It Appears Yet Another Trump Staffer Is Ready to Sing for Mueller - Intelligencer ( New York Magazine )

/ RUSSIA PROBE

February 1, 2018

It Appears Yet Another Trump Staffer Is Ready to Sing for Mueller

By

Margaret Hartmann

@MargHartmann

He’s listening. Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images

When we learned at the end of October that two former Trump campaign officials, Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, had been indicted and a third, George Papadopoulos, had cut a plea deal, it was widely interpreted as a signal from Special Counsel Robert Mueller to other potential witnesses.

“Oh man, they couldn’t have sent a message any clearer if they’d rented a revolving neon sign in Times Square,’’ Patrick Cotter, a white-collar defense lawyer, told the Washington Post at the time. “And the message isn’t just about Manafort. It’s a message to the next five guys they talk to. And the message is: ‘We are coming, and we are not playing, and we are not bluffing.’’’

It appears they heard Mueller, loud and clear. About a month later, former national security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI as part of a deal to cooperate with the special counsel. Now the New York Times reports that yet another former Trump staffer is ready to sing: Mark Corallo, who served as a spokesperson for Trump’s legal team before resigning in July.

Mueller’s team is said to be looking into the White House response to reports of Donald Trump Jr.’s June 2016 meeting with a group of Russians who offered dirt on Hillary Clinton. During a flight on Air Force One last July, Trump and White House communications director Hope Hicks reportedly led the drafting of a misleading statement suggesting that the meeting was about Russian adoptions.

Corallo recently received an interview request from Mueller, and is expected to speak with the special counsel in the next two weeks. The Times reports that he’s planning to share some information that Mueller can add to his long list of potential obstruction of justice:

Mr. Corallo is planning to tell Mr. Mueller about a previously undisclosed conference call with Mr. Trump and Hope Hicks, the White House communications director, according to the three people. Mr. Corallo planned to tell investigators that Ms. Hicks said during the call that emails written by Donald Trump Jr. before the Trump Tower meeting — in which the younger Mr. Trump said he was eager to receive political dirt about Mrs. Clinton from the Russians — “will never get out.” That left Mr. Corallo with concerns that Ms. Hicks could be contemplating obstructing justice, the people said.

Shortly after Donald Trump Jr. released the statement drafted on Air Force One, Corallo, who was not involved in that discussion, publicly suggested that the Trump Tower meeting might have been a Democratic setup to make the Trump team look like they were colluding with Russia. The next day, Corallo and Hicks argued about the response in a conference call with the president. Per the Times:

In Mr. Corallo’s account — which he provided contemporaneously to three colleagues who later gave it to the Times — he told both Mr. Trump and Ms. Hicks that the statement drafted aboard Air Force One would backfire because documents would eventually surface showing that the meeting had been set up for the Trump campaign to get political dirt about Mrs. Clinton from the Russians.

According to his account, Ms. Hicks responded that the emails “will never get out” because only a few people had access to them. Mr. Corallo, who worked as a Justice Department spokesman during the George W. Bush administration, told colleagues he was alarmed not only by what Ms. Hicks had said — either she was being naïve or was suggesting that the emails could be withheld from investigators — but also that she had said it in front of the president without a lawyer on the phone and that the conversation could not be protected by attorney-client privilege.

Corallo reportedly cut off the call when Trump started asking about the documents, telling him he needed to speak to his legal team. He then jotted down notes about the call, notified the legal team about the conversation, and brought his concerns to Steve Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist at the time.

Corallo told the paper on Wednesday that he doesn’t dispute any of the information provided by his colleagues. However, Hicks released a rare statement denying his claims.

“As most reporters know, it’s not my practice to comment in response to questions from the media. But this warrants a response,” said her lawyer, Robert P. Trout. “She never said that. And the idea that Hope Hicks ever suggested that emails or other documents would be concealed or destroyed is completely false.”

