing sex acts with Vladimir Putin, while engaging in some sort urination-sex in a hotel in Moscow.

Yet all this and more is often alleged to be the singular dividend of Trump’s own crudity, as if his own punching back at critics created the proverbial progressive “climate of fear” or “climate of hate” that prompted such uncharacteristic venom.

In truth we are back to 2004-2008, when the Left did to George W. Bush what it is now doing to Donald Trump.

Assassination? Alfred A. Knopf published Nicholson Baker’s novel,Checkpoint, about characters fantasizing how to kill Bush. A guest columnist in the Guardian, Charlie Brooker, wrote to his British readers on the eve of the election fearing that if Bush were reelected, there would be no assassin to shoot him: “John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr.—where are you now that we need you?”

Do we remember filmmaker Gabriel Range’s “Death of a President,” the docudrama about Bush’s assassination that was a favorite at the Toronto Film Festival? Cindy Sheehan wrote she wished to go back into time to kill a younger Bush before he could be president.

Trump as Hitler or Mussolini is a Bush retread. Well before Trump, everyone got into the fascist/Nazi act, from Sens. Robert Byrd and John Glenn to celebrities like Linda Ronstadt and Garrison Keillor.

Hate? Jonathan’s Chait infamous New Republic article began: “I hate President George W. Bush. There, I said it.”

Do we remember the delusions of Howard Dean, who foamed, “I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for”?

Even decapitation chic is not new. After Bush left office, his detached head appeared on a stake in an episode of “Game of Thrones”; had they tried the same with Barack Obama, the hit show would have gone off the air.

Yet there is one difference. The Bush Administration, to paraphrase Michelle Obama, went high as progressives went low, and thus chose not to respond in kind. The result in part was that a battered Bush accordingly left office demonized, with a scant 34 percent approval rating.

The difference with Trump hatred is not some unique intensity or prior provocation, but rather Trump’s singular counter-punching. It may not be traditionally presidential, but the Trump mode is to nuke those who first attacked him, in an effort to create a sort of deterrence. CNN, to take one example, or Barack Obama to take another, at least knows that their smug, chic Trump putdowns will receive a reply in a manner that is neither smug nor chic. Trump in Samson fashion is quite willing to pull the temple down on top of himself, if it means his enemies perish first.

Apologies to all my readers: Last week I carelessly wrote about President Trump’s Warsaw speech as if the words therein corresponded to the definitions ascribed to them by Oxford, Webster’s or any other English dictionary. My mistake. Apparently the plain meaning of the words is entirely irrelevant. Because the words aren’t words per se, they’re “dog whistles”:

Trump’s white-nationalist dog whistles in Warsaw

As James Taranto noted during a previous dog-whistling frenzy:

“The thing we adore about these dog-whistle kerfuffles is that the people who react to the whistle always assume it’s intended for somebody else,” he wrote. “The whole point of the metaphor is that if you can hear the whistle, you’re the dog.”

Indeed dog whistles are all they hear. If Trump is, as has been said, the all-time great Twitter troll, in Warsaw he was trolling for western civilization, and an entire army of mangy pooches began yowling and – to mix canine metaphors – set off like greyhounds in pursuit of a mechanical hare. Even if the speech had not been worth it on its own merits, it would still have performed a useful service in demonstrating that the western left now utterly despises western civilization. As I noted on Friday, this is the most pathetic humbug:

Ours is the civilization that built the modern world – as even the west’s cultural relativists implicitly accept, if only because they have no desire to emigrate and try to make a living as a cultural relativist in Yemen or Niger.

Because you can’t. Only a very highly evolved and advanced civilization can support a swollen elite grown rich on contempt for it. Most of the lefties stuck to the big-picture contempt: the dog whistles of faith, family, God, west, civilization. But for The Washington Post’s Jonathan Capeheart the most deafening dog whistle of all was played by a full-size symphony orchestra:

There was a line during Trump’s oration that sounded like an off-beat cymbal in his rhetorical sis-boom-bah in “defense of [Western] civilization itself.” See if you can pick it out.

‘Americans will never forget. The nations of Europe will never forget. We are the fastest and the greatest community. There is nothing like our community of nations. The world has never known anything like our community of nations.

‘We write symphonies. We pursue innovation. We celebrate our ancient heroes, embrace our timeless traditions and customs, and always seek to explore and discover brand-new frontiers.

‘We reward brilliance. We strive for excellence, and cherish inspiring works of art that honor God. We treasure the rule of law and protect the right to free speech and free expression.’

“We write symphonies.” What on Earth does that have to do with anything?

