Pointing to Trump’s management style, one informal adviser said the president is loath to fire aides outright and instead prefers to publicly humiliate them, hoping they decide to quit on their own. Later, he often tries to repair the relationship — a pattern that played out with several senior advisers, including former chief of staff Reince Priebus and former chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon.
.. Tillerson, 65, has alienated onetime allies at the White House and his underlings at the State Department with what many call a highhanded and tone-deaf manner.
.. Vice President Pence and his staff had also come to believe that Tillerson was ineffective as the chief diplomat and had further undermined his standing by being disrespectful to Trump.
Pence was particularly upset when Tillerson’s spokesman, R.C. Hammond, told NBC that the vice president raised questions about the role of U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley in the administration — a claim Hammond later recanted.
.. Tillerson’s likely successor for a time appeared to be Haley, a Republican former governor from South Carolina who has clashed with Tillerson. Over the past several weeks, however, Haley and White House officials had signaled that she was not likely to be chosen, in part because she is seen as not yet seasoned enough. Haley insisted last month that she does not want the job and would reject it if offered.
.. Tillerson’s main project, a downsizing and streamlining of the State Department bureaucracy, has drawn widespread criticism on Capitol Hill, from leading congressional Republicans and from Democrats. Tillerson has been frustrated by the slow pace and inefficiency of government, as well as what he has complained to friends is a culture of backstabbing and self-aggrandizement.
For Slimy Senators, Our Conviction Should Be Expulsion
It involved comedy skits written by Franken, who slyly worked a kiss into the plot. When they were alone backstage before the debut, he pressed the reluctant Tweeden to rehearse the smooch. After some awkward protest, she acquiesced. He proceeded, she says, with tongue-plunging force. Humiliated but not wanting to ruin the tour, she did not make a fuss beyond warning him not to pull such a stunt again. Through the remaining two-week tour, she avoided him when possible, and he reacted with “petty insults.”
.. A statute-of-limitations defense, by contrast, simply means the state is barred from prosecuting. It is not a finding that the accused is not guilty.
.. Patently, Al Franken is not fit to be a United States senator. That is not a close call, certainly not if we judge Franken in accordance with threats by lawmakers to expel Roy Moore if he is elected. Of course, if Moore makes it to a Senate swearing-in, it will be because the citizens of Alabama, fully aware of claims of egregious abuse of women, voted him into office anyway. In Franken’s case, the voters will not have endorsed him and his abusive conduct is not merely “claimed” — it is readily provable.
.. Democrats like to posture about the “war on women.” Shouldn’t Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell force them to take an accountable vote on Al Franken? And if there is any thought of refusing to seat Roy Moore, wouldn’t a Franken expulsion put Alabama voters on notice
A #MeToo for clueless men
Not all bullies are sexual predators or sexual harassers. But most sexual harassers and predators are bullies.
.. I met Mark Halperin around the time I met Wieseltier. Halperin, too, had a reputation for mistreating women. Until now, I hadn’t heard specific accusations. But I could see with my own eyes that he was a bully who, lacking Wieseltier’s charm, enjoyed power plays over colleagues and other journalists. Our president, likewise, routinely attempts to humiliate aides and opponents alike; is it any wonder that he has also boasted of assaulting women?
Interrogation of Abu Zubaydah
Beginning in August 2002, Abu Zubaydah was the first prisoner to undergo “enhanced interrogation techniques.” Since the Spanish Inquisition, these practices have been characterized as torture.[1][2] There is disagreement among government sources as to how effective these techniques were; some officials contend that Abu Zubaydah gave his most valuable information before they were used; CIA lawyer John Rizzo said he gave more material afterward.[3]
.. Since 2006, Abu Zubaydah has been held at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. While in CIA custody, Zubaydah lost his left eye.[4]
.. Although President George W. Bush claimed in 2006 three examples of intelligence derived from the torture of Abu Zubaydah by the CIA, which he said showed that it was justified, later reporting has established that the prisoner gave two of the names under conventional interrogation by the FBI, and intelligence analysts already had leads from other sources to the third person.[1]
.. Ali Soufan stated that “[w]e kept him alive. It wasn’t easy, he couldn’t drink, he had a fever. I was holding ice to his lips.”[6] The agents attempted to convince Abu Zubaydah that they knew of his activities in languages he understood: English and Arabic.[7][8] Both agents believed they were making good progress in gathering intelligence from Abu Zubaydah.[1][9]
