Acting DNI Joseph Maguire testified to the House Intelligence Committee on his handling of the whistleblower memo. He confirmed that he consulted with the Department of Justice and the White House on how to handle it, although the law says he shall (important word) pass such complaints on to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. He justified this by the fact that the whistle was being blown on the President, a new situation and beyond the existing law.
Both Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Eric Swalwell (D-CA) pressed Maguire on the fact that the agencies he went to for guidance were implicated in the wrongdoing alleged in the whistleblower memo. Maguire did not seem to understand that this would be a problem.
Maguire gave a long opening statement detailing his service and loyalty to the country. Through the somewhat repetitive questioning, it was clear that that opening statement was sincere and that he believes he is doing the right thing. The problem is that the way he thinks about the right thing is heavily formed by his experience in the military. That right thing depends on careful adherence to written laws and procedures and respect for the hierarchy. The trouble is that in this case, the existing law didn’t quite cover the situation and the hierarchy was where the alleged wrongdoing took place. Maguire didn’t step back and think about that.
I’d submit that part of his problem also has to do with being a white male in a white-male-privileged organization all his life. The unprecedented nature of the situation required thinking outside the box. For someone who has never been a victim of the system, it’s easy not to realize that the system (including those folks in this hierarchy) could itself be the problem.
Trump probably saw Maguire as appropriate to the job because “he looks like he’s from central casting.” Strong jaw, steely eyes. And he is perfect in that way for the career he had. So we can surmise that he never saw the negative side of the system.
And that’s why we need diversity in our government.
I saw some complaints on Twitter that the committee was asking what some called “procedural” questions, rather than about the substance of the whistleblower memo. Swalwell and others got into that a bit with questions about whether depositing the records of the phonecall inappropriately on a highly classified server involved the intelligence community.
The issue for Maguire, and why he was called to testify, is why he did not pass the memo on to the committees immediately, as the law requires. That was covered. The whistleblower and the Inspector General are the appropriate people to start the questioning on the subject matter.
I think it’s best for Congress to focus on one question at a time, or a cluster of related questions, as they did today. That means it will take some time for everything to come out, but it also means that what comes out will be credible.
germy
Kent
NYT just decided to leak the identity of the whistle blower. Not the actual name. But enough information so that any white house insiders can certainly figure out who it is:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/26/us/politics/who-is-whistleblower.htm
Let the character assassinations begin.
germy
@Kent: broken link
retr2327
“That right thing depends on careful adherence to written laws and procedures and respect for the hierarchy.” I’d submit that if he had leaned more strongly. albeit unthinkingly, on written law, he might have reached the proper result (“shall” give the complaint to Congress, period). Alternatively, if he’d though more deeply about what “should” happen, it certainly should have occurred to him that giving the complaint to the two subjects of the complaint was . . . not an optimal approach. What led him astray was was that he let his (unthinking) respect for the hierarchy overcome these two alternate approaches.
Quaker in a Basement
I like your conclusion, Cheryl. It’s important to pin down relevant facts and Schiff did a good job making it clear that Maguire took his questions about the relevant law and the complaint to the same people implicated in the complaint, and those people decided the law didn’t apply.
Did Maguire think this was the right way to go about it? Seems so.
Quaker in a Basement
@Kent: “Page not found.”
The Moar You Know
@Kent: You can remove the word “character”. Trump will have the poor fucker’s address published on Twitter by this afternoon and some helpful loser with nothing to live for will “take care of the problem, sir!”
No doubt with tears in his eyes.
trollhattan
@germy:
This is my new favorite name. Heard it on the radio this a.m. and thought somebody had made a delicious mistake.
Patricia Kayden
Maguire refused to admit that Trump pressuring a foreign leader to investigate a political opponent was a threat to our national security. He seemed weaselly to me, tbh. The one good thing he did was unequivocally defend the whistleblower from attacks on his/her integrity.
cain
The NYT is interested in fucking over the whistleblower. Basically same treatment as Biden. I think we need to come to the understanding that the NYT is compromised. The story here is not the whistleblower, the story is the President tried to force a foreign power to interfere on his behalf on an election. That is what they should be trying to cover. They should realize that they are putting this man’s life in jeopardy – I think we need to believe that is exactly what they want to happen.
