Jimmy Kimmel took White House counselor Kellyanne Conway to task on his
Monday night show for her constant refusal to actually address the
questions that the media asks her.
According to the New York Times Donald Trump Jr., his brother in law
Jared Kushner and Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort met with a
Russian lawyer to hear what they thought would be information that could
hurt Hillary Clinton.
It’s all very fishy, so we invited White House
spokesperson Kellyanne Conway live via satellite to clear it all up.
Over
the weekend, as the import of the Donald Trump Jr meeting became clear,
but before this morning’s emails release, I started going back through
my notes to piece together the timeline of events and whether they
looked different in the light of the new revelations. And? Good guess!
They look a lot different. For the moment, look at the timeline after
the jump starting in April and running through August. That is the
critical part. The critical addition of the Don Jr meeting fits right
into a critical period when what we understand were Russian intelligence
operatives were trying various vehicles to surface emails that were
stolen during the spring. Look at the timeline after the jump – again,
go ahead to April 2016.
June 16th, 2015: Donald Trump announces his candidacy for President of the United States.
Circa Summer 2015: The US government alleges that Russian hackers first gain access to DNC computer networks.
Circa August 2015: Trump staff arranges first meeting between Trump and General Flynn, according to Flynn’s account in an August 2016 interview
with The Washington Post. “I got a phone call from his team. They asked
if he would be willing meet with Mr. Trump and I did. … In late summer
2015.”
August 8th, 2015: Roger Stone leaves formal role
in Trump campaign. Whether he quits or was fired is disputed. Stone
will continue as a key, albeit informal advisor, for the remainder of
the campaign.
December 10th, 2015: Michael Flynn attends conference and banquet
in Moscow to celebrate the 10th anniversary of RT (formerly Russia
today). Flynn is seated next to Russian President Vladimir Putin at the
concluding banquet.
March 19th, 2016: Hackers successfully hack into Clinton campaign Chairman John Podesta’s email.
March 21st, 2016: In a meeting with The Washington Post
editorial board, Trump provides a list of five foreign policy advisors.
The list includes Carter Page but not Michael Flynn. The list is Walid
Phares, Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, Joe Schmitz, and ret. Lt. Gen.
Keith Kellogg.
March 28th, 2016: Trump campaign hires Paul Manafort to oversee delegate operations for campaign. Manafort becomes the dominant figure running the campaign by late April and takes over as campaign manager on June 21st with the firing of campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.
February-April 2016: Flynn advisory relationship with Trump appears to have solidified over the Spring of 2016. In late January Flynn is mentioned as an advisor who has “regular interactions” with Trump. There are similar mentions in February and March. Yet as late as mid-March, Flynn appeared to downplay his ties to Trump. By May Flynn is routinely listed as an advisor and by late May is even being mooted as a possible vice presidential pick.
April 2016: DNC network administrators first notice suspicious activity on Committee computer networks in late April, 2016, according to The Washington Post. The DNC retains the services of network security firm Crowdstrike which expels hackers from the DNC computer network. Crowdstrike tells The Washington Post it believes hackers had been operating inside the DNC networks since the Summer of 2015.
April 19th, 2016: “DCLeaks.com” url/address registered.
May 3rd, 2016: Donald J. Trump becomes becomes presumptive nominee after Ted Cruz and John Kasich withdraw from race.
May 26th, 2016: Donald J. Trump officially secure majority of GOP delegates, officially clinching the nomination of the Republican party.
June 3rd, 2016:
First email contact between Rob Goldstone and Donald Trump Jr. about
meeting with “Russian government lawyer” with damaging information about
Hillary Clinton.
June 7th, 2016: Donald J Trump gives speech in which he promises
a major speech about Hillary Clinton’s crimes on June 13th. “I am going
to give a major speech on … probably Monday [June 13th] of next week
and we’re going to be discussing all of the things that have taken place
with the Clintons. I think you’re going to find it very informative and
very, very interesting.”
June 8th, 2016: First tweet posted to “DCLeaks” Twitter account.
June 9th, 2016:
Donald Trump, Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort meet with Natalia
Veselnitskaya. Trump agreed to take the meeting after being told by
Trump associate Rob Goldstone that Veselnitskaya had damaging
information about Hillary Clinton which came from a Russian government
operation to help his father Donald J. Trump.
June 12th, 2016: Julian Assange first announces
that Wikileaks has Clinton emails which are soon to be released.
“Wikileaks has a very big year ahead … We have emails related to Hillary
Clinton which are pending publication.”
June 14, 2016: Washington Postpublishes first account of hacking of the DNC computer networks, allegedly by hackers working on behalf of the Russian government.