.. During these sessions, Abu Zubaydah revealed that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, known as “Mukhtar” to Abu Zubaydah, was the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks[10] and that American José Padilla had wanted to use a “dirty bomb” in a terror attack.[1][5][6][7].. When the CIA interrogation team arrived a week or two later than the FBI team,[10] they concluded that Abu Zubaydah was holding back information and that harsher techniques were necessary.[5][7][9] The CIA team was led by CIA contractor and former Air Force psychologist James Elmer Mitchell.[6][11] Mitchell ordered that Abu Zubaydah answer questions or face a gradual increase in aggressive techniques.[6.. In 2009 Soufan testified before Congress that his FBI team was removed from Abu Zubaydah’s interrogation multiple times, only to be asked to return when the harsher interrogation tactics of the CIA proved unsuccessful.[12]Ali Soufan was alarmed by the early CIA tactics, such as enforced nudity, cold temperatures, and blaring loud rock music in Zubaydah’s cell.[1][6] Soufan reported to his FBI superiors that the CIA’s interrogation constituted “borderline torture.”[8] He was particularly concerned about a coffin-like box he discovered that had been built by the CIA interrogation team.[6] He was so angry he called the FBI assistant director for counterterrorism, Pasquale D’Amaro, and shouted, “I swear to God, I’m going to arrest these guys!”[1][6] Afterward, both FBI agents were ordered to leave the facility by FBI Director Robert Mueller.[6][8][13] Ali Soufan left, but Steve Gaudin stayed an additional few weeks and continued to participate in the interrogation.[8].. “We were able to get the information about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a couple of days. We didn’t have to do any of this [torture]. We could have done this the right way.”[6].. Rohan Gunaratna, an al-Qaida expert and a government witness in the José Padilla case, said that “most of the information that was exceptionally useful to the fight against al-Qaida came from Abu Zubaydah, and it came before the U.S. government decided to use enhanced techniques.. Dan Coleman, a retired FBI official and al Qaida expert, commented that after the CIA’s use of coercive methods, “I don’t have confidence in anything he says, because once you go down that road, everything you say is tainted. He was talking before they did that to him, but they didn’t believe him. The problem is they didn’t realize he didn’t know all that much.”[9].. Defenders of these techniques have claimed that they got Abu Zubaydah to give up information leading to the capture of Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a top aide to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and Mr. Padilla. This is false. The information that led to Mr. Shibh’s capture came primarily from a different terrorist operative who was interviewed using traditional methods. As for Mr. Padilla, the dates just don’t add up: the harsh techniques were approved in the memo of August 2002, Mr. Padilla had been arrested that May.[13].. The SERE program was originally designed as defensive in nature and was used to train American pilots and other soldiers how to resist harsh interrogation techniques and torture if they fell into enemy hands.[1][18] The program subjected U.S. military trainees to techniques such as “waterboarding . . . sleep deprivation, isolation, exposure to extreme temperatures, enclosure in tiny spaces, bombardment with agonizing sounds at extremely damaging decibel levels, and religious and sexual humiliation.”[22] For the CIA, Mitchell and Jessen adapted SERE into an offensive program designed to train CIA agents and contractors on how to use the harsh interrogation techniques or torture to get information from prisoners.. All of the tactics listed above were later reported by the International Committee of the Red Cross as having been used on Abu Zubaydah.. Mitchell and Jessen relied heavily on experiments done by the American psychologist Martin Seligman in the 1970s known as “learned helplessness... Mitchell believed that Zubaydah must be treated “like a dog in a cage.”[1] He said the interrogation “was like an experiment, when you apply electric shocks to a caged dog, after a while, he’s so diminished, he can’t resist.”[1].. the Washington Post reported in 2009 that “not a single significant plot was foiled as a result of Abu Zubaida’s tortured confessions.. A former intelligence official stated “[w]e spent millions of dollars chasing false alarms.”[27] Ron Suskind said, “we tortured an insane man and ran screaming at every word he uttered.”.. Abu Zubaydah claims he lied under interrogation to prevent further torture.[29]Some of the various false leads he provided are the following:
- Al Qaeda planned on blowing up “soft targets” such as apartment buildings, supermarkets, and shopping malls.[30]
- Attacks could occur against the Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge.[31]
- There were plots against banks in the Northeastern United States.[32]
- There was going to be a nerve gas attack on a major U.S. subway system sometime around July 4.[33]
- Al Qaeda plotted to detonate a jacket full of explosives on a civilian airliner and that the planners had used their own metal and explosive detectors to figure out how to successfully accomplish the mission.[34]
- Al Qaeda knew how to build and smuggle a dirty bomb into the United States.[35] Abu Zubaydah later retracted this allegation.[36]
.. George Tennet who was so impressed that he initially ordered us to be congratulated. That was apparently quickly withdrawn as soon as Mr. Tennet was told that it was FBI agents, who were responsible.
.. Immediately, on the instructions of the contractor, harsh techniques were introduced, starting with nudity. (The harsher techniques mentioned in the memos were not introduced or even discussed at this point.) The new techniques did not produce results as Abu Zubaydah shut down and stopped talking. At that time nudity and low-level sleep deprivation (between 24 and 48 hours) was being used.
.. After a few days of getting no information, and after repeated inquiries from DC asking why all of sudden no information was being transmitted (when before there had been a steady stream), we again were given control of the interrogation. We then returned to using the Informed Interrogation Approach. Within a few hours, Abu Zubaydah again started talking and gave us important actionable intelligence. This included the details of Jose Padilla, the so-called “dirty bomber.”
.. The tapes were destroyed on November 9, 2005.[38] When this became public in 2007, the CIA Director at that time, Michael Hayden, asserted that the continued existence of the tapes had represented a risk to the CIA personnel involved.[39] He asserted that if the tapes had been leaked, they might cause the CIA personnel to be identified and targeted for retaliation.[40]