Passages in bold in the body of the texts below are my emphasis. This is an ongoing project, and I update the site frequently. Because I try to stay focused on what has actually happened, I usually let the news ‘settle’ a day or so before posting. I hope readers will peruse the articles in full for a better understanding of the issues and their context; our democracy and our future depend on citizens who can distinguish between facts and falsehoods and who are engaged in the political process.
Friday, 25 January 2019, Day 736:
Indicting Roger Stone, Special Counsel Robert Mueller Shows Link Between the Trump Campaign and WikiLeaks, The New York Times, Mark Mazzetti, Eileen Sullivan, and Maggie Haberman, Friday, 25 January 2019: “The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, revealed on Friday the most direct link yet between parallel efforts by the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks to damage Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election using Democratic Party material stolen by Russians. A top Trump campaign official dispatched Roger J. Stone Jr., a longtime adviser to President Trump, to get information from WikiLeaks about the thousands of hacked Democratic emails, according to an indictment. The effort began weeks after Democratic officials publicly accused Russian intelligence operatives of the theft, which was part of Moscow’s broad campaign to sabotage the 2016 presidential race. The indictment made no mention of whether Mr. Trump played a role in the coordination, though Mr. Mueller did leave a curious clue about how high in the campaign the effort reached: A senior campaign official ‘was directed’ by an unnamed person to contact Mr. Stone about additional WikiLeaks releases that might damage the Clinton campaign, according to the court document. In an indictment filled with colorful details about clandestine meetings, angry texts — even a reference to “The Godfather: Part II” — Mr. Stone was charged with seven counts, including obstruction, making false statements and witness tampering. Mr. Mueller did not say that Mr. Stone’s interactions with WikiLeaks were illegal, nor that the Trump campaign engaged in a criminal conspiracy with the organization.” See also, Here’s What We Learned From Roger Stone’s Indictment, The New York Times, Eileen Sullivan and Sharon LaFraniere, Friday, 25 January 2019: “In Friday’s indictment of Roger J. Stone Jr., a longtime informal adviser to President Trump, the special counsel for the first time revealed evidence of efforts by senior Trump campaign officials to learn how emails and other information that had been hacked by Russia and given to WikiLeaks could damage Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. The evidence appeared to contradict Mr. Stone’s assertions that he was acting on his own in his attempts to communicate with WikiLeaks. Senior campaign officials asked Mr. Stone to look into WikiLeaks’ plans, and he kept the campaign abreast of what he found out, the indictment said. The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, disclosed new details about his investigation into Russia’s 2016 election interference and possible ties to the Trump campaign: The campaign sought to learn how WikiLeaks’ releases might damage Mrs. Clinton;… Someone ‘directed’ a senior Trump campaign aide to contact Mr. Stone;… Mr. Stone is not charged with conspiracy;… Mr. Stone is the latest Trump associate charged with lying.” See also, Roger Stone’s Statement Responding to His Arrest: Full Transcript, The New York Times, Friday, 25 January 2019. See also, Everyone Who Has Been Charged in Investigations Related to the 2016 Presidential Election, The New York Times, updated on Friday, 25 January 2019. See also, Roger Stone Lied. What Was He Hiding? The New York Times, The Editorial Board, Friday, 25 January 2018: “In his indictment of the Trump torpedo Roger Stone, the special counsel Robert Mueller noted that on June 14, 2016, the Democratic National Committee announced ‘that it had been hacked by Russian government actors.’ According to the indictment, unsealed Friday, Mr. Stone participated in and helped conceal an effort by the Trump campaign to cooperate with WikiLeaks in publicizing thousands of emails stolen from the Clinton campaign, which was done to devastating political effect. Mr. Stone stands accused of obstructing an official proceeding, making multiple false statements to Congress and tampering with a witness.” See also, Longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller in Russia investigation, The Washington Post, Devlin Barrett, Rosalind S. Helderman, Lori Rozsa, and Manuel Roig-Franzia, Friday, 25 January 2019: “Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III unveiled criminal charges Friday against Roger Stone, a longtime friend of President Trump’s, accusing him of lying, obstruction and witness tampering in one of the longest legal sagas of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. In