Ohio Mom
Just google “NYT whistleblower” and you’ll get to the article posted an hour ago:
Whistle-Blower Is a C.I.A. Officer Who Was Detailed to the White House
Subheading:
His complaint suggested he was an analyst by training with an understanding of Ukrainian politics.
Patricia Kayden
@Kent: Because NYT is actively trying to get Trump re-elected. There’s zero reason for them to expose the whistleblower on the same day when it is revealed that Trump hinted that the whistleblower should be killed. This is outrageous.
HumboldtBlue
For some distraction from the shitshow that is our current administration, Goldman Sachs has released a climate report that points out things are not good.
I’ve considered them an enemy of the country since at least Bush I but is it now clear the Republican party actively works against the best interests of this nation?
piratedan
so Maguire essentially pulled a Comey, didn’t follow the law, and instead went to the suspects with the damaging information about them and they told him not to worry about it and they fact that they were reclassifying the information to ensure that no one else could see it (which supposedly DOES concern him) and he just went with it because he’s “new”.
yeah, okay….
dmsilev
@Ohio Mom:
From that article,
At best, the NYT is high on their own sense of self-importance. At best.
Anonymous At Work
Did they allow counsel for committee to have a longer bloc of time? If not, would that have drawn a “refusal” by Trump to allow the testimony?
trollhattan
@Patricia Kayden:
He stopped just short of “Thank you for the ‘Thank you for your service.'”
the Conster
DC overflowing with *powerful* white men, not one of whom has been able to stand up to a demented con man. It’s really remarkable to watch them each have their souls sucked out of them in real time.
For what?
jl
@piratedan: I don’t think any way to know for sure whether Maguire was somewhat naive with inadequate situational awareness, or a corrupt flunky who decided he would be the first one in line to go under the bus if the scheme blew up (which it did). If we live long enough, maybe we can find out in a reliably documented history tome. He might be some combination. I’m 50-50 on it.
What is important now is that he is watched like hawk regarding his performance of his duties going forward, and he acts in good faith from now on.
Mary G
Maguire reminds me a lot of Comey. He ignored established procedure – in Comey’s case keep your mouth shut about investigations, in Maguire’s forward the complaint to Congress – to go off on his own path convinced he knew better than the rules because he was a special person in a special situation.
The funny thing is that if he’d done what he was supposed to do, the committees probably would’ve kept it quiet and the news media would have stayed in the dark at least for a while.
guachi
The fact that Acting DNI Maguire was sitting there today and the way things have played out in the last week should be a big clue that he completely failed at his job.
germy
Ohio Mom
@dmsilev: Yeah, I saw that. Proactively laying out your excuse for doing something ill-advised is never a good look.
Wakeshift
I’ve come to realize that we’re watching the GoT sequel IRL right now, and have been since 2015. We’re already at the beginning of the 3rd act.
I hadn’t really considered the predictive implications of this recognition…
zhena gogolia
@Ohio Mom:
I just cancelled my subscription. After 40+ years of reading the New York Times and 25+ years of a 7 day/week subscription.
Baud
@germy:
He mispronounced “zero.”
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Whoa. Good for you.
Martin
A) NYT can’t leak anything. Someone gave them some information about his/her identity. They’re the ones that leaked. I doubt the NYT would release that information if the WH wasn’t already in possession of that information.
B) If the CIA and the federal government more broadly can’t protect one of their employees from QAnon nutjobs, that’s a fucking travesty in a whole way independent of the NYT actions here.
C) Because he’s a formal whistleblower, it’s the job of government to not retaliate against him/her. And becomes another impeachment bullet point if the government fails at that task.
The point of whistleblower laws is so that the individual can safely come forward. It is not a promise of anonymity. That is made abundantly clear during training and then before every.fucking.conversation if you’ve been through the process as a whistleblower (in a wildly different context, mind you) as I have. The process should keep the person’s identity private as long as possible so that the complaint can be addressed on its merits, but at some point you will become public. That also provides some time to notify your chain of command that you are part of this process and you will not inquire about the matter nor will this be part of the persons performance evaluation. I’ve also been the supervisor of a whistleblower, and I’ve been the target of a whistleblower (that thankfully was just someone off of their meds, and not a legitimate complaint, but all the same it was a fucking process, let me tell you).
