The Democrats sent a very political and long response memo which they knew, because of sources and methods (and more), would have to be heavily redacted, whereupon they would blame the White House for lack of transparency. Told them to re-do and send back in proper form!
The Democratic memo which Trump describes as “long,” presumably meaning that he didn’t actually read it, responds to and corrects the inaccuracies, out of context information, and misleading conclusions of the Republican memo which Trump claims “vindicates” him in the Russia investigation.
Even his ardent supporters in the Republican party find that claim to be erroneous at best, with House Intelligence Committee member Trey Gowdy tweeting that the Nunes memo has nothing to do with Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller’s investigation.
While this memo raises serious concerns with the FISA process, I have been and remain confident in the overwhelming majority of the men and women serving at the FBI and DOJ.
As I have said repeatedly, I also remain 100 percent confident in Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The contents of this memo do not – in any way – discredit his investigation.
Despite Trump’s calls for more redactions from the Democratic response memo, Rep. Schiff pointed out in a statement on Friday night that the FBI and Justice Department had already vetted their memo, which was based on the same documents that the Republican memo cited, prior to the Intelligence Committee unanimously voting for its disclosure.
“We will be reviewing the recommended redactions from D.O.J. and F.B.I., which these agencies shared with the White House,” Rep. Schiff said, “and look forward to conferring with the agencies to determine how we can properly inform the American people about the misleading attack on law enforcement by the G.O.P. and address any concerns over sources and methods.”
Stay tuned for more updates on the situation as the Intelligence Committee can vote to override the President’s decision by referring the matter to the full House for a vote. It will be interesting to see if Republicans will be brave enough to stand up
Apparently, classified information only matters if you’re a Democrat.
How else could you explain President Trump’s decision not to approve the public release of the memo composed by the Democratic members of the House Intelligence Committee in rebuttal to Rep.Devin Nunes’ (R-CA) flawed partisan screed that he approved for release last week over the objections of the FBI because of its inclusion of classified material.
Trump instructed his White House Counsel Don McGahn to write a letter to the House Intelligence Committee transmitting his decision, according to a report in The Huffington Post.
In it, McGahn claims that Trump is “inclined to declassify” the Democratic memo, he won’t right now because it contains “numerous properly classified and especially sensitive passages.” Yeah, right. Just like the Republican memo that Trump claimed “vindicated” him of collusion and obstruction of justice that he declassified anyway.
Of course, since the Democrats memo purports to point out all of the ways that the central premise of the Republican memo is flawed by using cherry-picked details to support an unreasonable conclusion, it won’t be any more vindicating for Trump than Nunes’ memo which fell considerably short of the massive hype that the Republican’s touted.
Getting back to the question of how to rectify Trump’s decision to repress the Democratic response to a flawed assertion by the GOP members of the House Intelligence Committee with the ease with which he promulgated the Republican memo, there are several possibilities.
Firstly, because the rebuttal, written by the ranking Democrat on the Committee, Adam Schiff (D-CA), includes the details that explain why Nunes’ memo is misleading and factually faulty, it actually does include information that is classified and also part of the investigation still being conducted by Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller. If this is true, then the memo does need to be redacted before being published, as Nunes’ memo should have been as well.
A second possible explanation is that our credulous President really believes that the Nunes memo does absolve him of blame in the investigation and will do nothing that undermines that premise, such as releasing a memo that proves Nunes’ conclusions are false.
The third, and most likely, explanation is that Trump is continuing to obstruct justice by suppressing Schiff’s memo, desperately clinging to the fiction of innocence that he’s trying to sell the public while digging himself deeper into a morass of cover-ups and lies.
Given that Schiff has said that his document provides the missing context in the already public memo from the Republicans and that it lays out the “full facts” of the circumstances surrounding the FBI’s application for a FISA surveillance warrant on Trump campaign advisor Carter Page as he met with Russian agents, it’s not surprising that Trump doesn’t want to let it see the light of day.
What is surprising is that Trump still thinks he can get away with it without damage to him and his administration.
You can read the full text of McGahn’s letter to the House Intelligence Committee below.
Back in November of 2017, news broke that U.S. Border Patrol agent Rogelio Martinez died tragically on night duty, while his partner, Stephen Garland, suffered severe injuries. The men were found at the bottom of a deep culvert, and officials from the Border Patrol Union were quick to call the two men victims of a brutal assault, presumably by individuals trying to cross the border from Mexico.
President Donald Trump seized on the news and the Union’s interpretation of the event, and took to Twitter to politicize the tragedy.
Border Patrol Officer killed at Southern Border, another badly hurt. We will seek out and bring to justice those responsible. We will, and must, build the Wall!
After an exhaustive investigation, however, authorities now believe the two men died from injuries sustained after a tragic accidental fall, not at the hands of assailants coming into the country illegally.
