7:12 AM 1/8/2019 - Will Adam Schiff pose a bigger threat to Trump than Robert Mueller? - The Guardian
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Not long after Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel, Donald Trump declared it would be a “violation” for the investigation to touch the Trump Organization or his family finances. Pressed on whether he would fire Mueller if that line were crossed, Trump said: “I can’t answer that question because I don’t think it’s going to happen.”
Now, it looks like it is going to happen. But the public face of the investigation of Trump’s finances won’t be Mueller. Leading the charge will be someone Trump cannot fire: California congressman Adam Schiff, newly installed chairman of the House intelligence committee and a former federal prosecutor himself.
With Democrats having taken over the House, Trump faces a pack of potential antagonists. Newly installed chairs are ramping up plans to scrutinize corruption inside the Trump administration, investigate alleged attempts to profit from the presidency, and to review policies such as family border separations.
But most threatening for Trump personally might be the investigations led by Schiff, who has said he plans to drive directly at an area the president has sought to fence off: the details of his businesses, his lenders, and his partners in the US and abroad.
“First and foremost, I would say that we need to get to the bottom of anything that could warp our national security policy in a way that is antithetical to the interest of the country,” Schiff told the Lawfare podcast. “So anything that has a continuing ability to influence the actions of the president, we need to know, as policymakers, to protect the country.
“One of the issues that has continued to concern me are the persistent allegations that the Trumps, when they couldn’t get money from US banks, were laundering Russian money. If that is true, that would be more powerful compromise than any salacious video tape or any aborted Trump tower deal.”
Schiff might break new ground by using his power to subpoena documents from banks, phone companies or other sources, said Andy Wright, a former counsel to the House oversight committee and founding editor of the Just Security blog.
“I think that there’s actually going to be quite a bit of fruitful evidence turned up,” Wright said. “I don’t know what the evidence is, whether it’s going to be incriminating or not. But I don’t think that the sort of conventional wisdom, that Trump’s just going to drag his feet or strike a ‘warlike posture’, is going to be that effective, because the smart investigators aren’t going to go directly at him. They’re going to go to third parties first.”
One of the first matters he plans to investigate, Schiff told NBC last month, is the Trump Organization’s relationship with Deutsche Bank, for a time reportedly Trump’s exclusive lender, which was fined $700m in 2017 for allowing money laundering.
“The concern about Deutsche Bank is that they have a history of laundering Russian money,” Schiff said. “And this, apparently, was the one bank that was willing to do business with the Trump Organization. If this is a form of compromise, it needs to be exposed.”
A graduate of Stanford and Harvard, Schiff, 58, began his career as an assistant US attorney in the Los Angeles district, where he successfully prosecuted Richard Miller, the first FBI agent to be convicted of espionage. As a young politician, Schiff was cultivated by Nancy Pelosi, then head of California’s congressional delegation, now, again, speaker of the House.
Schiff is a triathlete, a screenwriter and a vegan. He also likes to go on television, where he has caught the attention of the president, who last year responded to a critique with a tweet mocking the congressman’s last name and floating a misleading notion about the statute governing the special counsel:
While Schiff has shown he can fire back at Trump, he will need to steer clear of such partisan warfare to be an effective committee chairman, said Jamil N Jaffer, founder of the National Security Institute at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University and a former senior counsel to the committee Schiff now leads.
“Schiff has an opportunity now to try and change that tone, because as the chairman he can set the tone,” Jaffer said. “We’ll see if he’s able to do that successfully. We’re in a very nasty environment in Washington DC right now. The atmosphere is poisonous after the 2016 election. Everyone has a responsibility to get past that.”
Schiff takes over a committee that has been badly tarnished in the eyes of the public and, significantly, in the regard of the intelligence community. Under Devin Nunes, a Trump confidant who served on the transition team, the committee raised hackles by releasing classified material describing scrutiny of a former Trump aide.
Schiff has called the episode “a spectacular breach of a compact we have with the intelligence community” and said “we’re going to have to restore that”.
