Each president in this photo did things I disagreed with politically. Quite a lot, in fact, for most of them.
And yet I never doubted that every single one of them acted based on core values, including love of country—not, primarily, love of self.
OK, this is bonkers: During a brief window in 1950-51, children could get the Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab—a kit allowing them to make nuclear reactions at home using ACTUAL RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL.
It was removed from shelves in 1951.
“The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
—US Constitution, Article II, Secrion 4
I feel sick. Not figuratively. I’m actually nauseated by this.
This isn’t merely a “how embarrassing” moment.
This is “how shameful.” This is “how disgraceful.” This is “how inhumane.”
...I'm also told that Turkish attack appears coordinated with the Russians. Russian-backed forces are mobilizing to invade the Kurdish area from the south — towards Tabqa and other spots. Meanwhile, ISIS is mobilizing sleeper cells in Raqqa and attacks have taken place tonight.
It’s revealing that many people decrying the removal of Confederate statues out of a supposed concern that we are “erasing history” also vehemently protest the teaching of that very history in our schools
Hi. It’s the President’s Daily Brief guy.
Let’s look at the logic and the implications of the claim that neither Trump nor Pence were briefed on the intelligence assessment that Russia offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants to kill US/coalition troops in Afghanistan.
1/10
EXCLUSIVE: In the last 4 years, Jared Kushner and a Russian sovereign wealth fund CEO Kirill Dmitriev have communicated in private about ways the U.S. and Russia could work together
Anyone claiming these things about the PDB is either profoundly ignorant or is knowingly lying to you.
The core PDB, even for presidents who *did* read it voraciously, rarely even reached 20 pages.
And for 55 years, *every* POTUS (possibly excepting of Nixon) has read it.
Wow.
Read this, in which Dave Grohl
@FooFighters
brings the heat:
“Teachers want to teach, not die, and we should support and protect them like the national treasures that they are.... May we show these tireless altruists a little altruism in return.”
Sorry, sir. My post-employment security clearance, when I had it, granted me neither “great prestige” nor “big dollars” nor “board seats.”
I can’t speak for other signers, but *this* certain person came forward not for any of that, but to voice concern about an abuse of power.
Everybody wants to keep their Security Clearance, it’s worth great prestige and big dollars, even board seats, and that is why certain people are coming forward to protect Brennan. It certainly isn’t because of the good job he did! He is a political “hack.”
Yes, this is the most distant object yet visited by human spacecraft.
Yes, the image was processed by astrophysicist Dr. Brian May.
Yes, that’s the same Brian May from the band Queen.
Yes, that’s awesome.
The two best color images of
#MU69
so far. Much more detailed views are coming later in the month. (My favorite part: the image processing credit to
@DrBrianMay
.)
After a long and grueling struggle, my mother’s fight has finally ended.
It’s a blessing, truly, that she’s no longer suffering. But oh, how it still hurts.
“You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics ...”
— Erma Bombeck
Ted Cruz says about the Russia investigation, “When you get outside the Beltway, I don't find anybody concerned with this at all.”
Those of you not in Washington, DC: Do you care about Trump’s ties to Russia?
Two things I have reason to be confident about:
1.
@RepAdamSchiff
would not take this action, in such a public-facing way, with this much energy, absent legitimate concern.
2. Schiff and his staff will pursue this relentlessly.
This is not a false alarm. This is not a test.
@K8brannen
Schiff: "So far as the Committee is aware, this marks the first time a Director of National Intelligence has ever sought to overrule the IC IG and conceal from Congress a whistleblower complaint—in this case, one the IC IG has already determined to be a credible urgent concern."
Words from
@GenMhayden
, rehabilitating from his stroke, read to us at tonight’s
@IntlSpyMuseum
event honoring Bill McRaven:
“I look forward the day when I will contribute again to the national conversation.”
So say we all, sir. So say we all.
I’ve been less active here lately while helping my father endure an difficult struggle.
He has now passed. And even while celebrating his long life, my heart is broken.
