Collectors of Classified Documents

When leaving the White House, everybody takes home some souvenir secret documents. It seems like that, anyway. Trump had 300. Ex-VP Biden had a few. Now it turns out that ex-Veep Mike Pence had some back home in Indiana, too. It’s a questionable hobby.

The federal government began the modern system of document classification in 1951, updating it in 1953 and 2009. Maybe the FBI also needs to search the homes of Harry Truman, Alben Barkley, Ike, Nixon, JFK, LBJ, Hubert Humphrey, Spiro Agnew, Gerald Ford, Nelson Rockefeller, Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Dan Quayle, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, George W. Bush,  Dick Cheney, and Barack Obama.

Kamala Harris, take heed.

More:

“Trump Angrily Orders Pence to Return All Classified Documents to Mar-a-Lago,” Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker

Updates:

See? We told you.

“Classified records pose conundrum stretching back to Carter,” Zeke Miller, Farnoush Amiri, Colleen Long, and Jill Colvin, Associated Press

“US National Archives asks ex-presidents to check for classified papers,” Hugo Lowell, The Guardian

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Military Genius Trump Blasts Combat Vet Mark Esper

High School Cadet Capt. Trump. Thank you for your service.

The latest horrifying details about the Trump administration come from former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, who revealed that the 45th US Commander-in-chief wanted to attack Mexico with missiles, order combat troops to shoot police brutality demonstrators, and strip US forces from South Korea as payback for the success of Samsung TVs here.

Trump responded to these revelations by calling his former SecDef “weak.”

West Point graduate Mark Esper was Trump’s more-or-less 5th Secretary of Defense. Dr. Esper, a veteran of the Army’s 101st Airborne Division, was awarded the Bronze Star for his service in Iraq. Donald J. Trump was a cadet at New York Military Academy, a private high school.  You may recall that Mr. Trump has a service-related disability: he was gravely wounded as soon as he became eligible for the Vietnam draft lottery, and was treated (on paper) by a podiatrist at a Queens NY storefront he rented from Fred Trump, Donald’s dad.

Updates:

“Trump wanted to court-martial prominent retired officers, book says,” Dan Lamothe, Washington Post

“Trump Kept Asking if China Was Shooting Us With a ‘Hurricane Gun,’” Asawin Suebsaeng and Adam Rawnsley, Rolling Stone

“Trump complained US Navy ships ‘look ugly’: Esper,” Olafimihan Oshin, The Hill

“‘I Want to Meet With the Taliban’: Tales of Trump’s Head-Scratching Diplomacy,” Mark Esper, Politico

“Trump Wanted to Execute Leakers But Was ‘Biggest Leaker of All,’ Esper Says,” Daily Beast

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Russia Tried To Hurt Biden In the 2020 Election

“The Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Tuesday released a declassified report on foreign actors’ attempts to influence and interfere in the 2020 election.

The U.S. intelligence community found that Russia and Iran conducted influence operations aimed at affecting the outcome of the election, but that China did not. The report found no indications that foreign actors attempted to alter any technical aspect of the voting process.

U.S. intelligence agencies assessed that Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized influence operations aimed at denigrating President Biden’s candidacy, supporting former President Trump, undermining public confidence in the election and sowing divisions.”

— “U.S. intelligence: Putin authorized influence operations to hurt Biden’s candidacy,” Zachary Basu, Axios

More:

“Intelligence Report: Russia Tried To Help Trump In 2020 Election,” Greg Myre, NPR News

“Putin likely directed 2020 U.S. election meddling, U.S. intelligence finds,” Christopher Bing, Joseph Menn, and Raphael Satter, Reuters

“Russia and Iran Tried to Influence 2020 Presidential Election, But China Did Not, Intelligence Report Says,” Julian Barnes, New York Times

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Fictional Narratives

“Based on questions and statements I have heard, some of you on this committee appear to believe that Russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country — and that perhaps, somehow, for some reason, Ukraine did. This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves.”
— Former National Security Council Russia adviser Fiona Hill, testifying before the House Intelligence Committee, November 21, 2019.