Mark Corallo, holding a beverage, leaves a press conference with former Trump attorney Marc Kasowitz on June 8, 2017, in Washington, D.C. Photo: Zach Gibson/Bloomberg via Getty Images

This development is seriously bad for Team Trump, for a number of reasons. First, while the Trump team often stresses that it’s not a crime to lie to the media, if Hicks did suggest that evidence could be withheld or destroyed, that could help prosecutors establish intent in an obstruction case.

Second, it may mean that Hicks is in more serious trouble. If she is, in fact, as naïve or deceitful as the Corallo story suggests, did she say anything incriminating when she was interviewed by Mueller’s team in December? In Fire and Fury, Michael Wolff reported that in response to the bungled Trump Tower meeting response, Bannon shouted at Hicks that she needed to get a lawyer.

“You don’t know what you are doing,” Bannon reportedly shouted. “You don’t know how much trouble you are in … You are as dumb as a stone!”

Wolff also reported that Corallo quit because he believed the Air Force One meeting amounted to obstruction of justice, which the Times report seems to confirm. That brings us to the third issue for Team Trump: new fears of disloyalty. It’s actually not that shocking that Corallo would rat on his former White House colleagues. Last summer the Times noted that shortly before he was hired, the longtime conservative posted a number of tweets criticizing President Trump, Ivanka Trump, and Jared Kushner. There was also this comment about Mueller, whose time leading the FBI overlaps with Corallo’s tenure at the Justice Department:

Mark Corallo

@MarkCorallo1

Bob is the best. Period. If the facts merit, he'll recommend charging. More importantly, if there's nothing there, he won't. https://twitter.com/andrewcmccarthy/status/865017851484176384 …

9:12 PM - May 18, 2017

More recently Corallo accused some on Mueller’s team of “not just hyperpartisanship, but what seems to be actual efforts to go after Trump and his associates without the objectivity that is required of prosecutors and investigators,” but he still said Trump firing Mueller would be a “colossal mistake.”

Even if what Corallo actually tells Mueller doesn’t amount to anything, his reported plan to spill new information is likely to raise fears of disloyalty among White House staffers, as well as with the president himself. And as we’ve learned, when Trump gets fixated on the loyalty of his subordinates, nothing good comes of it.

For Saudis and Israelis, Cost of Open Ties Outweighs the Benefits - Wall Street Journal

For Saudis and Israelis, Cost of Open Ties Outweighs the Benefits

U.S. wants to bring allies together, but Palestinian issue stands in the way

U.S. President Donald Trump, senior adviser Jared Kushner and chief economic adviser Gary Cohn at a visit with Saudi Arabia's Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in Riyadh in May.

By Yaroslav Trofimov

Feb. 1, 2018 5:30 a.m. ET

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia—Saudi Arabia and Israel share a common enemy, Iran, and a common friend, the Trump administration in Washington.

But despite mounting evidence of informal cooperation, any open rapprochement—a goal of the Trump White House—between these two American allies remains elusive. That is largely because both have too little to gain, and too much to lose, from any such a breakthrough.

For the current Israeli government, the benefits of a diplomatic relationship with Saudi Arabia aren’t worth the tangible concessions to the Palestinians that Riyadh expects Israel to make in exchange. And to Riyadh, the price of being seen as forfeiting the Palestinian cause remains simply too high compared with what Israeli security assistance and technology, such as missile defense, could provide.

That has become especially so after President Donald Trump in December recognized the contested city of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, galvanizing emotional protests across the Muslim world, reigniting support for the Palestinians—and prompting a rare rebuke from Riyadh.

Saudi Arabia’s ambitions to lead the entire Muslim world, or at a minimum a Sunni alliance opposed to Iran, are rooted in its control of Islam’s two holiest sites, in Mecca and Medina. As a standard-bearer of the faith, the Saudi kingdom can’t afford to be seen cozying up to Israel at a time when passions run high over the future of Jerusalem—home to Islam’s third holiest shrine, the Al Aqsa mosque.

An Israeli government handout shows Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meeting with Jared Kushner in Jerusalem in June.

