11:22 AM 12/22/2018 - The De Facto President: Jared Kushner
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WASHINGTON – What business does a fresh-faced real estate heir with no government experience have working in the White House, by the president’s side, on the world’s most intractable problems?
Jared Kushner suffered this criticism throughout his first two years of public service as a senior adviser to his father-in-law, US President Donald Trump. But much has changed in just a few short weeks.
Jared Kushner suffered this criticism throughout his first two years of public service as a senior adviser to his father-in-law, US President Donald Trump. But much has changed in just a few short weeks.
Once mocked for taking portfolios as disparate as criminal justice reform, North American trade negotiations, the opioid crisis and the Middle East peace process, Kushner is beginning to prove his worth. He has racked up major victories that have earned him praise from two of the Trump administration’s fiercest detractors: Mexico City and the Democratic Party. And as he turns his full focus to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, aides say he does so armed with a string of successes that have bolstered his confidence.
Over the course of the past month, Kushner defied conventional wisdom on two initiatives that count among the legacies achieved so far during the Trump administration: A new trade agreement with Mexico and Canada that replaces NAFTA, and the most sweeping prison reform in decades.
Kushner’s lead role on negotiations that culminated in the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement was hailed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, rallied markets, handed Trump a major political victory and earned him the Order of the Aztec Eagle, Mexico’s highest honor for foreigners. And Congress’ overwhelming passage of the First Step Act, a bill that will expand early release and authorize training programs to lower recidivism rates, was widely credited to Kushner as an exceptional act of bipartisan craftsmanship in an era of divisive politics.
Kushner also led campaigns to bring both the World Cup and the Olympics to the US in the coming decade – two additional achievements that the administration argues will lead to jobs, tourism dollars, and opportunities for national unity, showcase and pride.
“Several times on Jared’s projects, he’s been told that it’s over, it’s dead– there’s no way this is possible,” one aide told The Jerusalem Post. “He quietly builds confidence with the people he works with so that they feel comfortable with him – he doesn’t talk to the press about initiatives, and he builds coalitions and results around that trust.”
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And yet, if building trust behind closed doors is the key to Kushner’s success, he may be headed for his greatest challenge yet with the Middle East peace plan. Palestinian leaders have dismissed Kushner as a boorish “real estate agent” since December of last year, when the administration recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and relocated the US embassy there.
Communication has broken down between the two parties ever since.
Kushner’s efforts to build a regional coalition around his coming peace plan have faltered, with Republicans and Democrats alike criticizing
his relationship with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
– who has been implicated in the brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi this past October in Turkey – as unethically transactional.
Nevertheless, Kushner’s strategic deliberateness, policy adeptness and willingness to compromise all suggest that his peace plan may surprise those who dismissed his initial appointment, as well as his ability to get stalled peace talks off the ground.
Members of the peace team say that Kushner plans on rolling out the US initiative in the first quarter of 2019.
“All experiences are illuminating, even if they’re not precisely transferable,” the aide continued. “Success is helpful in that it provides you with templates on where to move forward.”
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It is no coincidence that while Mattis calls for unity among allies against the threat posed by Russia and China, Mueller is under attack not only from Trump and his allies but from Putin and his intelligence services, according to a new report from the Senate Intelligence Committee.
It is alarming that Trump impulsively ordered American troops to be withdrawn from Syria, first without consulting Congress or our military leaders and then by showing contempt for their views when they were offered.
This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Gabby Orr on on December 12, 2018.
US President Donald Trump will weigh several criteria as he searches for his next chief of staff, including loyalty, political skills and management experience. But there’s one thing any potential hire must do: win the approval of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.
Trump’s son-in-law and daughter, who are also White House advisers, want a political ally in the chief of staff job, and they are using their unrivalled influence to ensure they get one, according to seven former and current White House officials.
Those sources described a search process steered by the president – “He’s just calling around to friends,” as one Republican close to the White House put it – but carefully regulated by his family as Trump works to replace his outgoing chief of staff, John Kelly.
Their influence could dim the chances of some candidates for the post, White House aides and allies say, including one of Trump’s favourites – Republican congressman Mark Meadows, who is not close with the thirty-something couple.
They are also opposed to the prospect of former Trump deputy campaign manager David Bossie taking on the role.
