When Anthony Scaramucci took over as White House communications director, prompting the resignation of press secretary Sean Spicer, the initial reaction from Washington journalists was warily optimistic. Where Spicer was aggressive and hostile, Scaramucci would be “smooth ” and affable. He even blew a kiss to end his first press briefing. These looked like signs of a thaw. After all, officials and reporters in Washington may still joke around after a bad story or a slight; the hostility is often for show. Politics is communal and built on co-dependency.
Finance is different. It is individualist and zero-sum. As a reporter and editor covering Wall Street for 18 years, I studied the industry’s aggressive approach toward the press: Financiers, and the multibillion-dollar companies they work for, are friendly and charming as long as you see things their way, and they do everything they can to win reporters over. But when reporters don’t buy their line, the Wall Street answer is to get intransigent journalists removed from stories.
.. President Trump reportedly liked that Scaramucci’s pushback about an inaccurate CNN story — complete with rumored threat of legal action — led to the departures of three veteran investigative journalists. Scaramucci pointedly called on a CNN reporter at his first briefing and a few days later said, on a hot microphone, that network boss Jeff Zucker “helped me get the job by hitting those guys,” referring to the unemployed reporters.
.. There’s every reason to believe that the White House team sees this as a model: It will not worry about the accuracy of what is published, only whether the tone is Trump-friendly.
.. Of his new job, Scaramucci says, “It is a client service business, and [Trump] is my client.”
.. When a negative report was in the works, company representatives often called up the journalist writing it and tried to ingratiate themselves with a charming introduction and some light chitchat. The point was to humanize the people at the firm so that journalists would feel guilty reporting negatively about it.
.. When a piece was in process, they’d follow up daily, trying to get a sense of who the journalist’s sources were and the direction of the story. The key at this point was to keep their enemies close.
.. My favorite of their techniques, used by two major investment houses, was to flatly deny a story that I knew was accurate.
.. When charm didn’t work, I saw or heard about firms
- wheedling,
- pleading,
- threatening,
- calling editors and even
- contacting media executives.
Insults and obscenities were common. One troubled hedge fund’s foul-mouthed manager called me every day for a week with some new litany of abuse.
.. Other companies tried to co-opt aggressive reporters by offering them lucrative jobs.. If the full-court press failed, the next step was usually to call the reporter’s editor and complain that the subject didn’t feel he or she was getting a fair shake. The point was to undermine a reporter’s support within their organization, with a view toward neutralizing their reporting.Anything the reporter had said, even in a casual conversation, could be used as evidence of an ulterior motive. Refusing to finesse quotes was seen as biased intransigence... Every journalist who covers Wall Street knows that banks keep tabs on them, sometimes spoken of as “dossiers,” though they’re nothing fancy: reporters’ articles, backgrounds, editors, potentially revealing comments they may have made to the bank’s communications team. Financial firms have multiple people picking over journalists’ past work, looking for a word or phrase that could be interpreted as biased... A senior executive at Uber once suggested that the company compile opposition research on journalists who wrote critical stories.Microsoft once broke into the Hotmail account of a blogger while pursuing the source of internal leaks... The last technique I saw used against news organizations was threats, and this is what Scaramucci appears to have mastered with CNN.
- At different publications, I saw the names of Russian oligarchs removed from stories after threats of lawsuits. ‘
- Once, an editor killed an entire investigation because the Koch brothers threatened a lawsuit if it went forward.
- In my first job, writing for a tiny finance trade publication, the treasurer of a multibillion-dollar company told me in an interview that the firm planned to raise money by selling bonds — then called back and threatened to sue if I quoted his on-the-record comment.
.. Business is often a zero-sum proposition, and executives sometimes see their relationships with journalists that way, too.
- Less than a week after his kissy debut at the White House lectern, he blamed the press for capitalizing on “leaks” that were in fact on-the-record quotes he himself had made.
- Then he demanded an FBI investigation over how Politico obtained his financial disclosure form — which is public information .
- On Thursday night, he tweeted that he’d “made a mistake in trusting a reporter,” Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker, who had quoted his on-the-record comments about White House colleagues.
So forget the pleasant tone and the cheerful smiles that Scaramucci brought at first. The White House press corps now faces a much more aggressive, much more personal fight than the Beltway is used to.
It’s not crazy to believe that a few more journalists may lose something beyond their access to the White House — they may lose their beats or even their jobs
GOP opponents to Senate health-care bill see vote delay as an advantage
A vocal conservative opponent of the measure, Sen. Rand Paul, predicted the delay would strengthen critics’ position by giving them more time to mobilize against the bill.
“The longer the bill is out there, the more conservative Republicans are going to discover it is not repeal,” Paul (R-Ky.) said Sunday in an interview with CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
Paul said he spoke with Trump on Friday and suggested the president support repealing the Affordable Care Act and deciding the details of a replacement plan later if the latest version of the bill does not pass.