June 15th, 2016:
“Guccifer 2.0”, later identified by US government officials and other
private sector analysts as a fictive persona created by Russian
intelligence operatives, contacts The Smoking Gun to take credit for hacking the DNC.
July 12th, 2016: Official publication date, The Field of Fight by Michael Flynn and Michael Ledeen.
July 22, 2016: Wikileaks releases first tranche of DNC emails dating from January 2015 to May 2016.
July 27th, 2016:
Donald Trump asks Russia to hack Clinton’s email to find 33,000 alleged
lost emails: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you can find the
33,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded
mightily by our press.”
August 1st, 2016: Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort denies Trump campaign changed GOP platform on Russia and Ukraine.
August 8th, 2016: Trump Advisor Roger Stone tells
Southwest Broward Republican Organization “I actually have communicated
with Assange. I believe the next tranche of his documents pertain to
the Clinton Foundation but there’s no telling what the October surprise
may be.”
August 14th, 2016: The New York Times publishes
story detailing handwritten ledgers showing “$12.7 million in
undisclosed cash payments designated for Mr. Manafort from Mr.
Yanukovych’s pro-Russian political party from 2007 to 2012, according to
Ukraine’s newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau.”
August 19, 2016: Paul Manafort resigns from Trump campaign.
August 21, 2016: Trump advisor Roger Stone tweets: “Trust me, it will soon [sic] the Podesta’s time in the barrel.”
September 26th, 2016: Trump Russia-Europe Policy Advisor Carter Page steps down from campaign
while disputing allegations that he engaged in private communications
with Russian government officials. A Yahoo News article from three days
earlier reported that US intelligence officials were probing whether he
met privately with Russian officials in Moscow in July, including an
alleged meeting with close Putin ally Igor Sechin, Chairman of Russian oil company Rosneft.
September 26th, 2016: At first presidential debate, Donald Trump casts doubt
on Russian role in hacking campaign: “It could be Russia, but it could
also be China. It could also be lots of other people. It also could be
somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds.”
October 7, 2016: A “Joint Statement from the Department of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence” officially accuses the Russian government of being behind hacking of the DNC “to interfere with the US election process.”
October 30th, 2016:
In response to FBI Director James Comey’s letter to Congress about new
developments in the Clinton email server probe, Senate Minority Leader
Harry Reid writes a public letter to Comey
in which he claims: “In my communications with you and other top
officials in the national security community, it has become clear that
you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination
between Donald Trump, his top advisors, and the Russian government.”
December 29th, 2016: Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov vows retaliation for sanctions.
December 29th, 2016: Incoming National Security Michael Flynn has multiple phone conversations with Russian Sergey Kislyak. It is later reported
that the calls covered US sanctions and suggestions that Obama’s
punitive actions could be undone in a matter of weeks. Trump
administration officials had repeatedly denied that the conversations
involved more than pleasantries and logistics about future meetings.
January 19th, 2017: The New York Times reports
that the FBI is leading an interagency task force probing ties between
Russia and three close Trump associates: Paul Manafort, Carter Page and
Roger Stone.
January 26th, 2017: Acting Attorney General
Sally Yates and a senior intelligence official visit to White House
Counsel Donald McGahn to deliver the message that National Security
Advisor Flynn has deceived the Vice President about the subject matter
of his calls and may be subject to Russian blackmail.
February 13th, 2017: Michael Flynn resigns as National Security Advisor.
Conway alleged that the “New Day” co-host was attempting to go viral,
but it was Conway that lit up the Internet with commentary.
The interviews caught her in a series of awkward pivots and obvious
hypocrisy, namely that she mentioned a report about former FBI director
James Comey that cited anonymous sources. Trump and his White House has
notoriously criticized the media for using anonymous sources.
Twitter users weren’t having any of it. They attacked Conway for both
interviews and heralded Cuomo’s dogged attempts to get Conway to
understand Donald Trump Jr. accepting a meeting with a Russian lawyer is
an admission of guilt.
A meeting arranged by Donald
Trump Jr. was held at Trump Tower in June 2016 with a Russian lawyer who
has connections to the Kremlin.Credit
Sam Hodgson for The New York Times
President Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., was promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton
before agreeing to meet with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer during
the 2016 campaign, according to three advisers to the White House
briefed on the meeting and two others with knowledge of it.
The
meeting was also attended by his campaign chairman at the time, Paul J.
Manafort, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Mr. Manafort and Mr.
Kushner only recently disclosed the meeting, though not its content, in
confidential government documents described to The New York Times.
The Times reported the existence of the meeting on Saturday. But in subsequent interviews, the advisers and others revealed the motivation behind it.
