Chris Hedges's Blog, page 284

Barr Says ‘I Think Spying Did Occur’ on Trump Campaign

WASHINGTON — Attorney General William Barr said Wednesday he is reviewing the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation, declaring he believed the president’s campaign had been spied on and wanted to make sure proper procedures were followed.

“I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal,” Barr told senators at a budget hearing that, like a similar House hearing Tuesday, was dominated by questions about special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.

It was not immediately clear what “spying” Barr was referring to, but President Donald Trump’s supporters have repeatedly made accusations of political bias within the FBI and seized on anti-Trump text messages sent and received by one of the lead agents involved in investigating whether the Trump campaign was colluding with Russia.

Barr, who was nominated to his post by Trump four months ago, told a Senate appropriations subcommittee that though he did not have specific evidence of wrongdoing, “I do have questions about it.” His review is separate from a Justice Department inspector general investigation into the early days of the FBI’s Russia probe, which Barr said he expects to conclude sometime around May or June.

“I feel that I have an obligation to ensure government power was not abused,” Barr said.

Barr also said he expected to release a redacted version of Mueller’s nearly 400-page report next week — a slight change from the estimate he gave Tuesday, when he said the release would be within a week.

Though he said the document will be redacted to withhold negative information about peripheral figures in the investigation, Barr said that would not apply to Trump, who is an officeholder and central to the probe.

Democrats said they were concerned that a four-page summary letter of the report’s main conclusions Barr released last month portrayed the investigation’s findings in an overly favorable way for Trump. The letter said that Mueller did not find a criminal conspiracy between Russia and Trump associates around the time of the 2016 election and that Barr did not believe the evidence in the report was sufficient to prove the president had obstructed justice.

Border Chaos Forces Truckers to Wait for Hours, Sometimes Days

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico—To deal with a surge of migrating Central American families, the Trump administration has reassigned so many inspectors from U.S.-Mexico border crossings that truckers are waiting in line for hours and sometimes days to get shipments to the United States.

Truckers have been sleeping in their vehicles to hold spots in line in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas. The city brought in portable toilets, and an engine oil company hired models in skin-tight clothing to hand out burritos and bottled water to idled drivers.

“My family doesn’t recognize me at home anymore,” Jaime Monroy, a trucker who lives in Ciudad Juarez, said after sleeping overnight in his truck hauling a load of wooden furniture. “I leave at 3 in the morning and come back at 10 at night.”

The waits are a reminder that even though President Donald Trump walked back his threat to close the border, the administration has created significant impediments for truckers and travelers with its redeployment of customs agents.

Business leaders are starting to lose patience as they struggle to get products to American grocery stores, manufacturers and construction sites.

“This is a systemwide issue,” said Paola Avila, chairwoman of the Border Trade Alliance, a group that advocates for cross-border commerce. “Everyone’s feeling this.”

The traffic congestion comes as a growing number of families from Central America have been arriving at the border in recent months, overwhelming the federal government.

The Border Patrol said Tuesday that it set a new monthly record for apprehensions of families in March. More than 53,000 family members were stopped at the border in March, an average of more than 1,700 per day. That breaks a record set in February, when 36,000 parents and children were apprehended.

Trump responded by shaking up the top ranks of the Department of Homeland Security, culminating with the resignation of Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.

The migrant families have forced many line agents into humanitarian roles and have strained detention facilities built when the Border Patrol primarily apprehended single adult men.

The administration has in turn reassigned 541 border inspectors to other jobs, including processing migrants, providing transportation and performing hospital watch for migrants who require medical attention. It is unknown when they will return to their regular job of screening people and cargo for smuggling.

Border Patrol agents, who guard areas between ports, are also doing jobs they were not trained to do, such as medical screenings for children and families in the migrant holding camps.

In El Paso, authorities have closed one bridge to truckers, directing them to two other nearby crossings. At San Diego’s only truck crossing, two of 10 lanes are closed.

In Nogales, Arizona, the government on Sundays is closing a commercial facility that is crucial to cross-border trade. Up to 12,000 commercial trucks cross the border in Nogales every day, often bringing watermelons, eggplants, berries and grapes.

Wait times have doubled at the Santa Teresa, New Mexico, port of entry.

“What we’re seeing is a lot of companies making their drivers sleep in their trucks to keep their place in line for the next day,” said Jerry Pacheco, president of the Border Industrial Association and executive director of the International Business Accelerator.

In recent years, the rural outpost has become a boomtown of warehouses and industrial parks that funnel raw materials and products back and forth across the border.

“Here we are growing companies and growing jobs and everything is great. We added another industrial park with job prospects in tow and then all this happens,” Pacheco said of the latest expansion.

The agency’s commissioner, Kevin McAleenan, who was named acting Homeland Security secretary on Sunday, warned of traffic delays when he announced last month in El Paso that inspectors from across the border would be reassigned. Authorities raised the possibility that as many as 2,000 inspectors could be pulled from ports of entry.

A Customs and Border Protection mobile app suggested the bottlenecks may have eased by Tuesday. The wait time for truckers was estimated at three hours in San Diego, 2½ hours in El Paso and two hours in Laredo. Still, truckers said wait times have lengthened considerably since authorities announced the reassignments.

“This all started about two weeks ago with Trump,” said driver Arturo Menendez, 44, who first entered the line at 4 a.m. Friday with his tractor-trailer full of cardboard used in boxes for U.S.-made products like Toro lawn mowers.

At 6 p.m. he was told to leave ahead of the unprecedented closure of all lanes at the Bridge of the Americas on Saturday.

He tried again Monday, waiting in a line behind of hundreds of trucks passing through three security checks back at the Bridge of the Americas.

Avila, who is also the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce’s vice president for international affairs, said the delays could encourage more companies to move to Asia, hurting jobs in the U.S. and Mexico.

“Now we’re discouraging overseas production,” she said. “We’re cutting out the American manufacturer or the Mexican manufacturer that employs U.S. workers.”

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Associated Press writers Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Astrid Galvan in Phoenix and Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to this report.