charging Stone, Mueller has struck deep inside Trump’s inner circle. The indictment charges that Stone, a seasoned Republican political operative, sought to gather information about hacked Democratic Party emails at the direction of an unidentified senior Trump campaign official and engaged in extensive efforts to keep secret the details of those actions. The 24-page document goes further than Mueller ever has toward answering the core question of his probe: Did Trump or those close to him try to conspire with the Kremlin? The indictment notes that before Stone’s alleged actions in the summer of 2016, the Democratic National Committee announced it had been hacked by Russian government operatives, implying that Stone must have known that. It does not allege Stone conspired with anyone but suggests his mission was to find out how the stolen material would be made public — something that, on its own, would not necessarily constitute a crime.” See also, Timeline: The Roger Stone indictment fills in new details about WikiLeaks and the Trump campaign, The Washington Post, Philip Bump, Friday, 25 January 2019. See also, 4 takeaways from the Roger Stone indictment, The Washington Post, Aaron Blake, Friday, 25 January 2019. See also, With a Godfather reference and a Nixon quotation, special counsel Robert Mueller accuses Roger Stone of witness tampering, The Washington Post, James Hohmann, Friday, 25 January 2019. See also, A list of the alleged and admitted crimes undertaken by people associated with the Trump campaign, The Washington Post, Philip Bump, Friday, 25 January 2019. See also, After being indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller, Roger Stone, longtime adviser to Donald Trump, says he won’t testify against Trump, The Guardian, Jon Swaine, Sabrina Siddiqui, and Paul Owen, Friday, 25 January 2019: “Roger Stone, a longtime adviser to Donald Trump, has said he will not testify against the president after he was arrested by the FBI on Friday morning and indicted on seven criminal charges. Stone, a veteran Republican operative, appeared in federal court in Fort Lauderdale charged by special counsel Robert Mueller with obstruction, lying to Congress and witness tampering. He was released on $250,000 bail and denies wrongdoing.” See also, A Conspiracy or Not? Here’s What We Know About the Mueller Investigation. The New York Times, Sharon LaFraniere and Michael S. Schmidt, Saturday, 26 January 2019. See also, Special Counsel Robert Mueller Got Roger Stone, The New Yorker, Adam Davidson, Friday, 25 January 2019: “Perhaps the most surprising detail of the indictment is that Stone, a famous braggart, often downplayed the significance of his role as a conduit between the Trump campaign and Assange. He was not, as he has previously said, simply guessing and making vague predictions about the actions WikiLeaks was likely to take; he was an active participant in its attempts to cause chaos in the 2016 Presidential election…. The most significant person in the Stone indictment appears in a single line, in the passive voice, and seems to have had more authority than almost anyone on the Trump campaign. According to the indictment, ‘a senior Trump Campaign official was directed to contact Stone about any additional releases and what other damaging information Organization 1 [WikiLeaks] had regarding the Clinton Campaign.’ Who did this directing? Why did Mueller avoid naming the person? Could it possibly have been Trump? Or—as one must still allow—was Trump, somehow, an innocent dupe surrounded by scheming scoundrels?” See also, ‘Get Me Roger Stone’: What to Make of the ‘Dirty Trickster’s’ Indictment by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Lawfare, Susan Hennessey, Quinta Jurecic, Matthew Kahn, Lev Sugarman, Benjamin Wittes, Friday, 25 January 2019: “Today, the special counsel … [alleged] that Roger Stone, longtime gadfly political operative, had acted as a kind of back channel between the [Trump] campaign and WikiLeaks—funneling information between Julian Assange and senior officials of the Trump campaign about forthcoming releases of purloined emails. No, this is not the smoking gun many have been waiting for. A lot of the information contained in the indictment has been in the press for a while—and in any event, the relationship it alleges between the campaign and the Russian government is a complicated, and somewhat attenuated, one. But if the Roger Stone indictment doesn’t quite allege ‘collusion’ between the Trump campaign and the Russians, it unambiguously alleges—in the language of Robert Mueller’s appointment letter—’links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump.’ Specifically, the indictment alleges that Stone and WikiLeaks were together coordinating between the Russian government and the Trump campaign over the release of information that, by then, had been publicly reported by Crowdstrike and many press outlets to have been stolen by the Russian government.”
