Category Archives: Congress

The march to impeachment

Robert Kuttner writes: There are already plenty of grounds to impeach Donald Trump. The really interesting question is when key Republicans will decide that he’s more of a liability than an asset.

If Trump keeps sucking up to Vladimir Putin, it could happen sooner than you think.

The first potential count is Trump’s war with the courts. The Supreme Court is likely to give expedited review to the order by the 9th Circuit upholding Judge James Robart’s order that tossed out Trump’s bans on immigrants or refugees from seven countries, even permanent US residents and others with valid green cards.

It’s encouraging that the agencies of government, such as the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security, immediately deferred to the court order, not to a president who thinks he can govern by decree.

But suppose the Supreme Court finds against Trump? Will he try to defy the high court? That would be a first-class impeachable offense. Even Richard Nixon deferred to a Supreme Court order to turn over the Watergate tapes.

A second category of impeachable offense involves his mixing his personal profits with his official duties as president. That describes his bizarre romance with Vladimir Putin, who presides over a nation where Trump has extensive business interests, as well as Trump’s double standards in determining which Muslim nations were exempted from his executive order. [Continue reading…]

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U.S. developing counter-propaganda initiative targeting Russia

The Daily Beast reports: President Trump may be continuing his public pursuit for Vladimir Putin’s affections. But behind the scenes, the United States is quietly preparing to wage an information war against Russia.

The 2016 presidential campaign alerted the public to the concept of information as a weapon — and to its incredible effectiveness when used just right. From WikiLeaks to RT to Sputnik, the Russian government tried to sow discord among Americans, according to a recent U.S. intelligence report. To some extent it succeeded, by facilitating public skepticism of American institutions and the press—and undermining Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

“Russia is trying to create civic chaos, questions about what is reliable, and mistrust about institutions,” said Karl Altau, director of the Joint Baltic American National Committee, which advocates against Russian misinformation. “It’s a national threat. This is something responsible citizens need to be aware of.”

Russian intervention in the U.S. democratic process caught many American policymakers dozing at the wheel, observers say. But the dramatic nature of the intelligence community’s findings, both before and after Trump’s election, has woken them up.

“This was not paid much attention to until the Hillary Clinton [presidential campaign was upended by hacked and leaked emails] last summer,” said Donald Jensen, a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis, a leading think-tank on Russian information warfare. “If you went around town last spring and asked senators and lawmakers if this is a problem, they would have said ‘no’… People are playing catch-up.”

Without fanfare, the catch-up is slowly beginning. The United States government is spending tens of millions of dollars to counter propaganda from Vladimir Putin and other state actors, a move slipped into the thousands of pages of the annual defense policy bill passed by Congress. [Continue reading…]

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James Baker on how to run a White House that works and why the world is so scared right now

Politico reports: Democrats and Republicans agree on one thing: James A. Baker III was the gold standard when it came to running a White House. And so far he’s not overly impressed when it comes to the troubled kickoff of the Trump administration.

In his first extensive comments on America’s controversial new president, the former chief of staff, campaign manager, diplomat and all-around GOP wise man offered a serious and substantive critique of the early days of President Trump’s takeover. His advice: Stop blowing up the U.S. relationship with Mexico, don’t expect them to pay for the wall, don’t act as “Israel’s lawyer,” don’t be an isolationist, support NATO and do a much better job of working with the other power centers of Washington — Congress and the Cabinet — before unveiling disruptive new policies like the temporary refugee ban. “The rollout here was deficient, we have to acknowledge that,” he says.

When we met in his Houston office last week for the launch of The Global Politico, our new weekly podcast on international affairs in the Trump era, Baker held forth for nearly an hour about how things are supposed to work in a West Wing that’s got its game on, the ways in which the brash billionaire in the White House is — and is not — like his old boss Ronald Reagan, and his disappointment in Barack Obama for leaving “the world in much worse shape than it was eight years ago.”

