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Thursday, October 22, 2020
RSN: Charles Pierce | The President Is a Wounded Animal
21 October 20
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Charles Pierce | The President Is a Wounded Animal
Charles Pierce, Esquire
Pierce writes: "Donald Trump's latest public demand of Bill Barr would be inconceivable if anything were inconceivable anymore."
e's a wounded animal. I didn't believe at first that the tawdry ratfcking of the Hunter Biden story really was the October Surprise on which El Caudillo Del Mar-a-Lago had been counting ever since Joe Biden clinched the Democratic nomination a century ago last spring. But, as the last week unfolded, and it was revealed that the story was so rancid that it prompted a wildcat byline strike by reporters at the New York Post, of all places, it had become clear that he'd been hoping that it would turn into the 2020 equivalent of the James Comey letter to Congress that did so much to help him win four years ago. And it is equally clear that he can't let it go because he has nothing else. From Yahoo! News:
“We’ve got to get the attorney general to act,” Trump said in a telephone interview with “Fox & Friends” when asked whether a special prosecutor should be appointed to probe unverified allegations against the Bidens. “He’s got to act. And he’s got to act fast. He’s got to appoint somebody. This is major corruption, and this has to be known about before the election.”
The idea that even Bill Barr could gin up a special prosecution force and conclude its investigation all in the next 14 days is self-evidently loopy. He's a wounded animal.
So, on Thursday night, the first time that they mute his microphone while Biden is talking, I don't know what will happen, but it will not be like anything we've seen in a political debate before. It is not inconceivable that he walks off the stage entirely. Nor is it inconceivable that he'll simply talk louder. Nor is it inconceivable that...well, there's nothing inconceivable anymore. That word doesn't mean what we thought it meant. Not anymore. Being a casual friend of Kristen Welker, I am seriously considering doing a novena on her behalf Wednesday night. Or, at the very least, I may send her a whip and a chair. He is a wounded animal, and he's chewing off his own leg to get out of the trap.
Igor Danchenko says he is the victim of a smear campaign by senior Republicans, including President Trump. (photo: The Guardian)
Trump's False 'Russian Spy' Claims Put Me in Danger, Says Steele Dossier Source
Luke Harding, Guardian UK
Harding writes: "A Russian analyst says he is in hiding and 'afraid for his life' after being unmasked by top congressional Republicans as the source behind the Steele dossier on Donald Trump and Moscow."
Exclusive: New York-based analyst Igor Danchenko did gather intelligence about Trump but he is certainly not a spy, he says
Russian analyst says he is in hiding and “afraid for his life” after being unmasked by top congressional Republicans as the source behind the Steele dossier on Donald Trump and Moscow.
In his first-ever interview Igor Danchenko said he is the victim of a smear campaign by the president and the Republican senator Lindsey Graham. Both have repeatedly alleged that Danchenko is a suspected Russian spy who fed disinformation to Christopher Steele, the former MI6 officer.
Danchenko said he was not a Kremlin operative. He added that the accusation had made him a target for the pro-Trump radical right and left him effectively unemployed. “It’s a stigma. Being a ‘Russian spy’ is quite different from being James Bond. There are myths,” he told the Guardian.
He is now threatening to take legal action against Trump. Last week Danchenko’s lawyer, Mark E Schamel, sent a cease-and-desist letter to Pat Cipollone, the president’s counsel. It said Trump had endorsed and retweeted “completely unsubstantiated lies”, which damaged Danchenko’s professional reputation and were “endangering his life”.
The letter added: “These allegations of treason and espionage are extraordinarily serious. They are also completely false. Yet the president continues to publish these and similar false statements about Mr Danchenko with disregard for Mr Danchenko’s safety and reputation.”
In spring and summer 2016 Danchenko collected much of the raw intelligence that appeared in Steele’s dossier on Trump’s links with Moscow.
He was outed in July, following interviews he gave in early 2017 to the FBI as part of its Crossfire Hurricane investigation into the Trump’s possible collusion with Russia. He was described in FBI documents as Steele’s “primary sub-source”.
In recent weeks Trump has retweeted claims that Danchenko is a “Russian spy”, and the Republican senator Lindsey Graham made similar assertions to Fox News. Graham recently published the transcript of Danchenko’s FBI interview, after attorney general William Barr cleared it for release.
In an interview with Sean Hannity, Graham said Danchenko had fed Kremlin disinformation to Steele. Steele, whose dossier was funded by Hillary Clinton’s Democrats, had then made it into a “Tom Clancy novel” which was in turn “sold” to the FBI.
