Trump 2.0: Tear it all down

 

SCOTUS is busy, will be busy for the next four years at least

 

Unfuckingbelievable

 There's more than one way to kill an agency.

They'll do what they damn well please, and you can't even communicate with them, much less get any information from them, as your rights permit.

Uh-oh

A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the Department of Justice (DOJ) to publish information redacted from the Mueller report that had been designated as privileged.

District Judge Reggie Walton said the Trump administration had failed to justify certain redactions from the report on the special counsel's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The specific redactions he took issue with cover the decisionmaking process within former special counsel Robert Mueller's team over whether to charge certain people with crimes during the probe.

[...]

Walton on Wednesday ruled that the DOJ could continue to withhold material it had redacted under FOIA exemptions allowing agencies to conceal information that would compromise law enforcement investigations or compromise the privacy of witnesses.

Matt Topic, who was lead attorney for plaintiffs, told The Hill: "After a very thorough review, the Court found that the Justice Department violated federal law with regard to a number of the redactions to the Mueller Report. We look forward to the release of this additional information by November 2."

  The Hill

The most transparent administration ever

Seriously, FBI?

Sorry.  I don't understand at all.

That'll be the next reason they can't process them. 

Be sure to double-lick the envelope.  Not really, but you get what I'm saying...how can physical mail be safer than digital requests?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Expanding and consolidating the police state

On Friday, the Trump administration quietly designated the entire Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency, which polices US borders, as a “Security Agency,” according to an internal memo obtained by The Nation. This follows repeated attempts by federal immigration authorities to dramatically expand their reach in recent years.

The memo, which was signed by CBP’s Acting Commissioner Mark Morgan and dated January 31, places CBP under the same designation as highly secretive intelligence and law enforcement agencies like the FBI and Secret Service. This grants CBP greater secrecy by exempting certain records from disclosure to the public.

[...]

"This policy change now protects all CBP employee names from subsequent responses to Freedom of Information Act requests or other public disclosures for CGP employee data.”

  the Nation

Whistleblowers, however, don't get that courtesy.

The memo was provided to The Nation by a CBP contractor who requested anonymity to avoid professional reprisal. The contractor was critical of CBP’s new classification, saying, “Designating all of CBP a Security Agency exempt from OPM’s disclosure policy is simply absurd. There’s no need for the average CBP employee to have their name and position redacted from FOIA requests. This is another example of the current administration making it even more difficult to obtain pertinent information via official channels and claiming it’s related to security in some way.”

Careful, you might be outed yourself.

Under President Trump, immigration agencies have pushed for expanded powers and secrecy. For example, in February, The Daily Beast’s Betsy Swan reported that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sought to join the US Intelligence Community, which would grant them extraordinary new privileges like spying powers and secrecy measures. While the effort was ultimately rebuffed, as Swan reported in a subsequent article, ICE was granted enhanced intelligence capabilities.

And that was just the first stab at it.

Democracy may have had its run. Unless voters take away the GOP's power in November, fascism is here - perhaps to stay.

Fourteen Characteristics of Fascism

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism
2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights
3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause
4. Supremacy of the Military
5. Rampant Sexism
6. Controlled Mass Media
7. Obsession with National Security
8. Religion and Government are Intertwined
9. Corporate Power is Protected
10. Labor Power is Suppressed
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment
13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
14. Fraudulent Elections

From The Anatomy of Fascism by Robert Paxton (via Vox):

Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion. (p. 218)

But....her emails

Le it go.

Also, is this a good time to be bringing up email scandals?

Also, this was an "interview" - Hannity did a word association game with Trump, calling out Democrats' names so Trump could trash them. 

He honeymooned in Moscow, but you get the picture. 

Anyway, there was a time when Americans weren't permitted into the Soviet Union, and then when they were, it was an exotic place to go.  And why shouldn't you?  And Trump should be careful if he wants to keep on Putin's good side.

Of course you have, honey. 

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Bingo

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The newly FOIA'd documents

Austin Evers, the executive director of American Oversight [who obtained the "heavily redacted" documents], tells me the group will be negotiating with the White House budget office about getting some redactions lifted, and if it doesn’t sufficiently comply, it’s back into court. It’s perfectly plausible, though hardly guaranteed, that a ruling may lift many redactions in the next few months.

One can envision numerous possibilities emerging from those documents. For instance, it’s plausible that the redactions cover up internal conversations, or additional concerns, about Trump’s rationale for freezing the aid.

