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Three Things: The Reanimation of Nixon Among Them

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Busy, busy week. Load up on the caffeine or stimulant of choice and let’s get cracking.

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At 9:00 pm EST Saturday evening I posted:

Any time now I expect someone in the administration will not only say openly that Trump authorized the transition team to discuss dropping the sanctions, but that it isn’t illegal when the president does it.

This morning about 6:00 am EST in Axios:

John Dowd, President Trump’s outside lawyer, outlined to me a new and highly controversial defense/theory in the Russia probe: A president cannot be guilty of obstruction of justice.

The “President cannot obstruct justice because he is the chief law enforcement officer under [the Constitution’s Article II] and has every right to express his view of any case,” Dowd claims. (emphasis mine)

It’s like they dug up Nixon and reanimated him with a chatbot. No wonder the White House is infested with mice and insects.

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The Tax Scam Bill isn’t yet legislation; we still have at least a couple chances to kill it. It will be up for a vote in the House today, under a Motion to Go to Conference. Call your representatives well before 6:00 p.m. and ask them to vote NO on going to conference. This bill should simply not proceed any further.

Did you know those GOP jackasses in the Senate actually added a tax on retail gift cards? If your employer gives your a grocery store gift card to buy a holiday ham, you could be taxed on it. If you tip your child’s caregiver with a retail gift card they could be taxed on it. What is wrong with these Dickensian jerks?

I’m not the only one who thought of Scrooge when Old Man Orrin Hatch complained about poor children who relied on CHIP health care, saying ““I have a rough time wanting to spend billions and billions and trillions of dollars to help people who won’t help themselves – won’t lift a finger – and expect the federal government to do everything.”

By the way, it was Hatch who added the retail gift card tax. Leave no meal to a poor child untaxed.

Need a little help with that phone call to your rep? See @Celeste_pewter — she’s got you covered.

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Folks in Nevada need to take a cluestick to Senator Dean Heller after his execrable public townhall this weekend. His security goon squad first threatened a Stage 4 cancer patient, then threw her out along with an elderly woman with a broken arm. At least 10 attendees were ejected.

There’s video.

There are tweets.

There’s no escaping how bad the optics were; Heller wants this Tax Scam Bill for his oligarchic sponsors so badly he’ll step on the sick, injured, and elderly to get it. And then Heller doubled down on his monstrousness when asked if he’d read the Tax Scam Bill, tweeting, “Read it? I helped write it!”

It’s on you, Heller. This is your legacy. You said it, you wrote it.

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Our celebration of emptywheel’s 10th anniversary continues. Watch for a post by Jim White midday today; Marcy is working on a super-sized post on all things surveillance. Stay tuned!

And if you can pitch in some rodent chow to keep the site’s squirrels on their treadmill, we’d appreciate it greatly.

This is an open thread — your off-topic comments are welcomed in this thread. Let’s kick some ass and take names this Monday morning.

Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans Have No Excuse for Not Doing Something about White Supremacist Violence

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Last I checked, the following Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee have criticized white supremacists, violence, and/or Trump’s appeasement of the former in Charlotteville.

Chuck Grassley, Senate Judiciary Committee Chair:

What ” WhiteNatjonalist” are doing in Charlottesville is homegrown terrorism that can’t be tolerated anymore that what Any extremist does

Orrin Hatch, President pro tempore:

We should call evil by its name. My brother didn’t give his life fighting Hitler for Nazi ideas to go unchallenged here at home

Their tiki torches may be fueled by citronella but their ideas are fueled by hate, & have no place in civil society.

Lindsey Graham, Chair of Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism:

The South Carolina Republican called on Attorney General Jeff Sessions to go to Virginia and “personally handle domestic terrorism investigations” and alleged civil rights abuses by the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis “who took this young woman’s life.”

Graham was referring to Heather Heyer, 32, who was killed when a car ran into a group of counter-protesters Saturday in Charlottesville where white supremacists and neo-Nazis were holding a “Unite the Right” rally. Many more were injured.

Graham additionally proposed the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security form a task force on the threat of white supremacist groups and report back to Congress with potential solutions for cracking down on them.

