What is James Comey’s game? The media must expose the truth together - Guardian

What is James Comey’s game? The media must expose the truth together

Jill Abramson

Tuesday 21 March 2017 22.13 AEDT Last modified on Tuesday 21 March 2017 22.15 AEDT

FBI director James Comey had a very busy July.

He closed a protracted investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server. He filed no charges but blasted her conduct as “extremely careless” nonetheless, a lasting wound to her campaign. The public lashing contravened the normal procedure of staying silent on cases that are not prosecuted. Comey’s grandstanding press conference at the time seemed political.

Meanwhile, he confirmed at a congressional hearing yesterday, that in that same month the FBI had opened an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, collusion intended to hurt the Clinton campaign and help Donald Trump. Confirming the existence of an investigation before it has concluded was also unusual and possibly political.

Trump-Russia collusion is being investigated by FBI, Comey confirms

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During the campaign, Comey kept silent about this investigation into far graver matters than the endless pursuit of what Bernie Sanders called Clinton’s “damn emails”. Given the contacts between Trump campaign officials and the Russians, public acknowledgment of this investigation certainly could have damaged his candidacy. What is known about the Russian meddling has contributed to the historically low approval ratings for a new president.

Here’s the uncomfortable question that hung in the air at yesterday’s hearing: could the FBI director’s disproportionate treatment of the two cases have influenced the outcome of the election every bit as much as any Russian efforts? We will never know.

Comey’s testimony is very likely to be all that the FBI will reveal to the public until the investigation concludes, probably many months from now. Some of his statements were clarifying. We now know for certain that there is no evidence that Barack Obama wiretapped Trump, a nonsensical distraction that Trump tweeted after hearing speculation to that effect from a rightwing commentator. But he refused to answer questions about whether specific Trump associates were being investigated for criminal wrongdoing.

Jeff Sessions has recused himself from a role in the Russia investigation because the attorney general outrageously concealed his own contacts with the Russian ambassador. Sessions was one of the first lawmakers to endorse Trump and met with the ambassador twice during the GOP convention, also in July. His grossly misleading concealment of the meetings at his conformation hearing has stained the authority of any justice department investigation. The FBI is part of the department.

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The congressional intelligence committees is also investigating the Russian hacking and contacts with the Trump campaign. But it’s doubtful given partisan rancor in Washington that these supposedly bipartisan panels can ever be above the political fray.

That leaves the press as the public’s best hope of getting to the bottom of the Russia matter. Reporters don’t have subpoena power, but the great investigative reporting that’s been done on the story already, by the New York Times, the Washington Post, Pro Publica, a non-profit organisation devoted to investigative journalism, and other newspapers, including this one, gives me hope.

Many of the answers to what really went on during the campaign reside in Russia, a notoriously difficult and dangerous terrain for journalists. Unfortunately, many news organizations have cut or eliminated their Moscow bureaus over the past decade as newspaper advertising collapsed and newsrooms were slashed.

The first amendment protects a free press for exactly this type of situation, to be a check against the abuse of centralized power and to hold the government accountable. I can think of no matter more worthy of concerted press inquiry than the possible subverting of the democratic process by a foreign power to aid an American presidential candidate.

The gravity of the matter calls for a change in the behavior of the press. Reputable news organizations that have committed resources to original reporting on the Russia story should not compete with one another, they should cooperate and pool information.

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I worry that the profusion of news stories, some focused on small developments, creates a confusing din for the public. Multiple stories in so many different publications also create the impression that the media are ganging up on Trump, which isn’t the case.

Stories could be jointly reported and published. This would not be the first time the news media formed a consortium to investigate wrongdoing or delve into very complex matters. The murder of Arizona Republic investigative reporter Don Bolles in 1976 by a car bomb, an incident connected to the Mafia, was one such case. After the deadlocked 2000 election, news organizations tried to work together on a reliable recount of the Florida vote and overseas ballots. Consortiums combed through WikiLeaks dumps, the Snowden documents and the Panama Papers, all to the benefit of public disclosure.

Surely, the president will call this fake news. But an authoritative, scrupulously factual investigation by a collective of great news organizations could actually be the best antidote. If we can solve the Russia-Trump puzzle, trust in the news media might begin tracking up once again.

Democracy does die in darkness, as the Washington Post’s new motto says. The truth is more important now than ever, as the New York Times new ad says. Now is the time to prove it.

Rex Tillerson Reportedly Plans To Skip NATO Meeting, Visit Russia Instead - Huffington Post

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson plans to skip a meeting with NATO foreign ministers next month in order to stay home for a visit by China’s president and will go to Russia later in April, U.S. officials said on Monday, disclosing an itinerary that allies may see as giving Moscow priority over them.

