Stephanie Leary

Me: Trump’s speech went over well, so the halo effect should last a couple of days, right?

Trump team: Hold my beer.

While you were at dinner:

-NBC: 10 sources say no intel from Yemen raid

-NYT: Major Russia story

-WaPo: Sessions met Russian ambassador

— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) March 2, 2017

Let’s start with the part where Jeff Sessions perjured himself:

Sessions met with Russian envoy twice last year, encounters he later did not disclose

The previously undisclosed discussions could fuel new congressional calls for the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Russia’s alleged role in the 2016 presidential election. As attorney general, Sessions oversees the Justice Department and the FBI, which have been leading investigations into Russian meddling and any links to Trump’s associates. He has so far resisted calls to recuse himself.

When Sessions spoke with Kislyak in July and September, the senator was a senior member of the influential Armed Services Committee as well as one of Trump’s top foreign policy advisers. Sessions played a prominent role supporting Trump on the stump after formally joining the campaign in February 2016.

At his Jan. 10 Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing, Sessions was asked by Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) what he would do if he learned of any evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with the Russian government in the course of the 2016 campaign.

“I’m not aware of any of those activities,” he responded. He added: “I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians.”

Evan Perez just said it on CNN, so I suppose I can here: Kislyak wasn't just ambassador, he was Russia's "top spy recruiter" in D.C.: SVR.

— Michael Weiss (@michaeldweiss) March 2, 2017

… and now back to Russia.

Obama Administration Rushed to Preserve Intelligence of Russian Election Hacking

Former American officials say they had two aims: to ensure that such meddling isn’t duplicated in future American or European elections, and to leave a clear trail of intelligence for government investigators.

It’s now political suicide for Republicans if they don’t call for a deeper investigations on Russia

Remember that dossier on Trump and Russia? Here are 16 reasons we now know it wasn’t “fake news.”

The State of Trump’s State Department

Officials: Still No Actionable Intel from Yemen SEAL Raid

Media people in my feed (left) viewed Trump's Navy SEAL moment last night very differently from the veterans (right). A story in two images: pic.twitter.com/P2vlptE5B1

— Brandon Friedman (@BFriedmanDC) March 1, 2017

DREAMer Daniela Vargas was detained by federal agents moments after leaving a news conference where she spoke about her fear of being deported.

Trump misled reporters on immigration to get good coverage pre-speech.

Sorry for the break, everyone. I spent the majority of the last week driving around the state, and what with the pinched nerve in my neck, that was even more exhausting and painful than usual. I’m attempting to catch up on the news, but I’m sure I’m missing things. I’ll pick up the threads over the next few days.

In Other News

In addition to What the Fuck Just Happened Today?, there’s a new daily site & email newsletter from Amanda Rivkin called the Trumpistan Watch. I highly recommend it for perspective on Russian and European events.

Congress

In the House, Leaders of Russia Inquiry Are Split on Whether It’s Needed

Minority Whip Dick Durbin returned from a trip to Ukraine and laid out the case for a special investigation into Russia’s influence on the election.

Durbin said U.S. allies are asking about Russian influence in the election, adding that one Polish leader in Warsaw told him, “If you don’t take Russia’s invasion into your election seriously, how will you take Putin’s invasion into Poland? Will you take that seriously?”

Also in that article, “Jeff Sessions said for the first time that he’ll recuse himself from the investigations if necessary.” About fucking time.

Trump

Trump’s budget calls for $54 billion more in military spending (seriously?!) and huge cuts to the EPA, education, and science programs. Retired U.S. military officers urge Congress to fully fund diplomacy and foreign aid.

Trump Intensifies His Attacks on Journalists and Condemns F.B.I. ‘Leakers’

Hours after the speech, as if to demonstrate Mr. Trump’s determination to punish reporters whose coverage he dislikes, Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, barred journalists from The New York Times and several other news organizations from attending his daily briefing, a highly unusual breach of relations between the White House and its press corps.

And they finally benched Kellyanne Conway.

DHS Chief Says ‘No Use Of Military Force’ In Immigration Raids; Trump Calls Roundups ‘A Military Operation’

How Trump’s campaign staffers tried to keep him off Twitter. “The trick? Making sure his media diet included a healthy dose of praise.” Our White House staff are parenting the commander in chief.

Trump gives himself a ‘C or C+’ grade for communicating with the public: Needs improvement. Yes, dear. Everyone hates you because you’re just not very good at explaining how great you are, that’s all.