[...]

What’s more, American Oversight is suing for still more documents. According to the group, two new batches are due from the State Department in February. Those requests concern, among other things, communications to and from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other top officials regarding Trump lawyer Rudolph Giuliani’s escapades in Ukraine to unearth dirt smearing Joe Biden.

[...]

The point is that it’s very likely that more incriminating information will indeed come out.

  WaPo

This is why the GOP Senators want to hurry this trial. They know more shit is going to come out, but if they can acquit Trump before it all becomes public, they'll have a thin, if transparent, excuse for acquitting him ("we didn't know at the time"), rather than no excuse at all but still doing it. Because, they're going to acquit him, no matter what.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Impeachment trial - day 1

[T]he first proper day of the trial extended past midnight into Wednesday morning. In seven consecutive votes split precisely along party lines, the Senate voted down Democratic proposals to subpoena testimony from four potential witnesses and documents from multiple government agencies. Four additional votes defeated proposals to ease the admission of documents and testimony and to relax related time restrictions.

Democrats fruitlessly called for testimony and documents from the former national security adviser John Bolton; the acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney; Mulvaney’s aide Robert Blair; the budget official Michael Duffey; the White House; the state department; the defense department; and the budget office relevant to an alleged scheme by Trump to twist the powers of the presidency to extract personal political favors from Ukraine.

Each of the proposed subpoenas was defeated by a 53-47 vote. Only one procedural amendment garnered a single Republican vote, from Susan Collins of Maine.

  Guardian

She must have felt obligated since she's cried wolf so many times about "maybe" she would be a moderate Republican.  The motion was to extend the amount of time allowed for responses to motions, which currently stands at two hours.

Republicans did vote in a closed-door lunch to extend opening arguments from two to three days and allow House evidence to be included in the trial record.  Collins was one who objected to the original provisions, because they didn't closely follow the Clinton impeachment model that McConnell said they would.

Trump’s defense team struck a combative posture, expressing outrage at what they said was unfair treatment of the president and accusing the House of an attack on democracy. “They’re not here to steal one election, they’re here to steal two elections,” said Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel. “They won’t tell you that. They don’t have the guts to say it directly. But that’s exactly what they’re here to do.”

[...]

The supreme court’s chief justice, John Roberts, gaveled the trial to order shortly after 1pm.

[...]

Over the next 12 hours, Roberts stepped out of a strictly procedural role only once, after the manager Jerry Nadler accused any senator who voted against hearing from Bolton of casting a “treacherous vote” and Cipollone demanded that Nadler apologize to Trump and his family.

Admonishing both sides, Roberts noted that Senate rules and tradition required civil discourse. “I do think that those addressing the Senate should remember where they are,” he said.

The opposing legal teams, seated in a cramped arrangement at tables stacked with paper at the base of the Senate rostrum, struck an immediate contrast in style and substance.

While Trump’s team attacked the conduct of the impeachment process in the House and resuscitated a call for more information about the whistleblower whose complaint launched the process, the Democrats appealed to the 100 senators before them.

[...]

As the hours wore on, certain rhythms and incongruities in the trial emerged. While the House managers used almost all of their allotted debate time, liberally deploying video clips drawn from public hearings last month, Trump’s defense team used only a fraction of its time, repeating a blanket defense of the president’s conduct and rarely referring to previous testimony in the case.

To debate various proposed subpoenas, Schiff deployed one of the other seven managers to make a scripted case and then, after Trump’s team had spoken, rose to deliver impromptu rebuttals.

That's Schiff's super power. He's brilliant at it. He has all the facts and figures in his head ready at a moment's notice. He also sees every attack point in the opposition's arguments.

After the deputy White House counsel Patrick Philbin said the Democratic request for new witnesses amounted to an admission that they were unprepared for trial, Schiff pounced, calling on Trump’s former national security adviser and current acting chief of staff to appear.

“We’re ready,” Schiff said. “The House calls John Bolton. The House calls Mick Mulvaney. Let’s get this trial started, shall we.

“We are ready to present our case. We are ready to call witnesses. The question is, will you let us?”

[...]

Pounding the lectern, Jay Sekulow, a personal lawyer for Trump and talk-radio host, blazed through a series of conservative talking points and conspiracy theories ranging in focus from the special counsel Robert Mueller to the former attorney general Eric Holder.

“This isn’t a legal defense,” tweeted Kate Brannen, editorial director of the Just Security website. “It’s the equivalent of impeachment jazz hands.”