Speaking to the Guardian from New York, Danchenko defended his work on the dossier. “I stand by it,” he said. He said he did not resile from explosive allegations that Trump may have been compromised during a visit in 2013 to Moscow’s Ritz-Carlton hotel. “I got it right,” he added.
The Steele dossier alleged that the Kremlin had been cultivating Trump for at least five years. It said that the FSB spy agency had secretly videoed Trump during his trip to Moscow for the Miss Universe beauty pageant, filming him inside the hotel’s presidential suite with two sex workers.
Trump strenuously denies the claim. Danchenko said he couldn’t discuss his sources in Russia or his methods. But he said: “I stand by my raw intelligence.”
He said the “salacious” material in the dossier formed a small part of a 35-page document. The allegation would be “amusing”, he said, were it not for the fact that any covert FSB recording might be used for blackmail purposes.
Danchenko said he collected his raw intelligence from Russia on a “shoestring budget”. He confirmed that he travelled to Moscow and St Petersburg in 2016 for “the Trump-Russia project”.
In August the committee published its counter-intelligence findings into the Trump campaign’s ties with Russia. The bipartisan report was dismissive of Steele’s dossier, but corroborated key elements in it, saying that a Russian intelligence officer was “permanently based” at the Ritz-Carlton hotel, and spied on guests via a “network” of hidden cameras.
The nearly 1,000 page report also laid out multiple contacts between Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager who features in the dossier, and Konstantin Kilimnik, described as a Russian intelligence officer. Manafort gave Kilimnik internal Trump polling data, and the report described his willingness to pass sensitive material to a Moscow spy as a “grave counter-intelligence threat”.
Danchenko said the campaign against him was designed to deflect from the damaging Senate report. “I think they thought I would be an easy target to discredit the dossier. By doubling down on this they would be able to discredit the whole Russia investigation,” he said.
He said his dossier assignment was no different from other projects he’d done before. “I was not on any political fishing expedition on behalf of anyone. My mandate was broad and standard: while doing your research on A and B, also see if there is anything on Trump campaign-Russia. Report any leads or red flags back. As a seasoned Russia expert, that was exactly what I did.”
Danchenko said he cooperated fully with the FBI – but not, as has been suggested, as part of some “deep state” plot. He described its agents as “very knowledgable and professional”. “They treated me with respect,” he said.
During the interviews Danchenko appeared to downplay the reliability of his own information – a point seized upon by Republican commentators. According to inspector general Michael Horowitz, Danchenko told the bureau his work with sub-sources in Russia amounted to “hearsay” and “conversation had with friends over beers”. Statements about Trump’s sexual activities were “jest”, he said.
Danchenko declined to discuss whether he was afraid at the time of his now-leaked FBI interview and therefore keen to minimise his role and the strength of his sources. He said there were “nuances” and questions of interpretation. He stressed: “I didn’t write the summary. I’m not the inspector general.”
Born in the USSR, Danchenko graduated from high school in Perm, Russia, and spent a year as an exchange student in Louisiana. He worked as a Russian-trained lawyer in the oil and construction industry, including in Iran, and later earned degrees from the University of Louisville and Georgetown University.
His US career started at the Brookings Institution, where he worked from 2005 to 2010. One of his close colleagues was Fiona Hill – Trump’s then future and now former national security adviser. In 2009 the FBI launched an investigation into his possible links with Russian intelligence. The inquiry was shelved in 2011.
Danchenko said that as a specialist in Russia and Eurasia and the author of analytical papers it was inevitable he would come into contact with Russian officials. “It would be strange if I didn’t meet them,” he said. “I’m not surprised if one was an intelligence officer of some sort. That’s how they operate, using diplomatic cover. The FBI looked into me, as they should have done.”
Danchenko is based in New York. He said since the Republicans outed him this summer he could no longer return to Russia – even in the event that Putin left power. He had been forced to embark on costly litigation against Trump and others to defend his reputation, he said – and on Monday launched a crowdfunding campaign to pay his legal bills.
He was worried about using his real name when checking into hotels, and was more afraid of renegade Trump supporters than of Kremlin operatives. “I’m afraid for my life. I want to stay healthy. I want to stay alive,” he said.
Border wall. (photo: Herika Martinez/Getty)
3 of Trump's Signature Immigration Policies Are on the Line at the Supreme Court
Nicole Narea, Vox
Excerpt: "Trump's border wall, the 'Remain in Mexico' policy, and his attempt to weaponize the census against immigrants hang in the balance."
fter the election, the Supreme Court will hear three major cases about immigration policies that seek to keep immigrants arriving on the southern border out and erode the political influence of unauthorized immigrants living in the US.