So Much for Democrats’ Pledge to Reject Corporate PACs

Before the 2018 midterm elections, and now, in the 2020 presidential campaign, multiple Democratic presidential and congressional candidates have publicly sworn off taking money from corporate political action committees. For Beto O’Rourke, denouncing PAC money didn’t hurt his fundraising bottom line. In fact, it may have been an advantage—he raised more money in the first 24 hours after his announcement than any other candidate in the race. But similar anti-PAC pronouncements may have been less beneficial for Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, whom The New York Times suggests potentially lost funding.

Some Democratic House members seem to have found a strategy for having it both ways, rejecting money from corporate PACs but accepting checks from corporate lobbyists, Politico reported Tuesday.

Gil Cisneros, D-Calif., made an anti-PAC money promise during his 2018 campaign, which Politico writer Theodoric Meyer called “a clear way to distinguish himself from his Republican rival,” Young Kim, who took donations from Chevron, ExxonMobil and Koch Industries.

But six months after Cisneros won the election, Meyer reports that he’s not quite honoring his pledge:

Four lobbyists — who represent major corporate clients including AT&T, Comcast, Microsoft, Pfizer, Verizon and Wells Fargo — hosted a fundraiser for Cisneros late last month at a townhouse on Capitol Hill, according to a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee list of fundraisers obtained by POLITICO.

The lunchtime fundraiser, hosted by Ingrid Duran and Catherine Pino of D&P Creative Solutions and Dean Aguillen and Moses Mercado of Ogilvy Government Relations, brought in about $15,000 for Cisneros’ reelection campaign, according to a person familiar with the total.

Rejecting corporate PAC money has become a litmus test for progressive candidates. “People are concerned that corporate special interests have too much power in Washington,” Adam Bozzi, communications director of End Citizens United, an advocacy group that fights money in politics, told CNN in 2018. “This is a way that candidates can take a leadership role and say: ‘I’m not taking their money. I’m going to work for you.’ ”

Cisneros’ event wasn’t a direct violation of his pledge—the money was raised not from corporate PACs themselves, but from personal checks from lobbyists who represent those same corporations. It’s a distinction that multiple Democrats have made. Meyer points out that “two of the lobbyists who hosted the Cisneros fundraiser also hosted one last month for Rep. Xochitl Torres Small (D-N.M.), another freshman who’s sworn off corporate PAC money, according to an invitation obtained by POLITICO.”

Rep. Cindy Axne, D-Iowa, made a similar move, with a fundraiser hosted at Cornerstone Government Affairs, a lobbying firm that represents Boeing, Citigroup, Johnson & Johnson, Nike and United Airlines. Mike Goodman, a Cornerstone senior vice president, wrote in an email statement to Politico that “Rep. Axne does not take corporate PAC donations, but we are still very hopeful that our friends will show up to help in whatever capacity they can.”

Senate candidate Mark Kelly, retired astronaut and husband of former Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords, also held a fundraiser in a lobbying firm’s offices, in his case, the offices of Capitol Counsel, whose clients include ExxonMobil, JPMorgan Chase and Lockheed Martin. Kelly’s campaign website states, “I won’t take a dime of corporate PAC money, and I’ll only answer to Arizonans.”

At least one Democrat defended the distinction. Rep. Tom Malinowski, D-N.J., told Politico, “I’ve never thought that the lobbyist definition was particularly meaningful.” He explained that even if he doesn’t take their money, he’s still willing to meet with lobbyists. “I just want to be able to evaluate their requests on the merits,” he said.

Read Politico’s full story here.

Netanyahu Appears Headed Toward Re-Election in Israeli Vote

JERUSALEM—Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared headed toward re-election early Wednesday, as close-to-complete unofficial results showed him pulling ahead of his main competitor in a tight race seen as a referendum on the long-serving leader.

With a victory, Netanyahu would capture a fourth consecutive term and fifth overall, which this summer will make him Israel’s longest-ever serving leader. Re-election will give him an important boost as he braces for the likelihood of criminal charges in a series of corruption scandals.

The election outcome affirmed Israel’s continued tilt to the right and further dimmed hopes of a negotiated solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In the final stretch of the campaign, Netanyahu had for the first time pledged to annex parts of the occupied West Bank in a desperate bid to rally his right-wing base. Annexation would snuff out the last flicker of hope for Palestinian statehood.

Both Netanyahu and his challenger, former military chief Benny Gantz, leader of the rival Blue and White party, had declared victory in speeches to boisterous gatherings of supporters. But as the night went on, there were growing signs that Netanyahu’s Likud was pulling ahead.

“It’s a night of tremendous victory,” Netanyahu told supporters. “I was very moved that the nation of Israel once again entrusted me for the fifth time, and with an even greater trust.”

He said he had already begun talking to fellow right wing and religious parties about forming a new coalition.

“I want to make it clear, it will be a right-wing government, but I intend to be the prime minister of all Israeli citizens, right or left, Jews and non-Jews alike,” he said.

The 69-year-old prime minister has been the dominant force in Israeli politics for the past two decades and its face to the world. His campaign has focused heavily on his friendship with President Donald Trump and his success in cultivating new allies, such as China, India and Brazil.

But the corruption scandals created some voter fatigue. Along with two other former military chiefs on his ticket, Gantz was able to challenge Netanyahu on security issues, normally the prime minister’s strong suit, while also taking aim at the prime minister’s alleged ethical lapses.

Israel’s attorney general has recommended charging Netanyahu with bribery, breach of trust and fraud. The telegenic Gantz, who has been vague on key policy issues, has presented himself as a clean, scandal-free alternative to Netanyahu.

By Wednesday morning, with 97 percent of the votes counted, Likud and Blue and White had won 35 seats each. But Netanyahu was in a stronger position to form a coalition government with the anticipated support of right-wing and ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties, Likud’s natural allies.

Such a coalition could rest on 65 votes in the 120-member parliament.

Earlier in the night, with fewer of the votes counted, Blue and White still appeared to be ahead by one seat and Gantz projected optimism. “Elections have losers and elections have winners. And we are the winners,” Gantz told a victory rally shortly after midnight.