Trump Rescinds Rules on Bathrooms for Transgender Students

Op ed: I didn’t think I’d ever leave the CIA. But because of Trump, I quit.

Air Force can’t account for Trump’s claim of $1 billion in savings

Trump is performing the role of president, not doing the job. Pretty much.

"Trump read the speech very well from the TelePrompter."

~ Wolf Blitzer

That's how low the expectations have become." #trumpaddress

— Khaled Beydoun (@KhaledBeydoun) March 1, 2017

Trump’s speech to Congress tonight was designed to make him sound like an adult, and it mostly succeeded, except maybe for the part where he threw his generals under the bus for the Yemen raid. On the other hand, 51 lies in 61 minutes would be astonishing from any other president.

Cabinet & Federal Appointees

White House accused of blocking information on Commerce nominee Wilbur Ross and his ties to Russia via the Bank of Cyprus via Putin ally Viktor Vekselberg (as previously discussed, Dec. 19)

Sessions Says DOJ to ‘Pull Back’ on Police Department Civil Rights Suits. Are we surprised.

NSA risks talent exodus amid morale slump, Trump fears. Also filed under “predictable results.”

Trio of military men gain growing influence with Trump

The Pruitt Emails: E.P.A. Chief Was Arm in Arm With Industry

EPA braces for possible ‘devastating’ 25% budget cut

Trump’s pick for Navy secretary withdraws over conflict of interest rules

Protests

Here Comes The Police State

The camps of protesters against the Dakota Access Pipeline have been cleared

Took another unplanned break thanks to a pinched nerve in my neck. Ouch. Sorry for keeping you all waiting! Let’s get right to the outrage…

Trump

Trump calls the media ‘the enemy of the American People’

It took the president two tries to properly post his message, which came soon after he arrived at his luxury oceanfront estate for the weekend. The first tweet, which was quickly deleted, contained a number of extra spaces and listed the Times, CNN and NBC, ending with this conclusion: “SICK!” The second tweet added ABC and CBS to the list, while removing “SICK!” Both tweets labeled those organizations as being “the FAKE NEWS media.”

John McCain just systematically dismantled Donald Trump’s entire worldview, railing against nationalism in a speech at the Munich Security Conference.

“I refuse to accept that our values are morally equivalent to those of our adversaries,” he said. “I am a proud, unapologetic believer in the West, and I believe we must always, always stand up for it. For if we do not, who will?”

Trump ignores ‘the grown-ups’ in his Cabinet. Kushner is functioning as a “shadow Secretary of State,” not consulting Tillerson on his policies.

“There was a lot of discussion in the beginning of the transition that Cabinet secretaries were going to get a lot of deference in terms of staffing, but that doesn’t seem to be happening,” said Edelman. “And if there’s an impasse over staffing, you have to ask if there are folks in the White House who think it’s just fine to have agencies unstaffed because you can force through executive orders and it increases their power given their proximity to the president.”

The Strategic Initiatives Group, a new group in the West Wing led by Kushner and White House senior adviser Steve Bannon, has been set up to serve as a shadow National Security Council, which worries Edelman and other mainstream conservative foreign policy and defense experts concerned about the outsize influence of less experienced ideologues like Bannon ally Sebastian Gorka.

Trump invites Mar-a-Lago attendees to sit in on cabinet interviews.

“We’re doing a lot of interviews tomorrow — generals, dictators, we have everything,” Trump told the crowd, according to an audio tape of his closed-press remarks obtained by POLITICO from a source in the room. “You may wanna come around. It’ll be fun. We’re really working tomorrow. We have meetings every 15, 20 minutes with different people that will form our government.”

“We’re going to be interviewing everybody — Treasury, we’re going to be interviewing Secretary of State,” he continued. “We have everybody coming in — if you want to come around, it’s going to be unbelievable….so you might want to come along.”

At least three Mar-a-Lago club members are under consideration for an ambassadorship

Trump family trips cost taxpayers $11.3m in one month – almost as much as Obama’s cost in a year.

Trump family’s elaborate lifestyle is a ‘logistical nightmare’ — at taxpayer expense.

Trump’s F-35 Calls Came With a Surprise: Rival CEO Was Listening

Days before taking office, President-elect Donald Trump made two surprise calls to the Air Force general managing the Pentagon’s largest weapons program, the Lockheed Martin Corp. F-35 jet.

Listening in on one of those calls was Dennis Muilenburg — the CEO of Lockheed’s chief rival, Boeing Co.