It’s also an obstacle for former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who put Kushner’s father behind bars as a federal prosecutor in New Jersey.
Among Kushner and Ivanka Trump’s top choices is Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, whom they view as extremely loyal.
Mnuchin is said to be in the often-thankless job of Trump’s staff chief, however.
Kushner in particular is riding high at the moment. On Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that the Senate would take up a criminal justice reform bill that Kushner has spent months crafting, and whose fate had recently seemed uncertain.
Kushner was rewarded with a grinning photo prominently featured on the Drudge Report – whose publisher, Matt Drudge, he has as an ally, and whose coverage Trump follows closely.
Kelly may have hastened his demise by emerging as an internal rival of the couple.
The retired Marine general found their vaguely-defined government roles and unfettered access to Trump exasperating.
Tensions between the two camps reached a fever pitch in February, when Kushner’s interim security clearance was temporarily downgraded as part of an overhaul of the approval process that Kelly ordered.
Kelly’s exit leaves Kushner and Ivanka Trump with few influential opponents inside the White House.
“Kelly was the last one they wanted out,” said a former White House official, who worked with Trump and Kushner during the 2016 campaign.
“Now it’s not just the president who needs to sign off on” his next chief of staff, the official added, “It’s Jared and Ivanka. They have a big voice.”
The duo nearly orchestrated the transition they wanted: the installation of Nick Ayers, chief of staff to Vice-President Mike Pence, as Kelly’s successor.
A second former White House official said Kushner and Ayers bonded over mutual frustration with what they considered Kelly’s lack of political shrewdness and agreed that Trump’s next chief of staff needs sharper Washington instincts.
“They were both looking for a course correction – someone who understands the political side of things,” the official said.
But that plan imploded over the weekend when Ayers, a 36-year-old father of young triplets, refused to agree to a two-year term and backed out of becoming chief of staff, citing his family as a reason.
His surprise decision landed the Trump family “back at square one,” according to a third former White House official.
Now they are weighing which of the candidates in whom Trump is interested meet their standards. White House aides and people close to the president are already betting that several candidates will fall out of contention in the coming days because of their troubled or insufficient relationships with Kushner and Ivanka Trump.
The former New Yorkers also tend to favour cosmopolitan political moderates over the kind of hard-core conservative activists who appeal to President Trump.
In addition to Mnuchin, their allies have included former chief White House economic adviser Gary Cohn, a former Goldman Sachs banker, and former deputy national security adviser Dina Powell, also a Goldman Sachs executive.
That category does not include Bossie, the former campaign aide and long-time conservative activist, who has protected his own reputation among the president’s aides and advisers, but whose friendship with ex-Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski is unsettling for many.
“Bossie would have a pretty good chance of getting the job, if not for them,” a source close to the White House said Tuesday, hours after Bossie on Fox & Friends in what some viewed as a kind of audition for the role. (Trump is a well-known viewer of the show.)
“I’ve certainly known the president a long, long time – long before he was a candidate,” Bossie said.
“I do feel I understand the movement that elected him …. I understand his priorities.”
When asked, Bossie acknowledged that he and Lewandowski will be having lunch with Trump on Friday.
Some sources close to the White House say Bossie considers it more likely that he can land a deputy job under Meadows should the conservative Freedom Caucus leader win the job.
One possible factor in Meadows’ favour: he recently defended Ivanka Trump’s use of a personal email account for official White House business, that “the Hillary Clinton email scandal isn’t even close to the Ivanka email issue.”
Other candidates include White House counsellor Kellyanne Conway and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney, US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Republican fundraiser Wayne Berman.
During a rare interview on Monday night, Kushner revealed little about the chief of staff search to Fox News host and Trump friend Sean Hannity.
He said his father-in-law would “make the right choice for chief of staff when he’s ready,” adding that Trump would “choose somebody he’s got great chemistry with, [a] great relationship with,” and who can aid his 2020 re-election bid.
But Kushner and Ivanka Trump have not always had a Midas touch in their personnel advice.
In 2016, Kushner helped persuade his father-in-law to hire a seasoned political operative to help round up delegates at the Republican National Convention.
That operative was Paul Manafort, who went on to become Trump’s campaign chairman before emerging as a central figure in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election meddling.