He also weighed in on Russia sanctions, taking a firm line that they should remain in place to remind the Russian President Vladimir Putin that “rolling the tanks” into neighboring countries like Ukraine will not be tolerated, worried that Trump will trade those sanctions away for “nothing” and argued that Israel is risking its future by building more settlements. “We have allies that are just scared to death,” he notes, as a result of Trump’s early rhetoric and unpredictable foreign policy. [Continue reading…]

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Democratic lawmakers seek Pentagon probe of Mike Flynn’s Russia Today ties

The Wall Street Journal reports: Several top Democratic members of Congress are asking the Defense Department to investigate whether retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, violated the Constitution when he accepted money from a Russian television network that U.S. intelligence officials say is part of a state-funded media apparatus.

In a letter sent Wednesday to Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, the lawmakers said that since Mr. Flynn retired from the Army in 2014, he has appeared regularly on Russia Today, or RT, a state-sponsored television network. The letter also said that Mr. Flynn acknowledged he was paid to speak at a gala in Moscow celebrating RT’s 10th anniversary in December 2015. At the event, he dined alongside Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The lawmakers said that Mr. Flynn may have violated the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, which prohibits someone “holding any office of profit or trust” — meaning a public office or military position — from accepting gifts or payments from a foreign country.

“The Department of Defense has made clear that this restriction applies to retired military officers because they continue to hold offices of trust,” according to the letter, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Mr. Flynn didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Flynn’s Russia trip and his media appearances have come under scrutiny before. But this is the first time that lawmakers have formally requested that the Pentagon investigate the RT payment and have suggested it may have been illegal. [Continue reading…]

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Hannah Arendt: A lying government has constantly to rewrite its own history

In a 1974 interview, Hannah Arendt said: The moment we no longer have a free press, anything can happen. What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed; how can you have an opinion if you are not informed? If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. This is because lies, by their very nature, have to be changed, and a lying government has constantly to rewrite its own history. On the receiving end you get not only one lie — a lie which you could go on for the rest of your days — but you get a great number of lies, depending on how the political wind blows. And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please. [Continue reading…]

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Trump’s headline-grabbing executive orders may lead nowhere

Politico reports: President Donald Trump’s team made little effort to consult with federal agency lawyers or lawmakers as they churned out executive actions this week, stoking fears the White House is creating the appearance of real momentum with flawed orders that might be unworkable, unenforceable or even illegal.

The White House didn’t ask State Department experts to review Trump’s memorandum on the Keystone XL pipeline, even though the company that wants to build the pipeline is suing the U.S. for $15 billion, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Defense Secretary James Mattis and CIA Director Mike Pompeo were “blindsided” by a draft order that would require agencies to reconsider using interrogation techniques that are currently banned as torture, according to sources with knowledge of their thinking.

Just a small circle of officials at the Department of Health and Human Services knew about the executive action starting to unwind Obamacare, and only less than two hours before it was released. Key members of Congress weren’t consulted either, according to several members. And at a conference in Philadelphia, GOP legislators say they had no idea whether some of the executive orders would contrast with existing laws — because they hadn’t reviewed them. [Continue reading…]

Contrast or conflict? I guess Politico doesn’t have enough editors.

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As Trump orders wall, Mexico’s president considers canceling U.S. trip

The New York Times reports: When Donald J. Trump called some Mexican immigrants rapists, threatened to deport millions of them and promised to build a wall to keep others out, Mexican officials counseled caution, saying it was merely bluster from an unlikely candidate who, if elected, would never follow through.

Now, after just five days in office, President Trump is looking a lot like Candidate Trump — and the Mexicans are furious.

With just a few strokes of the pen on Wednesday, the new American president signed an executive order to beef up the nation’s deportation force and start construction on a new wall between the nations. Adding to the perceived insult was the timing of the order: It came on the first day of talks between top Mexican officials and their counterparts in Washington, and just days before a meeting between the two countries’ presidents.

The action was enough to prompt President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico to consider scrapping his plans to visit the White House on Tuesday, according to Mexican officials. In a video message delivered over Twitter on Wednesday night, Mr. Peña Nieto did not address whether he would cancel the meeting, saying only that future steps would be taken in consultation with the country’s lawmakers. Instead, he reiterated his commitment to protect the interests of Mexico and the Mexican people, and chided the move in Washington to continue with the wall.