BREAKING NEWS THREAD: Along with many of my former colleagues, I’m standing up with
@GenMhayden
,
@jmclaughlinSAIS
,
@MichaelJMorell
, and other former CIA leaders to oppose the politicization of security clearances. This is our *new* open letter:
Don’t use the words “intelligence failure“ again about the events of January 6.
Don’t.
It was a decision-maker failure to act adequately based on warnings received.
Hi. President Daily Brief guy here.
It is in no way highly unusual for the vice president to receive the full PDB daily.
In fact, it is highly *usual*—it’s been the default for the vast majority of the PDB’s history, decade after decade after decade....
Have heard from multiple White House and national security officials that Kamala is getting the full PDB daily. Highly unusual and Biden didn’t even get that himself when he was VP.
This is absolutely bonkers:
“When Reagan Foundation officials were made aware of the Trump email solicitation [using Reagan’s name and likeness], they decided ‘within seconds’ to put a stop to it.... and may still decide to get lawyers involved.”
White House officials tell ABC: Within hours of Omarosa's airing of secret recordings, former colleagues are seeking legal options to stop her.
OK. But where was this urgency when it was about ending child separations... or aiding Hurricane Maria victims?
The fact that Grenell conflates a clear reference to the PDB support presidents-elect traditionally get with the overview briefings candidates get during campaigns reminds us that he shouldn’t have been anywhere near the Director of National Intelligence job in the first place.
“You will not change him. You cannot constrain him. He is who he is. Truth matters little to him. What's right matters even less, and decency matters not at all... He will not change and you know it.”
—
@RepAdamSchiff
at President Trump’s impeachment trial, two months ago today
The president has notified Congress that he is removing the inspector general for the intelligence community, the official who helped make sure Congress got the Ukraine whistleblower complaint. The firing will take effect in 30 days, according to a letter obtained by NBC News.
Hi. It’s the President’s Daily Brief guy again.
I’m here to explain how Mark Meadows’s newly reported remark about presidents and the PDB is woefully wrong—and reveals why he never should’ve been chief of staff in the first place.
Grab a drink. Let’s take a PDB journey.
1/13
Or maybe the assessment was in the PDB and other regular PDB readers saw it, but it wasn’t orally briefed to POTUS so he never got it, and nobody in the system wanted this commander in chief to get it, because they were afraid of what he’d do, or *not* do, after getting it.
/end
NEW: More than 175 former officials from across the national security community have added their names to the nonpartisan list of those deeply concerned by the politicization of security clearances.
Full link here:
“What has she done for Americans that justifies paying for the travel, office, resources and access that she enjoys solely as a result of occupying a job for which she has no obvious qualifications beyond being the president’s daughter?” —
@espiers
The antidote for too much death lately in the family is … adding new life to the family.
So today, I proudly introduce Ollie, our rescue dog—who, really, is here to rescue us.
We know him well enough already to affirm that he is a very good boy.
The article claims Trump was briefed on the assessment.
The White House claims he wasn’t.
Normally, presidential aides would want to *avoid* telling the world he’s ill-informed. That doing so looks like their best strategy here reveals much.
Let’s examine the options.
3/10
The Bob Mueller that I know will have prepared for this contingency long ago—and, even if he looked up briefly to acknowledge this afternoon’s development, has already put his head back down to keep doing his job.
“There is a certain delicious irony,”
@MollyJongFast
writes, “to the fact that the guy who traded in wives as if they were auto leases is having his impeachment being led by a 79-year-old pantsuit-wearing feminist.”
Worth posting on your wall, to remind yourself every day:
“Hatred corrodes the container it's carried in.”
Thank you, Alan Simpson, for your choice of words today.
THREAD: Today, I tried to recall other presidents’ reactions to national tragedies.
Because what I heard today sounded a bit ... different than my memories of how other presidents have risen to occasion.
Here’s some of what I found:
I’m proud to welcome
@AVindman
to Lawfare.
Those who serve our nation, in and out of uniform, deserve respect. This president’s treatment of so many who have served honorably has been shameful.
Alex’s courage and sacrifices embolden and inspire us.
Through most of US history, the president raising even the possibility of military deployments to overturn his election defeat would be grounds for rapid impeachment and removal.