Trump signs bill to open the government, ending the longest shutdown in history, The Washington Post, Erica Werner, Mike DeBonis, and John Wagner, Friday, 25 January 2019: “President Trump on Friday agreed to temporarily reopen the federal government without getting any new money for his U.S.-Mexico border wall, retreating from the central promise of his presidency, for now, in the face of intense public anger. The president’s humbling concession to the new realities of divided government brought the nation’s longest government shutdown to an end on its 35th day. It was a major victory for Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who took charge of a new House Democratic majority just three weeks ago and kept her large caucus unified throughout the standoff. ‘Our diversity is our strength,’ Pelosi told reporters after the agreement was reached. ‘But our unity is our power. And that is what maybe the president underestimated.’ Trump announced the deal in an early afternoon speech in the Rose Garden. By evening the Senate, and then the House, had passed the plan by voice vote, and both chambers adjourned. Trump signed the plan into law later Friday night, bringing an end to weeks of anxiety for 800,000 federal workers who will soon receive back pay after missing two consecutive paychecks. The shutdown had also threatened important government functions, impeding Food and Drug Administration safety inspections and the ability of the Internal Revenue Service to process tax refunds, and — in a final sign that it could continue no longer — causing delays Friday at major East Coast airports as unpaid air traffic controllers failed to report to work. The deal reopens the government through Feb. 15, while also creating a bipartisan, bicameral committee charged with negotiating an agreement on border security as part of a new spending bill for the Homeland Security Department.” See also, Trump Signs Bill Reopening Government for 3 Weeks in Surprise Retreat From Wall, The New York Times, Nicholas Fandos, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, and Peter Baker, Friday, 25 January 2019: “President Trump agreed on Friday to reopen the federal government for three weeks while negotiations continued over how to secure the nation’s southwestern border, backing down after a monthlong standoff failed to force Democrats to give him billions of dollars for his long-promised wall. The president’s concession paved the way for the House and the Senate to both pass a stopgap spending bill by voice vote. Mr. Trump signed it on Friday night, restoring normal operations at a series of federal agencies until Feb. 15 and opening the way to paying the 800,000 federal workers who have been furloughed or forced to work without pay for 35 days. The plan includes none of the money for the wall that Mr. Trump had demanded and was essentially the same approach that he rejected at the end of December and that Democrats have advocated since, meaning he won nothing concrete during the impasse. Mr. Trump presented the agreement with congressional leaders as a victory anyway, and indicated in a speech in the Rose Garden that his cease-fire may only be temporary: If Republicans and Democrats cannot reach agreement on wall money by the February deadline, he said that he was ready to renew the confrontation or declare a national emergency to bypass Congress altogether. ‘We really have no choice but to build a powerful wall or steel barrier,’ Mr. Trump said. ‘If we don’t get a fair deal from Congress, the government will either shut down on Feb. 15, or I will use the powers afforded to me under the laws and Constitution of the United States to address this emergency.'” Trump’s Government Shutdown Was a Cruel Joke, The New York Times, The Editorial Board, Friday, 25 January 2019: “What a debacle President Trump’s shutdown proved to be — what a toddler’s pageant of foot-stomping and incompetence, of vainglory and self-defeat. Mr. Trump tormented public servants and citizens and wounded the country, and, in conceding on Friday after holding the government hostage for 35 days, could claim to have achieved nothing. He succeeded only in exposing the emptiness of his bully’s bravado, of his ‘I alone can fix it’ posturing. Once upon a time, Mr. Trump promised that Mexico would pay for a wall. He instead made all Americans pay for a partisan fantasy.” See also, Longest government shutdown in history ends after Trump relents on border wall, Politico, Andrew Restuccia, Burgess Everett, and Heather Caygle, Friday, 25 January 2019: “The longest government shutdown in U.S. history came to an end Friday after President Donald Trump and Congress agreed to temporarily reopen shuttered federal agencies without providing any money for the president’s border wall…. The move