“If the committee does its job in the right manner, it shouldn’t be antagonistic to any particular president or the executive branch generally,” Jaffer said. “It should be doing good, effective oversight.”
Under Nunes, the committee ended conversations with the special counsel’s office about what witnesses might be called and other matters. Schiff has said he will restore that communication.
On Sunday, he told CNN the committee would be handing over transcripts of closed-door testimony, something Republican leaders did not do. Schiff did not name names but such a move could place in jeopardy Trump aides including Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner and Roger Stone.
But the role of Congress is fundamentally different from the special counsel’s job, Schiff told Lawfare, especially given concerns that a report issued by Mueller might in some way be suppressed in a justice department run by Whitaker, apparently a staunch Trump loyalist.
“I think ultimately it will fall on Congress to make sure that the American people will get to hear the full story,” Schiff said. “Either through our own investigation or Bob Mueller’s or a combination of both.
“The American people have the right to know, and I think in many cases the need to know, what happened.”
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The link between Crime, Terrorism, and Migration is very real!
"Washington Post", get rid of your obvious and misleading liberal bias and face the truth. There is no doubt, in my very humble opinion, that in the present circumstances the borders (all of them, physical and virtual) have to be strengthened. "Wall or no wall", this country has to protect itself from this pre-orchestrated, planned, hostile "invasion". This issue, in a long term perspective, affects the demographic composition, and, inevitably, the mind, the soul, and the essence of this country. The comprehensive immigration reform is needed to bring the order and sanity into this system. It is a bipartisan issue. The best way to deal with it is to assist the future migrants at the places where they already are, be it their own or the third countries, and to help them with the adjustment and making the rational and orderly plans for emigration or non-emigration. It will also be much more efficient, including the comparative costs of the prospective interventions vs. non-interventions options for the migrants' assistance.
In its present state, the dysfunctional US Immigration system does breed crime and definitely linked to it, the courtesy of the various Intelligence Services, among the other factors, the terrorist activity.
Do the methodologically correct studies to reveal these connections!
It is also difficult not to see the larger and the deliberate design (I wish I would know, by whom) which can be described by this imaginary phrase: "You, Americans, deal with your own problems at your southern borders, and we will make sure that you continue having these problems; and we: the Germans, the New Abwehr, the Russians, the "Europeans" will deal with our own problems at our southern borders, which includes the Middle East, Syria, Afghanistan", etc., etc. Very straightforward and clear, almost German in its artificial simplicity and squareness, design.
The Strasbourg attack was the latest demonstration of the "Terrorism - Crime - Migration Nexus", as it was aptly described and defined.
The Strasbourg attack was the latest demonstration of the "Terrorism - Crime - Migration Nexus", as it was aptly described and defined.
The recent events (US withdrawal from Syria , (even if largely symbolic but telling: "А вас тута не стояло"), and the planned withdrawal from Afghanistan confirm this line of thought further.
"Theories of a crime-terror nexus are well established in the literature. Often conceptualised along a continuum, relationships between organisations range from contracting services and the appropriation of tactics, to complete mergers or even role changes. Recent irregular migrant movements have added to the nexus, providing financial opportunities to criminal enterprises and creating grievances and heated debate that has fuelled the anger of ideological groups."
This pattern is reported for Europe but there should not be any significant reasons to believe that this constellation of forces and factors and their dynamics are any different in the Western hemisphere.
The Statistics should help to clarify the issues, not to obscure them. And the reporters might be tempted to spin the numbers into any direction they want, just like anyone else. Let the specialists, including the statisticians, comment on these matters.
The incompleteness and narrowness of the press reports like the one linked above only throws more oil into the flames and allows if not justifies the Trump's criticism of his press coverage as the "Fake News & totally dishonest Media" and the "crazed lunatics who have given up on the TRUTH!".
(What a horrible crime! Right out of the mouth of The TRUTH Teller In Chief!)