The meeting — at Trump Tower on June 9, 2016, two weeks after Donald J. Trumpclinched the Republican nomination
— points to the central question in federal investigations of the
Kremlin’s meddling in the presidential election: whether the Trump
campaign colluded with the Russians. The accounts of the meeting
represent the first public indication that at least some in the campaign
were willing to accept Russian help.
And
while Trump has been dogged by revelations of undisclosed
meetings between his associates and the Russians, the episode at Trump
Tower is the first such confirmed private meeting involving members of
his inner circle during the campaign — as well as the first one known to
have included his eldest son. It came at an inflection point in the
campaign, when Donald Trump Jr., who served as an adviser and a
surrogate, was ascendant and Mr. Manafort was consolidating power.
It
is unclear whether the Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, actually
produced the promised compromising information about Mrs. Clinton. But
the people interviewed by The Times about the meeting said the
expectation was that she would do so.
In
a statement on Sunday, Donald Trump Jr. said he had met with the
Russian lawyer at the request of an acquaintance. “After pleasantries
were exchanged,” he said, “the woman stated that she had information
that individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic
National Committee and supporting Ms. Clinton. Her statements were
vague, ambiguous and made no sense. No details or supporting information
was provided or even offered. It quickly became clear that she had no
meaningful information.”
He
said she then turned the conversation to adoption of Russian children
and the Magnitsky Act, an American law that blacklists suspected Russian
human rights abusers. The law so enraged President Vladimir V. Putin of
Russia that he retaliated by halting American adoptions of Russian
children.
“It
became clear to me that this was the true agenda all along and that the
claims of potentially helpful information were a pretext for the
meeting,” Mr. Trump said.
When
he was first asked about the meeting on Saturday, he said only that it
was primarily about adoptions and mentioned nothing about Mrs. Clinton.
President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, also attended the meeting last year at Trump Tower.Credit
Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
Mark
Corallo, a spokesman for the president’s lawyer, said on Sunday that
“Trump was not aware of and did not attend the meeting.”
Lawyers
and spokesmen for Mr. Kushner and Mr. Manafort did not immediately
respond to requests for comment. In his statement, Donald Trump Jr. said
he asked Mr. Manafort and Mr. Kushner to attend, but did not tell them
what the meeting was about.
American intelligence agencies have concluded
that Russian hackers and propagandists worked to tip the election
toward Donald J. Trump, in part by stealing and then providing to
WikiLeaks internal Democratic Party and Clinton campaign emails that
were embarrassing to Mrs. Clinton. WikiLeaks began releasing the
material on July 22.
A
special prosecutor and congressional committees are now investigating
the Trump campaign’s possible collusion with the Russians. Mr. Trump has
disputed that, but the investigation has cast a shadow over his
administration.
Mr.
Trump has also equivocated on whether the Russians were solely
responsible for the hacking. On Sunday, two days after his first meeting
as president with Mr. Putin, Mr. Trump said in a Twitter post:
“I strongly pressed President Putin twice about Russian meddling in our
election. He vehemently denied it. I’ve already given my opinion.....”
He also tweeted that
they had “discussed forming an impenetrable Cyber Security unit so that
election hacking, & many other negative things, will be
guarded...””
On
Sunday morning on Fox News, the White House chief of staff, Reince
Priebus, described the Trump Tower meeting as a “big nothing burger.”
“Talking
about issues of foreign policy, issues related to our place in the
world, issues important to the American people is not unusual,” he said.
But
Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the leading Democrat on
the House Intelligence Committee, one of the panels investigating
Russian election interference, said he wanted to question “everyone that
was at that meeting.”
“There’s
no reason for this Russian government advocate to be meeting with Paul
Manafort or with Mr. Kushner or the president’s son if it wasn’t about
the campaign and Russia policy,” Mr. Schiff said after the initial Times
report.
Ms.
Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer invited to the Trump Tower meeting,
is best known for mounting a multipronged attack against the Magnitsky
Act.
The
adoption impasse is a frequently used talking point for opponents of
the act. Ms. Veselnitskaya’s campaign against the law has also included
attempts to discredit the man after whom it was named, Sergei L.
Magnitsky, a lawyer and auditor who died in 2009 in mysterious
circumstances in a Russian prison after exposing one of the biggest
corruption scandals during Mr. Putin’s rule.
Mr. Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul J. Manafort, at the Republican National Convention in July 2016 in Cleveland.Credit
Sam Hodgson for The New York Times
Ms.
Veselnitskaya’s clients include state-owned businesses and a senior
government official’s son, whose company was under investigation in the
United States at the time of the meeting. Her activities and
associations had previously drawn the attention of the F.B.I., according
to a former senior law enforcement official.
Ms.