jl
@germy: I read someplace that his stunt of showing his phone on national TV, with relevant notifications apparently legible on the screen, will make it far easier to drag him into a Congressional investigations and put the squeeze on him to suss out the truth. I think we already know the outlines of the truth, so more like get the details and detailed documentation
Gin & Tonic
@trollhattan: Just so you’re aware, as I pointed out in a morning thread, the “Ch” is not pronounced as in “chowder” but as in the Scottish “Loch.” It’s a transliteration of the Cyrillic (coming from Greek) letter “X.” Not that odd as a Ukrainian surname.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
This is what I got back when I wrote to Baquet about their irresponsbility:
Martin
@germy: Man, when 9/11 is your equivalent of catching the game winning TD in high school, that’s a sad fucking state of affairs.
Gin & Tonic
@dmsilev: Had the whistleblower gone to the NYT first with the story, as opposed to following legal channels, would Baquet have felt the same way?
Baud
IIRC the IG is a Trump person and the whistleblower was identified as a Trump voter. If so, given my view of Trump voters, I feel incumbent to give them due props for putting the country and its laws first.
Mnemosyne
Agreed. The case needs to be built from the ground up, brick by brick. Trump and his flunkies are going to do everything possible to disrupt that process, including using their Russian contacts to spread the idea on the left that it needs to all go faster.
Rome wasn’t built in a day, or Watergate, for that matter.
Frankensteinbeck
@the Conster:
For ‘white men’ still having all the power. It underpins the entire situation so deeply that I’m sure a lot of them don’t even know what they’re reacting to. Trump was elected as a statement that women and blacks are not allowed to be in charge. If Trump is illegitimate, that statement is illegitimate.
Cheryl Rofer
@Kent: I suspect that White House insiders had a pretty good idea of who the whistleblower was a few days ago. The number of possible people is small. The whistleblower memo also has clues in it as to who it is. Whenever they read the memo, they had it down to no more than 2 or 3 people.
If I were the whistleblower, I would have assumed from the start that my identity would come out. And I’m sure he did too.
All that said, and that it’s a difficult news decision, the Times can be relied upon to do the Trumpiest thing possible. The danger in what they’ve done is all the lunatic Trump Second-Amendment supporters who will take his words this morning as marching orders.
germy
@jl: His testimony would be the performance of a lifetime.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Wait, what now? WTF was that?
Martin
@zhena gogolia: Boy, either you are very engaging with Baquet, or not nearly enough of their subscribers are complaining that he remembers you personally.
Hitlesswonder
@dmsilev:
Someone should rip apart that statement by Baquet. The role and identity of this person are not central to determining if trump should be impeached. Verifying the details of the complaints are what is required. It’s disgusting bullshit.
BobS
Maguire is either a dumbshit or pretending to be a dumbshit- his inability to draw inferences (or to realize that you don’t trust foxes,i.e.Barr & OLC, to guard a chicken house) is kind of striking for the head of INTELLIGENCE.
gvg
I think this guy is just somewhat stupid not privileged. I also think the law was adequate. How can you not understand that the word whistleblower that the hierarchy is the problem? Whistleblower laws exist because we have experienced many time in human history, corrupt bosses. Geeze, don’t over excuse fools. We also need to say that frequently while this attention grabbing history is happening so that more people internalize it for the future, especially our future, the kids.
joel hanes
That means it will take some time for everything to come out
[rubs hands]
Excellent.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
jl
@Cheryl Rofer: Just the fact that the person can write a very clear, concise and apparently very accurate professional report already narrowed it down all by itself in the Trumpster WH.
Mnemosyne
@Wakeshift:
Well, I hope not, because that means that Elizabeth Warren will go mad with power and start inexplicably killing people because the writer says so.
Motivated Seller
I wholeheartedly agree. But we need to make sure “diversity” is not limited to some physical short-hand like race/ethnicity/gender. The diversity that is needed here should include people who are not cut from the herd of indoctrinated career institutionalists. The Military is renowned for its indoctrination process, and for producing people that are far more comfortable following orders than dealing within ambiguous situations. Unfortunately that is frequently the pipleine for Intelligence work.
In other words, if you ask me, this is the predictable manifested disastrous result of hollowing out the diplomatic Corps.
Baud
@Martin:
Maybe she leaned on her Juicer cred to get his attention.
catclub
@Baud:
Only Trump thinks the typical FBI recruit/agent is a democrat. I would guess CIA recruits are only a hair more non-authoritarian than FBI recruits.