An Israeli government handout shows Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meeting with Jared Kushner in Jerusalem in June. PHOTO: AMOS BEN GERSHOM/GPO/GETTY IMAGES

The protests haven’t just been whipped up by Iran and its proxies, which seek to dismantle the Israeli state. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is seeks to challenge Saudi Arabia’s pre-eminence in the Muslim world, has been just as vocal. In this environment, any Saudi opening to Israel is guaranteed to be exploited by the kingdom’s rivals, and may even include a boycott of the hajj, or pilgrimage, to Mecca, a senior Saudi official cautioned.

“It’s a scary thought. Palestine is not an easy issue,” he said. “Saudi Arabia is expecting to hold Islamic leadership, and will not let it go easily. And, if you need Israel in anything, you can do it anyway, without having a relationship.”

Indeed, Israel and Saudi Arabia have already been cooperating discreetly by sharing intelligence and coordinating lobbying efforts and military activities that seek to deter Iran’s influence in the Red Sea.

Saudi Arabia is also making a public outreach to the American Jewish community. Senior cleric Mohammed al Issa, the kingdom’s former justice minister and the head of its proselytizing arm, the Muslim World League, in January sent an unprecedented official Saudi letter to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

“We consider any denial of the Holocaust or minimizing of its effect a crime to distort history and an insult to the dignity of those innocent souls who have perished,” he wrote, offering a contrast to Iran’s sponsorship of Holocaust denial and revisionism.

Public contacts between Saudi Arabia and Israel, however, have been limited to informal meetings between retired officials at conferences. Saudi Arabia has balked at American proposals to allow overflight rights to Israeli civilian aircraft heading to Asia and, in December, refused to let Israeli chess players attend an international tournament in Riyadh.

The official Saudi position remains that Israel must accept the 2002 Arab League peace initiative, proposed by Saudi Arabia’s then-Crown Prince Abdullah, that calls for normalization of Arab states’ relations with Israel in exchange for Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian territories occupied in 1967, establishment of a Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital, and a solution to the problem of Palestinian refugees.

That is a reality that Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and the White House point-man in attempts to reach a Middle East peace deal, acknowledged in remarks at a Brookings Institution event in December.

Countries such as Saudi Arabia “look at regional threats and they see that Israel, who was traditionally their foe, is a much more natural ally to them today than perhaps it were 20 years ago—because of Iran, because of ISIS, because of extremism,” Mr. Kushner said. “A lot of people want to see it put together, but we have to overcome that issue, the Israeli-Palestinian issue, in order for that to happen.”

Plea for Money Preceded Saudi Crackdown on Elites

Qatar Says Saudi-Led Economic Blockade Has Failed

Pence Says U.S. Will Open Embassy in Jerusalem Next Year

With the right-wing government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ruling out any compromise on Jerusalem and continuing to build settlements in the West Bank, Israeli acceptance of the 2002 Arab peace plan—or any other breakthrough in relations with the Palestinians—looks highly unlikely in the foreseeable future.

Even much more modest steps to address Palestinian grievances that could give Saudi Arabia cover for opening up to Israel are politically unpalatable for Mr. Netanyahu and his coalition partners, cautioned Joshua Teitelbaum, a professor specializing on Gulf affairs at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies of Israel’s Bar-Ilan University.

“The price tag will have to be low.” Mr. Teitelbaum said. “Israel will not make any land concessions, or any concessions having to do with its security, for the sake of diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia.”

Write to Yaroslav Trofimov at yaroslav.trofimov@wsj.com

‘Surprising and regrettable’: Hong Kong cardinal rebuked by Vatican after accusing it of ‘selling out’ to Beijing - Hong Kong Free Press

HONG KONG POLITICS & PROTEST

‘Surprising and regrettable’: Hong Kong cardinal rebuked by Vatican after accusing it of ‘selling out’ to Beijing

1 February 2018 08:00 AFP2 min read

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The Vatican has chastised a Hong Kong cardinal who accused the Holy See of “selling out” to Beijing for reportedly promoting bishops endorsed by the Chinese government.

Although Beijing and the Vatican have improved relations in recent years as China’s Catholic population has grown, they remain at odds over which side has the authority to ordain bishops.