They have no defense. So they just recycle all the GOP talking points. It won't cost them. The outcome is foregone.

If Democrats are to secure additional witnesses, they will need at least four Republicans to back them. A handful of moderates, including Susan Collins of Maine and Mitt Romney of Utah, have indicated that they could support an effort to call witnesses – but only on the timeline outlined in a proposal advanced by McConnell.

Additional? How about any? That handful will diminish when the time comes, and if they get within one vote, there's always Democrat Joe Manchin to defect to the GOP side.*

President Trump said Wednesday that he would let the GOP-controlled Senate decide whether his impeachment trial should include witness testimony.


[...]

“I would rather go the long way. I would rather interview Bolton. I would rather interview a lot of people,” Trump said at a news conference at the end of a two-day appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

“The problem with John is that it’s a national security problem,” the president continued, indicating executive privilege would apply to Bolton's testimony. “He knows some of my thoughts. He knows what I think about leaders. what happens if he reveals what I think about a certain leader and it’s not very positive and I have to deal on behalf of the country?”

  The Hill

It may not be the most transparent presidency in history, but he is definitely the most transparent president.

“I did get to see some of it. It’s a hoax. It’s a total hoax,” Trump said in an interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “I think the team was really good. The facts are all on our side.”

  The Hill

And the interviewer didn't crack up? The facts are all on the Dems' side, and his team was crap. Fortunately for him, they don't have to be good.

After arguing in court for months that federal judges should stay miles away from disputes between Congress and the White House — for fear that they become political actors in a divisive impeachment probe — the president’s lawyers spent the first working day of Trump’s Senate impeachment trial arguing the exact opposite, and suggesting that those who disagree are hostile to the Constitution.

“The president’s opponents, in their rush to impeach, have refused to wait for judicial review,” said Jay Sekulow, Trump’s personal lawyer, who is working alongside White House counsel Pat Cipollone on the president’s impeachment defense. Sekulow also echoed law professor Jonathan Turley, who recently warned against “making a high crime and misdemeanor out of going to the courts.”

[...]

But that argument is in direct conflict with the Trump Justice Department’s own forceful arguments — some as recently as this month — that allowing courts to step into such battles between Congress and the White House would be an affront to the separation of powers. On Jan. 3, a Justice Department attorney fighting the House’s impeachment inquiry said “unelected” judges should not be “refereeing” such disputes. DOJ attorney Hashim Mooppan argued that the court should steer clear of “a purely political dispute.”

[...]

“Other lawyers — maybe not the ones at this table, but other lawyers for the president — are in the courts saying the exact opposite of what they’re telling you today,” House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the lead impeachment manager, said in response to the claims during Tuesday’s session of the trial. “They’re saying you cannot enforce congressional subpoenas. You can’t do it.”

  Politico

Inconsistency is the hallmark of the Trump cabal.

“It risks politicizing the court and undermining public confidence in the court,” Mooppan said.

Already there.

A federal appeals court panel could decide any day whether the House can legally force McGahn to testify, while the president continues to assert that he is “immune” from speaking to lawmakers. House lawyers have indicated that they would seek to make immediate use of potential testimony from McGahn — a star witness in former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation — in the impeachment trial, to show what they say is a pattern of efforts by Trump to obstruct investigations into his conduct.

Such an effort, though, is likely to fail.

[...]

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), one of the House’s seven impeachment managers, [...] said federal courts had already litigated those issues, going as far back as Watergate.

“The House and the Senate should not be required to litigate U.S. v. Nixon back to the Supreme Court and down again for it to be good law,” she said, referring to the landmark case that upheld Congress’ right to obtain information from the executive branch. “It is good law. The president has not complied with those requirements to the detriment of the truth.”

[...]

Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.), another impeachment manager, said Trump should not “hide all the evidence while disingenuously insisting on lawsuits that he doesn't actually think we can file — ones that he knows won't be resolved until after the election.”

President Trump’s impeachment managers made little secret Tuesday that they’d rather put House Democrats on trial than Trump. They repeatedly alleged mistreatment of Trump in his impeachment rather than dwelling upon the evidence against him.

But in one instance, one of them badly overreached.

Appearing shortly after 6 p.m. on the Senate floor, Trump’s longtime personal lawyer Jay Sekulow offered an indignant rebuke of the Democrats’ impeachment managers. What he was so incensed about: that they had allegedly referred to “lawyer lawsuits” in prosecuting the case against Trump.