Trump Expected to Sign Executive Orders Hitting the EPA

The administration has already imposed a freeze on the EPA’s social media, halted its rulemaking, and reportedly mandated that all agency research be reviewed by a political appointee before being released to the public. But next week, once Pruitt is sworn in, the real frenzy will begin.

Trump says Sweden is having huge problems because of immigrants. Sweden has no idea what the fuck he’s talking about.

Trump "says it like it is" by saying the first part of a thought and letting the listener fill in the rest. Exactly as it is in their mind.

— Emily of the State (@EmilyGorcenski) February 19, 2017

33 questions about Donald Trump and Russia

Cabinet & Federal Appointees

Trump’s first choice to replace Flynn as National Security Adviser turned him down flat, saying the job was “a shit sandwich.” Trump has chosen H. R. McMaster instead.

Trump’s lawyer hand-delivered Michael Flynn a secret plan to lift sanctions on Russia.

The EPA has posted a mirror of its entire website as it existed the day before Trump took office:https://t.co/6WIi1YJ5W2#thanksEPA

— Russ Kick @ MemHole2 (@thememoryhole2) February 16, 2017

Alex “9/11 was an inside job and Sandy Hook was faked” Jones “is apparently taking on a new role as occasional information source and validator for the president.” Outstanding.

Congress

Congressional Hispanic Caucus asked to leave a meeting between congress and ICE officials; future meetings will have to be approved by Bob Goodlatte.

The creation of a 9/11-style commission to investigate Russian interference in the presidential election has won bipartisan support. OH MY GOD if Trump were a Democrat they would be FINISHED by now.

Voting

Tufts University is offering a 5-day summer course training mathematicians to be expert witnesses for court cases on redistricting and gerrymandering. Partial funding is available.

Corey Lewandowski that people were not bused into New Hampshire to vote.

Protests

Workers fired for participating in the Day without Immigrants protests.

Other Fascist Nonsense

The DOJ’s Civil Rights Division is investigating the bomb threats to Jewish community centers around the country.

International

Kim Jong Un’s half-brother was poisoned.

Russia’s ambassador to the UN has died suddenly.

Congress

Chaffetz and Goodlatte want to investigate the leaks that led to Flynn’s resignation–but not the actual Russian involvement

The Senate Intelligence Committee expects to begin hearing testimony later this month

Among those he would like to see testify are Flynn, Manafort and former acting Attorney General Sally Yates, who was fired after she refused to defend Trump’s executive order on immigration.

“We’re going to do everything we can to be open and transparent,” Manchin said in an interview. “You need to clear it up.”

Congressman says constituents asking for a town hall are ‘enemies’ of democracy. What a time to be alive.

GOP super PAC linked to Paul Ryan used illegally hacked material against Democratic House candidates

Trump

It’s bigger than Flynn. New Russia revelations widen Trump’s credibility gap.

With Flynn gone, it would appear that Moscow had lost an ‘in’ to the Trump administration. But that would overstate the case. ‘They have other entrees,’ one senior State Department official told me. Flynn was just a messenger, in other words, and there are other people in the West Wing who are equally motivated to strike some kind of grand bargain with Putin.… And if Trump and Putin both want the deal done, it won’t be too hard to find another go-between.”

The Trump White House Is Screwed, Big League

Why did Trump reverse course on the One China policy? China finally awarded him the trademark he’s been after for ten years.

Some of Trump’s overseas business partners are also agents of foreign governments, according to intelligence gathered by our allies. Good thing they’re on it, since our government can’t be bothered. Highlights:

• “the father of Trump’s Azerbaijani business partner is a government official who laundered money for the Iranian military”
• a deal with the special representative from the Philippines “has already resulted in large payments to Trump’s business, with millions of dollars more on the way”
• a Baltic nation is looking into Igor Sechin–head of Rosneft, former FSB officer, and personal friend of both Putin and Tillerson. “Yet, back in America, the name Sechin was not even mentioned during Tillerson’s confirmation hearings before the Senate.”

How Vladimir Putin Catfished A US Election With the Collusion of Team Trump

What if Vladimir Putin directed the entire attack – not via a “15 year old girl” from Gaston, North Carolina, but by a hardened group of adult hackers from that state who had penetrated the emails of Director Brennan of the CIA, and doxed and attacked hundreds of FBI and law enforcement personnel?

And what if, after making Carter Page’s recruiter Jeff Sessions Attorney General, Donald Trump repeated the trick by making the ‘prosecutor’ of those Carolina hackers Acting AG – then changing the order of succession at Justice to cement him as number two?