Cardinal Joseph Zen, bishop emeritus of semi-autonomous Hong Kong, confirmed an AsiaNews website report that a Vatican diplomat asked two underground Chinese bishops recognised by the Vatican to resign in favour of state-sanctioned prelates.

China’s roughly 12 million Catholics are divided between a government-run association, whose clergy are chosen by the Communist Party, and an unofficial church which swears allegiance to the Vatican.

China and the Vatican severed diplomatic relations in 1951, but Pope Francis has sought to improve ties since becoming head of the Holy See in 2013.

“Do I think that the Vatican is selling out the Catholic Church in China? Yes, definitely,” Zen said in an open letter on Monday, adding that the Communist government had introduced “harsher regulations limiting religious freedom”.

Zen said he appealed to the pope in a private meeting in Rome earlier this month, where he delivered a letter from one of the bishops who was asked to step aside, Zhuang Jianjian.

The cardinal suggested in his statement that the pope was not kept informed of actions he does not approve, a charge denied Tuesday by Vatican spokesman Greg Burke.

“The pope is in constant contact with his collaborators, in particular in the Secretariat of State, on Chinese issues,” Burke said in a statement, adding that Francis was informed “faithfully and in detail”.

“It is therefore surprising and regrettable that the contrary is affirmed by people in the Church, thus fostering confusion and controversy,” he said.

The Holy See spokesman, however, did not comment on the alleged Vatican requests to the underground bishops.

A spokesman for the Diocese of Hong Kong on Wednesday told AFP it was “not involved in any of the dialogues between the Holy See and China,” but added “the Catholic Church has always been accommodating” and “(accepts) different voices”.

After legal setbacks, Trump administration races to Supreme Court - Reuters

FEBRUARY 1, 2018 / 10:03 PM / UPDATED 14 MINUTES AGO

After legal setbacks, Trump administration races to Supreme Court

Andrew Chung

(Reuters) - When President Donald Trump’s administration took its fight to end a controversial immigration program directly to the U.S. Supreme Court last month, skipping over a California federal appeals court in the process, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said it was a “rare step” to ensure a quick and fair resolution.

But the fast trip to the nation’s highest judicial body was not the first time the administration took the unusual route of circumventing liberal-leaning lower courts and heading straight to the conservative-majority Supreme Court for relief from legal setbacks.

In the last year, the Justice Department sought to bypass lower courts four times using varying legal procedures in several high-profile cases, most recently to defend the administration’s right to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program.

It also skipped the normal legal process in a fight over whether pregnant immigrant teens held in detention can obtain abortions. And it asked the Supreme Court to quickly intervene in its defense of the president’s travel bans, which primarily affected people from several Muslim-majority countries.

“It’s unusual; it is stretching the boundaries,” said Kevin Russell, a Washington, D.C. attorney who has argued frequently before the Supreme Court and worked in both Democratic and Republican administrations.

The strategy makes sense, some legal scholars say, for an administration that has seen so many of its key policy initiatives challenged aggressively by political opponents, who often file in courts where they are likely to find sympathetic judges.

Administration officials “think they’ll do better in the Supreme Court because it is more conservative than the average circuit (appeals) court,” said John McGinnis, a professor at the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law.

While major, fast-moving cases often reach the Supreme Court quickly through expedited lower court rulings followed by appeals, skipping steps in the process is rare, many legal scholars said.

Precisely quantifying the number of times previous administrations have bypassed lower courts is difficult, given the volume of matters brought to the Supreme Court and the numerous ways in which cases can be appealed. But the last time the high court decided a case officially filed in advance of judgment by an appeals court was in 2005. That case, during the George W. Bush administration, involved a challenge to criminal sentencing guidelines, not a presidential policy.

Attempts to bypass lower courts are generally considered long-shots, as the court only takes up such requests when the case is deemed to be of “imperative public importance” warranting immediate review.

A Justice Department official told Reuters in a statement that the government seeks emergency relief only when necessary. “The bottom line is we are careful in what we ask for,” the official said.

The department has not sought Supreme Court review of every major ruling that went against it in lower courts, including two that allowed transgender recruits to join the military as of Jan. 1.