“This is an opportunity for the Trump administration to come down like a hammer on white supremacists,” Graham said during a news conference in his Columbia office. “And I hope they do.”

John Cornyn, Chair of Subcommittee on Border Security and Immigration and Senate Majority Whip:

No place for the bigotry & hate-filled violence in . These actions should be condemned in the strongest possible terms.

And (update, from August 17):

We’ve all been shocked that the unhealed wounds of the nation’s racial divide flared up in such a surprising and disturbing way,” Cornyn said in a Chronicle interview. “I think the president had an opportunity to send a message that would unite America behind our common resolve to heal those wounds and unite our country, and unfortunately I don’t think he did that.”

Ted Cruz, Chair of Subcommittee on the Constitution, who while Chair of the Subcommittee on Oversight, Agency Action, Federal Rights and Federal Courts, had a hearing on the importance of naming Islamic terrorism Islamic terrorism:

It’s tragic and heartbreaking to see hatred and racism once again mar our great Nation with bloodshed. Heidi’s and my prayers are with the loved ones of those killed and injured in the ongoing violence in Charlottesville. The First Amendment protects the rights of all Americans to speak their minds peaceably, but violence, brutality, and murder have no place in a civilized society.

The Nazis, the KKK, and white supremacists are repulsive and evil, and all of us have a moral obligation to speak out against the lies, bigotry, anti-Semitism, and hatred that they propagate. Having watched the horrifying video of the car deliberately crashing into a crowd of protesters, I urge the Department of Justice to immediately investigate and prosecute this grotesque act of domestic terrorism.

These bigots want to tear our country apart, but they will fail. America is far better than this. Our Nation was built on fundamental truths, none more central than the proposition ‘that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.’

But,

“One of the things we’re seeing going on is the media and the Democrats are, to the surprise of no one, demagoguing this issue and using it for political advantage,” Cruz said. “So, in the media’s telling, they want to tar and feather any Republican, any conservative, and paint us all as these crazy racist nutbags.”

Jeff Flake, Chair of Subcommittee Privacy, Technology, and the Law):

We can’t accept excuses for white supremacy & acts of domestic terrorism. We must condemn. Period.

Flake, more generally:

Under our Constitution, there simply are not that many people who are in a position to do something about an executive branch in chaos. As the first branch of government (Article I), the Congress was designed expressly to assert itself at just such moments. It is what we talk about when we talk about “checks and balances.” Too often, we observe the unfolding drama along with the rest of the country, passively, all but saying, “Someone should do something!” without seeming to realize that that someone is us. And so, that unnerving silence in the face of an erratic executive branch is an abdication, and those in positions of leadership bear particular responsibility.

Ben Sasse, Chair of Subcommittee on Oversight, Agency Action, Federal Rights and Federal Courts:

“I refuse to accept that mankind is tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism… Unconditional love will have the final word” -MLK

“My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of earth.” -Abraham Lincoln

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that ALL men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator with…unalienable Rights”

These people are utterly revolting–and have no understanding of America. This creedal nation explicitly rejects “blood & soil” nationalism.

John Kennedy:

Violence and hatred are never the answer.

There are 20 members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, 11 Republicans and 9 Democrats. Of the Republicans, eight have made statements at least condemning the violence in Charlottesville, even if Cornyn and Kennedy, among others, are obviously issuing empty condemnations.

If even two of the Republicans who’ve made statements condemning the right wing violence in Charlottesville are serious — or more specifically serious about actions that DOJ must take, as in comments that both Lindsey and Cruz made — then they’ve got the numbers to make it happen.

They’ve got the numbers to force DOJ to refund the Life After Hate program, which white supremacist Seb Gorka’s wife Katherine defunded. They’ve got the numbers to ask Jefferson Beauregard Sessions whether his DOJ will treat this act of terrorism as terrorism. They’ve got the numbers to ask whether FBI ignored warnings of surging white supremacism.

Republicans often complain that there’s nothing they can do about their unmanageable President. This is one case where that’s patently false.

How ABC Investigative Reports Turn into NSA Briefings to the SSCI

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I’m still working through the NSA reports to the Intelligence Oversight Board posted right before Christmas. Here’s a detail (in the Q4 2008 report) I find interesting:

Screen shot 2014-12-31 at 11.34.46 AM

The Shadow Factory was published on October 14, 2008.

