Tag: 2016 election

Putin authorized extensive election influence campaign, intelligence report says.

New York Times logo

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia authorized extensive efforts to hurt the candidacy of Joseph R. Biden Jr. during the election last year, including by mounting covert operations to influence people close to President Donald J. Trump, according to a declassified intelligence report released on Tuesday.

The report did not name those people but seemed to refer to the work of Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, who relentlessly pushed accusations of corruption about Mr. Biden and his family involving Ukraine.

“Russian state and proxy actors who all serve the Kremlin’s  Continue reading.

‘I Keep My Promises,’ Trump Said. Let’s Check.

New York Times logo

Here’s a report card on whether the president met his 2016 campaign pledges.

Four years ago as a candidate, President Trump made more than 280 campaign promises. Let’s see how he did:

“I will build a great, great wall on our southern border …” (speech, June 16, 2015)

While Trump so far has built 307 miles of walls along the 1,984-mile border, much of this replaces previous barriers that were dilapidated or blocked only vehicles.

“… and I will have Mexico pay for that wall.”

Mexico is not paying for it. The new wall is costing about $30 million per mile and will be expensive to maintain, for human smugglers have cut open the wall with $50 cordless saws. Continue reading.

They Did Not Vote in 2016. Why They Plan to Skip the Election Again.

New York Times logo

Between a third and a half of all eligible voters typically stay home during presidential elections.

EAST STROUDSBURG, Pa. — Like nearly half of all the eligible voters in her county in 2016, Keyana Fedrick did not vote.

Four years later, politics has permeated her corner of northeastern Pennsylvania. Someone sawed a hole in a large Trump sign near one of her jobs. The election office in her county is so overwhelmed with demand that it took over the coroner’s office next door. Her parents, both Democrats born in the 1950s, keep telling her she should vote for Joseph R. Biden Jr. Anything is better than President Trump, they say.

But Ms. Fedrick, who works two jobs, at a hotel and at a department store, does not trust either of the two main political parties, because nothing in her 31 years of life has led her to believe that she could. She says they abandon voters like “a bad mom or dad who promises to come and see you, and I’m sitting outside with my bags packed and they never show up.” Continue reading.

The U.S. has hit 100% of total 2016 early voting

Washington Post logo

At least 47.1 million have voted nationwide, and there are still 11 days until Election Day

Early-voting counts show a record level of civic participation before Election Day. The tens of millions of ballots already cast show highly enthusiastic voters are making sure their votes are counted amid a pandemic.

Democrats hope this energy leads to a decisive victory on Nov. 3. Registered Democrats are outvoting Republicans by a large margin in states that provide partisan breakdowns of early ballots. Republicans, however, are more likely to tell pollsters they intend to vote in person, and the GOP is counting on an overwhelming share of the Election Day vote going to Trump.

Voting before Election Day has been expanded this year because of the coronavirus pandemic, an option that more than 60 percent of registered voters want, according to a Washington Post-University of Maryland poll in September. Continue reading.

Trump suggested naming his daughter Ivanka as his running mate in 2016, according to new book by Rick Gates

Washington Post logo

As Donald Trump’s top campaign aides began a discussion in June 2016 about who the presumptive Republican presidential nominee should select as his running mate, the candidate piped up with an idea.

“I think it should be Ivanka. What about Ivanka as my VP?” Trump asked the assembled group, according to a new book by his former deputy campaign manager Rick Gates set to be published Oct. 13.

Trump added: “She’s bright, she’s smart, she’s beautiful, and the people would love her!” Continue reading.

Why we still don’t know if Trump is a Russian asset

AlterNet logo

As chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Adam Schiff is attempting to meet the Supreme Court’s guidelines for gaining access to Donald Trump’s financial records. In a memorandum to committee members on counterintelligence risks posed by the president’s financial ties, he included this footnote:

Based on the Committee’s review, it does not appear that Special Counsel Mueller issued any grand jury subpoenas to obtain the President’s financial records. The Committee also has reason to believe, based on its oversight work, that the FBI Counterintelligence Division has not investigated counterintelligence risks arising from President Trump’s foreign financial ties.