REPEATED SETBACKS

The Trump administration’s Supreme Court strategy has grown out of repeated setbacks at the district and circuit court levels.

Many of Trump’s most significant executive actions, in areas including immigration, transgender rights, energy and the environment, have been at least temporarily blocked by courts. The rulings have often been applied nationwide, not just where the lawsuits were filed.

In the DACA case, for example, a San Francisco judge issued an order on Jan. 9 that blocked the government from rescinding the program, which had protected from deportation nearly 800,000 young people brought illegally to the United States by their parents. A variety of states, individuals and organizations sued after Trump decided last year to rescind DACA, effective in March.

In explaining the unusual appeal directly to the Supreme Court, Sessions said the lower court ruling defied “both law and common sense.” He questioned how the DACA program could “be mandated nationwide by a single district court in San Francisco.”

The other cases taken directly to the Supreme Court by the administration also came after district courts moved to impede key Trump policies or actions.

In November, the administration asked the high court to halt an order by a Maryland federal judge blocking Trump’s revised travel ban, preempting review by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

It bypassed the 9th Circuit in asking the Supreme Court to clarify its own ruling from last June over Trump’s previous, now-expired, travel ban.

In the case over whether pregnant immigrant minors in federal custody could get abortions, the administration asked the Supreme Court in November to throw out future claims, even though a Washington, D.C. based trial judge had ruled only on specific teenagers’ abortion bids and not the wider issue.

The Supreme Court at least partially sided with the government in the travel ban cases, allowing the revised version to go into full effect and agreeing to resolve its legality before the end of June. The DACA and immigrant abortion cases are pending.

Trump has frequently lashed out at courts that have blocked his key policies. After the recent DACA ruling he said the system was “broken and unfair.” He has also accused opponents of “judge shopping” by filing in courts where appeals would go to the 9th Circuit.

Others now accuse Trump of doing the same at the Supreme Court. The strategy could backfire, some say, if the public perceives the court as stepping in prematurely to help the administration. It could also backfire with the Supreme Court itself.

”If they maintain this steady stream of requests for the court to take extraordinary actions,” said Russell, “the court may start to take a jaundiced view of those requests.”

Reporting by Andrew Chung Additional reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Sue Horton

MIT moves to probe human and artificial intelligence - Financial Times

1/2/2018

MIT moves to probe human and artificial intelligence

Academics seek to regain initiative on machine learning ceded to tech industry

The IQ initiative is not the first MIT programme to explore links between human and machine intelligence

Clive Cookson in London

Massachusetts Institute of Technology is launching an ambitious programme, involving hundreds of researchers across the university, to understand human intelligence and apply that knowledge to develop intelligent machines.

The MIT Intelligence Quest or MIT IQ, based at an institution that has been at the forefront of artificial intelligence research since the 1950s, is a far-reaching academic effort to regain the initiative in AI. It comes at a time when the technology industry’s fast-growing research labs threaten to suck the field’s most talented scientists, engineers and ideas away from universities.

“We plan to raise hundreds of millions of dollars from the private and public sectors for this effort,” said Anantha Chandrakasan, MIT dean of engineering. “We are having discussions with a broad set of companies that have shown great enthusiasm for the initiative.”

MIT professors say tech companies have acknowledged concerns that they are poaching too many AI experts from universities, where they are needed to teach future scientists and engineers as well as carry out basic research. The industry is responding by increasing academic collaboration and funding.

“Two weeks ago we had a symposium with several Google and Alphabet companies,” said Josh Tenenbaum, professor of cognitive science and computation. “We can see that industry is keen to replenish the well of ideas and people.”

MIT hopes to sign collaborations similar to that announced in September with IBM, in which the computing company agreed to invest $240m in a new MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab.

We had a symposium with several Google and Alphabet companies. We can see that industry is keen to replenish the well of ideas and people

Prof Josh Tenenbaum

The MIT IQ programme sets out to answer two big questions, said Rafael Reif, the university’s president: “How does human intelligence work, in engineering terms? And how can we use that deep grasp of human intelligence to build wiser and more useful machines?”