8 days before that, the NSA notified the Senate Intelligence Committee (just the SSCI at first?!?!) about an impending (it aired on October 9) Brian Ross interview with whistleblowers from James Bamford‘s book on ABC.

The interview included a clip from Michael Hayden’s 2006 CIA Director confirmation hearing before SSCI in which he claimed Americans’ private conversations would never be intercepted.

In testimony before Congress, then-NSA director Gen. Michael Hayden, now director of the CIA, said private conversations of Americans are not intercepted.

“It’s not for the heck of it. We are narrowly focused and drilled on protecting the nation against al Qaeda and those organizations who are affiliated with it,” Gen. Hayden testified.

He was asked by Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), “Are you just doing this because you just want to pry into people’s lives?”

“No, sir,” General Hayden replied.

It also included flaccid responses from both then CIA Director Hayden and his spokesperson Mark Mansfield (who was actively involved in pre-emptive leaks to the press on torture) and Keith Alexander (who was Deputy Chief of Staff for Army Intelligence at the time of the violations).

In addition, the ABC report included a quote from then SSCI Chair Jello Jay Rockefeller (who, of course, would have found out about it from the agency days before the report).

The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), called the allegations “extremely disturbing” and said the committee has begun its own examination.

“We have requested all relevant information from the Bush Administration,” Rockefeller said Thursday. “The Committee will take whatever action is necessary.”

It also made clear that Orrin Hatch had been the one to pitch the softball to Hayden in 2006, about which — it is abundantly clear — he lied about.

Finally, it includes an anonymous quote from a “US intelligence official” making it clear that all US government employees might be spied on, contrary to Hayden’s public claims during the confirmation process.

Asked for comment about the ABC News report and accounts of intimate and private phone calls of military officers being passed around, a US intelligence official said “all employees of the US government” should expect that their telephone conversations could be monitored as part of an effort to safeguard security and “information assurance.”

There appear to be several things going on with this.

First, this is ABC News, one of the outlets notorious for laundering intelligence claims; indeed, it is possible this is a limited hangout, an attempt to preempt one of the most alarming revelations in Bamford’s book. While the report doesn’t say it explicitly, it implies the claims of whistleblowers Kinne and Faulk prove Hayden to have lied in his CIA Director confirmation hearing, in response to the softball thrown by Hatch. In any case, the briefing about this disclosure appears to have gone exclusively to SSCI (with follow-up briefings to both intelligence oversight committees afterwards), the committee that got the apparently false testimony (and not for the last time, from Michael Hayden!). But by briefing the Committee, it also gave Jello Jay an opportunity — and probably, explicit permission — to sound all stern about a practice the Committee likely knew about.

In the IOB Report, this is portrayed as a model of oversight. But from what we know about the parties involved, it is just as likely to have been an effort at press management.

Update: The 3Q 2009 report describes the outcome of the report. It found “no targeting of US persons.”

How Dare the President Protect Consumers!?!?!

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We’ll have to come back to the issue of why President Obama decided to use his recess authority to appoint Richard Cordray to head the Consumer Financial Protection Board but not Dawn Johnsen or Elizabeth Warren. But for now, I’d like to collect the wails of Republican outrage.

Shorter John Boehner: Protecting consumers from rapacious banks is an extraordinary and entirely unprecedented power grab! Protecting consumers is bad for the economy!

Shorter Mitch McConnell: Obama has arrogantly circumvented the American people by protecting the American people!

Shorter Orrin Hatch: It is a very grave decision by this heavy-handed, autocratic White House to appoint someone to protect consumers. The American people deserve to be treated with more respect than this White House is affording them by protecting them from the banks!

Shorter Spencer Bachus: Appointing a director to the CFPB will cripple it for years. The greatest threat to our economy right now is uncertainty, and by protecting consumers the President just guaranteed there will be even more uncertainty.