If President Donald Trump loses the election next month, Joe Biden as president is likely to at least attempt to reverse the policies in question, making the cases moot. But if Trump wins, the cases would be decided next year, potentially enabling his attempts to further his restrictionist immigration agenda in a second term.
The justices previously agreed to hear a case about Trump’s attempt to exclude unauthorized immigrants from 2020 census population counts that will be used to draw congressional districts. States with large populations of unauthorized immigrants — California and Texas among them — could lose seats in Congress as a result.
The justices announced Monday that they would hear two new cases as well, one of which concerns Trump’s attempt to divert billions in Pentagon funds for the construction of a wall on the southern border — a rallying cry among his base in 2016. The other is a challenge to his Migration Protection Protocols (MPP), also known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy, under which thousands of asylum seekers have been forced to wait in Mexico, often for months on end, for a chance to obtain protection in the US.
Biden has vowed to end the Remain in Mexico policy and revoke Trump’s census memorandum, if that’s possible. He has also criticized the border wall as a colossal waste of taxpayer money since most contraband is smuggled through ports of entry and the vast majority of unauthorized immigrants living in the US arrived legally but overstayed their visas.
And even if Trump prevails, it’s not clear that the Supreme Court would rule in his favor, even with the president’s nominee Amy Coney Barrett on the bench.
The Supreme Court has upheld some of Trump’s signature immigration policies, including his travel ban policy. But it has also thwarted him at key moments: It has temporarily prevented him from ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which has allowed more than 700,000 young unauthorized immigrants to live and work in the US, and blocked him from putting a citizenship question on the 2020 census, which experts said would depress response rates in immigrant communities.
In those rulings against Trump, Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court’s liberals and cast deciding votes. It’s not clear whether Barrett would play a similar role or if she would tip the scales in favor of conservatives on these high-profile immigration cases.
The fate of Trump’s border wall rests with the justices
On the campaign trail in 2016, Trump made building the border wall a centerpiece of his platform. He pledged that Mexico would pay for it, but that never came to pass; instead, the administration transferred $2.5 billion in Pentagon funds in order to construct it after Congress refused to fully fund the project.
California, New Mexico, and environmental groups including the Sierra Club challenged the administration’s use of those funds, claiming that it did not have the authority to make the transfer. Lower courts have agreed, but the Supreme Court could overturn those rulings, announcing on Monday that it would hear the case.
The Secretary of Defense is permitted by law to transfer military funds appropriated by Congress if higher funding priorities arise due to “unforeseen military requirements” and, critically, if Congress has not objected. But as the environmental groups have argued, the border wall was one of Trump’s longtime political goals — not a response to an unanticipated military threat — and one that Congress rejected in the 2019 budget it passed after Trump had made the funding request.
The administration has argued, on the other hand, that the border wall is a legitimate response to the national emergency concerning unauthorized immigration and drug smuggling across the southern border, which Trump declared in February 2019. Though that emergency declaration remains in effect, migration appears to have drastically dropped over the last year. The US apprehended 400,651 people at the southern border over fiscal year 2020, which ended on September 30 — less than half the number apprehended in 2019.
The justices have already hinted at how they might rule: They intervened at an earlier stage of the lawsuit, permitting construction of the border wall to continue while the case made its way through the lower courts.
That has given Trump license to speed up construction ahead of the election, often cutting through national forests and wildlife preserves to do so.
The Remain in Mexico policy is essential to Trump’s strategy on the border
The Supreme Court will also weigh in on Trump’s Remain in Mexico program, one of Trump’s core policies on the southern border, which went into effect in January 2019. Since then, more than 60,000 asylum seekers have been sent back to Mexico, where they’re under threat from drug cartels and kidnappers and are dependent on volunteers for basic supplies.
The American Civil Liberties Union, among others, has challenged the policy on the basis that it has resulted in asylum seekers being sent back to their persecutors. But the Trump administration has credited the program as one of its key tools in reducing the number of migrants coming across the southern border.
Without explaining their reasoning, the justices previously allowed the program to remain in effect while the appeals process played out.
Before MPP, migrants who waited in line at the border, as well as those who were apprehended between ports of entry, would have been held at a US Customs and Border Protection processing facility until a border agent determined whether they should be released, transferred to immigration detention, or deported. But under MPP, they were mostly turned away at the border and allowed to enter the US only to attend their immigration court hearings.