.. Trump administration officials failed to gain support from influential Republicans such as Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval (R). Opposition from Sandoval and others will make it easier for undecided Republican senators from those states to vote “no” on the bill, potentially further endangering its prospects.
.. (63 percent) believes it is more important for the government to provide health coverage to low-income people compared with cutting taxes (27 percent). Among Republicans, 48 percent favored cutting taxes, compared with 39 percent who favored providing health coverage for low-income people.
.. “President Trump and I believe the Senate health-care bill strengthens and secures Medicaid for the neediest in our society,” Pence said
.. Collins strongly disagreed in an interview Sunday with CNN.
“You can’t take more than $700 billion out of the Medicaid program and not think that it’s going to have some kind of effect,” she said during an appearance on “State of the Union.”
.. “This bill imposes fundamental, sweeping changes in the Medicaid program, and those include very deep cuts that would affect some of the most vulnerable people in our society, including disabled children and poor seniors. It would affect our rural hospitals and our nursing homes, and they would have a very hard time even staying in existence.”
.. Pence’s speech was criticized by Democrats, health-care advocates and even some Republicans for mischaracterizing the possible ramifications of the GOP bill.
.. During the same speech, the vice president went after Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R), a critic of the legislation, by suggesting his state’s expansion of Medicaid left nearly 60,000 residents with disabilities “stuck on waiting lists, leaving them without the care they need for months or even years.”
The claim alienated many at the meeting, partly because waiting lists for Medicaid’s home- and community-based services were not affected by the program’s expansion under the ACA, and partly because many interpreted Pence’s remark as an overly aggressive shot at Kasich. The Ohio governor’s stance against the bill could shape the position of Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), a pivotal vote for Republicans who is undecided on the current version. Some fear Pence missed an opportunity to woo Portman with his remark against Kasich.
.. Collins estimated Sunday that there are eight to 10 Republican senators with “serious concerns”
.. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price and Seema Verma, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, worked to undermine that report and a forthcoming analysis by the Congressional Budget Office showing the legislation’s cost and insurance impact.
.. The Avalere study projected marked reductions in federal Medicaid funding to all 50 states, ranging from 27 percent to 39 percent by 2036.
Trump-Putin Will Talk Against Backdrop of Broader Russian Mischief
Debate over Russia’s role in 2016 election blurs larger picture
Less obvious, but more important, is how any Russian meddling in the American presidential-election season—whatever form it may have taken—fits into a much larger tale. This is the tale of a systematic Russian effort to disrupt democratic and capitalist systems internationally, using an updated version of tactics Mr. Putin learned in the bad old days of the Soviet KGB... The Playbook is an in-depth study of Russian efforts to use overt and covert tactics over a period of a decade to expand its economic and political influence in five Central and East European nations. A group of regional leaders from such nations warned President Barack Obama in a 2009 letter—which also looks prescient now—that Russia was conducting “overt and covert means of economic warfare, ranging from energy blockades and politically motivated investments to bribery and media manipulation in order to advance its interests….”..The Russian strategy, the study finds, isn’t ad hoc. Rather, it is the implementation of a doctrine developed by Russian Gen. Valery Gerasimov called “new generation warfare.” One European analyst called that “primarily a strategy of influence, not of brute force” aimed at “breaking the internal coherence of the enemy system.”.. 1) The first track is economic. Russia seeks to find business partners and investments that allow it to establish an economic foothold, which in turn produces economically influential patrons and partners who have a vested interest in policies friendly to the Kremlin. That is a particularly fruitful endeavor in Europe, where many nations depend on Russian energy supplies.The goal on this track is to cultivate “a network of local affiliates and power-brokers who are capable of advocating on Russia’s behalf.”
2) The second track, perhaps more relevant to the U.S., is designed to disrupt prevailing democratic political patterns. The goal, the Playbook says, is “to corrode democracy from within by deepening political divides and cultivating relationships with aspiring autocrats, political parties (notably nationalists, populists and Euroskeptic groups), and Russian sympathizers.”
.. “an acceleration” of Russian influence-seeking, ranging from a plot against the prime minister of Montenegro to interference in the French election to cyberattacks in Ukraine.
The Justice Department Is Killing Trump
It is, in addition, a scandal born of Trump’s desperation to publicize information that is true and that a president is fully entitled to publicize — such as the facts that the president had been assured by the FBI director on multiple occasions that he is not a criminal suspect
.. True, his media-Democrat enemies cast every story in the worst possible light. But there’s always a story, isn’t there?
.. That is largely Trump’s doing. The tweet-tirades about phantom wiretaps (which undermined his credibility
.. The multiple conflicting explanations for Comey’s removal. The bizarre decision to meet Russian diplomats the day after Comey’s dismissal and, shamefully, to berate the former director in their presence. And, of course, more tweets, such as the self-destructive suggestion of a Watergate-resonant White House taping system (that almost certainly does not exist).
.. Four key decisions, three of them made after the president was inaugurated and the Justice Department came under his control, at least nominally, have done immense damage to his administration — in conjunction with Trump’s belief that fires are best doused with gasoline.