Veselnitskaya said in a statement on Saturday that “nothing at all
about the presidential campaign” was discussed. She recalled that after
about 10 minutes, either Mr. Kushner or Mr. Manafort walked out.
She
said she had “never acted on behalf of the Russian government” and
“never discussed any of these matters with any representative of the
Russian government.”
The
Trump Tower meeting was disclosed to government officials in recent
days, when Mr. Kushner, who is also a senior White House aide, filed a
revised version of a form required to obtain a security clearance.
The Times reported in April
that he had failed to disclose any foreign contacts, including meetings
with the Russian ambassador to the United States and the head of a
Russian state bank. Failure to report such contacts can result in a loss
of access to classified information and even, if information is
knowingly falsified or concealed, in imprisonment.
Mr.
Kushner’s advisers said at the time that the omissions were an error,
and that he had immediately notified the F.B.I. that he would be
revising the filing.
In
a statement on Saturday, Mr. Kushner’s lawyer, Jamie Gorelick, said:
“He has since submitted this information, including that during the
campaign and transition, he had over 100 calls or meetings with
representatives of more than 20 countries, most of which were during
transition. Mr. Kushner has submitted additional updates and included,
out of an abundance of caution, this meeting with a Russian person,
which he briefly attended at the request of his brother-in-law Donald
Trump Jr. As Mr. Kushner has consistently stated, he is eager to
cooperate and share what he knows.”
Mr.
Manafort, the former campaign chairman, also recently disclosed the
meeting, and Donald Trump Jr.’s role in organizing it, to congressional
investigators who had questions about his foreign contacts, according to
people familiar with the events. Neither Mr. Manafort nor Mr. Kushner
was required to disclose the content of the meeting.
A spokesman for Mr. Manafort declined to comment.
Since
the president took office, Donald Trump Jr. and his brother Eric have
assumed day-to-day control of their father’s real estate empire. Because
he does not serve in the administration and does not have a security
clearance, Donald Trump Jr. was not required to disclose his foreign
contacts.
Federal and congressional investigators have not publicly
asked for any records that would require his disclosure of Russian
contacts.
Ms.
Veselnitskaya is a formidable operator with a history of pushing the
Kremlin’s agenda. Most notable is her campaign against the Magnitsky
Act, which provoked a Cold War-style, tit-for-tat dispute with the
Kremlin when President Barack Obama signed it into law in 2012.
Under
the law, about 44 Russian citizens have been put on a list that allows
the United States to seize their American assets and deny them visas.
The United States asserts that many of them are connected to the fraud
exposed by Mr. Magnitsky, who after being jailed for more than a year
was found dead in his cell. A Russian human rights panel found that he
had been assaulted. To critics of Mr. Putin, Mr. Magnitsky, in death,
became a symbol of corruption and brutality in the Russian state.
An
infuriated Mr. Putin has called the law an “outrageous act,” and, in
addition to banning American adoptions, he compiled what became known as
an “anti-Magnitsky” blacklist of United States citizens.
Among
those blacklisted was Preet Bharara, then the United States attorney in
Manhattan, who led notable convictions of Russian arms and drug
dealers. Mr. Bharara was abruptly fired in March, after previously being asked to stay on by President Trump.
One
of Ms. Veselnitskaya’s clients is Denis Katsyv, the Russian owner of
Prevezon Holdings, an investment company based in Cyprus. He is the son
of Petr Katsyv, the vice president of the state-owned Russian Railways
and a former deputy governor of the Moscow region. In a civil forfeiture
case prosecuted by Mr. Bharara’s office, the Justice Department alleged
that Prevezon had helped launder money linked to the $230 million
corruption scheme exposed by Mr. Magnitsky by putting it in New York
real estate and bank accounts. Prevezon recently settled the case for $6
million without admitting wrongdoing.
Ms. Veselnitskaya was also deeply involved in the making of a film that disputes the widely accepted version
of Mr. Magnitsky’s life and death. In the film and in her statement,
she said the true culprit of the fraud was William F. Browder, an
American-born financier who hired Mr. Magnitsky to investigate the fraud
after three of his investment funds companies in Russia were seized.
Mr. Browder called the film a state-sponsored smear campaign.
“She’s not just some private lawyer,” Mr. Browder said of Ms. Veselnitskaya. “She is a tool of the Russian government.”
John O. Brennan, a former C.I.A. director, testified in May
that he had been concerned last year by Russian government efforts to
contact and manipulate members of Mr. Trump’s campaign. “Russian
intelligence agencies do not hesitate at all to use private companies
and Russian persons who are unaffiliated with the Russian government to
support their objectives,” he said.