Netanyahu’s message of unity was a sharp contrast from his campaign theme in which he accused Gantz of conspiring with Arab parties to topple him. Arab leaders accused Netanyahu of demonizing the country’s Arab community, which is about 20 percent of the population.

His attacks on the Arab sector fueled calls for a boycott and appeared to result in relatively low turnout by Arab voters. Israel’s central elections commission banned parties from bringing cameras into polling stations after Likud party activists were caught with hidden cameras in Arab towns.

The final results are subject to change. Some 40 parties took part in the election, and only those that receive at least 3.25% of the votes make it into parliament.

Once the final results come in, attention will turn to President Reuven Rivlin. The president, whose responsibilities are mostly ceremonial, is charged with choosing a prime minister after consulting with party leaders and determining who has the best chance of putting together a majority coalition. That responsibility is usually given to the head of the largest party.

The election included several other surprises. The Labor party, which ruled the country for its first 30 years, tumbled to single digits in the parliament.

Zehut, an iconoclastic party that combined an ultranationalist ideology with libertarian economic positions and calls for the legalization of marijuana, had appeared poised to emerge as the Cinderella story of the election. It fell short and failed to enter parliament.

If Netanyahu is re-elected, attention will quickly focus on his legal woes. The attorney general has recommended a series of criminal charges against the prime minister but will only make a decision on indicting him after a legally mandated hearing. Legal experts expect at least some charges to be filed.

Netanyahu will likely focus his efforts on getting guarantees from his coalition partners to continue to back him if he is indicted, and perhaps find a way to grant him immunity from prosecution.

Netanyahu has denied any wrongdoing and claimed he is the victim of a witch hunt.

In order to appeal to his religious and ultranationalist parties, Netanyahu veered sharply right on the campaign trail with attacks on Arab politicians, the media and the judiciary. He also pledged to annex West Bank settlements, a step that could snuff out any remaining hopes for a two-state solution with the Palestinians.

Palestinian official Saeb Erekat lamented that the Israelis voted to maintain “the status quo.”

“They want their occupation to be endless,” he said.

___

Heller reported from Tel Aviv. AP journalists Ilan Ben Zion and Isabel DeBre contributed to this story.

America’s Coup Efforts in Venezuela Enter Frightening New Phase

The United States is taking illegal and dangerous actions to execute regime change in Venezuela. In January, Juan Guaidó declared himself “interim president,” in a strategy orchestrated by the United States to seize power from President Nicolás Maduro.

In March, Guaidó announced that “Operation Freedom,” an organization established to overthrow the Maduro government, would take certain “tactical actions” beginning on April 6. Part of the plan anticipates that the Venezuelan military will turn against Maduro.

This strategy is detailed in a 75-page regime change manual prepared by the U.S. Global Development Lab, a branch of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The manual advocates the creation of rapid expeditionary development teams to partner with the CIA and U.S. Special Forces to conduct “a mix of offensive, defensive, and stability operations [in] in extremis conditions.”

Some of these actions will, in all likelihood, involve combat operations. A USAID official said, “Anybody who doesn’t think we need to be working in combat elements or working with SF [special forces] groups is just naïve.”

The manual was written by members of Frontier Design Group (FDG), a national security contractor whose “work has focused on the wicked and sometimes overlapping problem sets of fragility, violent extremism, terrorism, civil war, and insurgency,” according to its mission statement. FDG was the “sole contractor” that USAID hired to write a “new counterinsurgency doctrine for the Trump administration,” Tim Shorrock wrote at Washington Babylon.

Guaidó is funded by USAID’s sister organization, the National Endowment for Democracy, which is notorious for meddling in other countries and putting a good face on the CIA’s dirty business, as the late journalist William Blum explained.

Writing in Salon, Medea Benjamin and Nicolás J. S. Davies cited Blum’s statement that the United States generally opts for “low-intensity conflict” over full-scale wars. They noted that “’low-intensity conflict’ involves four tools of regime change: sanctions or economic warfare; propaganda or ‘information warfare’; covert and proxy war; and aerial bombardment. In Venezuela,” they added, “the U.S. has used the first and second, with the third and fourth now ‘on the table’ since the first two have created chaos but so far not toppled the government.”

Indeed, a combination of punishing sanctions imposed by the United States and blackouts exploited if not engineered by the U.S. have been unsuccessful in removing Maduro and installing Guaidó.

U.S. Sanctions Intensify Suffering of Venezuelan People

The Venezuelan economy was in dire straits before the Trump administration imposed harsher sanctions in January.

Crude oil production in Venezuela fell by 142,000 barrels a day in February, according to OPEC. “This shows that the sanctions imposed by the Trump administration in January had an immediate, very harsh impact on Venezuela’s economy, and on the general population, which depends on the export revenue from oil for essential imports including medicine, food, medical equipment, and other life-saving necessities,” Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, stated.

If this drop in oil production continues at the same rate, Venezuela stands to lose more than $2.5 billion in oil revenues during the next year. The U.S.-imposed sanctions will speed that decline.

On April 4, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Human Rights Watch issued a 71-page report documenting food and medicine shortages and sharp increases in disease throughout Venezuela. They characterize the situation as a humanitarian emergency and recommend a full-scale response by the United Nations secretary general.

U.S. Misuses Humanitarian Aid as a “Political Weapon”

Guaidó’s opposition “plans to use aid as their chief political weapon,” according to The New York Times.

Although in February, the United States tried to deliver humanitarian assistance to Venezuela though Colombia, Maduro refused to accept it.

“The U.S. misuse of ‘humanitarian assistance’ as a cover for smuggling weapons and other non ‘humanitarian’ items also has a long history” in Latin American countries, Alfred De Zayas, former UN special rapporteur in Venezuela, said in an interview with AntiDiplomatico. De Zayas called out the United States for its hypocritical policy: “It is not possible to be a major cause of the economic crisis — having imposed … sanctions, financial blockades and economic war — and then mutating into a good Samaritan.”