In this story I exclusively report the connections between the USSR-CWA hacker group of North Carolina ‘Crackas With Attitude’ and the “sexts with a 15 year old girl” from Gaston, North Carolina, that started the chain of events that led to James Comey’s forced letter to Congress, including the fact that the “15 year old girl”’s “email to Weiner” is in fact a series of plagiarized texts it is unlikely any 15 year old girl has read, including works by J.D. Salinger, David Foster Wallace, Charles Bukowski, and – yes – “Fight Club” by Chuck Palahniuk.

Group urges New York AG to put Trump out of business by revoking charter

Free Speech for People, one of the backers of a nascent campaign to try to impeach Trump, planned to deliver a 24-page letter Wednesday calling on Schneiderman to “investigate whether to bring proceeding to dissolve and revoke the charter of Trump Organization Inc.,” the New York-based company overseeing the president’s real estate, golf, hotel and other businesses that Trump founded and continues to own.

When asked about the rash of anti-Semitic hate crimes across the US, this was Trump’s response. Amazing.

Pence

Don’t Buy Mike Pence’s Innocent Act

Cabinet & Federal Appointees

Vice Admiral Robert Harward offered National Security Adviser job.

Harward, a 60-year-old former Navy SEAL, served as deputy commander of U.S. Central Command under now-Defense Secretary James Mattis. He previously served as deputy commanding general for operations of Joint Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.

Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III ensures Justice Department won’t investigate Russia connection

Andrew Puzder Withdraws From Consideration as Labor Secretary, reportedly because Oprah gave senators the tape in which his ex-wife appeared on her show to describe the abuse she suffered during their marriage.

Sean Spicer isn’t finished

Five of these sources think the person behind the leaks is Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s ever-visible White House counselor. Though they offer no hard evidence, they say Conway is trying to offload blame for administration setbacks on Spicer to prove she is the more effective public advocate and earn a lasting place in the President’s inner circle.

International

Russia charges four top intelligence officials with treason

 

Me: Congress has pulled three all-nighters in a row and Trump is off to Florida for the weekend. I can take a break!

Trump staff: Hold my beer.

Trump

NY Times: Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence

But the intercepts alarmed American intelligence and law enforcement agencies, in part because of the amount of contact that was occurring while Mr. Trump was speaking glowingly about the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin. At one point last summer, Mr. Trump said at a campaign event that he hoped Russian intelligence services had stolen Hillary Clinton’s emails and would make them public.

The officials said the intercepted communications were not limited to Trump campaign officials, and included other associates of Mr. Trump. On the Russian side, the contacts also included members of the government outside of the intelligence services, they said.

CNN: Trump aides were in constant touch with senior Russian officials during campaign

Trump turns Mar-a-Lago Club terrace into open-air situation room

“Someone opened up a laptop, and at the table . . . a group of Japanese people stood around the prime minister and Donald, and they were all looking at the laptop,” said Jay Weitzman, a member of President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club and founder of the Pennsylvania-based parking management company Park America. He was sitting three tables away from Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Saturday evening.

“Whoa,” Weitzman remembered thinking. “What’s going on?”

“Turns out, it was a missile launch,” he said Monday.

Trump ran a campaign based on intelligence security. That’s not how he’s governing.

“Donald Trump for the longest time has been using a insecure Android phone that by all reports is so easy to compromise, it would not meet the security requirements of a teenager,” Weaver told NPR, and while he couldn’t say for sure, “we must assume that his phone has actively been compromised for a while, and an actively compromised phone is literally a listening device.”

That’s just one of the phones that may have been at the table for the conversation.

Mar-a-Lago member who pays Trump hundreds of thousands of dollars posts pics of – and identifies – US official carrying nuclear football. pic.twitter.com/oyAfY0E9Fj

— Samuel Oakford (@samueloakford) February 13, 2017

Russia ‘considering handing Edward Snowden to the US as a gift to Trump’

The Kremlin Is Starting to Worry About Trump

US investigators corroborate some aspects of the Russia dossier

A serving general is openly criticizing Trump. That’s extraordinary.

Gen. Tony Thomas, head of the military’s Special Operations Command, expressed concern about upheaval inside the White House.

“Our government continues to be in unbelievable turmoil. I hope they sort it out soon because we’re a nation at war,” he said at a military conference on Tuesday. Asked about his comments later, General Thomas said in a brief interview, “As a commander, I’m concerned our government be as stable as possible.”

Cabinet & Federal Appointees

Mike Flynn & the National Security Council

Mike Flynn flamed out spectacularly over the weekend and resigned on Monday.