Among those now under investigation is Michael T. Flynn, who was forced to resign as
Mr. Trump’s national security adviser after it became known that he had
falsely denied speaking to the Russian ambassador about sanctions
imposed by the Obama administration over the election hacking.
Congress
later discovered that Mr. Flynn had been paid more than $65,000 by
companies linked to Russia, and that he had failed to disclose those
payments when he renewed his security clearance and underwent an
additional background check to join the White House staff.
In May, the president fired the F.B.I. director,
James B. Comey, who days later provided information about a meeting
with Mr. Trump at the White House. According to Mr. Comey, the president
asked him to end the bureau’s investigation into Mr. Flynn; Mr. Trump
has repeatedly denied making such a request. Robert S. Mueller III, a
former F.B.I. director, was then appointed as special counsel.
The
status of Mr. Mueller’s investigation is not clear, but he has
assembled a veteran team of prosecutors and agents to dig into any
possible collusion.
Follow Jo Becker, Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman on Twitter.
Maggie Haberman, Sophia Kishkovsky and Eric Lipton contributed reporting. Kitty Bennett contributed research.
Randy Bryce, a Democrat challenging House Speaker Paul Ryan
(R-Wis.) for his seat, raised more than $430,000 in the first 12 days of
his campaign.
That money, according to Bryce's campaign, came
from more than 16,000 donations, amounting to an average contribution of
a little more than $25.
Bryce, a labor activist and iron worker who stumped for Sen. Bernie
Sanders (I-Vt.) during his 2016 presidential bid, launched his
congressional campaign last month.
"Just a few weeks into this
race, we have seen what can happen when you have the power of working
people on your side, and I am excited to work with everyone as we
continue this fight through next November," Bryce said in a statement.
Bryce
will face off against two other Democrats, political activist David
Yankovich and Janesville School Board member Cathy Myers, in the
district's Democratic primary early next year.
Any Democrat
challenging Ryan to represent Wisconsin's 1st District is likely to face
a tough election battle. The House Speaker has held the seat for nearly
20 years and is among the most well-connected and influential
Republicans in the country.
What's more, Speakers of the House are
rarely voted out by their constituents. The last to be turned out was
Tom Foley (D-Wash.), who lost his reelection bid in 1994.
Bryce
and other Democrats are hoping to capitalize on President Trump's poor
poll numbers to mount competitive races in Republican-held districts.
Let me know what you think. Address included at the top here, in case you want to use it for your own letter.
Phil Griffin
NBCUniversal
30 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY 10112
Dear Mr. Griffin –
Longtime loyal MSNBC viewer here. Demographically: female, white,
64, college grad, wife/mother, news/politics junkie, retired news
anchor/reporter, lifelong liberal Democrat, and I vote! Honored to be a
member of your loyal viewership that’s lifted MSNBC to #1 in cable news
in prime time, thanks to two true gems - Maddow and O’Donnell!
First: THANK YOU for relieving us of Greta Van Susteren. I wrote you
months ago to point out that such a signature Fox News name DOES NOT
BELONG on a network like MSNBC. Her ratings failure proved my point.
PLEASE understand your audience better. We’re home at MSNBC precisely
BECAUSE it does not feature programming or on-air talent like what you’d
find at Fox News. If we wanted that presentation, we’d already be
watching over there.
2) WHY did you force Megyn Kelly on NBC? The ratings already prove
that’s another fail. She reads ice-cold on camera. She does not, and
will not, appeal at any network whose audience isn’t predominately male,
old, white, conservative, and horny. Move her over to MSNBC at your
peril. There are far better and smarter ways to spend $17+ million/year.
3) WHY is the #1 BEST interviewer in cable news being squandered on
weekend mornings? Joy Reid deserves and has earned massively better
exposure, like a Monday-through-Friday show.
4) WHY do Ali Velshi and Stephanie Ruhle deserve so much
Monday-through-Friday exposure? There are THREE shows between those two
people alone. You really don’t have any other available talent? Are you
planning to change the name of MSNBC into the Velshi/Ruhle network?
5) WHY is MSNBC being turned into a whites-only club? You gave up a
Tamron Hall for the Alpha blonde from Fox News??? While the excellent
Craig Melvin is reduced to a mere fill-in, and the brilliant Joy Reid
languishes on the weekends?
6) WHY would you even consider the smug, arrogant, and obnoxious
Hugh Hewitt for ANY exposure on MSNBC??? WHY does ANY conservative merit
a show on MSNBC in the first place??? Do you just have a thing for a
bad fit? Do you buy your suits that way?
I represent your largest and most loyal constituency. WHY do you
make programming choices like you have? Unless you’re a mole for CNN (or
worse, Fox)?