The U.S. government’s cynical strategy is to increase the suffering of the Venezuelan people, in hopes they will rise up against Maduro. This flawed approach was used by the Eisenhower administration after the 1959 Cuban Revolution. It was based on a State Department memo that proposed “a line of action that makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and the overthrow of the [Fidel Castro] government.” The U.S. economic blockade against Cuba continues to hurt the people but they have not overthrown their government.

At the end of March, the Venezuelan government and the opposition agreed that the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies would establish a global relief campaign for humanitarian aid.

Venezuela has asked for and received assistance from the United Nations, Russia, China, Turkey, India and Cuba, De Zayas reported, “but that was humanitarian and offered in good faith and without strings attached. U.S. aid is the ‘fruit of the poison tree.’”

On April 3, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida), who has helped lead the charge for regime change in Venezuela, introduced a 76-page bill in the Senate that would approve $400 million in assistance to Venezuela and take steps to facilitate regime change. It would assess “the declining cohesion inside the Venezuelan military and security forces and the Maduro regime,” and “describe the factors that would accelerate the decision making of individuals to break with the Maduro regime” and recognize Guaidó as interim president of Venezuela.

The Rubio bill would also require briefing on “the full extent of cooperation by” Russia, China, Cuba and Iran with the Maduro government.

U.S. Opposes Russia-Venezuela Cooperation

At the end of March, the Russian government sent 100 troops to Venezuela. Russia’s Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said, “Russian specialists … arrived in accordance with the clauses of a bilateral agreement on technical-military cooperation.”

In early April, Russia announced plans to install a training facility for military helicopters in Venezuela. The Trump administration is rattling its sabers at Russia. U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton warned that the United States considers the presence of military forces from outside the Western Hemisphere a “direct threat to international peace and security in the region.”

Russia, however, denies that its military presence in Venezuela poses a military threat. “The Russian side did not violate anything: neither the international agreements nor Venezuelan laws,” according to Zakharova.

Venezuelan Foreign Affairs Minister Jorge Arreaza cited the hypocrisy of U.S. policy. He said it is “such cynicism that a country with more than 800 military bases around the world, much of them in Latin America, and a growing military budget of more than US$700 billion, intends to interfere with the military-technical cooperation program between Russia and Venezuela.”

In late March, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill called the “Russian-Venezuelan Threat Mitigation Act” to gauge Russia’s influence in Venezuela. It aims to devise a strategy “to counter threats … from Russian-Venezuelan cooperation.” The bill also requires assessment of “national security risks posed by potential Russian acquisition of CITGO’s United States energy infrastructure holdings.”

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, an organization of former intelligence officers and other national security practitioners, wrote in a memo to Donald Trump, “Your Administration’s policies regarding Venezuela appear to be on a slippery slope that could take us toward war in Venezuela and military confrontation with Russia.”

The U.S. government has also threatened Cuba for its support of Venezuela. Vice President Mike Pence said the Trump administration would take “strong action not only to isolate Venezuela but also we’re looking at strong action against Cuba.” On April 5, Pence announced that the United States is imposing sanctions on two companies that deliver Venezuelan crude oil to Cuba. And, egged on by Rubio, Trump is considering extending the economic blockade against Cuba.

Forcible Regime Change Is Illegal

The United Nations Charter prohibits the use or threat of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of another nation. Likewise, the Charter of the Organization of American States forbids any country from intervening in the internal or external affairs of another nation. And the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights guarantees the right to self-determination.

Idriss Jazairy, the UN Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of sanctions, said, “Coercion, whether military or economic, must never be used to seek a change in government in a sovereign state.”

In mid-March, nearly 40 organizations, including CODEPINK, American Friends Service Committee, Peace Action, Just Foreign Policy and VoteVets, sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, urging support for the bipartisan measure, H.R. 1004 – “Prohibiting Unauthorized Military Action in Venezuela Act.” The groups called it “a critical safeguard against unconstitutional U.S. military action.”

H.R. 1004 “prohibits funds made available to federal departments or agencies from being used to introduce the Armed Forces of the United States into hostilities with Venezuela, except pursuant to (1) a declaration of war, (2) a specific statutory authorization that meets the requirements of the War Powers Resolution and is enacted after the enactment of this bill, or (3) a national emergency created by attack upon the United States or the Armed Forces.”

It is imperative that Congress invoke the War Powers Resolution, passed in the wake of the Vietnam War, to prevent the president from escalating the dangerous U.S. economic and military aggression against Venezuela. On April 4, for the first time since its enactment, Congress used the War Powers Resolution to end unauthorized U.S. military involvement in Yemen.

The Mueller Report Is Already Emboldening Trump in Dangerous Ways

What follows is a conversation between University of Houston professor Gerald Horne and Paul Jay of the Real News Network. Read a transcript of their conversation below or watch the video at the bottom of the post.

PAUL JAY: Trump wants to get tougher at the border, and heads are rolling in D.C. That’s next up on The Real News Network.

President Trump fired Kirstjen Nielsen, his Secretary of Homeland Security, on Sunday. He followed this up with the firing of the director of the Secret Service. Perhaps this is just the beginning of heads that are rolling. Now joining us to discuss all of this is Gerald Horne. Gerald holds the John J. And Rebecca Moores Chair of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston, and he’s a regular contributor at The Real News. Thanks for joining us, Gerald.

GERALD HORNE: Thank you for inviting me.

PAUL JAY: So what’s your initial take on this firing and this rhetoric about getting tougher? He’s made threats against Mexico. He first says he’s threatening to close the whole border, and then of course all of the American industry and retail, everybody went nuts. And now he’s saying he’s going to put a 25 percent tariff on cars coming from Mexico if the Mexican government doesn’t block people from coming across. What do you make of this latest round of bluster?

GERALD HORNE: Well, it’s multifaceted and has many angles. Number one, the immigration issue, a la Europe, resonates with the 63 million strong Trump base. Recall that when he glided down the escalator in June 2015 to announce his candidacy, Mexico and immigration from Mexico was front and center. Second of all, the purge at Homeland Security it seems to me is the beginning of a general purge. Recall that just recently the head of the Secret Service has been ousted. Expect further heads to roll in the FBI and in the CIA as well. This is Mr. Trump’s response to the fact that he considers himself to be exonerated from the charge and accusation of colluding with Moscow during the November 2016 victory that he helped to execute.