PJ
@piratedan: Yeah, Cheryl is cutting this guy way too much slack, when “doing the right thing” means refusing to do his duty in passing on the complaint to Congress and instead giving it to the criminals implicated in the complaint. WTF. Maguire is not an adolescent, he is a fully grown adult who has handled lots of responsibility, and in his first major act as DNI he aligned himself with a criminal conspiracy.
ETA: There was nothing ambiguous about the law or what he was required to do. He chose to protect Trump.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Good! NYT was my home page for almost 20 years till they started ButterEmailz bullshit.
Quinerly
@germy: The entire Atlantic article is a must read. Reporter talked with Rudy today
Martin
I don’t know how anyone can claim this information was not a thing of value. Trump himself assessed its value in deciding what he would or wouldn’t give Ukraine for that information. I spend taxpayer money all the time. Even though the goods or services I receive do not benefit me personally, it’s still my job to assess its value and I can tell a vendor to piss off – their stuff isn’t worth what they’re asking. Trump assessed that informations value at $250M. Any economist would state that plainly – a good is worth what people are willing to pay for it, not what you are asking for it. Trump was willing to pay $250M of your money for it.
waysel
Did anyone else notice Maguire tipping his hand referring to ‘the US doing MORE than its fair share’ to help Ukraine? I don’t remember his exact words, but it paraphrased Trumps claim that the EU and UK aren’t contributing anything. Fox News talking points, at minimum.
catclub
@PJ:
Tell me again when they fired the woman who was in line for acting DNI?
germy
@Quinerly:
I think we’re living in a bubble here.
zhena gogolia
@Gin & Tonic:
Right! They’re full of anonymous sources, as long as they’re THEIR sources.
Cheryl Rofer
Remember that I said, maybe 150 times, that once impeachment starts moving, public opinion would move, Well, it is. And this is from two days ago.
LuciaMia
@germy: Wow, sounds like Rudy 9/11 is really missing all that adulation.
Martin
@Baud: Fuck, that’s just a straight up abuse of power there.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
I’ve had a few e-mail exchanges with him, or someone who purports to be him.
Baud
@germy:
We are in a bubble but so are the people posing with Rudy.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@germy:
He’s like Lex Luthor screaming about being the real hero and how “that alien”, Superman (the whistleblower), is the bad guy
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Fascinating. Obviously, he cares little about you as a customer.
Quinerly
@germy: and how about the “deplorable” chick with him?
TomatoQueen
@zhena gogolia: I’m an online subscriber after a lot of years with print. I continued cos of the puzzles and the recipes but most of all cos of Talking Yam abusing them all the time, and it’s hard to reconcile having any sense of agreement with his blathering. But, I’m a First Amendment girl, Mr Bradlee was my first boss out of college, and NYT is garbage. The time has come. *goes forth to do business with NYT circulation desk-hahahahaha.*
Gin & Tonic
@catclub: I’ve known two people who worked on the ops side of the CIA, specializing in the Soviet space; one could have passed for an FBI drone, the other … well, let’s just say he would have been much more likely to be arrested by the FBI than recruited. Anecdata, sure, but still.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat:
I’m kind of having the shakes. I don’t know how I’m going to do without the crossword puzzles and the obituaries. The WaPo puzzles just don’t cut it.
germy
@Quinerly: He’s a babe magnet!
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
I don’t mention BJ. What happens at BJ stays at BJ.
zhena gogolia
@TomatoQueen:
You’ll have to listen to about 5 minutes of that annoying saxophone riff.
Cheryl Rofer
Quinerly
@germy: gag me.
Seriously, must read. Rudy is the root of all this: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/09/giuliani-ukraine-trump-biden/598879/
dmsilev
@Cheryl Rofer: Wow. That’s a lot more GOP-voter support than I would have expected. And 55% overall support, with another 20% in the don’t know category, is amazingly high given that it’s only been a week since this thing blew up.
Ladyraxterinok
@cain: Who has what on The Powers That Be at the NYT? There is very clearly something badly wrong there!!
Gin & Tonic
@waysel:
rikyrah
@germy:
Nunes’ business partners are
RUSSIANS WITH CLOSE TIES TO PUTIN!
Why this isn’t in every story written about Nunes as a Trump flunky, I don’t know.