 

Eric Holder: Torture Inquiries, Ted Stevens Prosecutorial Misconduct Investigations Almost Finished

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Eric Holder is testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee right now. [watch here]

In response to two questions from Orrin Hatch, Eric Holder revealed that the John Durham investigation into torture and the Office of Public Responsibility investigation into the prosecutorial misconduct in the Ted Stevens case are both nearing their end.

While none of the Senators asked for Holder to make the results in the torture investigation public, Hatch, Pat Leahy, and DiFi all asked for the Stevens report to be made public.

Let me predict for them what that report will say: While problematic, the behavior of DOJ’s own does not merit punishment. Love, David Margolis.

Republicans Prepare to Kill Jobs; Democrats Angle for Majority Leader

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Brian Beutler reports that the Republicans are prepping to make sure no additional support for jobs gets passed next week.

Senate Democrats want to vote on the first installment of a jobs package as early as Monday, amping up the pressure on Republicans to get aboard. But for the moment, they’re not biting.

“We’ll have a vote on a jobs bill on Monday,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said at a press conference today.

There’s just one wrinkle: According to the Senate’s top vote counter, there is currently no Republican support for the proposal Democrats are putting forth–and with Scott Brown to be seated today as the 41st Republican Senator, they’ll need at least one member of the minority to come aboard.

“You need two to tango. And you need Republicans for bipartisanship,” said Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL).

Now, there’s an interesting subplot to this.

Current Majority Leader (and very endangered incumbent) Harry Reid says no Republicans currently support the bill.

Majority Whip and second-most senior Democratic Senator Dick Durbin suggests there are no Republicans supporting the bill.

Meanwhile, Vice Chairman and third-most senior Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer has been working on a deal–at least for tax credits for businesses that create jobs–with Republican Orrin Hatch.

Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) released a plan Wednesday to give tax breaks to companies that add new workers, a proposal that is likely to become a key component of the jobs bill Senate Democratic leaders are hoping to unveil this week.President Obama has called for employers to receive a $5,000 tax credit for each new employee they hire, while other lawmakers have floated different proposals for a job tax credit. The Schumer-Hatch plan, which would allow companies to avoid paying Social Security taxes for the duration of 2010 on each unemployed worker they hire, appears to have the most momentum in the Senate.

“Our payroll tax cut is a simple, cost-effective and bipartisan solution. It will help put more Americans to work right away,” Schumer said in a press release. Hatch added: “While Senator Schumer and I disagree on most issues, we’ve been able to come together on an affordable, effective and targeted proposal to get the American people back to work.”

Democratic leaders emphasize that they haven’t yet settled on an exact combination of items that will go in the Senate’s jobs package, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) suggested Wednesday that he was taking a close look at the Schumer-Hatch bill.

Mind you, the Schumer-Hatch deal only deals with one aspect of the deal, not with things like COBRA subsidy extension. And I’ve got concerns about any plan that defunds social security.

Nevertheless, it seems that the drama over whether Democrats will squabble themselves into irrelevance–and/or whether Republicans will sacrifice the interests of their constituents for partisan gain is playing out large on the jobs front.

Whatever is happening, it is preventing Americans from getting back to work.

Orrin Hatch to Support Holder Yet the Delay and Kabuki Continues

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Understand–this report that Orrin Hatch will support Eric Holder is not news.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (Utah), who chaired the panel for a decade beginning in 1995, told The Hill that he will support Holder.

I intend to,” said Hatch.

His decision could undermine GOP efforts to stall or block the confirmation. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) said Friday that Holder would be the only Cabinet nominee to face a tough confirmation fight.

Hatch said that Republicans should try to strike a cooperative tone with President-elect Obama during the first days of his administration.

“I start with the premise that the president deserves the benefit of the doubt. I don’t think politics should be played with the attorney general,” he said.

“I like Barack Obama and want to help him if I can.”

Hatch said he would support Holder way back in November. Which, even though the Senate Judiciary Committee is the committee most unfavorably positioned until the Senate reorganization (unlike SJC, most other committees have lost Republicans but not Democrats, giving us a bigger majority than we had last Congress), still means Holder’s nomination will pass the committee and the full Senate, even if by a one vote margin.

Now, maybe Arlen "Scottish Haggis" Specter will dig up something during Holder’s nomination hearing that will pick off Democratic support; but seeing as how he’s more interested in Elian Gonzales and less interested in Chiquita, I don’t see that happening.