“I regret and condemn the United States’ decision to continue with the construction of a wall that, for years now, far from uniting us, divides us,” he said.

It mattered little to Mexicans whether Mr. Trump’s order would receive congressional approval or the funding required to fulfill it.

The perceived insults endured during the campaign had finally turned into action. Decades of friendly relations between the nations — on matters involving trade, security and migration — seemed to be unraveling. [Continue reading…]

The Washington Post reports: President Trump’s proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexico border cannot be built with only the executive order he signed Wednesday and its construction will require congressional approval, border experts and former federal officials said.

While Trump can start the wall by shifting around existing federal funds, he will need Congress to appropriate the $20 billion — and perhaps significantly more — required to complete the massive structure, the experts and former officials said.

“How is he going to fund it? You need money!” Rand Beers, a former acting Department of Homeland Security secretary in the Obama administration, said Wednesday. “He’s got to have the money. And you can’t reprogram all that money without congressional authorization.” [Continue reading…]

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James Mattis is sworn in as defense secretary, pledges to build alliances

The Washington Post reports: Retired Marine Gen. James N. Mattis was confirmed and sworn in as President Trump’s defense secretary Friday, breaking with decades of precedent as a recently retired general became the Pentagon’s top civilian leader.

Mattis, 66, was approved with a 98-1 vote after the presidential inauguration and then sworn in by Vice President Pence. The new Pentagon chief released a statement to U.S. troops afterward that credited not only them, but intelligence personnel as “sentinels and guardians of our nation” — rhetoric that is in line with Mattis’s past statements, but stands in contrast to the way Trump has criticized the value of U.S. intelligence in recent weeks.

Mattis also pledged to work with the State Department to strengthen U.S. alliances abroad, some of which have been rattled by Trump questioning their worth.

“We need only look to you, the uniformed and civilian members of the Department and your families, to see the fundamental unity of our country,” Mattis’s statement said. “You represent an America committed to the common good; an America that is never complacent about defending its freedoms; and an America that remains a steady beacon of hope for all mankind.”

Many lawmakers and long-time foreign policy observers hope Mattis can be a moderating voice of experience in an administration that has notably few senior officials with national security experience in Washington. He will lead the Defense Department’s 1.9 million active-duty service members and reservists and oversee a budget of more than $580 billion as Trump prepares to expand the military. [Continue reading…]

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Democrats block Pompeo CIA confirmation vote amid Trump’s feud with intel

McClatchy reports: An objection from three Democratic senators will delay the U.S. Senate’s vote to confirm Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo as the new director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said on Friday that they oppose “a rushed confirmation” of Rep. Mike Pompeo to serve as CIA director unless senators get the opportunity to debate the nomination.

“The importance of the position of CIA Director, especially in these dangerous times, demands that the nomination be thoroughly vetted, questioned and debated,” the senators said in a statement.

The vote had been expected to happen on Friday, after the swearing-in of Donald Trump as the 45th president.

The move means Trump likely will start his presidency without his own nominee at the head of the CIA.

The senators said the CIA can protect the nation “under the leadership of its senior professional personnel” in the meantime.

“Certainly the incoming administration acknowledges that this would be consistent with their decision to hold over 50 current administration national security appointees,” the senators said. “Our constituents expect Congress to be a check and balance on the incoming administration, not a rubber stamp.”

The CIA is locked in a battle with Trump over allegations that the Russian President Vladimir Putin was behind an effort to sway the election in Trump’s favor. [Continue reading…]

Politico reports: Newly-inaugurated President Donald Trump is settling into office this weekend with a mostly-empty Cabinet that will likely take weeks to fill.

He has a nasty nominations war in the Senate to blame.