marks a major reversal for the president, who had insisted for weeks that he wouldn’t reopen the government until lawmakers agreed to fork over more than $5 billion for the border wall.” See also, Trump Repeats Unfounded Arguments in New Appeal for a Border Wall, The New York Times, Linda Qiu and Michael Tackett, Friday, 25 January 2019: “President Trump has addressed the nation in prime time from the Oval Office, delivered remarks from the Rose Garden, met with Democrats in the Situation Room and traveled to the border with Mexico to make his case that the government would not reopen unless he got funding for a border wall. Thirty-five days into the shutdown, the president announced on Friday from the Rose Garden that the government would reopen until at least Feb. 15, giving Congress time to work out a deal on border security. He did not get any funding for a wall. And on Friday, he did not advance any new arguments for building one. In fact, many of the claims he made were recycled heavily from previous comments and contained many of the same misstatements and exaggerations. Also notable was something Mr. Trump did not say, namely that Mexico would pay for the wall, one of the most often repeated, and unsupported, claims he has made on the border funding dispute.” See also, Trump Said a Border Wall Is Needed to Block Illegal Guns, Drugs, and Cash Coming From Mexico. But Much of the Contraband He Pointed to Came Through Legal Ports of Entry. The New York Times, Mitchell Ferman, Friday, 25 January 2019: “President Trump traveled to the Rio Grande Valley earlier this month and made his case for building a wall on the Southern border — needed, he said, to keep America safe from a variety of dangers that are continuing to make their way across the frontier from Mexico. To help make his point, the evidence was laid out on tables: a big bag of cash, bundles of drugs, high-powered firearms, all confiscated by law enforcement agents working the borderlands in South Texas…. But the display at the president’s Jan. 10 round table, it turns out, had little to do with what happens along unfortified reaches of the border. An examination of the seized items suggests that a border wall would not have stopped most of the items from entering the United States, or, in the case of several weapons displayed in front of the president, from leaving the United States for Mexico. Many of the items on display were seized on international bridges on the Texas border, detected by canines and Customs and Border Protection officers. Some of them were found during traffic stops or, in one case, inside a South Texas home, and it’s hard to know how they entered the country.”
As youth anger over climate change mounts, protests spread around the globe, The Washington Post, Rick Noack, Friday, 25 January 2019: “As urban temperature records were broken in Australia on Thursday amid a years-long drought that has turned farms into wastelands across parts of the country, high school students on the opposite side of the world rallied against the driving force behind rising temperatures: climate change. Now in their third week, the Belgian protests against inaction on climate change drew more than 30,000 high school and university students to Brussels, roughly triple the number of protesters last week. ‘The planet can do without us, but we cannot do without the planet,’ one of the signs at the march read, according to the Associated Press. Many of the protests are inspired by 16-year-old climate change activist Greta Thunberg, who skipped school last year to protest in front of the Swedish parliament, demanding more decisive action on climate change. Thunberg and others have pointed out in interviews and at rallies that their generation is protesting government inaction on climate change because they are the ones who will live with the effects…. Since Thunberg’s first public appearances, tens of thousands of students in Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Australia and other countries have followed her example. Rallies earlier this month drew thousands of students in more than 50 German cities, with organizers estimating that 30,000 joined the rallies.” See also, ‘I want you to panic’: Greta Thunberg, 16-year-old Swedish climate activist issues climate warning at Davos World Economic Forum–Video, The Guardian, Friday, 25 January 2019: “Greta Thunberg, a Swedish climate activist, has told world leaders: ‘I don’t want you to be hopeful, I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day and then I want you to act.’ In an impassioned warning to act now on climate change, Thunberg told her audience at Davos: ‘Either we choose to go on as a civilisation or we don’t.'”
Continue reading Week 106, Friday, 25 January – Thursday, 31 January 2019 (Days 736-742)