Friday:

• Did Mike Pence get burned by Michael Flynn?
• Michael Flynn’s debacle “This reminds me of the run-up to Iran- Contra.”

Sunday:

• Turmoil at the National Security Council, From the Top Down
• The Spy Revolt Against Trump Begins

Monday:

• National security adviser Michael Flynn resigns
• Sally Yates warned Trump that Flynn had been compromised

K.T. McFarland Expected To Leave Current Position On NSC

McFarland brought some of Trump’s energy to national security council meetings, the Times reported Sunday. The paper reported that many “apolitical” members of the council were uncomfortable with her displays of partisanship, including at one recent meeting when she urged them to “make America great again.”

You know, I was watching The Hunt for Red October again over the weekend, and the presence of political officers on the Soviet submarines reminded me how very bizarre the Trump team’s political incursion into national security affairs would seem if we hadn’t been observing it in slow motion.

Why Flynn’s Resignation Matters. “A senior American official was compromised by his relationship with a foreign government. Who else has ties to the Russian state?”

Stephen Miller

Stephen Miller doubles down on claims of voter fraud and of ‘thousands’ of voters bused into New Hampshire.

Miller is so obviously promoting autocracy that even the Morning Joe crew are appalled:

Donald Trump senior advisor Stephen Miller appeared on the political talk shows and made a series of disturbingly despotic statements about the administration’s view of executive power, including the appalling declaration that “…our opponents, the media, and the whole world will soon see, as we begin to take further actions, that the powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial, and will not be questioned.”

The consistency of Miller’s statements across his appearances on various shows makes it extremely clear this message came from the administration itself and was not a one-off instance of overreach by a staff member.

The idea of the president having supreme power that cannot be questioned was so absurd that even Morning Joe co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski called it out as autocratic.

Shaun King profiles Stephen Miller’s ten pounds of bigotry in a five-pound sack

Reince Priebus

Trump friend says Priebus is ‘in way over his head’

Kellyanne Conway

Conway denies retweeting white nationalist. She says someone else used her phone to do it. That’s somehow better?!

In a remarkable interview, Kellyanne Conway’s spin about Mike Flynn crashes and burns

Pressed on that point, all Conway could do was respond that Flynn had been in on national security briefings and deliberations as late as yesterday, and then added that, “as time wore on, obviously the situation had become unsustainable.” But that’s an implicit concession that Flynn had been kept in this highly sensitive role despite the fact that his situation had become “unsustainable.”

Chaffetz, Cummings support ethics office opinion that Conway likely broke rules

Sean Spicer

Trump’s press secretary just called Justin Trudeau ‘Prime Minister Joe Trudeau of Canada’

Betsy DeVos

Education Department flunks spelling

Did Betsy DeVos Make You Want To Run For School Board?

Pence

Pence did not learn that Flynn misled him on Russia until last week. He’s throwing Trump under the bus.

With Pence gone, fellow Republicans undo his work in Indiana

Congress

Chaffetz says the House Oversight Committee won’t investigate Flynn. He also thinks the protesters at his town hall last week were paid and came from outside Utah. I don’t think there is a single person in Congress who is accurately reading the mood of the usually-complacent moderate voter right now. Maybe we should all send them postcards with Libba Bray’s fabulous poem.

While Trump scandals mount, Chaffetz decides to investigate… a cartoon character.

The chairman of the powerful panel — the main investigative committee in the House — sent a letter to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention demanding to know why, in an attempt to raise awareness of the Zika virus, “CDC appears poised to make a sole source award to the Jim Henson Company for $806,000 to feature Sid the Science Kid in an educational program about the virus.”

Republican senators call for investigation into Trump’s ties with Russia and want Flynn to testify, finally. Maybe they can goad Chaffetz into doing his job where his constituents’ screams failed.

Protests

Military veterans are returning to Standing Rock and pledging to shield indigenous activists from attacks by a militarized police force. “We’ve stood in the face of fire before. We feel a responsibility to use the skills we have.”

ACLU: It’s Time for Members of Congress to Show Up and Stand Up for Standing Rock

Immigration Ban

A US-born NASA scientist was detained at the border until he unlocked his phone

DREAMer arrested in Seattle

Immigration Agents Arrest 600 People Across U.S. in One Week

Trump Says Refugees Are Flooding U.S. in Misleading Allusion

International

Russia Deploys Missile, Violating Treaty. But we have the greatest respect for and confidence in comrade Putin!