Even as the chamber cleared two national security nominees on Friday, and vowed to take up a third on Monday, Democrats are threatening a prolonged fight over key administration posts, including for secretary of state, attorney general and Treasury secretary. [Continue reading…]

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Nikki Haley departs sharply from Trump on a range of foreign policy issues, including Russia

The Washington Post reports: South Carolina Gov. Nikki ­Haley departed sharply and sometimes awkwardly from President-elect Donald Trump on several foreign policy issues Wednesday and told senators that as United Nations ambassador she would not hesitate to disagree with her boss.

The Republican rising star who had been critical of Trump as a candidate struggled at times to distance herself from some of Trump’s most controversial positions without openly contradicting him.

During her confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Haley voiced heavy skepticism about Russia and optimism about NATO, both deviations from some of Trump’s statements. She unequivocally shot down the idea of a Muslim registry or ban, which Trump has never fully disavowed. [Continue reading…]

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John’s gospel of Trump’s illegitimacy

Charles Blow writes: On Friday, the Georgia congressman, civil rights icon and Donald Trump inauguration-boycotter John Lewis told NBC’s Chuck Todd something that I believe millions of Americans are thinking.

“I don’t see this president-elect as a legitimate president,” Lewis said. “I think the Russians participated in helping this man get elected. And they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton.”

The release of the clip in which Lewis made his stark assessment came on the same day that the F.B.I. director, James Comey, and other intelligence officials provided a classified briefing to members of the House, no doubt divulging information to which we mere mortals are not privy. After the meeting, Representative Maxine Waters of California blasted: “It’s classified and we can’t tell you anything. All I can tell you is the F.B.I. director has no credibility!” [Continue reading…]

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The investigation of James Comey is exactly what the country needs

Michael R. Bromwich, who served as Justice Department inspector general from 1994 to 1999, writes: The announcement by the Justice Department’s inspector general that his office will look into FBI Director James B. Comey’s handling of Hillary Clinton’s emails reopens painful questions about the 2016 election, but it is also welcome news. The country needs this — an objective, independent and thorough investigation of issues that have roiled the country for months and continue to stir heated debate.

No one questions that the inspector general has the authority to conduct such an investigation, but some wonder whether it is wise to step into matters so completely suffused with politics. These fears are understandable but misguided. Inspectors general occupy a unique institutional position. They have dual reporting responsibilities: to the agency in which they are embedded and to Congress. Members of Congress sometimes inappropriately leverage the power conferred by those reporting responsibilities, and the unique relationships that exist between inspectors general and Congress, by requesting investigations or other reviews that have partisan political motives.

Here, that is not an issue. The announcement made clear that this investigation has bipartisan support — it was requested by the chairman and ranking members of multiple congressional oversight committees. In the face of those requests, the better question is whether the inspector general could afford not to do it.

Some members of the public may wonder how a political appointee in an outgoing administration can launch an investigation such as this one. That misunderstands the role of federal inspectors general, who do not leave with the change of administrations. Inspectors general are the only political appointees whom the law requires be selected “without regard to political affiliation and solely on the basis of integrity.” They serve for indefinite periods and may be removed only for cause and with advance notice to Congress. [Continue reading…]

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Intelligence Committee will investigate possible Russia-Trump links

Politico reports: Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) said late Friday that his committee will investigate possible contacts between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia, reversing himself one day after telling reporters that the issue would be outside of his panel’s ongoing probe into Moscow’s election-disruption efforts.

Burr and the intelligence panel’s top Democrat, Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, said in a joint statement that the committee’s probe would touch on “intelligence regarding links between Russia and individuals associated with political campaigns” as well as Russian cyberattacks and other election meddling outlined in an intelligence report released last week.

The committee will use “subpoenas if necessary” to secure testimony from Obama administration officials as well as Trump’s team, Burr and Warner said.

The bipartisan Senate announcement came hours after several House Democrats aired their frustrations with FBI Director James Comey following a classified briefing on Russian election disruption. The Democrats were livid that Comey refused to confirm whether he is conducting an inquiry into potential Trump ties to Russia — a question that he publicly declined to answer earlier this week. [Continue reading…]

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Trump’s Cabinet nominees keep contradicting him

The Washington Post reports: Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees, in their first round of confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill, have one after another contradicted the president-elect on key issues, promising to trim back or disregard some of the signature promises on which he campaigned.