That points to a question Schiff has been asking since the Mueller probe was completed in March, 2019.  Here’s how he explained it to the Washington Post‘s Philip Bump a few weeks after Mueller wrapped up his work : Continue reading.

Justice Dept. Never Fully Examined Trump’s Ties to Russia, Ex-Officials Say

New York Times logo

The former deputy attorney general maneuvered to keep investigators from completing an inquiry into whether the president’s personal and financial links to Russia posed a national security threat.

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department secretly took steps in 2017 to narrow the investigation into Russian election interference and any links to the Trump campaign, according to former law enforcement officials, keeping investigators from completing an examination of President Trump’s decades-long personal and business ties to Russia.

The special counsel who finished the investigation, Robert S. Mueller III, secured three dozen indictments and convictions of some top Trump advisers, and he produced a report that outlined Russia’s wide-ranging operations to help get Mr. Trump elected and the president’s efforts to impede the inquiry.

But law enforcement officials never fully investigated Mr. Trump’s own relationship with Russia, even though some career F.B.I. counterintelligence investigators thought his ties posed such a national security threat that they took the extraordinary step of opening an inquiry into them. Within days, the former deputy attorney general Rod J. Rosenstein curtailed the investigation without telling the bureau, all but ensuring it would go nowhere. Continue reading.

Four years ago, Trump said he alone could fix things. What isn’t worse now?

Washington Post logoThe sight of Donald Trump standing by himself behind the briefing room lectern, doing his best to sound presidential and in command of a crisis, was a reminder of a milestone to which no one at the White House cared to draw attention.

Tuesday — the day that Trump delivered his first coronavirus briefing in months — also marked the fourth anniversary of his acceptance of the 2016 Republican nomination at the GOP convention in Cleveland. It was there that he so memorably declared to thousands of cheering delegates and a national television audience: “I alone can fix it.”

Today, it is hard to find any measure by which the country is not feeling more insecure andworse off than it did when Trump was elected. Continue reading.

What Donald Trump’s ‘Access Hollywood’ Weekend Says About 2020

New York Times logoOn a Friday, the world heard vulgar audio of Mr. Trump boasting about forcing himself on women. By Sunday night, the episode that was supposed to doom him had begun to recede.

Donald J. Trump, down and unwilling to get out, saw only one way back up: Go lower.

Two days had passed since the signal humiliation of his political life — the publication of audio in which Mr. Trump boasted about forcing himself on women — and the candidate was desperate to redirect the conversation. The result, less than two hours before an October 2016 debate against Hillary Clinton in St. Louis, was a gambit so secretive that several concerned parties were left in the dark.

Campaign advisers told Reince Priebus, the Republican National Committee chairman who was helping with debate preparations inside the team’s hotel suite, that Mr. Trump had to leave for a perfunctory “meet and greet.” They feared that Mr. Priebus would object if he knew the truth: Mr. Trump would be appearing on camera with women who had for years accused Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct — a brazen attempt to turn the issue of mistreating women back against the Clinton family. Continue reading.

A President Who Makes Us Puke—Just Like He Was Hired To Do

Donald Trump was the purge agent his supporters wanted, but can he do more than flush out the system?

Probably you used to keep a bottle in your bathroom at home, or your parents did. The stuff is called ipecac, and it is what physicians call an emetic.

The idea was that if someone swallowed something bad, like a poisonous plant or the wrong pills, they could be treated with a couple spoonfuls of this to induce something unpleasant but good: rapid and forceful vomiting.

It is not intended as an insult to President Donald Trump to observe that he is the political equivalent of ipecac syrup. Looked at in a certain light, it is closer to a compliment. Continue reading.