PLEASE consider the constituency you have, which is THE reason why
MSNBC now reigns in cable news. If you continue to alienate us with your
bad hires and programming decisions, you can count on legions of us
finding new homes for our loyalty.
I was right about Greta. I’m right about this, too.
We
can scoff and sneer at those images of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie
on his beachfront imperium, or we can learn from them. As he took in the
sun, he doled out a lesson, the same one that Donald Trump is
delivering on a daily basis and in a grander fashion:
Beware
the politician who doesn’t give a damn for decorum. What he markets as
irreverence can be something coarser and more perverse.
It can lead to ruin. Christie’s approval rating from New Jersey voters was just 15 percent — the lowest for any current governor in the country and the worst in his state’s history
— before his weekend repose on what turned out to be quicksand. He
could sink into single digits after this. Negative integers aren’t
entirely out of the question.
I
hope Trump is watching, but I have my doubts. The Christie family’s
swimwear pageant isn’t the kind that he’s known to ogle. Plus, he surely
turns the channel when the visage on the screen isn’t his own.
The
stories of the disgraced New Jersey governor and the disgraceful
American president overlap.
Christie was “Trump before Trump,” Michael
Steele, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, told The
Washington Post’s Robert Costa in an article
published late Monday. “He does what he wants to do, and his success
can be traced to that. But there are consequences, of course, when you
work that way.”
Steele
could as easily have been talking about Trump, and when Costa referred
to the “defiance that has both lifted and hobbled Christie’s political
career,” he brought to mind Trump’s temperament and trajectory, whether
he meant to or not.
The
twins of tantrum, Christie and Trump had almost identical political
appeals. They mocked propriety. They broke rules. They assertively
peddled the impression that as happy as they were to make friends, they
were even happier to make enemies, because that meant that they were
fully in the fight.
In
an era of resentment and anger, many voters thrilled to the spectacle.
The problem with other politicians, these voters legitimately reasoned,
was too much indulgence of vested interests and too cowardly an
obeisance to convention. If you didn’t slaughter the sacred cows, you’d
never get to the tastiest filet.
But
Christie and Trump proved to be butchers of a more indiscriminate and
self-serving sort, and both demonstrated that there’s a short leap from
headstrong to hardheaded and from defiant to delusional. Bold
nonconformity can be the self-indulgent egotist’s drag.
Yes,
Christie called out fools in certain circumstances where they deserved
it and steamrolled opponents who stood in the way of some plans that
were wholly defensible. And he was seemingly immune to any of the
subsequent caricatures of him as a bully.
But he was also deaf to inevitable and entirely fair questions about his behavior. As Nick Corasaniti noted
in The Times this week, he was caught “using a state helicopter paid
for by taxpayers to attend his son’s baseball game.” He let King
Abdullah of Jordan treat him and his family to a $30,000 weekend in a posh hotel.
He
was blind to how he would come across when, in his speech at the 2012
Republican National Convention, he took such a gaudy star turn that the
party’s presidential nominee, Mitt Romney, was reduced to a cameo. Christie bucked traditional manners, all right. He bucked them all the way to jaw-dropping megalomania.
Make
no mistake: For all their flamboyant pugnaciousness, the Christies and
Trumps of the political world are chasing adulation every bit as much as
their peers are — maybe more so. They’re just taking a deliberately
muddier route, and if they don’t get there, they’re more likely to wear
their failure as a badge of honor and to dig in with a destructive
arrogance.
When
Christie was asked whether, despite a shutdown of the state government,
he would steal away to the manse on the shore that’s a perk of his
office, he unabashedly answered yes.
“That’s just the way it goes,” he said. “Run for governor, and you can have a residence.”
Translation: I’m governor and you’re not. Where have we heard a formulation like that before?
Trump
and Christie somehow decided that you have to govern by middle finger
if you want to avoid governing by pinkie finger. But there’s a digit in
between: a middle ground. It’s where real leadership and true
effectiveness lie.
Christie’s
disrepute and dashed ambitions confirm as much. So does the ongoing
insult of Trump’s presidency. They show that if you embrace a politician
who talks too frequently and proudly about not caring what anyone
thinks, you’ll wind up in the clutch of a politician whose last refuge
is not caring what anyone thinks. That’s a dangerous place to be.
A version of this op-ed appears in print on July 5, 2017, on Page A19 of the New York Times edition with the headline: Chris Christie’s Tutorial In Hubris. Today's Paper|Subscribe
ONE
of the essential, if often unstated, job requirements of an American
president is to provide stability, order and predictability in a world
that tends toward chaos, disarray and entropy. When our political
leaders ignore this — and certainly when they delight in disruption —
the consequences can be severe. Stability is easy to take for granted,
but impossible to live without.
