The Washington Post
Trump’s latest stunt is aboutto blow up in his face
THE MORNING PLUM:
It is still very possible that President Trump could use the Nunes memo as a pretext to try
to quash or constrain special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s probe. Trump tweeted over
the weekend that the memo “totally vindicates” his claim that the investigation is a “witch
hunt,” which is an absurd lie in every possible respect, but it shows he’s still mulling a
move on Mueller.
But the performance of congressional Republicans on the Sunday shows — and a
weekend’s worth of legal analysis taking apart the Nunes effort — together suggest
another possibility. The Nunes memo affair may be shaping up as a much bigger fiasco
than we even know — so bad, in fact, that it could ultimately undermine Trump’s position
even more dramatically than we could have expected.
Today Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee will push for a vote to release
Rep. Adam Schiff’s rebuttal to the Nunes memo. We now know enough to speculate that
the Schiff rebuttal — which wouldn’t exist in the first place if Nunes hadn’t embarked on
this charade with the White House’s blessing — may actually give us new information
about the genesis of the Russia probe that only further underscores its legitimacy.
A key conclusion about the Nunes memo reached by legal analysts is that the memo
actually confirmed that the FBI’s investigation was launched in July 2016, well in
advance of the awarding in October 2016 of a warrant to conduct surveillance on former
Trump adviser Carter Page due to his suspected links to Russia, based to an
indeterminate extent on Democratic-funded research in the “Steele dossier.” The Nunes
memo vaguely notes that information gathered on Trump adviser George Papadopoulos
is what triggered the FBI inquiry. Papadopoulos revealed in his plea that he had learned
of “dirt” collected on Hillary Clinton by the Russians.
What’s more, the Nunes memo notes that surveillance warrants were subsequently
granted numerous times. As Paul Rosenzweig, a former Whitewater investigator, points
out, these could only have been granted if new evidence had demonstrated sufficient
grounds for suspicion of Page, meaning “independent reviews” by “separate judges”
actually “validated the FBI’s investigation.”
If Schiff’s rebuttal is released, it is likely to add detail, where possible, filling in this
picture of the genesis of the probe. The New York Times reports that the rebuttal will
supply “crucial context” to the FBI’s case for getting the warrant.
Indeed, Rep. Jim Himes (Conn.), the No. 2 Democrat on the House Intelligence
Committee, hinted at this when he told CNN that the Democratic rebuttal will show that
“it is not true” that the warrant “was awarded solely on the basis of the Steele dossier.” In
other words, the Schiff memo will likely detail, to the degree that it can, the actual
reasons the warrant was granted — and why subsequent warrants were as well.
Yes, Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee could still vote against releasing
the Schiff rebuttal. Trump himself signaled opposition to its release moments ago:
But on the Sunday shows, multiple Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee
firmly stated that the Nunes memo should not be used to cast doubt on the integrity of
the Mueller probe. This is disingenuous, in that they voted to release the Nunes memo
while knowing Trump wants to use it to target Mueller. Still, this signals that some
leading congressional Republicans are now reluctant to be associated with Trump’s
efforts to undermine his probe. Trump just raised the stakes, in effect directly associating
his seeming opposition to releasing the rebuttal with his own efforts to obstruct the
investigation.
Yes, Trump himself could block the release of the Schiff rebuttal. But the White House
itself called for release of the Nunes memo on grounds of “transparency,” and House
Speaker Paul Ryan has come out for releasing Schiff’s rebuttal. If Republicans now give
cover to Trump thwarting its release, they will be even more overtly associated with his
efforts to block the truth from coming out than before. Perhaps their bad faith is
bottomless enough to permit them go here, but the glaring thinness of the Nunes memo
may make it politically more risky.
In the end, Trump could still use the Nunes memo to hamstring Mueller by firing Deputy
Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and replacing him with a loyalist to oversee the probe.
But this would now have to happen either after the Schiff rebuttal served to reinforce the
investigation’s legitimacy, or after Trump suppressed the Schiff rebuttal even though it
could further undermine his own rationale for taking such a dramatic step. Trump is
shameless enough to do this in either scenario. But it could now be harder for
congressional Republicans to go along with it. This would not be the case if not for
Nunes’s antics — which Trump backed.
* JEFF SESSIONS GOES QUIET: The New York Times reports on an important
point: Amid Trump’s constant attacks on the Justice Department, Attorney General Jeff
Sessions isn’t saying much to defend the department:
Current and former prosecutors say Mr. Sessions’s tepid response reflects
efforts to appease Mr. Trump, even at the expense of morale among the
department’s employees, and has raised fears that prosecutors cannot
depend on protection from political interference. … Two current federal
prosecutors who spoke on the condition of anonymity said they were
working hard to maintain morale.
The Times reports that Sessions is constrained from defending the Justice Department
because Trump has berated him for failing to defend him from the Mueller probe.
Trump’s attacks on Sessions are working.
* PANIC TIME? DEMOCRATS ARE OUTRAISING REPUBLICANS: Politico
reports that the latest fundraising numbers show it may be “panic time” for House
Republicans:
More than 40 House Republican incumbents were outraised in the final
quarter of 2017 by one — or several — of their Democratic opponents … The
trendline is getting worse, not better. Despite the myriad advantages of
incumbency and control of Congress, there are more House members with
less cash on hand than their Democratic challengers than the quarter
before.
This is a good indicator of the energy on the Democratic side, and Trump’s antics aren’t
stopping anytime soon, which could help maintain that energy (and fundraising edge).
* DEMOCRATS HOPE TO USE MEMO IN MIDTERMS: Bloomberg reports that
Democrats are prepared to use the Nunes memo against Republicans in the midterms, by
citing it as evidence of a GOP effort to protect Trump from accountability. Democrats are
circulating talking points saying Republicans are “now part and parcel” of “an organized
effort to obstruct” the Mueller probe.
This has the virtue of being true: Republicans backed #ReleaseTheMemo in the full
knowledge that Trump expressly intended to use the memo to, at best, cast doubt on the
investigation or, at worst, as pretext to constrain it.
* DEMOCRATS WARN TRUMP ON NORTH KOREA: The Post reports that 18
Democratic senators will send a letter to Trump warning against the much-discussed
possibility of a “bloody nose” quick preemptive strike on North Korea:
The 18 senators … emphasized that it is an “enormous gamble” to believe
that such an action, even if it were modest in scope, would not provoke an
escalation from dictator Kim Jong Un. “Moreover, without congressional
authority, a preventative or preemptive U.S. military strike would lack
either a constitutional basis or legal authority,” the senators wrote in the
letter.
It will be interesting to see which congressional Republicans are willing to step up and
assert this authority for themselves.
* AND PAUL RYAN IS COMPLICIT: E.J. Dionne Jr. skewers Paul Ryan’s laughable
claim that release of the Nunes memo “does not impugn” the Mueller investigation,
noting that Trump himself has confirmed his own intention to use it to undermine the
probe:
Ryan and other Republicans claiming that putting out this memo would not
serve to undermine the investigation are either fooling themselves — or us.
Autocrats don’t prevail unless they have allies to give them cover. Thanks to
House Republicans, our country has taken another step toward the chaos
that autocrats thrive on.
Indeed. If Trump does end up using the Nunes memo as even partial justification for
quashing or constraining the Mueller probe, Republicans who knew perfectly well that
this was the intention are complicit.