According to Nick Miroff and Robert Moore of the Washington Post, “The top official of the U.S. Border Patrol has told his staff that the November death of an agent in West Texas was the result of an accidental fall, not an attack, according to a memo that refutes the version of the incident advanced by President Trump to renew his calls for a border wall.”
“More than two months into its investigation, the FBI said Wednesday that it found no signs the agents were assaulted. Kevin McAleenan, the acting commissioner of the Border Patrol, told his staff this week that the men fell into a nine-foot-deep culvert on a pitch-black night.”
“Garland survived the fall,” Miroff and Moore’s report continues, “but he’s told investigators he has no memory of what happened and has not spoken publicly about the incident. An autopsy released Tuesday listed the cause of Martinez’s death as ‘undetermined.’ ”
Sen. John Cornyn of Texas also promised Rogelio Martinez’s family that the attackers would be brought to justice, but he quickly acknowledged the new reality. “Maybe it’s a cautionary tale that all of us need to take a deep breath when things like this happen,” he told the Texas Tribune, “and realize that we don’t have all the information and wait until we get a little more information before reaching conclusions.”
Ya think?
The president has yet to echo anything like Sen. Cornyn’s dignified concession on the matter. If history is any indication, don’t expect one any time soon, either.
Donald Trump is a man of many talents. Perhaps not as many as exist in his mind, or in the minds of his shrinking band on minions, but even the harshest critics of the 45th president have to concede an elevated degree of aptitude in a few select areas of endeavor.
Real estate is one, perhaps, and certainly in the 1980s he turned a small inherited fortune into a much larger one through real estate development before declaring the first of many bankruptcies in 1991.
Reality television is another, definitely, as the ratings for the very successful “Apprentice” series show. And let’s not forget his talent for slapping his name on everything from vodka to steaks to fraudulent universities. Most of those enterprises ended in failure (and in the case of Trump University, in class action lawsuits that could end up costing him hundreds of millions of dollars), but Trump still got paid generous licensing fees, so all told, we have to give him the W on those.
Solving crimes based on what he learns from cable news, however, isn’t one his talents, nor is owning up to false statements when they’ve been proven to be so.
President Trump’s most famous fail on both accounts was his years-long attempt to prove the conspiracy theory that President Obama was born outside the United States, and no apology came when Obama’s long form birth certificate was finally produced, killing the “Birther” movement once and for all.
But his first swing and miss at cracking cases came back in the late 1980s, when he declared the Central Park Five – four Black males and one Hispanic male, all teenagers at the time – guilty of beating and raping a white female jogger less than two weeks after their arrest.
Trump took out full page ads in all of New York City’s major daily newspapers calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty in New York state specifically for the Central Park Five, who were still months away from standing trial.
After a sham investigation, problematic confessions, and other nasty bits of police and judicial malpractice, the men were tried and convicted, only to be exonerated and their convictions vacated years later when the real perpetrator – a completely unrelated serial rapist – confessed to the crime. His confession was confirmed by DNA analysis, but not before the five wrongly tried and convicted men served between 6-13 years.
President Trump has never apologized to the Central Park Five for his inflammatory role in the case, nor has he even acknowledged that he was wrong. In fact, during the 2016 campaign, he doubled down on his thoroughly debunked position when he told CNN just weeks before the election, “They admitted they were guilty. The police doing the original investigation say they were guilty. The fact that that case was settled with so much evidence against them is outrageous.”
As irresponsible as Trump’s impetuous rush to judgement in the tragic death of Border Patrol agent Rogelio Martinez was, however, at least there’s no wrongly accused or convicted immigrant sitting in a jail cell as a consequence this time.
A second White House aide has resigned following allegations of domestic abuse.
Speechwriter David Sorenson’s ex-wife revealed the disturbing details of the couple’s rocky two and a half year marriage. She claimed Sorenson was emotionally abusive and violent while they were together.
Sorenson forcefully denied the claims but did also immediately tender his resignation. Nothing says “innocent” like instantaneously walking away from your job.
This is the second resignation in as many days, following the bombshell reveal of White House Staff Secretary Rob Porter’s multiple accusations of domestic abuse by his two ex-wives.
The White House has come under fire for the handling of Porter’s case after it was revealed that both of Porter’s ex-wives recounted the abuses in detail to the FBI as part of Porter’s background check. That means that Chief of Staff John Kelly had to have known about Porter’s wrongdoings for almost a full year before doing anything about it.
Porter has had access to classified information since he assumed his position, despite the fact that he had these allegations levied against him, and that he could be compromised as a result.
The President himself has defended Porter, going so far as to question the veracity of both ex-wives’ claims in private. This continues a trend for Trump, who seems to always side with the accused aggressor while questioning and degrading the women who do the accusing.
The President is accused of sexual harassment and abuse by at least 19 women.