Since the pandemic hit, however, the administration has turned to other methods of keeping them out. US Customs and Border Protection invoked public health authorities to turn away asylum seekers who might be carrying the coronavirus. Some of them are still waiting in Mexican border towns, where they have limited access to legal counsel and reside in tent encampments.
Trump wants to weaponize the census against immigrants
Last week, the justices announced that they would review a case over Trump’s memorandum excluding unauthorized immigrants living in the US from census population counts for the purposes of redrawing congressional districts in 2021 — a transparent attack on their political power that was struck down by lower courts. The justices will hear arguments in the case on November 30, ahead of a December 31 federal deadline for sending the population counts to Congress.
Most states currently draw congressional districts, determining the areas that each elected official represents based on total population, including unauthorized immigrants. Current maps are due to be redrawn across the country in 2021 after the results of the 2020 census come in, and the stakes are high: Each redistricting has a lasting influence on who is likely to win elections, which communities will be represented in Congress, and, ultimately, what laws will be passed.
Trump’s attempt to exclude unauthorized immigrants would reduce the counts in areas where foreign-born populations have traditionally settled — primarily Democrat-run cities — and therefore undermine their political power relative to more rural, Republican-run areas. But it could also impact red states with large immigrant populations, including Texas.
The administration has argued that, by law, the president has the final say over who must be counted in the census.
In a written statement issued after he signed the memorandum in July, Trump said that allowing unauthorized immigrants to be counted would undermine American representative democracy and create “perverse incentives” for those seeking to come to the US.
“There used to be a time when you could proudly declare, ‘I am a citizen of the United States,’” Trump said in the statement. “But now, the radical left is trying to erase the existence of this concept and conceal the number of illegal aliens in our country. This is all part of a broader left-wing effort to erode the rights of Americans citizens, and I will not stand for it.”
But on September 10, a panel of three federal judges found that Trump’s memorandum skirted the federal government’s constitutional obligation to count every person, no matter their immigration status, in the census every 10 years.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. (photo: Drew Angerer/Getty)
Report: With Zuckerberg's Blessing, Facebook Quietly Stymied Traffic to Left-Leaning News Outlets
Alyse Stanley, Gizmodo
Stanley writes: "When Facebook tweaked its newsfeed algorithm in 2017 to reduce the visibility of political news, the company's engineers intentionally designed the system to disproportionately impact left-leaning outlets, effectively choking off their traffic in the process."
READ MORE
Deputy US Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen holds a news conference to announce the results of the global resolution of criminal and civil investigations at the DOJ., October 21, 2020. (photo: Yuri Gripas/Getty)
OxyContin Maker Purdue Reaches Plea Deal in Opioid Probe
Mike Spector, Reuters
Spector writes: "Purdue Pharma LP agreed to plead guilty to criminal charges over the handling of its addictive prescription opioid OxyContin, in a deal with U.S. prosecutors that effectively sidestepped paying billions of dollars in penalties and stopped short of criminally charging its executives or wealthy Sackler family owners."
READ MORE
Pope Francis arriving for the weekly general audience at the Vatican on Wednesday. (photo: Angelo Carconi/EPA)
Pope Francis Calls for Creation of Civil Union Laws for Same-Sex Couples
Justine Coleman, The Hill
Coleman writes: "Pope Francis called for the creation of civil union laws for same-sex couples in a documentary released Wednesday, straying from the Vatican's traditional position on the topic."
The pontiff expressed his clearest support for same-sex civil unions in the documentary “Francesco” that premiered in Rome, the Catholic News Agency (CNA) reported.
Within the film, Pope Francis addressed how pastoral care for those in the LGBTQ community should work, saying “homosexuals have a right to be a part of the family.”
“They’re children of God and have a right to a family. Nobody should be thrown out, or be made miserable because of it,” the pope said.
“What we have to create is a civil union law. That way they are legally covered,” Pope Francis added. “I stood up for that.”
“Francesco” covers the life and ministry of the pope and premiered as part of the Rome Film Festival. It is scheduled to premiere in North America on Sunday, according to the CNA.
The documentary highlights how Pope Francis approaches social issues, such as advocating for migrants, refugees and the poor and addressing clerical sexual abuse, the role of women and how Catholics and others treat the LGBTQ community.
Pope Francis’s direct request for civil unions goes farther than previous pontiffs and is a shift from the Vatican's viewpoints on the topic.
The CNA reported that the pope said in the 2013 book “On Heaven and Earth” that laws “assimilating” LGBTQ relations to marriage are “an anthropological regression.”