And also I think it’s further empowering of the Steve Bannon mini me. I’m speaking of Steven Miller, the 30-something aide to Mr. Trump who, as you know, is a hardliner on the question of immigration. I expect there to be further hardline moves taken on that front.

And finally, I would say Mexico should not be lost sight of. That is to say that Mexico is not playing ball with Mr. Trump with regard to getting rid of the Maduro regime in Venezuela. Mexico, as has been its historic stance, still has very good relations with Cuba. And I don’t think that the Trump team is altogether satisfied with having a left-wing president in Mexico City. And I think that this crackdown on the border is also part of the pressure that’s going to be placed on that left-wing regime in Mexico City.

PAUL JAY: Yeah, I think AMLO, the president of Mexico, is I think playing it pretty smart. What I hear from our people that cover Mexico and Mexico City is that he’s going to really try to avoid a direct confrontation with Trump while he consolidates the Mexican economy and makes some progressive reforms. But I think we’re in quite a unique political moment, here. Trump feels “vindicated” from the Mueller report, which no one has seen. And he’s got a window here between when the Mueller report goes public, and it sounds like there’s some damning stuff that will come out. The hearings that are taking place in the House are likely over the next few months to come out with some damning stuff.

But he’s got a window here where I think he can assert the full Trump. Not the full monty, the full Trump. And part of that–I think it’s interesting on the same day he makes such a fuss about the border is the day where they announced that they’re going to declare the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization, which is a big upping of the economic war against Iran and another real step towards a possible military intervention of some kind, but clearly dedicated to regime change in Iran one way or the other.

GERALD HORNE: Well I think that’s a fair point, but keep in mind that Teheran has responded by declaring that the arm of the U.S. military that’s operating in its neighborhood is also a terrorist entity. And I think that the two allegations, Tehran probably has the best of that argument. This will probably lead to attempts on both sides to detain the, on the one hand the leaders of the Revolutionary Guard who are traveling abroad, and on the other hand leaders of the U.S. military when they’re traveling abroad.

But I do think that Mr. Trump is getting himself into a bit of hot water as we speak. These trade talks with China seem to be bogged down. And as the interim chief of the Pentagon put it when asked what his top three priorities were, he said “China, China, China.” This contestation with Iran it seems to me is distracting Washington from China, China, China, and in any event leads to a further consolidation of the relationship between China and Iran, particularly trading Iranian oil to China or bartering that oil for various commodities. And that is something that Mr. Trump is going to have to confront sooner rather than later.

PAUL JAY: In this moment of the window Trump has before the heat’s back on him on the corruption side, and probably the obstruction of justice side, this declaration of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as terrorists, there’s a seven day window now that Congress could block it. What we’re hearing is the Democrats are not planning to do much of anything about it. And I think when one looks back in a few months from now, if there’s a real–if there is a war, all-out war against Iran, or such a destabilization that it leads to some kind of military confrontation one way or the other in the region, I think this vote’s going to be quite critical. And the Democrats are going to look like they did nothing.

GERALD HORNE: Well as you know better than most, the Democrats, generally speaking, have been trying to run to the right of Mr. Trump on the question of foreign policy. That’s the implication of their critique of his moves on the Korean peninsula and seeking to work out an entente with Chairman Kim and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. That’s the import of the recent AIPAC summit in Washington, the Israeli lobby, where Democratic Party leaders like Chuck Schumer and Steny Hoyer of the House basically signed on to the Netanyahu agenda. And that’s the import of the so-called Russiagate scandal, which has been pushed a fairly well by the Democrats, particularly their media arm, speaking of MSNBC. And so the fact that the Democrats may not want to call out Mr. Trump on Iran is quite consistent with their general foreign policy orientation, which is either agreeing with him, as in Venezuela, or running to his right, as in North Korea.

PAUL JAY: And it’s actually a break, though, with a lot of the foreign policy leaders of the past. Because this actually came up, the same resolution as a Senate resolution was the Kyl Lieberman amendment proposed declaring the Iranian Revolutionary Guard terrorist in 2007. And Obama was against it. Biden voted against it. Of course Hillary Clinton voted for it. So you could see who the real neocons in the Democratic Party were on that issue. Not to say Obama wasn’t for the empire and such. Of course he was. But the language at the time is that if you declare the Iranian Revolutionary Guard terrorists, it’s part of the Iranian government. So you’re essentially preparing the conditions to declare war on Iran. And as I say, many leading Democrats voted no against that resolution, although it did pass. But as we’re hearing even among some of the progressives so far, at least up until this interview, are not planning to do anything about it.

GERALD HORNE: Will, you also need to see this conflict not only in Democrat versus Republican terms, but also with regard to the internecine conflict that’s now wracking the Democratic Party itself. You probably saw the article in the New York Times just this morning which suggested that Democratic Party centrists are quite upset with the democratic socialist faction within the Democratic Party, that they would like to see a purge, if you like, of this democratic socialist faction. And given the fact that many constituencies within the Democratic Party are not necessarily up to speed on the question of foreign policy, which gives even more momentum and strength to, for example, the Israeli lobby and to the neocons, I daresay that the centrists feel that they can use these foreign policy issues not only as a club against the Republicans but also as a club against those to their left.

PAUL JAY: Now, back to the border. Trump’s clearly–his math, they look at how these issues play out. And putting Steven Miller more in charge of these policies. I’ve interviewed Miller before. We’re going to run that interview again sometime soon. Hard right on immigration. Bizarro hard right, actually. He sees this as the way to rally the base, I think, to help prepare for a much more aggressive next year of Trump. And again, trying to bury what might come out of the hearings, the request for tax returns, and such like that. Do you think he’s right? Does the math really play out that way? Or is he making a miscalculation here.