It will aim to deliver the answers through two linked entities. The first, called “The Core”, will work on the science and engineering of human and machine intelligence in general. As well as gaining fundamental understanding of how natural and computer brains work, it will generate machine-learning algorithms for more specific applications.

The second entity, “The Bridge” will apply discoveries in natural and artificial intelligence to a wide variety of disciplines including disease diagnosis, drug discovery, materials and manufacturing design, automation, synthetic biology and finance. Both will collaborate with research labs worldwide.

MIT already has more than 200 “principal investigators” (senior scientists) working on aspects of natural and artificial intelligence, said Prof Reif. “We are amplifying this research by providing additional resources and connecting researchers more closely together.”

Harnessing technology to challenge inequality

When AI becomes too big to fail

Both robots and Big Tech have to earn our trust

Prof Tenenbaum said he was looking forward to reproducing in a machine the way human intelligence develops from birth though infancy and childhood. His colleague Dina Katabi, professor of computer science, wants to build an intelligent home for patients with chronic disease, which would constantly monitor their health and predict problems and forestall emergencies before they occur.

Adrian Weller, senior research fellow at the Alan Turing Institute in London, the UK national research centre for AI, said: “We warmly welcome this MIT initiative. AI has made great progress in the last few years but we are still very far from enabling machines to do things that our human brains can do without effort.”

He added that he was particularly pleased that, like the Turing Institute, MIT would investigate the social and ethical implications of AI alongside its scientific and technological development. “If we are going to apply AI across society, we need to think hard about the ethical issues.”

Facebook's earnings leap, but shares fall - NBC News ( source : Associated Press )

January 31, 2018, 4:45 PM

Facebook's earnings leap, but shares fall

Facebook (FB) CEO Mark Zuckerberg's 2018 New Year's resolution for the ubiquitous social network was to fix it. In a candid admission that his company is falling short in some critical areas, he said: "We currently make too many errors enforcing our policies and preventing misuse of our tools."

Unfortunately for Zuckerberg, even though Facebook's fourth-quarter 2017 earnings handily exceeded expectations, investors are focusing more on the potential negative effects of some of the fixes Facebook is making.

The Menlo Park, California-based company said it earned $4.27 billion in the quarter, giving it a profit of $1.44 per share. Adjusted for pretax expenses, earnings came to $2.20 per share. The results surpassed Wall Street forecasts. The average estimate of 14 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of $1.96 per share.

The social media company posted revenue of $12.97 billion in the period, also exceeding analyst forecasts. Twelve analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $12.58 billion.

However, the report also contained an explicit warning from Zuckerberg.

"In total, we made changes that reduced time spent on Facebook by roughly 50 million hours every day," he said in a statement. "By focusing on meaningful connections, our community and business will be stronger over the long term."

Investors' immediate reaction to that news was to sell. The shares sank around 5 percent, or $9.40, to $177.56 in after-hours trading following Wednesday's regular trading close at $186.89.

Not long after Zuckerberg's vow for fixing things in 2018 came one of Facebook's biggest -- and riskiest – adjustments: changing what goes into users' News Feeds. The company decided to give more weight to user-generated content over articles distributed by news sites, brand advertisers and video producers in order to create what the CEO described as a more "meaningful" experience.

That move didn't go over well with publishers, which feared losing the traffic they've come to rely on from those News Feeds. Investors also reacted negatively when this news came barely three weeks ago, knocking the stock price down from $188 to $179 the next day. That followed Zuckerberg's initial warning the changes could trim the amount of time users spend on the social network, which would also be likely to trim its revenues.

The financial impact of the revamped News Feed won't be reflected until Facebook's next earnings report, for first-quarter 2018. But it won't be the only change that could have some effect in that regard.

Just yesterday, Facebook announced that it's banning ads for bitcoin, initial coin offerings and others related to cryptocurrencies, whose meteoric rise last year caught many investors and the financial industry by surprise.

However, it's more likely that the impact of this change will be felt far more by cryptocurrency-related companies than by Facebook.

© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.