Flynn Flies

Michael Flynn quit as national security adviser. Rick Klein reports at ABC:

Flynn’s abrupt departure reveals a national-security team in disarray at a time when President Trump is being tested by friends and foes alike. With demands for answers and investigations only increasing, the story goes significantly deeper than questions of who is in charge and who knew what, and when.

The circumstances of Flynn’s exit raise the most delicate and dark brand of questions for the White House he wound up serving only briefly. They revive questions of alleged Russian interference with the election, demanding inquiries that could lead to far more serious revelations about the president and his inner circle.

Sen. John McCain, who is rapidly emerging as the most influential counterweight to the administration on Capitol Hill, Tuesday said there is “significant disarray” in the national-security realm. He also made the connection that has Washington fixated on a series of bigger pictures.

“General Flynn’s resignation also raises further questions about the Trump administration’s intentions toward Vladimir Putin’s Russia,” McCain, R-Ariz., said.

Adam Entous, Ellen Nakashima and Philip Rucker report at The Washington Post:

The acting attorney general informed the Trump White House late last month that she believed Michael Flynn had misled senior administration officials about the nature of his communications with the Russian ambassador to the United States, and warned that the national security adviser was potentially vulnerable to Russian blackmail, current and former U.S. officials said.

The message, delivered by Sally Q. Yates and a senior career national security official to the White House counsel, was prompted by concerns that ­Flynn, when asked about his calls and texts with the ­Russian diplomat, had told Vice ­President-elect Mike Pence and others that he had not discussed the Obama administration sanctions on Russia for its interference in the 2016 election, the officials said. It is unclear what the White House counsel, Donald McGahn, did with the ­information.

John Schindler writes at The Observer:

In light of this, and out of worries about the White House’s ability to keep secrets, some of our spy agencies have begun withholding intelligence from the Oval Office. Why risk your most sensitive information if the president may ignore it anyway? A senior National Security Agency official explained that NSA was systematically holding back some of the “good stuff” from the White House, in an unprecedented move. For decades, NSA has prepared special reports for the president’s eyes only, containing enormously sensitive intelligence. In the last three weeks, however, NSA has ceased doing this, fearing Trump and his staff cannot keep their best SIGINT secrets.

Since NSA provides something like 80 percent of the actionable intelligence in our government, what’s being kept from the White House may be very significant indeed. However, such concerns are widely shared across the IC, and NSA doesn’t appear to be the only agency withholding intelligence from the administration out of security fears.

What’s going on was explained lucidly by a senior Pentagon intelligence official, who stated that “since January 20, we’ve assumed that the Kremlin has ears inside the SITROOM,” meaning the White House Situation Room, the 5,500 square-foot conference room in the West Wing where the president and his top staffers get intelligence briefings. “There’s not much the Russians don’t know at this point,” the official added in wry frustration.

None of this has happened in Washington before. A White House with unsettling links to Moscow wasn’t something anybody in the Pentagon or the Intelligence Community even considered a possibility until a few months ago. Until Team Trump clarifies its strange relationship with the Kremlin, and starts working on its professional honesty, the IC will approach the administration with caution and concern.

Stephen Miller, Alexander Hamilton Would Like a Word...

On Fact the Nation, White House aide Stephen Miller said of court action on the travel ban:

Well, I think that it’s been an important reminder to all Americans that we have a judiciary that has taken far too much power and become in many case a supreme branch of government. One unelected judge in Seattle cannot remake laws for the entire country. I mean this is just crazy, John, the idea that you have a judge in Seattle say that a foreign national living in Libya has an effective right to enter the United States is -- is -- is beyond anything we’ve ever seen before.

The end result of this, though, is 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.

Mr. Miller, Alexander Hamilton would like a word with you:

This independence of the judges is equally requisite to guard the Constitution and the rights of individuals from the effects of those ill humors, which the arts of designing men, or the influence of particular conjunctures, sometimes disseminate among the people themselves, and which, though they speedily give place to better information, and more deliberate reflection, have a tendency, in the meantime, to occasion dangerous innovations in the government, and serious oppressions of the minor party in the community. 