Projecting
clear convictions is important for preventing adversaries from
misreading America’s intentions and will. Our allies also depend on our
predictability and reassuring steadiness. Their actions in trade and
economics, in alliances with other nations and in the military sphere
are often influenced by how much they believe they can rely on American
support.
Order
and stability in the executive branch are also linked to the health of
our system of government. Chaos in the West Wing can be crippling, as
White House aides — in a constant state of uncertainty, distrustful of
colleagues, fearful that they might be excoriated or fired — find it
nearly impossible to do their jobs. This emanates throughout the entire
federal government. Devoid of steadfast leadership, executive agencies
easily become dysfunctional themselves.
Worse
yet, if key pillars of our system, like our intelligence and law
enforcement agencies, are denigrated by the president, they can be
destabilized, and Americans’ trust in them can be undermined. Without a
reliable chief executive, Congress, an inherently unruly institution,
will also find it difficult to do its job, since our constitutional
system relies on its various branches to constantly engage with one
another in governing.
But
that’s hardly the whole of it. Particularly in this social media era, a
president who thrives on disruption and chaos is impossible to escape.
Every shocking statement and act is given intense coverage. As a result,
the president is omnipresent, the subject of endless coast-to-coast
conversations among family and friends, never far from our thoughts. As
Andrew Sullivan has observed,
“A free society means being free of those who rule over you — to do the
things you care about, your passions, your pastimes, your loves — to
exult in that blessed space where politics doesn’t intervene.”
A
presidency characterized by pandemonium invades and infects that space,
leaving people unsettled and on edge. And this, in turn, leads to
greater polarization, to feelings of alienation and anger, to unrest and
even to violence.
A
spirit of instability in government will cause Americans to lose
confidence in our public institutions. When citizens lose that basic
faith in their government, it leads to corrosive cynicism and the
acceptance of conspiracy theories. Movements and individuals once
considered fringe become mainstream, while previously responsible
figures decamp to the fever swamps. One result is that the informal and
unwritten rules of political and human interaction, which are at the
core of civilization, are undone. There is such a thing as democratic
etiquette; when it is lost, the common assumptions that allow for
compromise and progress erode.
In short, chaotic leadership can inflict real trauma on political and civic culture.
All
of which brings us to Donald Trump, arguably the most disruptive and
transgressive president in American history. He thrives on creating
turbulence in every conceivable sphere. The blast radius of his
tumultuous acts and chaotic temperament is vast.
Mr.
Trump acts as if order is easy to achieve and needs to be overturned
while disruption and disorder are what we need. But the opposite is
true. “Rage and frenzy will pull down more in half an hour,” Edmund
Burke wrote, “than prudence, deliberation and foresight can build up in a
hundred years.”
Mr.
Trump and his supporters don’t seem to agree, or don’t seem to care.
And here’s the truly worrisome thing: The disruption is only going to
increase, both because he’s facing criticism that seems to trigger him
psychologically and because his theory of management involves the
cultivation of chaos. He has shown throughout his life a defiant refusal
to be disciplined. His disordered personality thrives on mayhem and
upheaval, on vicious personal attacks and ceaseless conflict. As we’re
seeing, his malignant character is emboldening some, while it’s causing
others — the Republican leadership comes to mind — to briefly speak out
(at best) before returning to silence and acquiescence. The effect on
the rest of us? We cannot help losing our capacity to be shocked and
alarmed.
We
have as president the closest thing to a nihilist in our history — a
man who believes in little or nothing, who has the impulse to burn down
rather than to build up. When the president eventually faces a genuine
crisis, his ignorance and inflammatory instincts will make everything
worse.
Republican
voters and politicians rallied around Mr. Trump in 2016, believing he
was anti-establishment when in fact he was anti-order. He turns out to
be an institutional arsonist. It is an irony of American history that
the Republican Party, which has historically valued order and
institutions, has become the conduit of chaos.
Peter Wehner, a senior
fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, served in the previous
three Republican administrations and is a contributing opinion writer.
A version of this op-ed appears in print on July 4, 2017, on Page A21 of the New York edition with the headline: Our Disrupted Republic. Today's Paper|Subscribe
Apparently there are still some that don't understand what the Green Party's purpose is. So let me explain.
There are two reasons, only two, that people run for federal office
under the Green Party. The first is personal ego and enrichment (and
free trips to Russia). The second is to help Republicans defeat
Democrats. That's it.
It never has anything to do with policy. Or with giving voters
another "choice". The Green Party isn't a political choice any more
than a lottery ticket is a retirement plan. And the people selling you
the Green Party know that, just like the ones selling you lottery
tickets do. Actually that's not fair to lottery tickets. Some people
have won the lottery. But in 20+ years of trying, no Green has come
anywhere close to winning a house or senate seat or a single electoral
vote. Blowing your money on lottery tickets is more rational than
blowing your vote on the Green Party.