GERALD HORNE: Well, on the one hand I think that Mr. Trump feels that his base is rock solid, 40 percent of the electorate, and voter suppression will take care of the rest. I also feel that we have to keep a close eye on Steven Miller, who is an experienced [knife] fighter even though he’s only in his 30s. He hails from Santa Monica, California, a liberal bastion. He also attended Duke University, where he gained notoriety by his attacks on the left and attacks on people of color there. And keep in mind as well that he’s come under critique and criticism from members of his own family. That is to say, members of his own family are, like himself, of Jewish ethnoreligious background, and they say that their family, their ancestors, benefited from liberalized immigration policies, and that Mr. Miller is not being true to his family heritage by seeking to crack down on the kinds of policies that benefited his family. I think they have a fair point. But it does not seem to be stopping Mr. Miller at all.

PAUL JAY: Now, when I interviewed Miller I said to him if you really want to stop this migration from Central America, why don’t you pour money into Central America and make, you know, help make living conditions livable? He actually didn’t really have a counter to that. Except now what Trump’s done is actually pulled back on aid to Central America, which one would think makes it worse. Which maybe is what they want. They want more drama at the border.

GERALD HORNE: I think that’s a fair assessment. I think that they feel that it resonates with the 63 million-strong trump base. Let’s hope that they’re incorrect. But in any case I think what’s going to happen with curtailing of aid to the Northern Triangle countries, including Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala, is that this will cause much more of a flow of migrants through southern Mexico up to the border with the United States of America, which means that Mr. Trump’s policy ultimately is self-defeating.

PAUL JAY: All right. Thanks for joining us, Gerald.

GERALD HORNE: Thank you.

PAUL JAY: Thank you for joining us on The Real News Network.

Trump Instructed Border Patrol to Break the Law, Report Says

During a visit to Calexico, California last Friday, President Donald Trump reportedly told Border Patrol agents to defy U.S. law and refuse to allow migrants into the country.

“Behind the scenes,” CNN reported Monday, citing two anonymous sources, “the president told border agents to not let migrants in. Tell them we don’t have the capacity, he said. If judges give you trouble, say, ‘Sorry, judge, I can’t do it. We don’t have the room.'”

“After the president left the room, agents sought further advice from their leaders, who told them they were not giving them that direction and if they did what the president said they would take on personal liability,” according to CNN. “You have to follow the law, they were told.”

Critics were quick to argue that the president’s reported remarks amount to a blatant violation of his constitutional duty:

This is extraordinarily dangerous and a clear breach of his oath of office. https://t.co/0SngKUsVR1

— Kenneth Zinn (@kennethzinn) April 9, 2019

The president also aggressively pushed to reinstate his family separation policy, CNN reported, confirming earlier reporting from NBC.

“He just wants to separate families,” an anonymous senior administration official told CNN.

CNN’s report came just as a federal judge in California blocked Trump’s policy of forcing some asylum-seekers to return to Mexico as they await a court appearance.

Charanya Krishnaswami, advocacy director for the Americas at Amnesty International USA, welcomed the judge’s ruling in a statement, calling the president’s policy “cruel and irresponsible.”

“Asylum-seekers passing through Mexico have already endured dangerous journeys to flee desperate situations,” Krishnaswami said. “Returning them to Mexico and forcing them to wait there would put them at real risk of serious human rights violations. As it currently stands, the policy gravely violates both domestic and international law.”

BREAKING: A federal court has temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s new policy forcing asylum seekers to return to Mexico to wait while their cases are considered.

The president can’t ignore our laws to accomplish his goal of preventing people from seeking asylum here.

— ACLU (@ACLU) April 8, 2019

Trump in recent days has openly threatened to “close” the U.S.-Mexico border and—as Common Dreams reported—called on Congress to “get rid of the whole asylum system.”

“And frankly,” Trump told reporters outside the White House last week, “we should get rid of judges.”

The president’s increasingly erratic immigration rhetoric comes as he is carrying out staff changes that critics warn could make his policies toward migrants even more brutal.

On Sunday, Trump forced out Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen—a move that is reportedly part of a broader Homeland Security “purge” that will place more power in the hands of the president’s xenophobic adviser Stephen Miller.

As CBS reported, “U.S. Secret Service Director Randolph ‘Tex’ Alles was fired Monday, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Lee Cissna, DHS undersecretary for management Claire Grady and DHS general counsel John Mitnick are also leaving the administration.”

Thank TurboTax If the Government Bans Free Online Tax Filing

Just in time for Tax Day, the for-profit tax preparation industry is about to realize one of its long-sought goals. Congressional Democrats and Republicans are moving to permanently bar the IRS from creating a free electronic tax filing system.

Last week, the House Ways and Means Committee, led by Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., passed the Taxpayer First Act, a wide-ranging bill making several administrative changes to the IRS that is sponsored by Reps. John Lewis, D-Ga., and Mike Kelly, R-Pa.

In one of its provisions, the bill makes it illegal for the IRS to create its own online system of tax filing. Companies like Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, and H&R Block have lobbied for years to block the IRS from creating such a system. If the tax agency created its own program, which would be similar to programs other developed countries have, it would threaten the industry’s profits.

“This could be a disaster. It could be the final nail in the coffin of the idea of the IRS ever being able to create its own program,” said Mandi Matlock, a tax attorney who does work for the National Consumer Law Center.

Experts have long argued that the IRS has failed to make filing taxes as easy and cheap as it could be. In addition to a free system of online tax preparation and filing, the agency could provide people with pre-filled tax forms containing the salary data the agency already has, as ProPublica first reported on in 2013.

The Free File Alliance, a private industry group, says 70% of American taxpayers are eligible to file for free. Those taxpayers, who must make less than $66,000, have access to free tax software provided by the companies. But just 3% of eligible U.S. taxpayers actually use the free program each year. Critics of the program say that companies use it as a cross-marketing tool to upsell paid products, that they have deliberately underpromoted the free option and that it leaves consumer data open to privacy breaches.

The congressional move would codify the status quo. Under an existing memorandum of understanding with the industry group, the IRS pledges not create its own online filing system and, in exchange, the companies offer their free filing services to those below the income threshold.

One member of the Free File Alliance explicitly told shareholders that the IRS “developing software or other systems to facilitate tax return preparation … may present a continued competitive threat to our business for the foreseeable future.”