That Congress is *not* meeting immediately about this shows how ahistorical our times have become.
Dan Coats speaks out; pay attention:
“No American, and certainly no American leader, should want such an outcome. Total destruction and sowing salt in the earth of American democracy is a catastrophe well beyond simple defeat and a poison for generations.”
“Until now, there was room for reasonable disagreement over impeachment,” writes
@RadioFreeTom
. “Now, however, we face an entirely new situation.... If this in itself is not impeachable, then the concept has no meaning.”
Eight years ago today: President Obama appeared at a White House news conference dressed in a tan suit.
This clearly remains the greatest scandal in presidential history, if not in all of human history.
Just a reminder that whoever occupies the White House Chief of Staff position has, for decades, been one of the few regular recipients of the President’s Daily Brief, containing the nation’s most sensitive intelligence information.
Sleep well, everyone!
So if Barr says that the president has fired him, but the president tells reporters that in fact he is “not involved,” doesn’t that mean Berman is still US attorney for SDNY?
NOW: AG Barr says in a letter to Manhattan US Attorney Geoffrey Berman that Trump has now officially fired him, and that's that, rejecting any argument by Berman that a judicial appointment means he can't be removed.
Previously:
When the country suffers a tragedy and enters a period of national mourning, presidents don’t always do the right things.
But at such times, the least we can expect is for the president to elevate the rhetoric to something greater than himself.
That’s all.
/end thread
No former president that Cruz mentions did what he claims.
Cruz (1) doesn’t know better, in which case basic decency dictates he shouldn’t say such things; or (2) he knows the truth and is blatantly lying.
Either way, this is unbecoming of a US Senator. And deeply embarrassing.
Cruz: This was a fishing expedition. Every former President has taken documents from his administration. Obama did that. Clinton did that. Bush did that…
Maybe POTUS was, in fact, orally briefed on it—but White House officials have decided to lie about it, perhaps in a weak attempt to avoid the logical next question: Why hasn’t the commander in chief responded to such a grave development?
If so, shame on them. And on him.
6/10
I’d truly like to hear a legitimate justification, *any* legitimate justification, for the apparent firing today of Colonel Vindman’s twin brother, Yevgeny Vindman.
Which one is scariest? (Note, these are the *only* choices):
1. He knows what he’s saying is false, and he blatantly lies.
2. He doesn’t know if what he’s saying is true, and he doesn’t care.
3. He’s unable to distinguish between reality and fantasy.
Have a good night!
NEW: Over the past couple weeks, Trump has begun telling supporters he's already spent $3.2 billion on the wall--twice the amount Congress has authorized. He said it twice last night at a rally in Montana.
Maybe POTUS was “briefed” on it—not orally but only in writing, presumably (but not necessarily) in the President’s Daily Brief.
If so, White House officials now pushing the line that he wasn’t briefed on it are playing semantic games.
If so, shame on them. And on him.
7/10
“U.S. officials said he has privately grimaced that his son-in-law Jared Kushner’s close relationship with the crown prince has ... left the White House with no good options.”
A good start: Get your daughter and son-in-law out of White House positions.
Maybe it was in the written PDB, but Trump didn’t see it (reports say he doesn’t read it, preferring irregular oral briefings) *and* readers like the NatSec Advisor, SecState, and SecDef saw it *and* they forgot to ensure he knew about it.
If so, shame on them. And on him.
8/10
Relax, folks. Mueller played this right:
If he’d appeared eager to testify, he’d have opened himself up to claims of being political.
If compelled to appear, he will deliver the damning lines from the report on live TV without such claims.
The next step is yours, Congress.
BREAKING: In Calexico, CA last week, where POTUS told border agents to block asylum-seekers from entering the US contrary to law, Trump told CBP head McAleenan if he were sent to jail as a result, the president would pardon him, 2 Sr admin officials tell me.
More on
@CNN
...
Maybe it was deemed too sensitive to put in the PDB and restricted to a memo/oral briefing only for POTUS and 1-2 others.
Then how was it debated, as reports indicate, at an NSC interagency meeting?