Quinerly
@Cheryl Rofer: personally, I think he should be Impeached for this alone. I’m taking some comfort in knowing the whistleblower is CIA. I feel like she can handle herself. And, yes, I think the whistleblower is a she.
jl
@Martin: Barr’s position on value seems to be if you couldn’t estimate the value objectively, then it had no value. Barr didn’t use that phrasing, but I think I gave an accurate plain language version.
rikyrah
@Patricia Kayden:
Maguire was unqualified for the position he now holds..
THE MUCH MORE QUALIFIED WOMAN WHO SHOULD HAVE HAD THE POSITION WAS FORCED TO RESIGN.
germy
If Warren wins, I fear they’ll purposely tank the economy.
Barry
Cheryl: “Maguire gave a long opening statement detailing his service and loyalty to the country. Through the somewhat repetitive questioning, it was clear that that opening statement was sincere and that he believes he is doing the right thing. The problem is that the way he thinks about the right thing is heavily formed by his experience in the military. That right thing depends on careful adherence to written laws and procedures and respect for the hierarchy. The trouble is that in this case, the existing law didn’t quite cover the situation and the hierarchy was where the alleged wrongdoing took place. Maguire didn’t step back and think about that.”
I disagree strongly:
1) He is a Trump appointee.
2) He **ignored** the law. The law said to pass it on in seven days to Congress; he didn’t. Instead, he informed involved parties who had strong incentive to cover it up.
3) It works the same way in the military; if he was required to report it to the IG, then he was required.
Martin
@PJ:
I disagree. The statute was never written to deal with the case of the president, and Congress doesn’t have the authority to revoke executive privilege, so there is a genuine legal conflict here, and he was right in that the only arbiter of executive privilege is OLC and related executive branch offices. I agree with McFaul that releasing the transcript of the call publicly sets a bad precedent. Release it to the committee privately, sure, but presidential calls shouldn’t be expected to be made public. So I think there is a legitimate executive privilege argument here (provided no crime is being committed on that call). It’s not the job of the DNI to determine when the president has broken the law. Basically only Congress can be trusted to determine that, per the constitution.
This is a separation of powers conflict. The resolution probably should be the judicial branch, but we’ve not set up any mechanism to do that. That’s why I said before that every branch should have an equal OLC office. When you get a conflict between branches, go to the 3rd branch for resolution. It’s not perfect, but it’s sure better than this.
I think this guy has done okay. Nobody will get it right because it’s not possible to get right. He released the information, he testified, he was reasonably forthcoming. Watergate was similarly messy. It’s unavoidable.
lumpkin
Fer cryin out loud. Democrats need to stop showboating at these hearings and have staff attorneys do the questioning. What’s more important? Your reelection campaign or the country? Just fucking stop it.
rikyrah
@Cheryl Rofer:
From the breakfast where Dolt45 went off?
Cheryl Rofer
@Quinerly: The structure of the memo says that the whistleblower is an analyst in one of the intelligence services. It’s very carefully done, laying out what the writer know and how they know it, along with the uncertainties.
Choosing the charges for the articles of impeachment will be interesting. So many possibilities! Nice article from Lawfare on that.
And yes, I have thought it likely that the whistleblower is a woman, although the Times article is quite specific it’s a man.
jl
@germy: Back when Warren was behind Sanders, Wall Street talked about she would be an alternative they preferred and could work with. Now that she is moving up as the most likely challenger to Biden for the nomination, their tune has changed.
rikyrah
@Quinerly:
Rudy’s being set up as the patsy…even Stevie Wonder can see that.
waysel
@Gin & Tonic: Yup. But according to Trump, the US is unfairly taking all the burden alone. Maguire, who was so loath to venture an opinion on anything in todays testimony, volunteered that chestnut. He’s a Fox/Trump man through and through, methinks.
Cheryl Rofer
@lumpkin: I’m okay with a certain amount of repetition, for the PEOPLE IN THE BACK OF THE ROOM. I think the Democrats did well this morning.
Cheryl Rofer
@rikyrah: yes
germy
@jl: She has a shot, and this frightens them.
Raise their taxes, President Warren.
jl
@germy: Warren wins what? Won’t tank the economy during the campaign, that would hurt Trump far more. And they want their money, so even after election, probably inadvertently hurt the economy through moping too much actual work than through an intentional and conscious plot.