A Virginia jury found Manafort guilty this summer on eight counts of bank and tax fraud.
The couple also in bringing Michael Flynn to the White House as national security adviser.
Flynn was fired a month into the Trump administration after misleading Pence about his s with Russian officials. He has since pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and is now a cooperating witness in Mueller’s probe.
And the pair also had a hand in bringing on Anthony Scaramucci as White House communications director – a position he held for 10 days before a spectacular .
Kushner and Ivanka Trump have installed several top aides who have proved reliable operators -including Powell; long-time pals Reed and Maggie Cordish, who led separate White House efforts on innovation and tax reform prior to leaving this year; and Chris Liddell, who worked beside Kushner in the White House Office of American Innovation before Kelly promoted him to deputy chief of staff for policy.
A spokesperson for Kushner and Trump did not respond to a request for comment.
The search for Trump’s third chief of staff comes as Kushner and Ivanka prepare to dig in for a brutal 2020 election cycle in which the president is expected to face a more challenging electoral map, plus a steady stream of investigations into his administration and the conclusion of Mueller’s investigation.
“As corny as it sounds, the biggest thing the president needs right now is a friend – someone who gets along with him and his family and can be a comfort to them,” said a former senior White House official.
“That’s the most important attribute a chief of staff can have, and that’s what [Trump] and his family are looking for.”
Nancy Cook, Eliana Johnson and Andrew Restuccia contributed to this report.
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Comey is a bigger political figure than ever before but has revealed himself to be exactly what critics always said.
Never before has a former FBI director boasted about taking advantage of an administration’s disorganization for his own ends.
But never before has a former FBI director been as self-satisfied as James Brien Comey Jr.
In an interview at the 92nd Street Y in New York City, Comey delighted his Upper East Side audience with his tale of how he exploited the Trump White House’s disarray in its initial days to send two FBI agents to talk to then-national security adviser Michael Flynn without honoring the usual processes (e.g., working through the White House counsel’s office).
Comey said that in a different administration, it was “something I probably wouldn’t have done or maybe gotten away with.” He apparently didn’t consider how that might sound to anyone not already inclined to enjoy the wit and wisdom of James Comey, or old enough to remember when an FBI director pushing to “get away” with things wasn’t so amusing.
A lot of people have been diminished by the Trump years, Comey among them. He’s a bigger political figure than ever before but has revealed himself to be exactly what critics always said — a politically savvy operator who matches his bureaucratic skills with an impregnable sense of self-righteousness.
The conundrum of James Comey was that he deserved to be fired, but firing him — certainly the way Trump did it — was the worst mistake of Trump’s presidency. It would have been better to have Comey inside the tent leaking and maneuvering for his own advantage than to have him outside leaking and maneuvering for his own advantage.
Comey is a smart and capable man. In many ways, he was a good FBI director. His fault was always being too clever by half and keeping too keen an eye out for his own image and political interest.
He bent over backward to get to the conclusion that President Barack Obama and his Justice Department wanted in the Clinton email investigation, then decided to speak out about the matter lest people think his decision was politically tainted.
Comey thus ignored the law in the Clinton case, and ignored Justice Department rules in talking about it.
Comey may have been a law unto himself, but there shouldn’t be any doubt that he knows what he’s doing.
After Trump fired him, Comey gave one of his memos to a friend so he could share its contents with the New York Times in the hopes that it would catalyze the appointment of a special counsel. Sure enough, we got a special counsel.
A special-counsel probe is an act of punishment against any administration subjected to it. It will cause distraction, legal fees, and heartache — in the best case. A practiced Washington player, Comey knew all of this.
That he’s so deft makes his slipperiness about inconvenient matters related to the investigation all the more telling.
Consider a little item from Comey’s recent congressional questioning. Then-chief of staff Reince Priebus asked Comey if a conversation they were about to have was private. Comey said it was, despite the fact that he would write a memo about their talk, and it would — of course — make it into the press.
Asked by Representative Trey Gowdy about how he used the word “private,” Comey answered that he meant he and Priebus were the only two people in the room. As if that was what Priebus wanted to know.