Well, I would have thought that was obvious, though apparently Washington Post columnists need it spelled out: Trump is hymning the unique range of western achievement, not just the structures of functioning self-government, the rule of law and free speech, but the greatest accomplishments in science and intellectual inquiry, and a magnificent legacy of artistic expression, too, from paintings and cathedrals to plays and symphonies. What’s to argue about?

Now the top story on the Drudge Report, the top Must-Read on Lucianne.com and listed on Real Clear Politics: my latest column for the New York Post regarding the ridiculous stories in the New York Times about “Russian collusion.”

The news was delivered by the New York Times in the breathless tones that might announce a cure for cancer or the discovery of life on Mars: “President Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., was promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton before agreeing to meet with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer during the 2016 campaign, according to three advisers to the White House briefed on the meeting and two others with knowledge of it.”

To which a rational response is … who wouldn’t? And also: So what? A third response is unprintable.

As I said on the Dennis Prager radio show an hour ago: think David Mamet.

Just as the “Russian collusion” fantasy — a resentful smear cooked up in the immediate aftermath of Clinton’s stunning defeat last fall — was finally fading from the fever swamps of the “resistance” and its media mouthpieces, along comes the Times with a pair of journalistic nothingburgers.

They first reported that Trump Jr., along with Paul Manafort (then the campaign manager) and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, met with Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian lawyer “linked to” the Kremlin, back in June, shortly after Trump had clinched the Republican nomination. The second claimed she’d promised dirt on Clinton and the Democrats in order to entice Trump Jr. and the others.

According to the younger Trump, the Clinton angle was just a ruse: “Her statements were vague, ambiguous and made no sense. No details or supporting information was provided or even offered,” he told the Times.

The real reason, it seems, was that Veselnitskaya wanted to lobby for the repeal of the Magnitsky Act, an Obama-era law that allows the US to deny visas to Russians thought guilty of human rights violations. In retaliation, the Russians promptly ended the adoption of Russian orphans by Americans.

Honestly, where does this end? Having had their two big scoops instantly blasted back into their faces, the Left has now moved on to claiming that Donald Jr. “lied” about the meeting with a Russian lawyer nobody ever heard of. This is the baleful legacy of the Mike Flynn affair, where it was not the “crime” of meeting with Russians (is that against the law?) but the “coverup” of a non-existent transgression.

But this is where we are now: once the instruments of the state roll into action, the slightest discrepancy or memory loss can now be twisted into a felony: just ask Martha Stewart or Scooter Libby.

And that’s what all the fuss is about? No campaign in its right mind would turn down an offer of information on their opponent. That is what opposition research is all about. You can bet Hillary wouldn’t have hung up on the person who claimed to have dirt on The Donald. After all, the Clinton campaign lobbied the comedian Tom Arnold two days before the election to release potentially embarrassing footage from Trump’s TV show, “The Apprentice.” Arnold declined.

To grasp the distortion James Comey makes of his February 14 meeting with President Trump, first review the meeting of January 27.

In a previous article, I showed how the version of the February 14 Flynn conversation leaked to the New York Times in May was tailored by James Comey to create the misleading impression that President Trump asked Comey to shut down part of the FBI investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Comey knew this was false at the time. In his sworn testimony, he indicated Trump’s comments about Flynn were much more narrowly focused. But since Comey’s purpose was to prompt the appointment of a special counsel, the former FBI director needed to suggest that the president had sought to impede the broader Russian investigation, and he did so by leaking truncated quotations that omitted qualifications the president had actually uttered.

Comey also knew—or at least had compelling reason to know—that Trump’s comments about Flynn were not a request or direction of any sort. Here is how we can tell.

Before February 14

According to Comey’s written testimony, he and Trump had met for discussion on two occasions prior to their February 14 meeting.

The first time was on January 6 at Trump Tower. After leaders of the Intelligence Community briefed the president-elect and his security team on their assessment of Russian meddling in the 2016 election, Comey and Trump met alone for a special briefing on the “Steele dossier” and what the incoming president should do in case an effort was made to compromise him. From Comey’s description of the meeting, the FBI director came with much information and expertise to convey, while Trump knew little. Comey did most of the talking while the president-elect listened to his information and advice.

The second meeting took place on January 27 at a dinner the recently inaugurated president and Comey shared together at the White House. Once again, the Steele dossier was a topic of discussion (probably the main topic, as I have explained here). In Comey’s June 8 written testimony he paraphrased that discussion as follows (emphasis added):

During the dinner, the President returned to the salacious material I had briefed him about on January 6….He said he was considering ordering me to investigate the alleged incident to prove it didn’t happen. I replied that he should give that careful thought because it might create a narrative that we were investigating him personally, which we weren’t, and because it was very difficult to prove a negative. He said he would think about it and asked me to think about it.