Spanky
@germy: I don’t respond well to extortion. Call their bluff.
germy
rikyrah
@lumpkin:
ICAM.
The Chairman can have their 5 minutes. The rest of them? Should be forced to give their time to the staff attorney who can question at length and follow up and not be led around while the flunky’s trying to run out the clock. Far easier to run out the clock at 5 minutes, as compared to 30-45 minutes.
Martin
@jl: That’s not how anyone determines value. The only objective determination of value is what the market will bear. Trump wanted that information, so he identified something of value to hold in exchange. Trump determined that informations value. There is no such thing as objective value in a free market as all participants in a free market can determine that something has zero value and simply refuse to buy it.
Sebastian
@germy:
“Tourists” in NYC are pasty “heartland” RWNJ on coastal safari. We see them here in California all the time. You can recognize them usually by their portly physique, their -ahem- fashion sense, and how white-knuckled they clutch their bags because of all the shades of brown around them.
germy
@jl:
The 2020 election. I should have been clearer.
Martin
@germy: Fuck them. We’re not hostages.
Fair Economist
@Kent: The White House could have figured it out anyway. They breach confidentiality all the time. This is to get the information out to conservative media, which can use it to create nutcases to attack or threaten the individual, suicide bomber/pizza joint attacker style.
cain
@Baud:
We are assuming that it wasn’t staged.
Kay
@Quinerly:
Demanding people love him. Insisting we all must love him. It’s what I loathe most about these people- it isn’t enough they have all this power and this incredibly profitable GRIFT, they also demand we admire them and kiss their asses and they are seething with resentment because not all of us will.
They’re black, sucking HOLES of neediness. It’s repellent.
No. They’re not admirable. We refuse.
germy
@jl:
I remember what Enron did in California with their rolling blackouts.
Baud
@germy:
CEO Bros.
@cain:
We are.
Quinerly
@Cheryl Rofer: didn’t actually read the Times piece. Read the blurb about it on TPM. If I was a betting person, I would have put $ on the whistleblower being a woman. Did I just read that the whistleblower voted for Trump?
Hob
@germy: The setting is the Trump International Hotel. I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that people who choose to stay at the Trump International Hotel aren’t necessarily a representative sample of the American public.
Wakeshift
@Mnemosyne:
Well, is it a sequel or a reboot?
Besides, SPW is clearly Bran.
cain
@Baud:
It seems just a little too easy to say he’s the hero and actually gets hero worshipped in that call. :D
geg6
@retr2327:
Or he’s just stupid. I vote for stupid. He chose to work for Trump, so definitely stupid.
Ohio Mom
@zhena gogolia: I believe you can subscribe to the crossword puzzle separately, if you need a phase-out.
Mnemosyne
@PJ:
See, I don’t see this as Cheryl cutting the guy slack at all. He had one job, and he failed. She’s just explaining why he failed and a possible fix for the future.
I mean, showing that it was the frozen O-rings that took down the Challenger shuttle wasn’t cutting the manufacturer any slack for their mistake. It was demonstrating how the disaster occurred despite the warnings they received about that very problem. Same thing here.
The Moar You Know
@germy: I remember the results. We lost a perfectly good Dem governor and got 12 years of Schwarzenegger, ten of which were spent giving the California GOP everything they asked for and two years of frantic backpedaling pretending he’d never been a Republican in the first place.
germy
@Hob:
this is true.
Ladyraxterinok
@Motivated Seller: Anyone remember General Wesley Clark? He was in democratic presidential primary in 04.
I heard him in person when he came to town.
I got the impression he wasn’t the usual military general. Maybe because he was so attacked by people who thought he had not always followed the ‘required pattern.’
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Highly recommend, when you find the time, listening to The Investigator, a scathing satirical radio play from the McCarthy era. (Would link to its Wikipedia page, however spoilers abound there.)
In the U.S. at the time, the record, if one could get hold of it, was passed clandestinely from person to person. Can recall my parents hosting listening parties, first making sure the blinds and the drapes were drawn.
Miss Bianca
@germy: What the everluvvin’ fuck…
rikyrah
@Kay:
Not just them..their voters too. They resent that we don’t take their choice seriously; despise them, and have no respect for them for their votes FOR these clowns.