As far as "the enemy of the people", this might be the more debatable attribution. So far. (The New Abwehr's control of the Global Mass Media notwithstanding.)
"Theories of a crime-terror nexus are well established in the literature. Often conceptualised along a continuum, relationships between organisations range from contracting services and the appropriation of tactics, to complete mergers or even role changes. Recent irregular migrant movements have added to the nexus, providing financial opportunities to criminal enterprises and creating grievances and heated debate that has fuelled the anger of ideological groups."
This pattern is reported for Europe but there should not be any significant reasons to believe that this constellation of forces and factors and their dynamics are any different in the Western hemisphere.
The Statistics should help to clarify the issues, not to obscure them. And the reporters might be tempted to spin the numbers into any direction they want, just like anyone else. Let the specialists, including the statisticians, comment on these matters.
The incompleteness and narrowness of the press reports like the one linked above only throws more oil into the flames and allows if not justifies the Trump's criticism of his press coverage as the "Fake News & totally dishonest Media" and the "crazed lunatics who have given up on the TRUTH!".
(What a horrible crime! Right out of the mouth of The TRUTH Teller In Chief!)
As far as "the enemy of the people", this might be the more debatable attribution. So far. (The New Abwehr's control of the Global Mass Media notwithstanding.)
Michael Novakhov
7:01 AM 1/7/2019
Links:
Links:
The Trump administration’s misleading spin on immigration, crime and terrorism
PERSPECTIVES ON TERRORISM Volume 12, Issue 5
Migration, Transnational Crime and Terrorism: Exploring the
Nexus in Europe and Southeast Asia
by Cameron Sumpter and Joseph Franco
October 2018
Migration, Transnational Crime and Terrorism: Exploring the
Nexus in Europe and Southeast Asia
by Cameron Sumpter and Joseph Franco
October 2018
Volume 12, Issue 5
Migration, Transnational Crime and Terrorism:
Exploring the Nexus in Europe and Southeast Asia by Cameron Sumpter and Joseph Franco
Abstract
Theories of a crime-terror nexus are well established in the literature. Often conceptualised along a continuum, relationships between organisations range from contracting services and the appropriation of tactics, to complete mergers or even role changes. Recent irregular migrant movements have added to the nexus, providing financial opportunities to criminal enterprises and creating grievances and heated debate that has fuelled the anger of ideological groups. In Europe, terrorist organisations have worked with and sometimes emulated organised crime syndicates through involvement in the trafficking of drugs, people, weapons and antiquities. In Southeast Asia, conflict areas provide the backdrop for cross-border drug trafficking and kidnap-for-ransom activities, while extremist groups both commit crimes for profit and target criminals for recruitment. Keywords: Crime-Terror nexus, organised crime, terrorism, migration, Europe, Southeast Asia
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Fake News & totally dishonest Media concerning me and my presidency has never been worse,” Trump said in the first of the tweets. “Many have become crazed lunatics who have given up on the TRUTH!”