Tillerson intends to miss what would have been his first meeting of the 28 NATO allies on April 5-6 in Brussels so that he can attend President Donald Trump’s expected April 6-7 talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, four current and former U.S. officials said.

Skipping the NATO meeting and visiting Moscow could risk feeding a perception that Trump may be putting U.S. dealings with big powers first, while leaving waiting those smaller nations that depend on Washington for security, two former U.S. officials said.

Trump has often praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Tillerson worked with Russia’s government for years as a top executive at Exxon Mobil Corp, and has questioned the wisdom of sanctions against Russia that he said could harm U.S. businesses.

A State Department spokeswoman said Tillerson would meet on Wednesday with foreign ministers from 26 of the 27 other NATO countries ― all but Croatia ― at a gathering of the coalition working to defeat the Islamic State militant group.

POOL NEW / REUTERS

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson plans to miss what would have been his first meeting of the 28 NATO allies next month.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg was due to have arrived in Washington on Monday for a three-day visit that was to include talks with U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis and to take part in the counter-Islamic State meetings.

The State Department spokeswoman said Tillerson would not have a separate, NATO-focused meeting the 26 foreign ministers in Washington but rather that they would meet in the counter-Islamic State talks.

“After these consultations and meetings, in April he will travel to a meeting of the G7 (Group of Seven) in Italy and then on to meetings in Russia,” she added, saying U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Tom Shannon would represent the United States at the NATO foreign ministers meeting.

‘GRAVE ERROR’

Representative Eliot Engel, the senior Democrat on the U.S. House of Representatives foreign affairs committee, said that Tillerson was making a mistake by skipping the Brussels talks.

“Donald Trump’s Administration is making a grave error that will shake the confidence of America’s most important alliance and feed the concern that this Administration simply too cozy with (Russian President) Vladimir Putin,” Engel said in a written statement.

“I cannot fathom why the Administration would pursue this course except to signal a change in American foreign policy that draws our country away from western democracy’s most important institutions and aligns the United States more closely with the autocratic regime in the Kremlin,” he added.

A former U.S. official echoed the view.

“It feeds this narrative that somehow the Trump administration is playing footsie with Russia,” said the former U.S. official on condition of anonymity.

“You don’t want to do your early business with the world’s great autocrats. You want to start with the great democracies, and NATO is the security instrument of the transatlantic group of great democracies,” he added.

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Any Russian visit by a senior Trump administration official may be carefully scrutinized after the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Monday publicly confirmed his agency was investigating any collusion between the Russian government and Trump’s 2016 presidential election campaign.

Trump has already worried NATO allies by referring to the Western security alliance as “obsolete” and by pressing other members to meet their commitments to spend at least 2 percent of gross domestic product on defense.

Last week, he dismayed British officials by shrugging off a media report, forcefully denied by Britain, that the administration of former President Barack Obama tapped his phones during the 2016 White House race with the aid of Britain’s GCHQ spy agency.

A former U.S. official and a former NATO diplomat, both speaking on condition of anonymity, said the alliance offered to change the meeting dates so Tillerson could attend it and the Xi Jinping talks but the State Department had rebuffed the idea.

The former diplomat said it was vital to present a united front toward Moscow. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was created in 1949 to serve as a bulwark against the Soviet Union.

“Given the challenge that Russia poses, not just to the United States but to Europe, it’s critical to engage on the basis of a united front if at all possible,” the diplomat said.

Angela Merkel and her press corps show how big democracies are supposed to operate - Economist

German lessons

Angela Merkel and her press corps show how big democracies are supposed to operate

The contrast between the chancellor and Donald Trump could not be greater

Democracy in America

Mar 18th 2017by LEXINGTON

TO APPRECIATE how shocking President Donald Trump is to modern German sensibilities, consider the “America First!” slogan that so cheers his supporters. Then ponder how Germans—and indeed voters across Europe—would react if an avowed law-and-order nationalist were to seek the office of Bundeskanzler with the slogan: “Germany First!” Several issues divided Mr Trump and Chancellor Angela Merkel at their first meeting in the White House on March 17th. At an often awkward press conference in the East Room, the two leaders politely disagreed on everything from immigration to free trade and the value of seeking multinational agreements. Their comportment could hardly have been more different. Mrs Merkel was every inch the cool, reserved physicist-by-training, at moments giving her American host the icy stare of a Mother Superior told a dirty joke. Mr Trump was dyspeptic, defensive and visibly irritated by press questions about his latest controversial tweets.