NotMax
@Ladyraxterinok
He won the primary vote in Dixville Notch!
rikyrah
Isn’t anyone else disturbed by the outing of the whistleblower by the NYT.
I feel the same way about the asset from Russia that folks seemed to have no problem outing a few weeks ago.
On both accounts, I think it’s wrong.
Baud
@Ladyraxterinok:
I liked him. I think he went into consulting. Don’t see him much on the TV.
catclub
@jl:
Sure, I could vote for a woman…. just not THAT woman.
Cheryl Rofer
@Quinerly: I think someone here said the whistleblower voted for Trump, but I saw somewhere else that they were a Clinton supporter.
It should go without saying that, unless there is a clear political motive, whom they voted for is irrelevant. Trump uses this kind of thing all the time to try to undercut people’s credibility. If he believes it, it’s because of the far-too-common Republican projection: they’re doing what I would! In reality, people have many motives and are not politically-directed automatons.
Mnemosyne
@The Moar You Know:
Um, I think you may need to check your math here.
PJ
@Martin: It wasn’t incumbent on the DNI to determine whether Trump had broken the law, but to pass on the complaint to Congress. There was no discretion involved. He was not acting as a lawyer or a prosecutor, but as the appropriate official to communicate the whistleblower’s complaint to Congress. Furthermore, if he had done his duty, none of this would have been made public (or certainly not in the way it was made public.) Note also that Maguire only forwarded the complaint after being given the ok by the White House.
In addition, I have been informed by credible sources at BJ (haven’t done the research myself, so they could be a 13 yr old in Pyongyang without a legal degree) that executive privilege can only be claimed by the President (certainly not by DNI). In any event, random government officials don’t have to determine whether the President’s actions or statements are protected by executive privilege.
tobie
@PJ:
Or in his own words: “in the interest of prudence” he decided to disobey the requirements laid out in statute to figure out how to bypass Congress altogether. Putting your own judgment before the law is being lawless. I’m glad Maguire squirmed today and my own regret is that the members of the committee felt so much need to praise him for his service.
waysel
@rikyrah: I am very disturbed by the outing of the whistleblower by the NYT. I fear for the lives of the other corroborating witnesses in the still classified addendum to the complaint, too. I don’t trust Maguire or any other Trump appointee.
lee
Maguire needs to spend time in prison for obstruction of justice because of how he handled this whistle-blower. What he did was not ‘good faith’ it was helping the criminals get away with it.
Ladyraxterinok
@germy: Maybe you could summarize. I remember it being very harmful and quite deliberate.
Was their action in CA before or after their big fail? Which I also just partially remember.
Barry
@jl: “I don’t think any way to know for sure whether Maguire was somewhat naive with inadequate situational awareness, or a corrupt flunky who decided he would be the first one in line to go under the bus if the scheme blew up (which it did). If we live long enough, maybe we can find out in a reliably documented history tome. He might be some combination. I’m 50-50 on it.”
Actually, there is:
1) He was appointed by Trump.
2) He’s a high-level guy, so he’s not a naive analyst. He’s somebody who beat a hundred or so rivals for his past couple of promotions.
geg6
@tobie:
I agree. The rush to excuse this piece of shit (oh, he was in the military, so he just doesn’t know; oh, he believed the president isn’t part of the IC; oh, he was confused; oh, he just went to what he considered his superior officers, Barr and Trump…just stop it people) here and elsewhere is disgusting. If he was in the military, he should be totally programmed to follow the rules and he chose not to. It’s not his job to analyze who is or isn’t in the IC and he chose to regardless. If he was confused, he should have asked the IG what was the proper way to handle the situation and he chose not to. He knew that Barr and Trump were implicated and it could not only endanger any investigation into the matter but may even endanger the whistleblower’s career and life and he chose to hand it over them anyway. Fuck this guy. He’s a piece of garbage, just like everyone else in this administration.
Aleta
Video of her speaking to Maguire
She’s from Florida, first elected in 2016. She was a policewoman in the Orlando PD for 27 years (police chief for 3 1/2). Her committees are Homeland Security; Judiciary (incl. Vice Chair of Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations); and Intelligence.
Rep Demings addressing the House yesterday (under 2 min)
Mnemosyne
@Aleta:
Point of order: at least one of her Republican House colleagues from Florida gladly used opposition research provided to him by the Russians in 2008.
The Rubicon has already been crossed.