“And by the way — lawyer lawsuits?” Sekulow began. “Lawyer lawsuits? We’re talking about the impeachment of a president of the United States, duly elected, and the members — the managers are complaining about lawyer lawsuits? The Constitution allows lawyer lawsuits. It’s disrespecting the Constitution of the United States to even say that in this chamber — lawyer lawsuits.”

[...]

There was one problem: Sekulow was referring to a quote that doesn’t appear to exist. He appeared to have badly misunderstood what one of the Democratic impeachment managers said.

Shortly prior, Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.) laid out her case against Trump. In the course of it, she referred to “FOIA lawsuits” — not “lawyer lawsuits” — referring to the Freedom of Information Act.

  WaPo

He's not used to hearing black people talk.

And it wasn’t just one wayward acronym that could explain the misunderstanding; Demings’s remarks repeatedly referenced the law.

Or actually listening to them.

What’s even more remarkable about the flap is that the White House actually stood by Sekulow’s allegation. Asked about the remark by reporters later in the night, White House legislative affairs director Eric Ueland reportedly walked away, only to return a while later — apparently after checking? — and suggest that Sekulow had not erred.

“When you read the transcript, it says ‘lawyer lawsuit,’ ” he said.

It’s not clear to what transcript Ueland is referring, but the Federal Document Clearing House transcript includes no references to “lawyer lawsuits” besides Sekulow’s. And video of Demings’s remarks are clear that she did, in fact, say “FOIA lawsuits” both times.

[...]

It might seem like a small point in the grand scheme of things, even if you set aside Sekulow’s demonstrative and indignant response to something that doesn’t appear to have actually been said. But if anything, the White House’s remarkable double-down would seem to speak volumes about its strategy here — and its devotion to the facts.

At least in doubling down, they are very consistent.

Trump added that Bolton left his White House on negative terms last September and “you don’t like people testifying when they didn’t leave on good terms.”

Trump also said he would like to have Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former Energy Secretary Rick Perry testify in the Senate impeachment trial, but that executive privilege would also apply to their testimony for national security reasons.

He added that he’d “love” to have acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney appear, though there was “not much he could add” beyond an interview Mulvaney did with Fox News’s Chris Wallace in October.

  The Hill

Then why block him?

But, as the House managers said, more information will come out.

The White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) late Tuesday released a cache of nearly 200 documents related to officials’ efforts to withhold military aid to Ukraine.

The documents — which were released just before midnight in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by American Oversight, a watchdog group — featured a host of communications between senior White House official Michael Duffey and other OMB aides, including Mark Sandy and Paul Denaro. Emails from OMB Acting Director Russell Vought are also included in the documents.

The records, which are heavily redacted, include a flurry of emails between officials in late June after the Washington Examiner published a story about the Defense Department’s plans to send $250 million in security aid to Ukraine.

  The Hill

I bet they are heavily redacted.

"Despite the Trump Administration’s obstruction and the rhetoric at the trial, the public can now see even more evidence of the president’s corrupt scheme as it unfolded in real-time," Austin Evers, executive director of American Oversight, said in a statement. "The volume of material released, and the volume of material still secreted away only highlights how much the administration has withheld from the House, the Senate, and the American public.”

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

Susan Collins : Senate tattletale.

* UPDATE:  1/25:  Make that two: Manchin and Doug Jones.

Jesus Christ get these people out of Washington

Send over the US marshalls ffs.

Oh look! The White House released documents

The Trump administration released heavily redacted documents Thursday evening that, without the redactions, would have been the first communications revealed between government agencies regarding aid money to Ukraine being held up.

The Freedom of Information Act request, filed by the Center for Public Integrity, a D.C.-based nonprofit group that specializes in investigative reporting, was first granted by a federal judge last month. That order required the Department of Defense and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to release documents to that group from April of this year regarding the Ukraine aid.

[...]

In the documents released Thursday, there are conversations over email between Elaine McCusker, the deputy comptroller at the Department of Defense, and Michael Duffey from OMB regarding the Ukraine aid, but the conversations are mostly redacted.

  ABC

Imagine that.

Duffey was subpoenaed by the House Intelligence Committee for testimony during its impeachment inquiries, but he followed most White House officials and did not comply with that request.

[...]