But the real dividing line between the two involved the nature of political leadership. Mr Trump, being Mr Trump, presented himself as a tribune of the people, heeding and acting on public demands to end “unfair” treatment of America. He catalogued some of those resentments. He said it is time for members of the NATO alliance to pay their “dues”—countries “must pay what they owe”, he grumbled—though as members of NATO, governments do not technically “owe” anything but have merely made political commitments to spend the equivalent of 2% of GDP on defence. He cited public demands for tighter controls on immigration in the name of “national security,” adding that: “immigration is a privilege, not a right.” He condemned previous free trade deals and spoke of the need for American workers to come first from now on.

Mrs Merkel’s response was subtle but brutal. She noted that free trade agreements have “not always been that popular” in Germany, and referred to protests in her own country relating to free trade pacts that the European Union has either signed with foreign partners or wants to sign. She recalled the specific fears raised by an EU pact with South Korea, and the predictions that the German car industry would suffer from increased competition and more open markets. Instead, she said, the pact with South Korea “brought more jobs” and both sides won. “I represent German interests,” she said at one point, just as the American president “stands up for American interests.” Listen carefully and Mrs Merkel was telling Mr Trump that she, like every leader in the world, has domestic politics to think about. Left unspoken was the point that it is easy, even dangerously easy, to let such distinct national interests provoke a clash. Her core message to Mr Trump was that real political leadership involves seeking a co-operative solution that leaves everyone ahead, and that international relations do not have to be zero-sum.

Mrs Merkel had no desire to pick an open fight. She has long experience with swaggering male leaders who like to throw their weight around, from President Vladimir Putin of Russia to the former French leader, Nicolas Sarkozy. The German press corps that covers the chancellor has long swapped tales of the dry, off-the-record jokes that she cracks at the expense of such men, often under the cover of self-deprecation. After one European summit in Brussels at which the hyper-active Mr Sarkozy had been more manic than usual, Mrs Merkel told her press corps: “I think I am the most boring person that he has ever met.”

The German leader also came prepared. She is an atypical “Playboy” reader. But that magazine’s interview with Donald Trump in 1990 is one clue studied by Team Merkel before their first meeting. In that preview of his “America First” views, nearly 30 years ago, Mr Trump accused allies of subsidising exports while free-riding on American security, growling: "I'd throw a tax on every Mercedes-Benz rolling into this country.” The president remains an unlikely Merkel ally. He scorns detail, has praised Britain’s decision to leave the EU, obsesses over trade balances (Germany ran a $53bn trade surplus with America last year), and has called her decision to admit more than a million refugees into Germany “catastrophic”. He has appalled the German government with his open admiration for the iron-fisted nationalism of Mr Putin, his hints that he might lift sanctions imposed on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, and his suggestions that NATO is obsolete.

At their press conference Mrs Merkel managed to persuade Mr Trump to state his “strong support” for NATO. She also heard the American leader praise Germany’s schemes for job training and retraining, and apprenticeships in industry. Earlier, she had introduced Mr Trump to bosses from firms like Siemens and BMW, who talked up their American factories and investments. That was smart. Apprenticeships are a big part of Germany’s global brand, and an impressed-sounding Mr Trump noted from the podium that his government is “in the process of rebuilding the American industrial base.”

The most awkward moments involved Mr Trump’s repeated claims that he was spied on as a candidate by the Obama administration. Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress have said no evidence exists to support Mr Trump’s tweeted claim of two weeks ago that his telephones at Trump Tower were tapped—a very serious claim. Undaunted, the president sent out his press secretary, Sean Spicer, on March 16th to read out a list of news reports, some of them from far-right conspiracy theorists, which support the idea that the current president was spied on by his predecessor. Mr Spicer stood in the White House briefing room and noted that a conservative retired judge, Andrew Napolitano, had claimed on Fox News television that a British spy agency, GCHQ, secretly intercepted Mr Trump’s communications at Mr Obama’s request.

The British government reacted with unusually open anger, calling the claim “utterly ridiculous”. At the Merkel-Trump press conference German reporters asked Mr Trump if he regretted making that claim. Mr Trump replied, in effect, that the buck does not stop with him. “We said nothing,” the president said. “All we did was quote a certain very talented legal mind who was the one responsible for saying that on television.”

Mr Trump then sought to lighten the mood by referring to the kerfuffle that followed the revelation, in 2013, that American spooks had tapped one of Mrs Merkel’s mobile telephones. Turning to his guest, he said: “At least we have something in common, perhaps.” The look that the chancellor shot back blended incredulity with horror. For Washington-based observers, increasingly used to the idea of an American president who makes baseless claims and attacks other leaders without shame, her dismay was a useful reminder. This is not normal.