Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

The Senate Intelligence Committee has just released two new reports on Russian disinformation, revealing in unusually rich detail the scope of Russia’s interference not only in the 2016 U.S. presidential election but also in our day-to-day democratic dialogue since. One report was prepared by https://www.newknowledge.com/disinforeport, and the other by https://comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk/research/ira-political-polarization/.

Each report’s specific findings are well worth close study by anyone concerned with foreign interference in U.S. elections and our broader democratic processes; so is an excellent summary offered by New Knowledge’s cofounder Renée DiResta. (Full disclosure: Renée and I both serve on the editorial board of Protego Press.)

But the most extraordinary aspect of these vital new reports transcends any particular finding. It’s the institutional origins of these reports. It took a congressional committee commissioning reports from outside entities (private and academic) to produce, almost two full years into the Trump presidency, the fullest public accounting the American public has received of the serious new threat our democracy faces. That’s downright remarkable.

It’s also inexcusable insofar as the executive branch is concerned. At the most basic level, the American people deserve to know what happened in the 2016 election, what’s been happening since, and what the new threats are that we’re facing. What’s more, the spread of disinformation is the rare type of national security threat for which informing the public actually can diminish the threat: if Americans know what to look out for online and what not to accept at face value on social media, the power of disinformation deliberately spread by hostile actors is reduced. (There’s some comparison to be made here to terrorism, whose second-order effects can be mitigated by public education and cultivated resilience; but the comparison is imperfect, as there’s still a direct lethality to acts of terrorism.)

In France, schools are teaching students how to spot disinformation on social media; but, here in the United States, the President periodically refuses even to acknowledge the threat. Indeed, he often aggravates the threat, by amplifying and disseminating disinformation; but that’s not my focus here. Rather, as we sift through these reports’ extensive findings, we must remind ourselves that we’re now set to enter the third year of flat-footedness on the part of this administration when it comes to addressing disinformation spread by foreign adversaries. In that sense, the very issuance of these reports and the novelty of what they still reveal serve as an indictment of the White House’s persistent inaction.

And, while it’s not clear if technology companies would share with the executive branch exactly the same data provided to Congress for purposes of producing these reports, surely the executive branch could produce something comprehensive and informative based on the data to which it does (or could) have access.

The Trump administration’s shortcoming on this issue is no mere oversight on the President’s part, of course. Trump seems to have made clear to those around him that even acknowledging the threat posed by foreign election interference is unacceptable, lest doing so calls into question the validity of Trump’s own victory in 2016. A few months ago, National Security Advisor John Bolton claimed that “the President has taken command of this issue;” but we’ve seen precious little from Trump’s executive branch to substantiate that before or after.

That sin of omission makes it all the more important that the Senate Intelligence Committee has taken a bipartisan approach to investigating this particular set of issues and now has provided all of us with these two compelling, if disturbing, new reports. When a President refuses to protect and defend our nation from a new type of national security threat, others must. The new reports make for astonishing reading—but, at the end of the day, what’s most astonishing of all is that we haven’t seen this before from our own executive branch.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Alleging misconduct by law enforcement has long been a standard defense tactic, especially in white-collar cases, but the political cast of deep-state-style claims is new, said Samuel Buell, a Duke law professor and former federal prosecutor. He said it seemed to be aimed at getting conservative media attention in the hope that Mr. Trump will come across their case and intervene.

“From the practitioner standpoint, this is not going to appeal to the judge,” he said. “You are playing to a different audience — the one with the pardon power.”

Indeed, Mr. Lovinger has become a cause célèbre on the right. His lawyer has appeared on Fox Business and Sean Hannity’s radio program to argue that bureaucrats have weaponized the security clearance process against government workers who are Trump supporters. Conservative media outlets like The Daily Caller, The Washington Free Beacon and Breitbart regularly cover him.

The case traces to a September 2016 Hawaiian Airlines flight from New York to Honolulu during which Mr. Lovinger reviewed a document with labels showing it contained highly classified information. Unbeknown to Mr. Lovinger, he was sitting next to a naval intelligence officer. When the plane landed, the officer immediately reported the security breach.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

There is an inherently parental role to being president of the United States. The person holding that office is supposed to know more than we do about dangers facing the country and the world, and is entrusted with making the appropriate decisions to keep us safe and secure. The president is supposed to keep us from falling. What happens when the president is the biggest child in the room — any room? It upends the natural order of things as surely as if a child’s parents started throwing tantrums and talking like a second-grader.

I’m not sure the country has fully comprehended the damage being done by a president who misbehaves so frequently, it’s a news story when he doesn’t. Globally, the United States has lost its power, its aura of seriousness and decisiveness that once made autocrats hesitate before crossing us. Now we are a country that can’t seem tohttps://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/trump-granting-mbs-a-pass-on-khashoggis-murder-gives-dictators-license-to-oppress/2018/11/23/8ec9f64e-ed94-11e8-8679-934a2b33be52_story.html?utm_term=.93ffa7d93645 (stand up to a ruler who orders the murder) and dismemberment of a dissident who was a legal U.S. resident or call out Russia’s intrusion into America’s democratic process. Children know how to scream and sulk; they don’t know how to take control and restore order. They don’t know how to plot out a responsible position and then act on it. A child occupies the White House, and the world knows it.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

For more than a year, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office has questioned witnesses broadly about their interactions with well-connected Russians. But three sources familiar with Mueller’s probe told The Daily Beast that his team is now zeroing in on Trumpworld figures who may have attempted to shape the administration's foreign policy by offering to ease U.S. sanctions on Russia.

The Special Counsel’s Office is preparing court filings that are expected to detail Trump associates’ conversations about sanctions relief—and spell out how those offers and counter-proposals were characterized to top figures on the campaign and in the administration, those same sources said.

The new details would not only bookend a multi-year investigation by federal prosecutors into whether and how Trump associates seriously considered requests by Moscow to ease the financial measures. The new court filings could also answer a central question of the so-called “Russia investigation”: What specific policy changes, if any, did the Kremlin hope to get in return from its political machinations?

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

For more than a year, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office has questioned witnesses broadly about their interactions with well-connected Russians. But three sources familiar with Mueller’s probe told The Daily Beast that his team is now zeroing in on Trumpworld figures who may have attempted to shape the administration's foreign policy by offering to ease U.S. sanctions on Russia.

The Special Counsel’s Office is preparing court filings that are expected to detail Trump associates’ conversations about sanctions relief—and spell out how those offers and counter-proposals were characterized to top figures on the campaign and in the administration, those same sources said.

The new details would not only bookend a multi-year investigation by federal prosecutors into whether and how Trump associates seriously considered requests by Moscow to ease the financial measures. The new court filings could also answer a central question of the so-called “Russia investigation”: What specific policy changes, if any, did the Kremlin hope to get in return from its political machinations?

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]