More:

“‘Some of You on this Committee Appear to Believe’ That Russia Didn’t Meddle in 2016,” Defense One

“Charges of Ukrainian Meddling? A Russian Operation, U.S. Intelligence Says,” Julian E. Barnes and Matthew Rosenberg, New York Times

“GOP congressmembers blamed Ukraine for election hacking. Russia’s been trying to make that happen for years.” Kathryn Krawczyk. The Week

“Sen. John Kennedy repeats Ukraine conspiracy theory about DNC server,” Jacob Knutson, Axios

“‘Everything becomes a conspiracy theory’: Trump leans into spurious claims for impeachment defense,” Nancy Cook, Politico

“’Are you sure?’ Trump’s Ukraine conspiracy theory was a bit much even for Fox & Friends,” Aaron Rupar, Vox

“Time to call out and remove Putin’s propagandists,” Jennifer Rubin, Washington Post

Update:

“GOP Sen. John Kennedy: ‘I Was Wrong’ to Say Ukraine May Have Hacked DNC Server,” Justin Baragona, Daily Beast

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Donald Trump Jr. Met With a Russian to Get Dirt on Hillary Clinton

Donald Trump Jr., promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton, met with Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya during the 2016 campaign, reports the New York Times. Brother-in-law Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort, then Trump campaign manager, also attended the Trump Tower meeting on June 9, 2016, soon after Donald Trump clinched the GOP presidential nomination.

Junior has replied that the meeting with Ms. Veselnitskaya was about something else. And besides, he added, her campaign dirt on Hillary wasn’t any good.

More:

“Trump’s Son Met With Russian Lawyer After Being Promised Damaging Information on Clinton,” Jo Becker, Matt Apuzzo, and Adam Goldman, New York Times

“Donald Trump Jr.’s Two Different Explanations for Russian Meeting,” Liam Stack, New York Times

“If There Was No Collusion, It Wasn’t for Lack of Trying,” David A. Graham, The Atlantic

“Donald Trump Jr.’s ‘Denials’ of Russian Collusion Are Actually Confessions,” Jonathan Chait, New York Magazine

“Donald Trump Jr. is digging himself a deep legal hole” Zack Beauchamp, Vox

“Trump Jr. Hires Criminal Defense Attorney Alan Futerfas For Russia Probe,” Matt Shuman, TPM LiveWire

“Donald Trump Jr.’s lawyer is a Juilliard-trained trombonist who plays in a symphony and defends mobsters,” Derek Hawkins, Washington Post

 

Updates:

“Russian Dirt on Clinton? ‘I Love It,’ Donald Trump Jr. Said,” Jo Becker, Matt Apuzzo, and Adam Goldman, New York Times

“Read the Emails on Donald Trump Jr.’s Russia Meeting,” New York Times

“Was President at Trump Tower When Son Met Russian Lawyer?” John T. Bennett, Roll Call

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Trump’s Big Mouth Makes It Harder To Fight Terrorism

When Donald Trump blabbed highly classified intelligence information to the Russian Foreign Minister last week, he made it more difficult for the U.S. to fight foreign terrorist threats. Vox explains.

Update:

“Trump Tells Murderous Dictator Location of U.S. Nuclear Subs,” NotionsCapital

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Trump Golf: Hole-in-One for Hackers

“We parked a 17-foot motor boat in a lagoon about 800 feet from the back lawn of The Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach and pointed a 2-foot wireless antenna that resembled a potato gun toward the club. Within a minute, we spotted three weakly encrypted Wi-Fi networks. We could have hacked them in less than five minutes, but we refrained.

A few days later, we drove through the grounds of the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, with the same antenna and aimed it at the clubhouse. We identified two open Wi-Fi networks that anyone could join without a password. We resisted the temptation.

We have also visited two of President Donald Trump’s other family-run retreats, the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., and a golf club in Sterling, Virginia. Our inspections found weak and open Wi-Fi networks, wireless printers without passwords, servers with outdated and vulnerable software, and unencrypted login pages to back-end databases containing sensitive information.

The risks posed by the lax security, experts say, go well beyond simple digital snooping. Sophisticated attackers could take advantage of vulnerabilities in the Wi-Fi networks to take over devices like computers or smart phones and use them to record conversations involving anyone on the premises.

“Those networks all have to be crawling with foreign intruders, not just ProPublica,” said Dave Aitel, chief executive officer of Immunity, Inc., a digital security company, when we told him what we found.”