Exploiting GOP Gains in the States

At The New York Times, Alexander Burns and Mitch Smith report that Republicans are moving fast to exploit their gains in state government.

Acting fastest at the moment, though, are four states where Republicans won total control of the government only in November. In addition to Kentucky, Missouri and New Hampshire became one-party states with the election of Republican governors, and Republicans in Iowa snatched away the State Senate, where Democrats had held their last grip on power.

In all four states, Republicans are racing to strip back the influence of labor unions, a key Democratic constituency.

In Missouri, where union membership has waned, Gov. Eric Greitens, a telegenic former member of the Navy SEALs, signed a “right to work” bill into law on Monday, denying unions the power to require that workers at companies they represent pay dues or their equivalent as a condition of employment. In Kentucky, Gov. Matt Bevin signed a similar measure in January, along with the repeal of a law that kept wages high on public construction projects. And in New Hampshire, State Senator Jeb Bradley, the Republican majority leader, said so-called right-to-work legislation was a top priority.

In Iowa, Republican leaders announced this past week that they would pursue sweeping changes to the collective bargaining rights of public employees. State Senator Bill Dix, the new Republican majority leader, said his party had campaigned on such changes — which would cut deeply into unions’ negotiating power — and intended to make good on its commitments. He said Republicans would also seek to change state laws governing health care and to enshrine in the State Constitution the right to bear arms.

The Stupid Party

There are many, many fake Lincoln quotations on social media.    RNC tweets one (still up after five hours of flaming):

Valerie Strauss reports at The Washington Post:

It’s not just the White House that seems to have a problem with spelling. Someone at the U.S. Education Department, now led by Secretary Betsy DeVos, does, too.

At 8:45 on Sunday morning, the department’s official Twitter account misspelled the name of W.E.B. Du Bois, a black sociologist, historian, civil rights activist and co-founder of the NAACP, the oldest civil rights organization in the United States. Du Bois was misspelled as DeBois — an error that might be understandable from a young student, but the U.S. Education Department?

Hours after the tweet was posted — and after the error was lampooned by a number of people on Twitter, it was corrected, with an apology:

Post updated – our deepest apologizes for the earlier typo. — US Dept of Education (@usedgov) February 12, 2017




The department fixed that tweet quickly, changing “apologizes” for “apologies.”

Trump Does Not Read. He Watches TV.

Trump does not write anything longer than tweets.  He does not read much more.

Greg Degen writes at The Huffington Post:

I used to manage President Obama’s briefing materials, delivering them late in the evening through the Colonnade at the White House or down the narrow hallway aboard Air Force One. I know what presidential briefings contain, and regardless of what you think of President Trump’s policies, reports that he has trouble concentrating on these materials should be a matter of concern.

The daily flow of presidential memos not only prepares the president for each day, it is central to decision-making and policy planning. The White House paper process carries recommendations from his advisors, through relevant White House offices for review, and finally to the president’s desk for consideration – from trade deals and treaties to military matters.

Mr. Trump has reportedly requested that his memos be no longer than one page, containing no more than nine bullets. The brevity of recently leaked memos regarding the president’s early immigration actions suggest this ‘CliffsNotes’ approach may already be in place. By way of comparison, Mr. Obama received a 57-page memo when considering his early administration priority: how to rescue the economy. The leaked memos for Mr. Trump contain far less information than comparable documents that I saw reach Mr. Obama’s desk, and suggest that his advisors do not think Mr. Trump will bother to read even the very brief memo they have written.

He does watch a lot of TV, so that is how lobbyists try to reach him.  Politico reports:

MSNBC and Fox News are capitalizing on President Donald Trump’s TV watching habits, dramatically increasing issue-advocacy advertising rates in recent weeks as companies and outside groups try to influence Trump and his top lieutenants.

The ad rates for “Morning Joe” have more than doubled post-election, according to one veteran media buyer. Trump, who reportedly watches the show most mornings, has a close relationship with “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough, and they talk regularly.

Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor” and other prime-time programs on Fox News have boosted their rates about 50 percent. Trump also is a frequent viewer of the network’s prime-time shows.

“The president’s media habits are so predictable, advertisers migrate to those areas,” said one media buyer.