Kay
@tobie:
I don’t know why this is so hard. Just follow the process. The POINT of having it is to avoid bone-headed decisions by people using their own poor judgment, which introduces a subjective element that doesn’t need to BE there. It’s arrogance. Ego. They refuse to do the job they actually have so they create a new job that makes them much more important.
They’re going to have to start writing these statutes in ALL CAPS and 9 word sentences of one syllable words – in parens – (yes, special snowflake- this means YOU)
Ladyraxterinok
@NotMax: I think he won the primary in OK. Because he was one dem candidate who actually visited the state? Didn’t write it off?
Barry
@jl: “Back when Warren was behind Sanders, Wall Street talked about she would be an alternative they preferred and could work with. Now that she is moving up as the most likely challenger to Biden for the nomination, their tune has changed.”
Wall Street will hate all Democratic presidents, no matter how much they prosper.
Which leads to an important point – Biden’s ‘electability’:
I hold to the theory that the ‘liberal’ MSM likes Biden a lot now, since he’s the old/white/male/right-wing guy in the Democratic lineup.
However, the moment that he gets the nomination, the MSM will toss all of that down the Memory Hole, and go after him like they did Clinton.
Do not count on the NYT’s support or fairness or impartiality.
Aleta
@Mnemosyne: sigh. (thanks.)
Barry
@Mnemosyne: “See, I don’t see this as Cheryl cutting the guy slack at all. He had one job, and he failed. She’s just explaining why he failed and a possible fix for the future”
It’s the same old DC circle jerk, ignoring the person’s behavior in favor of totally unsupported theories.
Quinerly
@Cheryl Rofer: agree.
zhena gogolia
@Ohio Mom:
I know that, but it seems unprincipled!
Kayla Rudbek
@zhena gogolia: you can do the mini Times crosswords for free in an app. That’s what I do, and I don’t pay the FNYT a red cent.
catclub
@Barry:
Virtually every newspaper editorial page came out against Trump and FOR Clinton. Maybe they know how influential those editorial page endorsements are? Or don’t care to follow up.
Bill Arnold
@germy:
Uh huh. Did they warn the whistleblower so that he/she could go into hiding from freelance MAGA amateur assassins before publication?
This was real doxxing. The article even mentioned DJTrump’s strong desire for the leaker’s death.
I assume the leaker has already taken security precautions, but still, very bad look NYTimes.
KSinMA
@TomatoQueen: “Mr Bradlee was my first boss out of college”
Wow, lucky you!
JoeyJoeJoe
@Mnemosyne: Daniel Webster, probably. She ran against him in 2012 and came fairly close to winning in a Romney voting district ( the district no longer exists after 2016).
nasruddin
“his problem also has to do with being a white male in a white-male-privileged organization all his life…”
This organizational system is not a new development in our history, and other white males have managed to figure out what the right thing to do was.
This guy is either another Trumpist crook, or a mook dumped into a job he wasn’t prepared for. In either event he needs to go.
Matt McIrvin
@dmsilev: It’s conditional: *if* Trump did such and such. They can always insist that he didn’t and what you heard is Fake News.
Matt McIrvin
@germy: We don’t knuckle under to extortionists. If they’re willing to support Trump to protect their money from Elizabeth Warren they obviously don’t take the well-being of the country seriously, and are probably lying about being Democrats in any meaningful sense.
J R in WV
@Mnemosyne:
The management tools who overrode the engineers and forced that launch, were they ever prosecuted for their murder of that crew, in front of millions of school kids watching the first teacher to go into space? The loss of a billion dollar spacecraft? Did they lose their pensions and their jobs?
Hell no on all of that. Murderers skated, probably lost the jobs, eventually, after years of shitty reviews… maybe. I’m too depressed to look it up. Maybe the second lost shuttle, the one where everyone knew they were going to melt on reentry and scatter all across Texas, maybe the managers wouldn’t have fucked that second flight up if the first set of managers were still in jail.
And that acting DNI, he should be prosecuted for failure to process that WB complaint in a legally required timely manner. Fuck his bullshit!
ETA: While I’m on a roll, if the whistleblower is harmed after the FTFNYT reveals the identity, good old Dean who approved the publishing of the information should be arrested for complicity in the crime. Let him pay for some of those high-end white shoe lawyer bills. Be responsible, Dean! You flaming ass.