Comey is not so careful about parsing terms when he blasts Trump and calls for his defeat. He is acting under extreme provocation but seems unaware that his pronouncements as a private citizen cast a pall over his public service when he wielded some of the most sensitive powers of government.
None of Trump’s attacks on Comey has been as damning as the supposedly by-the-book FBI director admitting he did an end run around process in the Flynn interview, and soaking up laughter and applause for it.
© 2018 by King Features Syndicate
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In her weekly Wall Street Journal column (accessible here via Outline) Kim Strassel notes what we have learned so far regarding “one of the greatest dirty tricks of our political times.” Kim, strike “one of the.” Making points we have made several times, noting a loose thread and calling for the declassification of documents revealing the rest of the story, Kim writes:
House and Senate investigators get pride of place for unraveling one of the greatest dirty tricks of our political times, in which a Democratic administration, party and presidential campaign either co-opted or fooled the FBI into investigating the Republican campaign. Lawmakers got to the bottom of this despite partisan attacks and institutional obstruction. Congress has taken that probe about as far as was ever going to be possible. The next steps are up to the White House.
In January 2017, CNN reported the explosive news that “classified documents” from a “credible” “former British intelligence operative” alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russians. It sounded bad and set off a hysteria that led to the recusal of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the firing of national security adviser Mike Flynn, the launching of half a dozen investigations, and the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller. Senior officials, including Mr. Comey, watched all this in full knowledge of the dossier’s provenance. They said nothing.
It was left to the House Intelligence Committee, under Chairman Devin Nunes, to extract the real story: that the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign hired opposition-research firm Fusion GPS, which in turn retained a British gun-for-hire (Christopher Steele) to compile the so-called dossier; that Fusion injected this into the FBI, the Justice Department and the State Department; that this political dirt was a part of the FBI’s decision to launch an unprecedented counterintelligence investigation (which included human informants) into a presidential campaign; that this dirt was also the basis for a surveillance warrant against former Trump aide Carter Page; that the “credible” Mr. Steele was fired by the FBI; and that the FBI withheld the most sordid details from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which granted said warrant. And we separately know the Obama administration was engaged in the unmasking of U.S. citizens and leaking of classified information.
Congressional Republicans have the names, the actions, a timeline and the documents. The main elements are all there, and it’s thorough. Investigators tell me the only major open question is the role of Joseph Mifsud, the mysterious Maltese academic who approached then-Trump adviser George Papadopoulos in the spring of 2016. It’s unclear who, if anyone, Mr. Mifsud was allied with in that venture—the feds, the oppo players, former or current British intelligence? Congressional investigators were unable to track him down for an interview.
Yet the public doesn’t have this full story yet…
Whole thing here.
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Trump singing Green Acres at the 2005 Emmy's. PHOTO:SCCREENGRAB
President of the United States Donald Trump on Thursday tweeted a video of himself singing a theme song from a 1960’s sitcom at the 2005 Emmy Awards.
In between fighting with Congress over funding for a border wall, hitting back at those criticising his order to withdraw US troops from Syria and announcing the resignation of his defence secretary Jim Mattis, Trump indulged his vanity with a #TBT.
The tweet reads “Farm Bill signing in 15 minutes! #Emmys #TBT” in reference to an expansive bill that will bring relief to agricultural workers and allow welfare benefits in the form of food stamps.
The president had the audio from the video played as he entered the White House’s South Court Auditorium to sign the bill, the New York Times reported.
He then incorrectly told members of his administration he sang ‘Green Acres’ and “received a very nice award that night”.
Trump did not win an award, he won “Emmy Idol,” a skit competition based on “American Idol”.
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Donald Trump & Megan Mullally - Green Acres at the Emmys
I have to say, for the sake of fairness and the correct approach to the understanding of the present state of the Trump Crisis that it, in all likelihood, could not be handled differently by the FBI and the IC. It is like an abscess which had to ripen before been drained. All possible connections and contacts had to be traced, the groundwork for the legal interventions had to be laid down. However, the other side of the coin is the crisis itself which, hypothetically, could be easily and constitutionally prevented. This dilemma might be for the good legal minds to entertain.
M.N.