Any explanation like this returns us to one or more of the shames above.
9/10
THREAD: A wealth of new information about the intelligence briefings for Donald Trump and those around him as a presidential candidate in 2016, as president-elect in 2016-17, and as president has just hit the CIA’s public website.
Here are the most newsworthy details:
1/16
Mark my words: With his silence on the most important measures we need to take as a nation and his focus on lesser concerns, Trump ensured that his address tonight will go down as one of the greatest missed opportunities of presidential leadership in US history.
“The president’s conduct is a national embarrassment.... All he has to do is give us a day of honesty, to come out and say this is what happened.”
— Lamar Alexander, speaking about President Bill Clinton in 1998
Maybe the assessment was briefed only sub-POTUS because it was judged not to merit his attention.
(This would be at odds with reporting just now by the same NYT trio—that it was, in fact, in the President’s Daily Brief.)
If so, shame on the system.
5/10
An almost unbelievable story, written smartly by
@NatashaBertrand
:
“Nunes, however, continues to focus his attention on the investigators themselves—all in the name, many argue, of protecting the president at all costs.”
Maybe multiple sources are all wrong and there is no such assessment. (Neither the White House nor other entities have denied the core of the reporting, making this option quite unlikely, but it’s theoretically possible.)
If so, shame on the sources.
4/10
First, read the NYT article by
@charlie_savage
,
@EricSchmittNYT
, and
@mschwirtz
, with details about the reported Russian military intel unit behind this, the high-level USG discussions about responses, and the White House not authorizing any of them.
2/10
I’m a national security junkie. So I’ll admit being drawn to news/analysis on Helsinki, Iran, the special counsel, etc.
Still, it’s shocking how the separation of families at the border has virtually vanished from my TL.
This is why bad policies endure. No sustained pressure.
The inability to even nominate a Secretary of Defense eventually becomes a violation of the oath of office, a solemn vow to “faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States”
A simple question for the journalists out there:
When the president refuses to take a question from a prominent network, calling it out as “fake news,” why don’t all other reporters refuse to pose the next question?
Let me repeat it for those in the back:
There’s no mechanism, short of a coup, by which an incumbent president can be ousted from office after inauguration and replaced by the person he soundly defeated.
No. The Founders did not see impeachment and removal as dependent on the election cycle.
It is designed to quickly eject the president when he has shown himself unfit for office by treason, bribery, or high crimes and misdemeanors—regardless of when in his term he commits them.
THREAD: 20 years ago today, the best known daily intelligence item in history—the article "Bin Laden is Determined to Strike"—appeared in George W. Bush’s President’s Daily Brief.
Here’s the story of its creation, based on my interviews with its author and intel leaders:
1/12
So Meadows’s remark applied to only one recent POTUS: Trump.
That means he was either lying to Klain (maybe to try to reduce Biden’s access to intel) or simply ignorant of other presidents’ experiences. Either option demonstrates he was unfit to serve as chief of staff.
12/13
Mitt Romney, two months ago:
“The President is guilty of an appalling abuse of the public trust. What he did was not ‘perfect’—No, it was a flagrant assault on our electoral rights, our national security interests, and our fundamental values.“
As Bob Mueller’s daily intel briefer while I was a CIA officer, I presented complex information to him, watched him digest it, and answered his inevitable questions.
That experience gives me confidence now in his work as special counsel.
Please read why:
Intelligence officers in the United States take an oath to support and defend the Constitution—thus, they work apolitically for the American people, not for a person or party in power.
“If he be not impeachable whilst in office,” North Carolina’s William Davie said when discussing the position of president at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, “he will spare no efforts or means whatever to get himself re-elected.”
Something to watch:
House intel chairman claims NSA is withholding documents on Ukraine potentially relevant to oversight responsibilities—and potentially relevant for senators during the forthcoming impeachment trial.
“I look at the faces of my colleagues, wondering could we indeed do ‘impartial justice’? Could we cast aside partisan labels and hear the evidence, not as Republicans and Democrats, but as American jurors?”
—From Susan Collins’ diary during Bill Clinton’s 1999 impeachment trial