Here we see President Trump actually mentioning giving an order to the FBI director, with the qualification “considering.” As Comey realized, this is not an implied order, but rather an invitation for Comey to advise the president about his tentatively proposed plan. Not only does Comey give the president advice, he advises him to shelve his proposal, and the president agrees. Moreover the president indicates that he expects to exchange views with Comey again, and instructs the FBI director to prepare independent thoughts for sharing with him.

Thus, in both of Comey’s prior meetings with Trump, Comey used his expertise as FBI director to give him counsel. Trump apparently welcomed Comey’s knowledgeable input, since in the second meeting he elicited it, followed it, encouraged more of it, and also indicated that Comey should expect a further consultation.

February 14: Alone at Last

On February 14, Comey and five other officials with intelligence responsibilities presented the president and some other members of his administration with a scheduled counterintelligence briefing in the Oval Office. When the briefing concluded the president told those present that he wanted to speak with Comey alone. Comey’s testimony suggests that a meeting between only the president and the FBI director was something that he and possibly others considered odd and inappropriate. During his oral testimony, in response to a question from Sen. Mark Warner (D–Va.), Comey elaborated, explaining that when he was alone with the president, he thought, “Something big is about to happen. I need to remember every single word that is spoken.” This observation seems intended to spread an aura of abnormality and impropriety around whatever the president said.

Nevertheless after reviewing Comey’s testimony about his prior discussions with Trump, one wonders why Comey wouldn’t have been expecting the president to seek an opportunity to confer with him alone, since 18 days earlier the president had told him to think about his proposal to investigate the Steele dossier. Both of Comey’s discussions with Trump had concerned the Steele dossier, and both discussions had occurred without others present. When the president asked the gathering to leave him alone with Comey, the FBI director had good reason to expect the president to seek his input about the Steele dossier. Did Comey forget what the president told him? Someone should ask him.

Mayor de Blasio made a surprise departure from New York City yesterday—just one day after the assassination of NYPD officer Miosotis Familia while she guarded a violence-plagued Bronx corner—in order to attend anti-capitalist protests in Hamburg, site of the G-20 summit. A few hours after de Blasio’s plane departed, a train derailed in Penn Station, where extensive track work is scheduled to begin this weekend. It was the third derailment at Penn since March; the incidents have become so commonplace that New Jersey Transit commuters reportedly showed little surprise when their train car slid off the track.

The mayor has indulged his inflated sense of his own importance before: he loves to attend summits, conferences, rallies, and protests where he can pontificate about inequality. He particularly enjoys hobnobbing with international mayors. Soon after his inauguration, de Blasio met Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo and burbled about their common goals. “It’s absolutely amazing by the way, 3,000 miles apart, we have come up with such a similar vision of what our cities need,” said de Blasio. “What we want to do now is constantly communicate as we implement this vision and help each other figure out what’s working and what’s not.”

Last September, after an Afghan immigrant had perpetrated a series of bombings in New Jersey and New York City, de Blasio, Hidalgo, and newly elected London mayor Sadiq Khan penned a joint op-ed titled, “Our Immigrants, Our Strength.” The essay made the false claim that “militant violence is astonishingly rare” among immigrants; the line was stricken from later editions.

Following President Trump’s election, de Blasio became particularly besotted with the potential of mayors to change the world. In this new era, de Blasio told the U.S. Conference of Mayors convention last January, “the role of mayors will be amplified. It’s a time where actual, tangible work is going to be more important than ever.” A few days later, at a protest on the night before Trump’s inauguration, de Blasio announced that “mayors are gathering from all over the country in a common cause . . . Mayors all over the country are signing this pledge for common action—that the next 100 days will be days of action together.” He then introduced a “dynamic, progressive leader from the heartland,” Minneapolis mayor Betsy Hodges, who echoed de Blasio’s grandiose rhetoric, asserting that President-elect Trump “will have to get through all the mayors in all the cities in this country if he wants to get to our beloved communities. When he comes for our artists, who are going to be more important now than ever with their voices of dissent, he’s going to have to get through me!” This inspiring vision of mayors as bulwarks against tyranny has no basis in history or law.

De Blasio’s meaningless and absurd promise to ensure that New York City adheres to the Paris Climate Accords underscores a fundamental truth about his mayoralty: he has no interest in what his job actually entails. Mayors do important work: they administer streets, schools, and police, and they manage a municipal budget. De Blasio has little interest in such banalities; he imagines that mayors are the true rulers of the world, because, as he told the Conference of Mayors, they “represent the majority of Americans.”