The IRS’ deal with the Free File Alliance is regularly renegotiated and there have been repeated, bipartisan efforts in Congress to put the deal into law.

Those efforts have been fueled by hefty lobbying spending and campaign contributions by the industry. Intuit and H&R Block last year poured a combined $6.6 million into lobbying related to the IRS filing deal and other issues. Neal, who became Ways and Means chair this year after Democrats took control of the House, received $16,000 in contributions from Intuit and H&R Block in the last two election cycles.

Neal, who describes himself as a longtime champion of the existing Free File program, has argued that it would “would help low- and moderate-income taxpayers.”

Free File Alliance Executive Director Tim Hugo called it “a great idea when you can provide a great product — free tax returns — to Americans at no cost to the federal government.” An H&R Block spokesperson said the company believes “Free File should be the subject of ongoing improvement, and we are committed to working with all parties to strengthen and improve Free File on behalf of the American taxpayer.”

Spokespeople for Neal, Lewis and Kelly did not immediately respond to requests for comment about the provision. A companion Senate bill with the same provision has been introduced by Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Ron Wyden, D-Ore.

While efforts to make the IRS’ deal with the tax preparation industry permanent have fizzled in the past, critics are particularly worried this year. The Taxpayer First Act also includes a provision that would restrict the IRS’ use of private debt collectors to those above a certain income. A Wyden spokesperson said the current bill is a “bipartisan, bicameral compromise so it includes priorities of both chairmen and ranking members.” Wyden “supports giving the IRS the resources it needs to offer more services to taxpayers,” the spokesperson added.

Barr to Release Redacted Mueller Report Within the Week

WASHINGTON — Attorney General William Barr said Tuesday he expects to release a redacted version of the special counsel’s Trump-Russia investigation report “within a week.”

Barr told members of Congress at his first public appearance since receiving special counsel Robert Mueller’s report that his earlier projection of releasing a version by mid-April still stood. The report, which is nearly 400 pages long, is being scoured now to remove grand jury information and details that relate to pending investigations.

Democrats scolded Barr over his handling of the report, telling him they were concerned that a summary of its main conclusions he released last month portrayed the investigation’s findings in an overly favorable way for President Donald Trump.

Rep. Nita Lowey, the Democratic chairwoman of the House Appropriations Committee, said she was taken aback that Barr had reduced Mueller’s report to a four-page letter in just two days. That letter said that Mueller did not find a criminal conspiracy between Russia and Trump associates, and that Barr did not believe the evidence in the report was sufficient to prove the president had obstructed justice.

“Even for someone who has done this job before, I would argue it’s more suspicious than impressive,” Lowey said.

Explaining the rapid turnaround for his letter, Barr said, “The thinking of the special counsel was not a mystery to the Department of Justice prior to the submission of the report.”

Barr was summoned to Congress to talk about his department’s budget request, but lawmakers still asked about the Mueller report as they waited to see it. Barr’s prepared remarks, sent to the committee on Monday, focused on funding requests for immigration enforcement and the fights against violent crime and opioid addiction, not mentioning the special counsel’s report at all.

Mueller sent his final report to Barr on March 22, ending his almost two-year investigation into possible ties between Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia. Barr released a four-page letter summarizing the report two days later and said he would release a redacted version of the full report by mid-April, “if not sooner.”

The new attorney general’s budget testimony — traditionally a dry affair, and often addressing the parochial concerns of lawmakers — came as Democrats were enraged that he was redacting material from the report and frustrated that his summary framed a narrative about Trump before they were able to see the full version. The Democrats are demanding that they see the full report and all its underlying evidence, though Trump and his Republican allies are pushing back.

The chairman of the Ways and Means subcommittee, Democratic Rep. Jose Serrano of New York, told Barr there were “serious concerns about the process by which you formulated your letter; and uncertainty about when we can expect to see the full report.”

Barr said in the summary released last month that Mueller didn’t find a criminal conspiracy between the campaign and the Kremlin. He also said that Mueller did not reach a conclusion on whether the president obstructed justice, instead presenting evidence on both sides of the question. Barr said he and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein decided that the evidence was insufficient to establish obstruction.

Facing the intensifying concerns from Democrats that he may have whitewashed Mueller’s findings, Barr has twice moved to defend, or at least explain, his handling of the process since receiving the special counsel’s report. He has said that he did not intend for his four-page summary of Mueller’s main conclusions to be an “exhaustive recounting” of his work and that he could not immediately release the entire report because it included grand jury material and other sensitive information that needed to be redacted.

He is likely to be asked to further explain himself at a Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing Wednesday that is also on the budget.

Barr is to testify on the report itself at separate hearings before the Senate and House Judiciary committees on May 1 and May 2. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a New York Democrat and chairman of the House Judiciary panel, confirmed the May 2 date on Twitter and said he would like Mueller to testify.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., has said he would be satisfied hearing only from Barr and not Mueller.

Did William Barr Cover Up Mueller’s Report?

I trust Attorney General William Barr to handle the final report of special counsel Robert Mueller almost as much as I trusted James Clapper to handle national intelligence during the Obama years. Which is to say, I do not, and neither should you. This is the same man, after all, who supported pardons during his previous tenure as attorney general under President George H.W. Bush for those involved in the Iran-Contra affair, dismissing the scandal at the time as a “witch hunt.” (Sound familiar?)

It’s been over two weeks since Mueller submitted his written assessment of alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election to Barr, and we still haven’t caught a glimpse of the actual document. And unless the courts intervene, we are unlikely to see anything approaching the full report anytime soon.

All that we have seen of the Mueller report to date are fragments of six sentences, totaling fewer than 100 words contained in Barr’s March 24 letter to Congress. The letter purports to be an objective summary of Mueller’s principal findings. In all likelihood, it is an artfully written dodge that, in effect and by design, clears President Trump of all wrongdoing.

Although Barr has promised to release a redacted version of the Mueller report later this month, there’s no substitute for the real McCoy, which Barr says totals nearly 400 pages, not including tables and appendices.