With Jill Stein, if she actually believed any of her own bullshit,
she would be utterly devastated by the election. First, she gets about
1% of the vote. Second, the guy who wins proceeds to do the opposite of
everything in the Green Platform. The Greens like to bash Dems about
how bad the Dems did, but the Dems got 40 times as many votes in
November. Also the Dems hold infinitely more congressional seats than
the Green party ever has and ever will.
But, facing this epic defeat and humiliating showing, Stein is
(still) out bragging about the "critical role" she played. This is a
straightforward admission that her objective all along was not President
Stein, but President Trump, and that she feels her siphoning away votes
from Dems and convincing gullible alt-leftists that Trump was the
lesser evil was critical to Trump's victory.
She wanted Trump to win, she helped Trump win, and now she's happy about it. She's a Trump ally, period.
Facing growing opposition from members of his own party, Senate Majority
Leader Mitch McConnell has delayed the vote on the Republicans'
healthcare bill until after Congress's 4 July recess.
The schedule change is another setback for Donald Trump's effort to
repeal and replace the Affordable Care
Act – which he has repeatedly referred to as "dead".
Mr Trump told reporters on Wednesday that "healthcare is working along
very well...we're gonna have a big surprise. We have a great healthcare
package."
CBO says Senate bill will cause 22m Americans to lose health insurance.
When asked what that meant, Mr Trump responded "we're going to have a
great, great surprise."
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is reportedly trying to revise
the healthcare bill by Friday.
Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams abruptly pleaded guilty
Thursday, nearly two weeks into a federal bribery trial that dragged
embarrassing details about his messy personal life and financial
struggles out into open court.
Williams will resign as the city’s top prosecutor as part of a deal
under which he pleaded guilty to one count related to accepting a bribe
from Bucks County businessman Mohammad Ali.
Asked by U.S. District Judge Paul S. Diamond whether he intended to
follow through with his resignation, Williams choked up and answered,
“humbly, sincerely and effective immediately.”
Diamond said he wanted Williams’ resignation letter couriered to Mayor Kenny’s office as soon as the hearing was over.
Williams remained somber looking throughout the guilty plea hearing.
“I’m just very sorry for all of this, your honor,” he said.
At a followup hearing to determine whether Williams should be jailed
immediately, defense attorney Thomas F. Burke argued the disgraced
prosecutor was not a flight risk.
“He has no means as the court can see to go anywhere. He has no
support. He’s deeply in debt and he doesn’t even have a car,” Burke
said.
Taking the witness stand to plead with a judge not to send him
directly to prison before sentencing, tears welled up in Williams’ eyes
while discussing his daughters.
He acknowledged he was broke, saying he had “probably about $150 to $200” in his bank account.
In addition to accepting that he could face a maximum 5 year term
when he is sentenced Oct. 24, Williams agreed to forfeit $64,878.22
While the 28 remaining counts against Williams were dismissed, he
“admits that he committed all of the conduct in those 29 counts,”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Zauzmer said.
“Williams took benefits repeatedly from Mr. Ali knowing that those
benefits were offered – at least in part – to influence him to take
official actions,” said Zauzmer.
Williams notified prosecutors he wanted to take the plea deal at 1 a.m.Thursday, said Zauzmer.
Sources close to the case say the deal is similar to one Williams was
offered – and turned down – one day before his indictment earlier this
year on 29 corruption-related counts including bribery, extortion and
honest services fraud.
Prior to his admission, prosecutors and Williams’ defense lawyers –
Thomas F. Burke and Trevan Borum – spent more than an hour huddled in
quiet conversation in the courtroom, while the district attorney was
nowhere to be seen.
His decision came after weeks of damaging testimony in which
government witnesses characterized him a shameless beggar who repeatedly
turned to the money of others to fund a lifestyle he couldn’t afford.
Two wealthy businessmen testified that they had showered the district
attorney with gifts of all-expenses-paid travel, luxury goods and even
cash in anticipation of the legal favors they might need from him.
And prosecutors had alleged that Williams delivered for them –
writing letters to throw his weight into their legal problems and
promising in one instance to intervene in a drug case brought by his
office.
Additionally, Williams was accused of misspending thousands of
dollars from his campaign fund on memberships to exclusive Philadelphia
social clubs, misusing city vehicles as if they were his own and
misappropriating money intended to fund his mother’s nursing home care.
Read a recap of Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams’ trial with our day-by-day updates and learn more with our explainer on everything you need to know about the case.