Much of the president's closest allies' accounts of how the Ukraine assistance was held up and eventually released are still shrouded in mystery as the White House, the State Department and the Defense Department have directed their top officials to not cooperate with the House impeachment inquiry. Even for those who went around their agencies' direction and complied with House subpoenas, the administration has blocked them from getting access to their official records to help their testimony.

[...]

The Center for Public Integrity is expected to receive more records from the Defense Department and OMB by Dec. 20 as part of its records request, and the Washington-based watchdog group American Oversight is also expected to receive some records related to Ukraine assistance from the Defense Department and the OMB.

Heavily redacted, no doubt.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

Citizens in the dark

This is what the FBI consider in redacting records for FOIA production:



Nuts.  In a different era, they would have been loathe to admit it.

Getting documents will hold up the impeachment proceedings

If Republicans want this to go quickly like they claim, they need to talk to have a talk with Pompeo and Trump.  They won't, because they don't want the documents out.

In what could prove a highly consequential ruling, a federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to start turning over documents regarding potentially improper White House influence on diplomacy in Ukraine.

The decision, part of a lawsuit filed under the Freedom of Information Act, represents the first judicial order mandating that the Trump administration comply with a request for communications between diplomats, White House officials and outside power brokers like Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer.

[...]

The documents were being requested by American Oversight, a progressive watchdog group in Washington, D.C. The group filed a Freedom of Information Act request when it noticed news reports that the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, had been recalled. American Oversight filed a lawsuit in October, after the State Department failed to turn over the documents.

[...]

The Trump administration will now have 30 days to start turning over records and documents relating to the Ukraine affair, and though it could find legal pretext for refusing to do so, Wednesday’s ruling did appear to be a vindication of months-long efforts for American Oversight.

  Yahoo

Thirty days to shred documents and/or file an appeal.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

DOJ Kavanaugh attorneys' award addendum

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

More Kavanaugh papers McConnell didn't allow you to see

Impeach Kavanaugh.

Journalism in the age of Trump Twitter

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic

Simon Henshaw, the acting assistant secretary for the department's Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, announced in an email to colleagues on Saturday that he planned to leave his post in the coming days.

The email was reported by Reuters. Henshaw said he will remain at the State Department in a different capacity.

“After 4 and a half years in the job and a year into the new administration, I thought it time for me to move on,” Henshaw wrote.

Carol O'Connell, the deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs, will take charge of the bureau on Jan. 22, Henshaw said, according to Reuters.

[...]

Reuters reported earlier this week that another senior official at the State Department's refugee bureau, Lawrence Bartlett, the head of refugee admissions, had been temporarily reassigned to the office that handles Freedom of Information Act requests.

  The Hill

Quick, fix that "shithole" situation. HOW?? Put the African affairs person in the Migration department.

Also, it appears Mr. Bartlett didn't relish the idea of being sidelined to FOIA. He's quitting.

A current official described such a re-assignment as a form of internal exile like being sent “to Siberia.”

“The FOIA office was always the punch line of a joke around here, as in: ‘They’ll send me to the FOIA office,'” the official said.

Bartlett’s reassignment is the latest sign that the way the United States resettles refugees is being reshaped by the Trump administration, which is determined to restrict refugee admissions, advocates said.

  Reuters

I guess Mr. Bartlett didn't like being sent to a shithole.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Fencing the Swamp

The White House announced Friday they will keep their visitor logs private, citing “grave national security risks and privacy concerns of the hundreds of thousands of visitors annually," according to a statement released by communications director Michael Dubke.

[...]

Watchdog groups criticized the latest decision from the Trump administration, saying that visitor logs help the American people know who is influencing the president.

  RT

And, in an ideal world, we would care.

“The only excuse for this policy is that the Trump administration has something to hide,” David Donnelly, president and CEO of Every Voice, a nonprofit political advocacy group, said in a Friday press release. “This kind of secrecy will allow big donors, lobbyists and special interests to have unknown levels of influence in the White House."

[...]

“It’s disappointing that the man who promised to ‘drain the swamp’ just took a massive step away from transparency,” Noah Bookbinder, Executive Director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a legal watchdog group, said in a statement.

This past Monday, CREW filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration for failing to respond to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to disclose records from the White House and Trump’s residences in Florida and New York.

Democrats in Congress have also introduced legislation that would require the Trump administration to disclose their visitor logs from the White House, Trump Tower, the Trump National Golf Club in New Jersey and the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, which Trump has dubbed the “southern White House.”

He's got plenty of other place he could go. They may need a longer list.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.