Middleboro Review 2: POLITICO NIGHTLY: Is ‘convergence’ the new ‘collusion’?

Wednesday, July 13, 2022

POLITICO NIGHTLY: Is ‘convergence’ the new ‘collusion’?

With help from Alice Miranda Ollstein

Jason Van Tatenhove, an ally of Oath Keepers militia group leader Stewart Rhodes, arrives to testify at the Jan. 6 hearing today. | J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo

CONSPIRACY (LEGAL) THEORY — Today’s Jan. 6 committee hearing, led by committee members Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.) and Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), was billed as the committee’s effort to demonstrate that former President Donald Trump was at least partly responsible for the presence that day of violent far-right militia members affiliated with the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys. But viewers hoping that there would be concrete, incontrovertible evidence that Trump knew about their plans may have come away disappointed.

The Justice Department has charged leaders from both groups with seditious conspiracy, but the committee itself has long been investigating possible connections and coordination between the groups and people in Trump’s orbit — including Trump confidante Roger Stone and disgraced former national security adviser Michael Flynn. That effort has been complicated by the inability of the committee to obtain substantive testimony from key people, including Stone and Flynn, who each invoked their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination when they appeared before the panel. Today’s session included testimony from James Van Tatenhove, a former spokesperson for the Oath Keepers, and Stephen Ayres, who pled guilty to a misdemeanor offense based on his presence at the Capitol, but while both testified about how they regretted their involvement in the events on Jan. 6, neither was in a position to illuminate what was happening in the Trump White House.

What remained was a collection of dots for viewers to connect and narrative gaps for them to fill based on circumstantial evidence and inference. The committee had signaled that it would focus on Trump’s infamous tweet from Dec. 19, 2020, in which he told his followers, “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” They sought to demonstrate today, as Raskin put it at one point, that the tweet “motivated these two extremist groups, which have historically not worked together, to coordinate their activities” in response to Trump’s public admonitions and in order to assist him in his effort to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s victory. They “responded immediately to the president’s call,” Raskin said, and mobilized to prepare for Jan. 6 and the “insurrectionary showdown” that resulted. In his closing remarks, Raskin said that “Trump knew the crowd was angry, he knew the crowd was armed, he sent them to the Capitol anyway.”

In the days ahead, legal observers are likely to grapple with whether the information revealed by the committee might support a criminal conspiracy charge against Trump, but that is far from clear at this point. Raskin himself told Nightly last week that the hearing would show “the moment when one sees both the convergence of efforts at a political coup with the insurrectionary mob violence.” But a “convergence” of interests is not necessarily a conspiracy.

Indeed, the term calls to mind the “collusion” framework that became central to Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia investigation. It also shares its shortcomings. Like “collusion,” the term “convergence” may be a convenient shorthand to capture the facts at hand: two groups moving in parallel, perhaps but not necessarily in meaningful coordination with one another. But also like collusion, convergence is not itself a pertinent legal term of art but instead approximates the relevant criminal term: conspiracy.

Before the hearing today, I spoke to Andrew Weissmann, a former senior prosecutor in the Mueller probe who penned an op-ed in the New York Times Monday criticizing the Justice Department’s “bottom up” approach to its criminal investigation, about this issue, among other things.

“Convergence doesn’t have any particular legal meaning,” Weissmann told me. “I took that to be something short of a conspiracy,” he said about Raskin’s comments. “You can have parallel action that is separate and distinct. And each piece could, by the way, be illegal, or each piece could be legal, or one piece could be illegal, one piece could be legal.”

“But,” he added, “in order to have a criminal conspiracy, there has to be some meeting of the minds.”

“So for instance,” Weissmann continued, “the conversation that Cassidy Hutchinson described on Jan. 5, I believe, where the former president asked Mark Meadows to speak to Michael Flynn and Roger Stone … That is a conversation I’d be particularly interested in getting.”

Weissmann noted, however, that the dubious legal underpinnings of the term “convergence” should not necessarily obviate its use as a convenient factual shorthand for the events: “The moral culpability of somebody who is aware that armed people are coming to the Capitol, does nothing to prevent it, is aware of who they’re for and who they’re against, and then when violence erupts completely condones it, you know, that has a political consequence, even if it doesn’t have, strictly speaking, a legal consequence.”

In our full discussion, which published in POLITICO Magazine, Weissmann elaborated on what he would look for in order to ascertain whether Trump is criminally liable for conspiring with the rioters. He also discussed his frustration with the Justice Department’s probe, why he chose to speak out now and what the reaction to his Times op-ed has been from current and former Justice Department officials.

Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at ankush.khardori@gmail.com.

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WHAT'D I MISS?

— Senate confirms Biden’s pick to lead gun regulation agency: The Senate approved Steven Dettelbach’s nomination today to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, making him only the second Senate-confirmed director in the gun regulatory agency’s history. In a 48-46 vote, Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Rob Portman of Ohio joined Democrats in supporting the former U.S. attorney.

— FDA to authorize Novavax’s Covid-19 vaccine: The emergency use authorization is expected as early as Wednesday, two people with knowledge of the matter told POLITICO. The clearance would likely permit the two-dose vaccine to be given to adults as a primary immunization series. The vaccine — which relies on a protein-based technology used for decades — may appeal to the sliver of the population allergic to components of the messenger RNA vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, or those who are skeptical of the newer mRNA technology.