‘Crazed lunatics’: Trump again attacks the news media as ‘the enemy of the people’ - WP - 1.7.19
Crime[edit]
There is no empirical evidence that either legal or illegal immigration increases crime rate in the United States.[169] Most studies in the U.S. have found lower crime rates among immigrants than among non-immigrants, and that higher concentrations of immigrants are associated with lower crime rates.[1][170][171][172][173][174][175][176][177][178][179][180][181][182][183][184][185][186][187][188][189][190][191][192][excessive citations] These findings contradict popular perceptions that immigration increases crime.[1][193] Some research even suggests that increases in immigration may partly explain the reduction in the U.S. crime rate.[8][194][195][196][197][198][199] A 2017 study suggests that immigration did not play a significant part in lowering the crime rate.[200] A 2005 study showed that immigration to large U.S. metropolitan areas does not increase, and in some cases decreases, crime rates there.[201] A 2009 study found that recent immigration was not associated with homicide in Austin, Texas.[202] The low crime rates of immigrants to the United States despite having lower levels of education, lower levels of income and residing in urban areas (factors that should lead to higher crime rates) may be due to lower rates of antisocial behavior among immigrants.[203] A 2015 study found that Mexican immigration to the United States was associated with an increase in aggravated assaults and a decrease in property crimes.[204] A 2016 study finds no link between immigrant populations and violent crime, although there is a small but significant association between undocumented immigrants and drug-related crime.[205]
A 2018 study found that undocumented immigration to the United States did not increase violent crime.[206] A 2017 study found that "Increased undocumented immigration was significantly associated with reductions in drug arrests, drug overdose deaths, and DUI arrests, net of other factors."[207] Research finds that Secure Communities, an immigration enforcement program which led to a quarter of a million of detentions (when the study was published; November 2014), had no observable impact on the crime rate.[208] A 2015 study found that the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act, which legalized almost 3 million immigrants, led to "decreases in crime of 3–5 percent, primarily due to decline in property crimes, equivalent to 120,000–180,000 fewer violent and property crimes committed each year due to legalization".[24] According to two studies, sanctuary cities—which adopt policies designed to not prosecute people solely for being an illegal alien—have no statistically meaningful effect on crime.[209][210] A 2018 study in the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy found that by restricting the employment opportunities for unauthorized immigrants, the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) likely caused an increase in crime.[28][211]
A 2018 paper found no statistically significant evidence that refugees to the United States have an impact on crime rates.[212] A separate 2018 paper by scholars at the Immigration Policy Lab at Stanford University found that Trump's refugee ban (which caused a 66% reduction in refugee resettlement) had no impact on crime rates.[213]
One of the first political analyses in the U.S. of the relationship between immigration and crime was performed in the beginning of the 20th century by the Dillingham Commission, which found a relationship especially for immigrants from non-Northern European countries, resulting in the sweeping 1920s immigration reduction acts, including the Emergency Quota Act of 1921, which favored immigration from northern and western Europe.[214] Recent research is skeptical of the conclusion drawn by the Dillingham Commission. One study finds that "major government commissions on immigration and crime in the early twentieth century relied on evidence that suffered from aggregation bias and the absence of accurate population data, which led them to present partial and sometimes misleading views of the immigrant-native criminality comparison. With improved data and methods, we find that in 1904, prison commitment rates for more serious crimes were quite similar by nativity for all ages except ages 18 and 19, for which the commitment rate for immigrants was higher than for the native-born. By 1930, immigrants were less likely than natives to be committed to prisons at all ages 20 and older, but this advantage disappears when one looks at commitments for violent offenses."[215]
For the early twentieth century, one study found that immigrants had "quite similar" imprisonment rates for major crimes as natives in 1904 but lower for major crimes (except violent offenses; the rate was similar) in 1930.[215] Contemporary commissions used dubious data and interpreted it in questionable ways.[215] A study by Harvard economist Nathan Nunn, Yale economist Nancy Qian and LSE economist Sandra Sequeira found that the Age of Mass Migration (1850–1920) had no long-run effects on crime rates in the United States.[216]
Terrorism[edit]
According to a review by the Washington Post fact-checker of the available research and evidence, there is nothing to support President Trump's claim that "the vast majority of individuals convicted of terrorism-related offenses since 9/11 came here from outside of our country."[217] The fact-checker noted that the Government Accountability Office had found that "of the 85 violent extremist incidents that resulted in death since Sept. 12, 2001, 73 percent (62) were committed by far-right-wing violent extremist groups, and 27 percent (23) by radical Islamist violent extremists".[217] A bulletin by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security also warned in May 2017 "that white supremacist groups were “responsible for a lion’s share of violent attacks among domestic extremist groups".[217] According to a report by the New America foundation, of the individuals credibly involved in radical Islamist-inspired activity in the United States since 9/11, the large majority were US-born citizens, not immigrants.[217]
A 2018 paper found no statistically significant evidence that refugee settlements in the United States are linked to terrorism events.[212]
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Immigration and crime refers to perceived or actual relationships between crime and immigration. The academic literature provides mixed findings for the relationship between immigration and crime worldwide, but finds for the United States that immigration either has no impact on the crime rate or that it reduces the crime rate.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] A meta-analysis of 51 studies from 1994–2014 on the relationship between immigration and crime in different countries found that overall immigration reduces crime, but the relationship is very weak.[11] The over-representation of immigrants in the criminal justice systems of several countries may be due to socioeconomic factors, imprisonment for migration offenses, and racial and ethnic discrimination by police and the judicial system.[10][12][13][14] Research suggests that people tend to overestimate the relationship between immigration and criminality.[15][4][16] The relationship between immigration and terrorism is understudied, but existing research suggests that the relationship is weak and that repression of the immigrants increases the terror risk.[17][18]
Analysis: Strasbourg attack fits previous model of criminal-terror nexus ...