— “Any Half-Decent Hacker Could Break Into Mar-a-Lago,”  Jeff Larson and Julia Angwin, with Surya Mattu of Gizmodo, ProPublica.com

While the president travels with secure communication equipment, he tweets on an older model Android phone. And members and their guests could have their phones hacked to record conversations at the clubs.

Related:

“Trump’s Mar-a-Lago is heaven — for spies,” Darren Samuelsohn, Politico

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The Trump Campaign Contacted Russia at Least 18 Times

“Michael Flynn and other advisers to Donald Trump’s campaign were in contact with Russian officials and others with Kremlin ties in at least 18 calls and emails during the last seven months of the 2016 presidential race, current and former U.S. officials familiar with the exchanges told Reuters.

The previously undisclosed interactions form part of the record now being reviewed by FBI and congressional investigators probing Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election and contacts between Trump’s campaign and Russia.

Six of the previously undisclosed contacts described to Reuters were phone calls between Sergei Kislyak, Russia’s ambassador to the United States, and Trump advisers, including Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, three current and former officials said.

Conversations between Flynn and Kislyak accelerated after the Nov. 8 vote as the two discussed establishing a back channel for communication between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin that could bypass the U.S. national security bureaucracy, which both sides considered hostile to improved relations, four current U.S. officials said.”

— “Trump campaign had at least 18 undisclosed contacts with Russians: sources,” Ned Parker, Jonathan Landay and Warren Strobel, Reuters

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Access to the President? Join the Club!

Membership has it’s privileges, especially for those who shelled out $300,000 to join the Trump National Golf Club in New Jersey.

Back in November, President elect Donald J. Trump paraded his prospective cabinet officers into the clubhouse of his Bedminster golf club for job interviews. Now it turns out he invited random club members to sit in. Politico just got the audio, recorded by someone who was in the room. Here’s a transcript:

“We’re doing a lot of interviews tomorrow — generals, dictators, we have everything. You may wanna come around. It’ll be fun. We’re really working tomorrow. We have meetings every 15, 20 minutes with different people that will form our government.”

“We’re going to be interviewing everybody — Treasury, we’re going to be interviewing Secretary of State. We have everybody coming in — if you want to come around, it’s going to be unbelievable….so you might want to come along.”

The pattern continues now that Donald Trump is President and Golf-Cheat-In-Chief. While he was entertaining Japan’s Prime Minister Abe in the public dining room of his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida ($200,000 membership fee), aides alerted him about a North Korean ballistic missile test, and they discussed the US response in full view and earshot of the club’s members. One club member even got a selfie with the serviceman who carries the “nuclear football.” House Oversight Committee Chair Jason Chaffetz was not amused.

Mr. Trump believes that only the rich should play golf, so if you have the bucks to pay and play, you can chat with him about the nation’s business as well as your own.

More:

“Leaked Trump tape: ‘You are the special people,'” Darren Samuelsohn and Anne Karni, Politico

“Trump ran a campaign based on intelligence security. That’s not how he’s governing.” Philip Bump, Washington Post

“Sun, Sand and Influence: For Mar-a-Lago Members, Proximity Is Power,” Nicholas Confessore, Maggie Haberman, and Eric Lipton, New York Times

“Trump’s Presidency ‘Enhances’ a $200,000 Mar-a-Lago Membership,” Chas Danner, New York Magazine

“Democrats demand Mar-a-Lago list of members, visitors,” Matthew Nussbaum, Politico

“Shouldn’t We Know Who Else Is at the ‘Winter White House’?” George Zornick, The Nation

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Petraeus: Probation for Pillow Talk Leaks

Former CIA Director David Petraeus was sentenced to two years’ probation and fined $100,000 for leaking military secrets to his mistress/biographer Paula Broadwell. General Petraeus could have been sentenced to a year in prison; the fine is less than the fee he gets for a single speech.

That’ll teach him.

More:

“Petraeus receives no jail time for leaking. Whistleblowers face decades in jail.” Trevor Timm, BoingBoing

“7 whistleblowers facing more jail time than Gen. Petraeus,” Ben Branstetter, DailyDot

“Gen. David Petraeus: From hero to zero,” Justin Wm. Moyer, Washington Post

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