“Francesco” filmmaker Evgeny Afineevsky told CNA that the film is not “about” Pope Francis’s call for civil unions but is instead “about many other global issues.”
"I’m looking at him not as the pope, I’m looking at him as a humble human being, great role model to younger generation, leader for the older generation, a leader to many people not in the sense of the Catholic Church, but in the sense of pure leadership, on the ground, on the streets,” the Russian-born filmmaker, who lives in the U.S., said.
Sarah Kate Ellis, the president and CEO of Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, said in a statement that the pope "joins millions" in "recognizing that LGBTQ people should be protected, not persecuted."
"This news should send an undeniable message to Catholic families with LGBTQ people that all family members are deserving of acceptance and support," Ellis said. "Pope Francis’ public approval is a fundamental step forward at a time when LGBTQ acceptance around the world and across religions is expanding and rightfully becoming the norm.”
Federal agents deploy tear gas in the neighborhood near the Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland, Ore., on Oct. 17, 2020. (photo: Doug Brown/ACLU Oregon)
Environmentalists Sue Homeland Security for Chemical Weapons Use
Sharon Lerner, The Intercept
Excerpt: "Federal agents employed 'a vast arsenal of weapons,' including toxic smoke grenades, against protestors in Portland."
nvironmental groups sued the Department of Homeland Security and its acting secretary, Chad Wolf, in federal district court today over their use of what the suit called “a vast arsenal of weapons” on Black Lives Matter protesters in Portland. The weapons deployed by the federal agents during what the Trump administration dubbed “Operation Diligent Valor” pose potentially grave health and environmental hazards, according to the suit, which the ACLU Foundation of Oregon filed on behalf of the Northwest Center for Alternatives to Pesticides, the Willamette Riverkeeper, Cascadia Wildlands, Neighbors for Clean Air, and 350PDX.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Among the weapons mentioned in the complaint are rubber bullets; CS tear gas; OC spray, also known as pepper spray; and hexachloroethane smoke grenades. As The Intercept reported earlier this month, the U.S. military began phasing out the smoke grenades years ago because of their toxicity. Along with a thick smoke, the grenades release chemicals associated with short- and long-term human health effects, including nausea, vomiting, central nervous system depression, kidney and liver damage, and cancer.The groups detail the serious risks of CS tear gas, citing a 2014 report that showed it had “a profound effect on the respiratory system” and that U.S. Army recruits exposed to the tear gas in basic training had a nearly 2.5 times greater risk of acute respiratory illness. The complaint lists symptoms associated with the gas, including eye injuries, chronic pain, cough, neurodegeneration, and menstrual irregularities. And it presents evidence that “[e]ven at low concentrations, CS gas presents a risk of irreversible or other serious, long-lasting adverse human health effects.”
According to the suit, the Department of Homeland Security violated the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to consider the “potentially severe environmental and human health impacts” of the weapons. The National Environmental Policy Act requires federal agencies to weigh the impacts of proposed actions that “significantly affect the quality of the human environment.” And the suit lays out evidence that, in addition to imperiling protesters, who have described weight loss, lung damage, exhaustion, and other symptoms after being exposed to gas and smoke released by the federal agents, the weapons may harm the environment. Several of the chemicals released by the munitions are harmful to aquatic life, according to their safety data sheets.
The federal agents used so much tear gas and other weapons during the face-offs with protesters that its residue was visible on streets, sidewalks, and plants near the federal courthouse and ICE detention center where they were used. There are at least seven stormwater drains near the Justice Center and the ICE detention center, where the agents were stationed, and at least two of the drains feed directly into the nearby Willamette River. According to the suit, plaintiffs have identified “tear gas and other chemical munitions floating over the Willamette River” and have seen DHS agents “power washing” the residue from tear gas and other chemical weapons into the storm drains. The environmental groups conclude that the chemicals have likely already entered the nearby Willamette River.
While officials in Portland have acknowledged that residue from tear gas and other chemical munitions used by the Department of Homeland Security entered the city’s storm drains downtown, the federal agency has not provided a list of tear gas and chemical munitions used against protesters to the Portland Bureau of Environmental Services, according to the complaint. It also says that the federal government has denied the city environmental agency access to a catch basin behind the federal agents’ barrier where they want to test stormwater there for the presence of chemicals.
Operation Diligent Valor began when Department of Homeland Security Agents descended on Portland in July. But DHS agents remain in the city and have used chemical munitions as recently as October 18, when a thermal fogger released gas into a crowd of protesters gathered outside an ICE facility. The suit asks the court to stop DHS from using such weapons in Portland until its violation of the law is corrected.
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