A fresh set of examples came Thursday, the third day of hearings.

Retired Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis, Trump’s nominee to be defense secretary, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the United States must honor the “imperfect ­arms-control agreement” with Iran that Trump has vowed to dismantle because “when America gives her word, we have to live up to it and work with our allies.”

He also took a more adversarial stance than Trump has toward Russian President Vladi­mir Putin and cited Moscow as one of the nation’s top threats.

“I’ve never found a better guide for the way ahead than studying the histories. Since [the 1945 meeting of world powers at] Yalta, we have a long list of times we’ve tried to engage positively with Russia. We have a relatively short list of successes in that regard,” Mattis said. “I think right now, the most important thing is that we recognize the reality of what we deal with [in] Mr. Putin and we recognize that he is trying to break the North Atlantic alliance.”

At a witness table in another Senate hearing room, Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.), whom Trump picked to head the CIA, assured the Intelligence Committee that he would “absolutely not” use brutal interrogation tactics on terrorism suspects in contravention of the law, even if ordered to do so by a president who campaigned on a promise to reinstate the use of such measures.

Trump indicated in a tweet Friday morning that he is unconcerned about the contradictions. “All of my Cabinet nominee are looking good and doing a great job,” Trump wrote. “I want them to be themselves and express their own thoughts, not mine!”

The discordant notes that Cabinet nominees have struck as they have been questioned by senators suggest that a reality check may lie ahead for Trump.

It may be that the grandiosity and disregard for convention that got Trump elected were inevitably bound for a collision with the practical and legal limitations of governing. [Continue reading…]

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James Comey refuses to tell Senate if FBI is investigating Trump-Russia links

The Guardian reports: The director of the FBI – whose high-profile interventions in the 2016 election are widely seen to have helped tip the balance of against Hillary Clinton – has refused to say if the bureau is investigating possible connections between associates of President-elect Donald Trump and Russia.

Testifying before the Senate intelligence committee on Tuesday, James Comey said he could not comment in public on a possible investigation into allegations of links between Russia and the Trump campaign.

“I would never comment on investigations – whether we have one or not – in an open forum like this, so I really can’t answer one way or another,” said Comey, at a hearing into the US intelligence agencies’ conclusion that Russia intervened in the election to benefit Trump.

Comey’s reticence stunned several senators who pointed to his repeated public discussions of FBI inquiries into Clinton during the campaign.

It was his first public appearance since an election that saw his reputation for integrity seriously tarnished, after his repeated public statements on the bureau’s inquiry into Clinton’s private email server. Clinton reportedly blames Comey for her unexpected loss to Trump. [Continue reading…]

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Why Congress needs to launch a bipartisan inquiry into Russia’s intervention in the 2016 election

David Ignatius writes: The allegations about Russian hacking are framed in the unclassified report released last Friday by Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr., on behalf of the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency. That report made strong charges, but it didn’t provide detailed supporting evidence, which is contained in other, classified reports. The allegations are public, in other words, but not the proof.

That’s a bad mix. Indeed, it’s potentially toxic when Trump has criticized the investigation as a “political witch hunt,” and Reince Priebus, his choice for White House chief of staff, has said the Clapper report is “clearly politically motivated to discredit” Trump’s victory.

Somehow, this allegation of foreign meddling has to be taken out of politics. Otherwise, it’s too incendiary. It could be abused by Trump’s critics, or by Trump himself. An independent inquiry is the best way to safeguard the rule of law, and the insistence that nobody is above it.

Recall what the intelligence chiefs alleged in the Clapper report: “We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election. . . . We also assess Putin and the Russian government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him.”

How did Putin organize and implement this manipulative campaign? What funds were used, and from what source? Were any Americans involved in the effort? Did any Americans meet improperly with Russian operatives, in the United States or abroad? Does Russia believe it has any leverage over Trump, financial or otherwise? Are remnants of the Russian network still in place?