The Jerusalem Post-Dec 12, 2018
The problem appears to be the gap between surveillance of members of the criminal-terrorist extremist nexus, and prosecuting perpetrators for ...
Strasbourg Attack Fits Previous Model of Criminal-Terror Nexus in ...
Middle East Forum-Dec 12, 2018
Middle East Forum-Dec 12, 2018
Strasbourg attack fits previous Model of criminal-terror nexus in Europe
Weekly Blitz-Dec 13, 2018
Seth Frantzman. On Tuesday night a man shot at a crowd in central Strasboug. Three were killed and 12 injured in the attack that took place ...
Terror Strikes France: Strasbourg Christmas Market Attack
The Cipher Brief-Dec 12, 2018
Terror Strikes France: Strasbourg Christmas Market Attack ... which suggests another European terrorist plot with a crime-terror nexus.
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Scholarly articles for crime terrorism nexus |
A crime–terror nexus? Thinking on some of the links … - Hutchinson - Cited by 129
… between transnational organised crime and terrorism - Makarenko - Cited by 394
… terror and organized crime: blurring the lines - Sanderson - Cited by 224
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We all have very short memories. Looking back over the 20th Century, we can see how a global conflict like the First World War can break out over what seems like a tiny, inconsequential incident in Austria. The key national leaders of the day, both political and military, failed to understand that the world economy was not only going through one of those major reconstructions that take place over time, but also that the technologies of the day would change completely the manner and cost of conflict. The result was a contagion that swept across Europe and pulled in the rest of the world in a senseless conflict that would destabilise Europe and kill a third of the young generation of its time. The aftermath would haunt the 20th Century for over 100 years.
Guest column: Eddie Cross
Then another global failure of leadership – Western leaders demanding reparation from Germany and forcing the German into the arms of Hitler and his national socialism. Nazi Germany was the result and another global conflict which drew into its maws over three quarters of the globe. However, this time, the world was endowed with leadership that saw beyond the conflict and its aftermath and were able to pick up the pieces and put them back together in a way that has transformed the world and in the process has given us seven decades of comparative peace accompanied by unparalleled prosperity.
The first that comes to mind was MacArthur, who was the General Commanding Allied forces in Japan after the war in 1945. He is credited with starting the rebuild of Japan after the war as a democratic nation with a free market economy and sound government. In many respects, he was responsible for modern Japan. The situation in Europe was very different – the allied forces were concerned with containing the territorial ambitions of the Soviet Union and the process of reconstruction was left to the Europeans themselves.
They were aided by the Marshal Plan – another US conscript and general who also made a lasting impact on the post-Second World War world. But all that this remarkable programme did was to aid the efforts of European leaders – Monnet, Schuman and Adenauer. This unlikely trio led Europe out of the morass left by the conflict which had killed an estimated 60 million people and once again robbed the world of its best and brightest in a senseless conflict.