Which means the drama surrounding the Holder nomination from the right is–and has always been–kabuki. 

Kabuki, an attempt to dredge up Republican greatest hits on Clinton, and–I suggest again–delay.

There are a number of reasons why they’d want to delay Holder’s confirmation and not–say–that of Hilda Solis, who will champion the EFCA legislation that will be an early focus in Congress. You see, EFCA will pass or fail regardless of whether Solis has been approved or not. EFCA’s passage comes down to the actions of a few conservative Dems and a few moderate Republicans. Republicans oppose EFCA, but they’re not going to delay or defeat it by delaying Solis’ confirmation.

But there are things that Republicans can delay or prevent by delaying Holder’s confirmation, first and foremost, any legal prosecution of George Bush for reauthorizing warrantless wiretaps over the objections of the acting Attorney General. Read more →

SJC Mukasey Hearing, Part Two

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DiFi: I’ve been reading your letter. For the first time you disclose that waterboarding is not part of the approved methods. You disclose the method by which a new method is approved. Was this the case in the past?

MM: I’m not authorized to say what happened in the past.

DiFi: It is widely alleged that at least three people were waterboarded. Did the President approve that?

MM: I can’t speak to that.

DiFi: Both MCA and Detainee Treatment act, loophole is CIA. I proposed amendment that would put the entire govt under Field Manual. Accepted by House and Senate. If it comes to floor and remains in bill, once and for all, waterboarding be prohibited by govt.

MM: CIA director becomes aware, however he becomes aware of a technique, describes circumstances by which it’ll be done, to me, I consult with whomever I have to consult with, then it goes to President.

DiFi: I know how they say it works, I don’t know if it’s legal or not.

DiFi: What about contractors?

MM: I don’t know?

DiFi: I’d like to know if it’s legal to contract out enhanced techniques to a contractor.

DiFi: Why hasn’t DOJ responded to Scott Bloch?

MM: There are investigations going on by OPR and OIG into those subjects. A response has gone out to Mr. Bloch is in process.

DiFi: After receiving no cooperation for four months, Mr. Bradbury reiterates the request that we step down. I assume there is some conflict with this.

[So this is coming from OLC? Wow]

MM: Bloch is in an office that is not within the department. I will see to it that he gets a response.

DiFi: Will you copy us on that?

Kyl: Thanks for writing us a letter. Can you send up a list of all vacant slots that this committee needs to act on? [plus lots of stuff about putting brown people in jail]

Leahy: In addition to the list of empty spots, will you also send a list of those spots for which we have not nominee, and a list of letters to which DOJ has not yet responded.

Feingold: Thanks for call regarding treatment of GLBT employees at department. You appear to be embracing the Administration’s position without judgment. You say you don’t want to say whether waterboarding is torture, bc it would tip off our enemies. We have a system of public laws. Your statement suggests you’d not prosecute a govt official for violating such laws. Read more →

Why Would Orrin Hatch Need a Defense Fund?

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Via CREW, CQ has an article on the Members of Congress who have legal defense funds. Most of those listed make sense–there have active legal battles that they’re going to have to pay for:

Jim McDermott: John Boehner’s successful lawsuit holding McDermott responsible for leaking a secretly taped conversation among Republican Congressmen

John Kerry: His ongoing battle with the Swiftboaters

Corrine Brown, FL: (This one I don’t know)

William Jefferson: the $90,000 in the freezer

John Doolittle: Abramoff

Phil English: Lawsuits and other potential legal problems

Tom Feeney: Abramoff

And then there are Orrin Hatch and Brad Miller, both of whom have legal funds that haven’t accepted any donations this year (though Miller’s has paid out some money to a law firm).

Now, Orrin’s legal defense fund looks like it has long been inactive. It appears he has it just sitting there, in case he’ll ever need it. So why is he keeping it around?

And while we’re asking questions, you think Charlie Rangel might explain why he donated $10,000 to Jefferson’s legal defense fund? Or, even more curiously, why Orrin Hatch donated $10,000 to Doolittle? Is this just African-American and Mormon solidarity, respectively?