On any such details of the alleged “influence campaign,” the report is silent. That’s understandable, in terms of protecting sources and methods, but frustrating for those who want hard facts to combat the “post-truth” environment in which people are skeptical of any assertion that lacks proof.

At the top of each page of Clapper’s report is a reminder: “Conclusions are identical to those in the highly classified assessment but this version does not include the full supporting information on key elements of the influence campaign.”

I’d argue that there is a genuine public “need to know” more of the supporting information, even if that carries risks. [Continue reading…]

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Extreme lack of vetting for Trump cabinet nominees

The Washington Post reports: A top ethics official has warned that plans to confirm Donald Trump’s top Cabinet choices before background examinations are complete are unprecedented and have overwhelmed government investigators responsible for the reviews.

The concerns prompted Democrats on Saturday to call for delaying the confirmation process, but Republicans signaled they are unlikely to budge on the eve of a slew of hearings in the Senate.

The Trump administration-in-waiting faces its first big test in coming days, with as many as seven nominees for Cabinet positions — many of them already the subject of questions about their qualifications — scheduled to appear on Capitol Hill.

The process begins Tuesday, when Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), Trump’s controversial nominee for attorney general, is scheduled to begin two days of hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee. But the big show is planned for Wednesday, when five hearings are scheduled, bringing a marathon of nationally televised scrutiny to the thin public records and vast wealth of many of Trump’s Cabinet picks.

Democrats have vowed to cast the hearings as a proxy test of Trump himself, in hopes of discrediting his new government before it begins. They hope to remind the public of the president-elect’s own lack of government experience and reluctance to separate himself from an entanglement of global business interests while he leads the nation.

But even Democrats acknowledge that Trump’s slate of Cabinet picks will probably sail through. The packed schedule, similar to those for nominees of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, was orchestrated by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and the Trump team. In addition, Trump has scheduled a news conference Wednesday that will overlap with several hearings, at which he has promised to talk about separating his presidency from his business interests.

Whether the schedule holds in the coming days is unclear. McConnell’s office declined to respond to warnings by Walter M. Shaub Jr., director of the Office of Government Ethics, who said in a letter released Friday the current confirmation calendar is “of great concern to me” because nominees have not completed a required ethics review before their hearings.

The schedule “has created undue pressure on OGE’s staff and agency ethics officials to rush through these important reviews,” Shaub wrote in response to an inquiry by Democratic senators. “More significantly, it has left some of the nominees with potentially unknown or unresolved ethics issues shortly before their scheduled hearings.”

Shaub added: “I am not aware of any occasion in the four decades since OGE was established when the Senate held a confirmation hearing before the nominee had completed the ethics review process.” [Continue reading…]

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Trump alleges delay in his briefing on ‘so-called’ Russian hacking; U.S. official says there wasn’t one

The Washington Post reports: A U.S. official disputed that there had been any delay in delivering the briefing that Trump requested on Russia, saying that high-level U.S. intelligence officials are scheduled to meet with the president-elect in New York on Friday.

The official said that Trump did receive a regular intelligence briefing on Tuesday, and raised the possibility of confusion on the part of his transition team or schedulers.

“It’s possible that his team has some scheduling disconnect” and that “whatever he received today didn’t meet his expectations,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence matters. But, the official said, the fuller briefing on Russia’s alleged election hacking was never scheduled to occur Tuesday, and that plans for a fuller Friday briefing have been in place for several days.

The officials expected to take part in that session include Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper, Jr., CIA Director John Brennan, FBI Director James Comey and the head of the National Security Agency, Adm. Mike Rogers. [Continue reading…]

The Wall Street Journal reports: In Mr. Trump’s Twitter post Tuesday evening, he used quotation marks in such a way that suggests he doesn’t accept the intelligence community’s conclusions.

“The ‘Intelligence’ briefing on so-called ‘Russian hacking’ was delayed until Friday, perhaps more time needed to build a case,” he wrote. “Very strange!”

Shortly after Mr. Trump issued his tweet, Sen. Mark Warner (D., Va.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, responded on Twitter and said, “really wish we saw more [president-elect] respect for our intelligence professionals.” [Continue reading…]

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