While it’s too early to conclude, in the strict legal sense, that Barr is covering up Mueller’s findings, it’s also irresponsible to dismiss such a possibility.

Barr officially entered the “Russiagate” controversy on June 8 last year when he sent an unsolicited, rambling, typo-ridden, single-spaced 19-page memo to the Justice Department, titled “Mueller’s ‘Obstruction’ Theory.”

In the most charitable interpretation, the memo is a stunning exercise in political ingratiation, amounting to an audition for the position of attorney general, or so it seems in retrospect. The memo aligned Barr perfectly with the perspectives long advanced by Trump and his lead television attorney, Rudy Giuliani, who have loudly denounced the Mueller probe as a “witch hunt.”

Barr, who reportedly turned down an offer to join Trump’s legal team in December 2017, apparently felt a sudden need to come to Trump’s rescue. “I am writing as a former official deeply concerned with the institutions of the Presidency and the Department of Justice,” Barr began the memo. Conceding that he was “in the dark about” Mueller’s actual legal theory, he nonetheless expressed “hope” that his “views” might “be useful.”

Taken as a whole, the memo offers a classic straw-man takedown of Mueller and his inquiry. Focusing largely on the firing of former FBI Director James Comey, Barr termed Mueller’s still undisclosed theory of obstruction “novel,” “legally unsupportable” and “fatally misconceived.” He also asserted that a president cannot be guilty of obstruction when he exercises powers delegated to him under the Constitution.

And that’s not all. “Even if,” Barr continued, “one were to indulge Mueller’s obstruction theory” and assume that Trump fired Comey with the corrupt intent to impede the Russia probe and protect himself, Trump still couldn’t be charged with obstruction unless he also committed the underlying offense of “illegal collusion” with the Russians.

Apart from the fact that there is no crime of “collusion” outside of the anti-trust area—Mueller was hired to investigate the Trump campaign for possible conspiracy and unlawful electoral coordination with Russia—Barr’s memo was just plain wrong on obstruction. Although the Supreme Court has not yet addressed the subject, the lower federal courts have consistently held that one can commit the act even if innocent of any underlying crime. Just as Martha Stewart, for example, was found guilty of obstruction but not of the underlying offense of securities fraud originally lodged against her, so too could Trump obstruct justice even if he never conspired with Russia.

No matter. Having misrepresented the law of obstruction, Barr advised that until Mueller had “enough evidence to establish collusion,” the special counsel “should not be permitted to interrogate the President about obstruction.”

Topping off his advice, Barr proffered an astonishingly expansive view of executive power that was sure to appeal to his new boss:

“The Constitution itself places no limit on the President’s authority to act on matters which concern him or his own conduct. On the contrary, the Constitution’s grant of law enforcement power to the President is plenary. Constitutionally, it is wrong to conceive of the President as simply the highest officer within the Executive branch hierarchy. He alone is the Executive branch. As such, he is the sole repository of all Executive powers conferred by the Constitution.” (Emphases in the original.)

Consistent with Barr’s advice, Trump never agreed to a face-to-face sit-down with Mueller. In December, Trump nominated Barr to serve as attorney general. In February, the Senate confirmed his appointment by a vote of 54-45.

Barr continued his defense of the president in his March 24 letter. Composed a scant two days after receiving Mueller’s voluminous submission, the memo reads more like a press release than a document prepared by the highest-ranking officer of the Justice Department.

After commending Mueller for his thoroughness, citing the 2,800 subpoenas issued and the 500 search warrants executed during the probe, Barr delivered the payoff Trump craved, announcing that Mueller was not going to recommend any additional indictments beyond those he had already filed. Equally important, Barr stressed that no additional indictments of anyone, especially the president, were legally warranted.

According to Barr, the Mueller report is divided into two parts—the first dealing with Russian interference, and the second with obstruction. The letter devoted three paragraphs to each topic.

On the interference issue, Barr accepted Mueller’s finding that Russian government actors conducted both social-media disinformation attacks aimed at influencing the election, and that Russians also hacked the emails of people affiliated with the Clinton campaign and Democratic Party organizations.

Abandoning the misnomer “collusion,” which is nowhere to be found in the letter, Barr quoted only a fragment of a finding from the Mueller report: “[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.” Barr repeated the finding no less than five times.

On obstruction, Barr wrote that Mueller had “declined to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment.” Instead, Barr explained, Mueller laid out “evidence on both sides of the question,” and concluded that the record neither showed the president had committed a crime, nor that he should be exonerated.

Rather than leave the obstruction issue unresolved, however, Barr decided to review the record on his own—something the Justice Department’s regulations by no means require him to do. He just as easily could have reserved his own judgment and passed the issue along to Congress. But, together with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, Barr determined, just as he had in June, that without proof of conspiracy, an obstruction case could not be supported.

Barr’s letter set the stage for Trump and his minions to boast that the president had been totally vindicated. Within hours of the letter’s publication, cable news networks and segments of the print media joined in, breathlessly proclaiming that Mueller had found no evidence of collusion and that the attorney general had exonerated Trump of obstruction.

Fortunately, a counternarrative has taken shape that resists this initial spin. Members of Mueller’s team, upon returning to their old Justice Department jobs, reportedly have complained to colleagues that the investigation actually had produced “very compelling” evidence of conspiracy and “alarming and significant” proof of obstruction, and that Barr had suppressed investigative summaries the special counsel’s office had written for public release.

Facing mounting criticism, Barr has begun to backtrack and wobble. On March 29, he penned another missive to Congress, claiming that his March 24 letter “was not, and did not purport to be, an exhaustive recounting of the Special Counsel’s investigation or report.” He also pledged again to release the report, but with copious redactions covering grand jury testimony, along with material that could compromise national security and ongoing investigations, and information that might infringe on the personal privacy of “peripheral third parties.”

That is by no means enough.

If Barr had any integrity, he would retract his March 24 letter and immediately seek a court order permitting maximum release of the Mueller report. He’d turn the report over to Congress for further deliberations, including possible impeachment. After that, he would recuse himself from any further oversight of the Mueller probe. Until then, he will always be suspected of a cover-up and more than a little, dare we say, collusion of his own.