12.21.18
Mike Nova’s Shared NewsLinks
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Russian Lessons – С паршивой овцы хоть шерсти клок: Trump’s withdrawal from Syria
с паршивой овцы хоть шерсти клок — Викисловарь
Translate this pageДавай, Таткин, давай! ― послышались ободряющие голоса. ― С паршивой овцы хоть шерсти клок! Они у нас, гады, без денег все брали, а мы как-никак …Русский · Семантические свойства
С паршивой овцы хоть шерсти клок – Translation into English …
Translations in context of “С паршивой овцы хоть шерсти клок” in Russian-English from Reverso Context: С паршивой овцы хоть шерсти клок.
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Remember the old saw about the salesman who loses money on every sale, but thinks he can make up the shortfall by selling in volume?
That’s what comes to mind every time I hear people say that President Trump is being shrewd by pandering to his base.
Consider last week’s remarkable Oval Office meeting between Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Trump. There is photo evidence, but no audio, to suggest that Vice President Mike Pence was also in the room. What was supposed to be a brief photo-op turned into a dramatic confrontation when the president invited television cameras to stay for the conversation.
As always happens after one of these political reality show spectacles, the chattering classes set out to score the bout. According to conventional rules, Pelosi and Schumer came out the winners. They got Trump to admit that if there’s a government shutdown over border wall funding, it will be all his doing. Just before the meeting, congressional Republicans were pre-spinning a “Schumer shutdown.” Pelosi solidified her claim to the House leadership, while Trump made future bipartisan deals with the Democrats – something he reportedly wants – less likely.
According to The Los Angeles Times’ Eli Stokols, even Trump realized he was taken when it was over: He “stormed out” of the meeting and threw a folder of briefing papers across the room.
Yet there was a loud contrarian analysis that said Trump came out a winner. Why? Because his base loves this stuff.
“If you are a supporter of the president’s policies,” wrote the Daily Beast’s Matt Lewis – no Trump booster himself – “this was an especially welcome display, a rare example of a president publicly fighting for his policy goal: a border wall.”
Across Fox News opinion shows and right-wing talk radio, the view that Trump won was nearly unanimous.
Even Yahoo News’ Matt Bai, a decidedly left-leaning observer, excoriated liberals for not understanding that “Trump knows that every time he flouts the staid convention of the office, every time he does the thing that seems inappropriate among the political set, he’s winning with the chunk of the electorate he still has.”
Sure. The problem is that chunk is not a majority.
Bai’s larger observation – that Trump is so embattled he can’t afford to lose his hard-core supporters – is a good one in the context of gaming out how Trump can survive impeachment. When looking at what advances this administration’s agenda or is good for the Republican Party, however, “his base loves it” doesn’t score any points.
Worse, it’s self-fulfilling prophecy. As he sheds the mostly suburban voters who gave him his margin of victory in 2016, of course he clings more tightly to those who celebrate the behaviors that are bleeding the GOP of support. They’re the only ones left. Proclaiming that “his base loves it” may be an explanation, but it’s no excuse. And it misses the point if you care about the GOP’s long-term viability or even Trump’s re-election prospects. He’s going to need more voters than his amen chorus.
Last month’s midterms showed what a national election looks like when only Trump enablers feel highly motivated to vote Republican. The GOP lost Orange County, Calif., the ancestral home of the conservative movement. New England now has more GOP governors than Republican members of Congress. In Iowa, the GOP lost all of its House races save for uber-Trumpy Steve King’s. A party in which only bigoted goons like King can thrive by fueling white resentment is destined for the dustbin of history.
The irony here is that Trump’s base will forgive him for nearly anything. He easily could have used the wall as leverage to gain Democratic support for mandating that all employers use E-Verify to confirm a prospective employee has legal immigration status. This is what serious immigration hawks have implored him to do – and he’d get credit for being the great deal-maker he claims to be.
But the larger irony is that his base-service led him to (this week’s) predicament: shutdown or back down.
Most presidents try to expand their coalition while holding onto their base. Trump has shrunk his coalition and laid the foundation for future shrinkage by forcing his party to endorse this behavior. Trump will be gone soon enough, but at this rate the party of Trump will be a rump party.
Email <a href="mailto:goldbergcolumn@gmail.com">goldbergcolumn@gmail.com</a>, Twitter @JonahNRO. (c) 2018 Tribune Content Agency LLC.
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