Even before the war ended, in 1944 allied leaders were thinking of a new world order which would help bring about stability and aid recovery. A conference was organised at Bretton Woods in the US and out of that came the present global system of multilateral financial institutions that have made such a massive contribution – first to reconstruction and later to monitoring and maintaining global financial stability. The founders recognised that without such institutions, the collapse that took place in the world economy in 1929 and which had made such a contribution to the preconditions for war, could occur again.
These initiatives were followed by the World Trade Organisation and the United Nations and between them these great global organisations, transcending the nation State, have given the world unparalleled stability, progress and growth. Today the world is more wealthy and stable than at any time in history. But it all depends on leadership and our dependence on our leaders, political and military is just as great as ever.
We remain a collective which is only as good as its individual members. So a crisis of leadership in any of the major States is of concern to us all. We have become complacent and now we pay the price.
In the US we have a President who is hell bent on unravelling much of what has made the USA such a leader in the post-war world. He is unpredictable, unstable and makes key decisions on what he sees on Fox Television. He disregards the advice of his most senior colleagues and has done more damage to the global consensus in the past two years than any other US leader. Free trade – he has unleashed a trade war that is now cutting global growth in half and threatens recession in all major economies. He has abandoned many of the things that has made America such a power house – immigration, open markets, free competition, pursuit of American values in world affairs.
The USA has a military that leads the world in power and sophistication. It has the most advanced technologies and as was shown in the recent wars in the Middle East, when unleashed can smash a powerful modern army in days. Having such power places enormous responsibility on American military and civilian leadership.
Just when the intelligent and careful use of that power is needed to maintain global order and stability, the USA is withdrawing from Nato, from the European frontier with Vladimir Putin’s Russia, from the boundaries of expansionist China. The unilateral withdrawal of US forces from Syria is welcomed by everyone who has a stake in its instability – Iran, Russia and Syria itself.
The threat of Islamic extremism is recognised by all responsible countries – including, if not mainly, by Muslim States themselves. This is not going to go away and no one has the capacity that the USA has to deal with this global scourge.
The threat of Islamic extremism is recognised by all responsible countries – including, if not mainly, by Muslim States themselves. This is not going to go away and no one has the capacity that the USA has to deal with this global scourge.
Then Europe – floundering under leadership that is toying with the extreme right, or just plain uninspiring, so much so that even the bureaucrats of the EU look good. The only “real man” in Europe, Angela Merkel (Germany chancellor) is on her way out and I hope the new leadership will continue with her principled and powerful leadership style.
And then there is Britain – two years ago I wrote that Brexit was impossible. It was not in Britain’s interests and with an economy which is 80% services, the majority of which are EU-based, it would cost her dearly. It was a silly idea to call for a referendum in the first place. I still think the idea is silly and that only pride holds back the Conservatives from recognising it as a monumental blunder which should be reversed.
Europe is never going to give up the key pillars of its union – it knows from history what that might lead to and anyway, they are all doing better inside than out. Britain now faces really hard choices – leave Europe without a post-withdrawal deal and try to make her way in the big wide world or recant and stay in the union. Britain already knows she has lost any influence in Europe and that outside a major trading bloc like this is a very cold and isolated experience. In my view if they held another referendum it would say “stay” and the unruly dogs in the House would all sit and obey.
And in Africa? Just look at the transformation taking place in Ethiopia and Rwanda – one word “leadership”. Look at the shambles in South Africa and Zimbabwe – “leadership”, nothing else. If African States are to join in the league of countries that are already playing the game of global interaction and engagement, then they have to accept the rules. If we want to use the wind to push us into the future, then we have to have direction and management and a compass to guide the process.
Without it, we are adrift and going nowhere. What we need to recognise is that it is a choice – only 30% of all Americans cast their vote in an election, that reflects a choice, leave leadership to others and we will never cross the Jordan and possess the promised land.
Eddie Cross is an economist and former Bulawayo South legislator (MDC). He writes in his personal capacity. This article first appeared on his website: <a href="http://eddiecross.africanherd.com" rel="nofollow">eddiecross.africanherd.com</a>
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