One prominent D.C. consultant said some of his clients, including a big bank and major pharmaceutical company, were negotiating this week to buy ads on “O’Reilly” and “Morning Joe” because they knew they had a good chance of reaching the president. Trump has also been known to respond directly to what he’s watching on television and tweet statistics and topics he sees on-air. Those tweets often drive news coverage during the day.

Impeaching Trump

CBS reports:

CBS News has learned that the 35-page dossier compiled by a former British spy is gaining credibility among law enforcement. Before he was sworn in as President, Donald Trump dismissed the document, but sources tell CBS News that investigators continue to vet it to see whether there is any truth to the allegations.

At issue is whether the Russian government gathered compromising information on the president during his years of doing business in country as a private citizen. The FBI is leading the investigation but several intelligence agencies are also involved. Typically an investigation of this scale would involve the sources and methods of the CIA and NSA.

CNN first reported the sustained interest in the dossier by the intelligence community.
The dossier first came to the attention of U.S. officials several months ago, and it took time for it to circulate. A U.S. official familiar with the document’s origin says that even people who discounted it initially have begun to take it more seriously.

From PPP:

PPP's new national poll finds that Donald Trump's popularity as President has declined precipitously just over the last two weeks. On our first poll of his Presidency voters were evenly divided on Trump, with 44% approving of him and 44% also disapproving. Now his approval rating is 43%, while his disapproval has gone all the way up to 53%. If voters could choose they'd rather have both Barack Obama (52/44) or Hillary Clinton (49/45) instead of Trump.

Just three weeks into his administration, voters are already evenly divided on the issue of impeaching Trump with 46% in favor and 46% opposed. Support for impeaching Trump has crept up from 35% 2 weeks ago, to 40% last week, to its 46% standing this week. While Clinton voters initially only supported Trump's impeachment 65/14, after seeing him in office over the last few weeks that's gone up already to 83/6.

At The Washington Post, Charles Lane compares Trump's behavior to Andrew Johnson's:

These circumstances fuel a persistent hope that the GOP will rid itself of Trump, just as the very different Republicans of Johnson’s time rose up against him. “Given the sheer danger to the Republic as well as to the Republicans, Trump’s impeachment will happen,” predicts liberal journalist Robert Kuttner in an American Prospect article wishfully subtitled “The Inevitability of Trump’s Removal.”

Among the many facts this scenario overlooks are that Trump won election in his own right, legitimately, despite the electoral-popular vote anomaly, and that a large minority of the country — including a majority of Republican voters — still supports him.

If anyone is running scared in Washington now, it’s the Republican establishment, which grumbles here and there but hesitates to cross Trump lest his loyal fans among the GOP electorate turn on them.

Similar though his conduct may be to that of Andrew Johnson, a man widely considered the worst of his predecessors, Trump is far stronger, politically, than Johnson ever was.

Campaign Talk Comes Back to Bite Trump

A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit reminds Trump of stupid stuff he said during the campaign:

The States argue that the Executive Order violates the Establishment and Equal Protection Clauses because it was intended to disfavor Muslims. In support of this argument, the States have offered evidence of numerous statements by the President about his intent to implement a “Muslim ban” as well as evidence they claim suggests that the Executive Order was intended to be that ban, including sections 5(b) and 5(e) of the Order. It is well established that evidence of purpose beyond the face of the challenged law may be considered in evaluating Establishment and Equal Protection Clause claims. See, e.g., Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520, 534 (1993) (“The Free Exercise Clause, like the Establishment Clause, extends beyond facial discrimination. . . . Official action that targets religious conduct for distinctive treatment cannot be shielded by mere compliance with the requirement of facial neutrality.”); Larson, 456 U.S. at 254-55 (holding that a facially neutral statute violated the Establishment Clause in light of legislative history demonstrating an intent to apply regulations only to minority religions); Village of Arlington Heights v. Metro. Housing Dev. Corp., 429 U.S. 252, 266 68 (1977) (explaining that circumstantial evidence of intent, including the historical background of the decision and statements by decisionmakers, may be considered in evaluating whether a governmental action was motivated by a discriminatory purpose)