.. After his (self-induced) nightmare over the Hillary Clinton e-mails investigation, Comey was reluctant to announce that Trump was not a suspect; he feared that if Trump’s status later changed, he would have to correct his announcement
.. during congressional testimony, he made an unnecessary announcement about the Russia investigation that led the media to report, and much of the public to believe, that Trump was a suspect in possible crimes. Once he did that, it was unreasonable to refuse to correct this misimpression by publicly acknowledging that Trump was not a suspect.
.. It is all well and good to agitate over a “duty to correct,” but Comey glides past the more basic duty not to make gratuitous prejudicial statements in the first place.
1. The Flynn Investigation and Interrogation
because Kislyak, as an operative of a hostile foreign power, was under FBI surveillance, the bureau knew (and informed what the New York Times furtively described as “Obama advisers”) that Flynn had done nothing improper in these discussions — i.e., no quid pro quo involving a lifting of Obama-imposed sanctions
.. the Justice Department had the FBI interrogate him about the Kislyak conversations even though it had recordings of them and thus did not need Flynn’s input.
.. Reportedly, Flynn misled the FBI agents about whether sanctions had been discussed (just as he misled Vice President Mike Pence — which led to Flynn’s dismissal).
.. Still, there appears to have been no justification for considering him a suspect and interrogating him as such.
That is what led Trump, in the immediate aftermath of the painful decision to fire Flynn, to lean on Comey to drop the investigation. That, in turn, is the spark that lit the obstruction fire.
2. The Sessions Recusal
.. in overreaction to false allegations that he had perjured himself at the Senate hearing, Sessions bowed to media-Democrat demands and announced a recusal more sweeping than it needed to be.
.. Sessions was not consulted on Comey’s March 20 testimony. He was thus unable to direct the FBI director not to make a misleading announcement that suggested Trump was a suspect
3. Comey’s March 20 Testimony
(a) the FBI was conducting a counterintelligence investigation of the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the election;
(b) this probe included “investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government, and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts”; and
(c) the FBI would further assess whether any crimes were committed.
.. The then-director began his statement by asserting that he had been “authorized by the Department of Justice” to make this announcement. As noted above, Sessions had by then recused himself, but Rosenstein was not yet confirmed — that would take another month. On March 20, the acting DAG was Dana Boente, a longtime prosecutor whom President Obama and his attorney general, Eric Holder, had appointed
.. It is hard to imagine that Sessions would have authorized Comey’s March 20 announcement – certainly not unless it acknowledged that Trump was not a suspect.
.. had the Justice Department refused to authorize this unnecessary and misleading announcement, Comey would probably still be FBI director, there would be no obstruction investigation, and the Russia counterintelligence probe might be winding down toward a finding that there had been no Trump campaign collusion.
4. Rosenstein’s Appointment of a Special Counsel
.. Rosenstein saw that he was being made the fall-guy for a decision
.. Having cultivated good relations on both sides of the aisle, Rosenstein had been confirmed by the Senate with overwhelming bipartisan support (94–6); suffice it to say, he is not the type to let Democratic hyperbole roll off his back.
.. making a counterintelligence probe the linchpin of a special-counsel investigation sets no practical limitations on the special counsel’s jurisdiction. Counterintelligence is an information-gathering exercise; it does not have the definitive parameters of a criminal investigation, which focuses on concrete factual scenarios in which indictable crimes have been committed.
.. Rosenstein’s flouting of the regulations means Mueller’s investigation is a fishing expedition. It is already straying far afield from suspicions about Trump collusion in Russia’s election-meddling — which, we need to remind ourselves, is the purported rationale for the probe
.. The probe’s focus has morphed from collusion to obstruction
.. Mueller has also broadened his scope to include the scrutinizing of financial activities of Trump associates, reportedly based on hunches about possible bribery and money-laundering. These, in turn, are based on the assumption that there was collusion
.. there are conflicts of interest that are apt to discredit the investigation, regardless of whether they technically require disqualification.
.. Rosenstein selected Mueller despite the latter’s close friendship with and professional ties to Comey. Now that obstruction is suddenly the focal point of the probe, Comey is clearly a central witness.
.. Mueller promptly made tin-eared hires: lawyers who, despite their impressive prosecutorial credentials, are Obama and Clinton donors. One of them, Andrew Weissmann, is also plagued by the scorched-earth reputation he developed as special prosecutor in the Enron investigation, particularly the infamous prosecution that destroyed the Arthur Andersen accounting firm — which Weissmann indicted on very thin proof for, yes, obstruction of justice . . . only to have the conviction thrown out by the Supreme Court.
.. the staffing decisions make it inevitable that much of the public will suspect prosecutorial bias even if all the lawyers perform responsibly.
.. President Trump can be an erratic and intemperate client
.. If the president has learned nothing else, it should be the importance of filling the Justice Department, and the rest of his administration, with his own appointees. To say the prior administration laid traps for him, and that he has blundered his way into them, is putting it mildly.