— Newsom signs bill allowing suits against gun makers for negligence: The bill signed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom today allows individuals, states and local governments to sue gun makers , potentially paving the way for a wave of lawsuits if the legislation survives inevitable legal challenges. The bill, which takes effect next summer, would open companies up to lawsuits if their products are “abnormally dangerous,” are sold in a way that lets them be illegally converted or end up in the hands of people who are prohibited from owning firearms.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks at a news conference. | Richard Vogel/AP Photo

— Twitter sues Elon Musk for pulling out of $44B deal: The lawsuit, filed in the Delaware Court of Chancery, will likely set the stage for a drawn-out legal battle as the company seeks to have Musk follow through on the acquisition, or, alternatively, require him to pay the $1 billion break-up fee outlined in the original agreement. Legal observers suggest that the company has a strong case.

— Jill Biden apologizes for comparing Hispanic people to ‘breakfast tacos’: The Latino community, Biden said Monday, is “as distinct as the bodegas of the Bronx, as beautiful as the blossoms of Miami and as unique as the breakfast tacos here in San Antonio.” The National Association of Hispanic Journalists responded in a post to its Twitter account that “we are not tacos.” The apology came via her press secretary Michael LaRosa: “The First Lady apologizes that her words conveyed anything but pure admiration and love for the Latino community.”

— Congress tees up bills to protect travel for abortion: Bills aimed at protecting a person’s ability to cross state lines to seek reproductive care could see action in the House and Senate later this week — though neither has a clear path to becoming law. The bills would protect abortion providers, abortion seekers and those providing transportation services from punishment by states. The House bill also clarifies that constitutional protections for interstate commerce trump state laws when it comes to abortion pills.

AROUND THE WORLD

DRONED DOWN — Biden announced today that Maher al-Agal, the top leader of ISIS in Syria, was killed in a drone strike . The operation, which occurred outside of the town of Jindayris in Northwest Syria, targeted two senior Islamic State officials. According to U.S. Central Command, another ISIS official with close ties to al-Agal was seriously wounded in the strike and an “initial review” found no civilian casualties, writes Matt Berg.

“[Al-Agal’s] death in Syria takes a key terrorist off the field and significantly degrades the ability of ISIS to plan, resource, and conduct their operations in the region,” Biden said this afternoon. “It sends a powerful message to all terrorists who threaten our homeland and our interests around the world.”

BUILDING BRIDGES — Biden’s busy day in the Middle East continued ahead of his trip this week. His administration is urging Arab nations to team up with Israel to counter Iranian missiles, write Lara Seligman and Alexander Ward.

The situation in the region has changed since Biden last visited Israel in 2016 — the Abraham Accords normalized relations between Israel, the United States, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco, while Israel previously relied on diplomatic ties with just Egypt and Jordan in the Middle East. Still, officials and experts caution that continued mistrust and technological differences mean that a codified alliance could be years away.

Instead of pursuing a regional defense shield that would link radars, satellites and weapons, a more realistic goal for the Biden administration to pursue could be intelligence sharing, conducting tabletop exercises together or purchasing compatible weaponry.

In recent years, Iran and its allies have launched dozens of attacks on critical infrastructure in the Middle East, such as the 2019 strikes on oil processing facilities at Abqaiq and Khurais in Saudi Arabia.

“The Iranians have pushed [Israel and other Arab nations] together,” said Tom Karako, director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

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NIGHTLY NUMBER

$1.7 billion

The amount of aid Ukraine will receive from the United States and the World Bank to pay health care workers’ salaries and provide other essential services. Paying the workers has become increasingly difficult “due to the overwhelming burden of war,” Viktor Liashko, Ukraine’s minister of health, said in a statement today.

PARTING WORDS

SMALL WORLD — Health reporter Alice Miranda Ollstein emails Nightly:

I just returned from a trip to Spain — the land of paella, flamenco and dramatically fewer Covid cases and deaths than the United States.

In general, people there were far more diligent about masking than in the U.S. But they still fell prey to some of the same inconsistencies we see at home on a daily basis. Two moments stick out:

Bus vs. Metro: A parable on enforcement

Masks were required on public transit in every city we visited, and they regularly played chipper reminders over the loudspeakers. Still, I noticed a major difference in compliance between the bus and the metro. It came down to enforcement.

One day, riding the bus in Barcelona, a middle-aged man got on without a mask and refused entreaties from the driver and fellow passengers to put one on. Channeling major dad-on-family-vacation energy, the driver pulled the bus over to the side of the road and refused to go any further until the man put a mask on or left the bus. After a short (and loud) standoff, the passenger stomped off. The rest of the bus — all masked — cheered.

On the metro, where the driver can’t see or scold the passengers, about half of the riders eschewed masks.

A sign in Catalan prohibits people from kissing the lioness statue's butt due to Covid-19. | Alice Miranda Ollstein/POLITICO

Pucker up

In the medieval city of Girona, tucked into the Catalonian hills, there’s a statue of a wide-eyed lioness clinging to a stone column. For centuries, local legend was that if you kissed her butt, you would return to the city. Unfortunately, Covid has a way of ruining traditions. The stairs that used to make it easy for visitors to reach the lion were removed and a sign in Catalan warned that it is “not permitted to give kisses to the butt of the lioness,” alongside a somewhat confusing illustration.

Of course, nearby, a restaurant named after the lioness’ rear was packed with unmasked patrons eating, drinking and happily sharing air — riskier than a little outdoor smooch.