Trump’s mishandling of classified docs just got tougher to defend
Trump can’t claim he didn’t know he was improperly taking classified materials if they were clearly marked as “top secret.”
By Steve Benen – February 11, 2022
As the public learned this week about Donald Trump “improperly removing” White House documents, the former president’s aides characterized the records as largely trivial. The Republican’s team told The Washington Post that the items that found their way to Mar-a-Lago “included correspondence with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, which Trump once described as ‘love letters,’ as well as a letter left for Trump by President Barack Obama.”
The explanation wasn’t especially credible at the time, and soon after, it started unraveling. For one thing, the controversy wasn’t about a handful of records; it was about 15 boxes filled with documents Trump wasn’t supposed to take. For another, the materials weren’t just harmless keepsakes; they reportedly included sensitive records believed to be classified.
But, the former president’s allies might argue, perhaps Trump didn’t know the documents included classified information. Wouldn’t that make this a bit less controversial? Perhaps, but the latest Washington Post report makes the defense very difficult to believe.
Some of the White House documents that Donald Trump improperly took to his Mar-a-Lago residence were clearly marked as classified, including documents at the “top secret” level, according to two people familiar with the matter. The existence of clearly marked classified documents in the trove — which has not previously been reported — is likely to intensify the legal pressure that Trump or his staffers could face, and raises new questions about why the materials were taken out of the White House.
Though we don’t yet know exactly how many of these documents Trump took with him after leaving office, the reporting added, some of the materials “bore markings that the information was extremely sensitive and would be limited to a small group of officials with authority to view such highly classified information.”
The reporting has not been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News.
As for the “top secret” designation, the National Archives’ Information Security Oversight Office notes that the classification is applied to information where unauthorized disclosure “could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security.”
In other words, the former president stands accused of improperly taking highly sensitive secrets — which were clearly marked as classified — to his Florida golf club, indifferent to the national security risks he was creating.
Perhaps, Trump’s allies might claim, this wasn’t too great a risk because Mar-a-Lago is a secure, private venue. That would be a nice try, but it would also be wrong: Politico reported during the first year of Trump’s term, “The president’s semi-public Florida retreat doesn’t follow the same strict background check protocol as the White House, creating an espionage risk.” Two months later, Pro Publica ran a related piece with an ominous headline: “Any Half-Decent Hacker Could Break Into Mar-a-Lago.”
Security questions lingered throughout the Republican’s tenure, a four-year period in which Trump was routinely reckless with our national security secrets.
Is it any wonder why the National Archives has referred all of this to the Justice Department as a possible criminal matter?
By way of a defense, Trump issued a written statement yesterday that seemed to compare his alleged mishandling of White House documents to Hillary Clinton’s emails. Putting aside the weak attempts at whataboutism, the former president may not have thought this through: Is he saying his actions are comparable to those of a woman he believes should be incarcerated?
Has Trump been reduced to effectively saying, “Clinton was a criminal, and what I did is analogous to what she did?”Steve Benen
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MSNBC political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “The Impostors: How Republicans Quit Governing and Seized American Politics.”
Canada’s ‘nationwide insurrection’ is bringing together an unlikely and alarming alliance
Around the world, far right activists are watching what’s happening in Canada with fantasies of similar resistance in their own countries.
Cynthia Miller – Idriss, MSNBC OpinionColumnist – February 9, 2022
People gather in protest against Covid mandates and restrictions taking place in Ottawa, in Edmonton, Alberta, Feb. 5.Jason Franson / The Canadian Press via AP
The mayor of Ottawa, Ontario, declared a state of emergency this week, describing the spiraling chaos of protests by the so-called Freedom Convoy truckers against a vaccine mandate as “completely out of control.” The 12-day siege has overwhelmed police and frustrated city residents, with dozens of big-rig trucks blocking roads and honking horns and thousands of other protesters blaring air sirens, setting off fireworks and harassing mask-wearing pedestrians. The Ottawa police described it as a “nationwide insurrection.
About 90 percent of Canadian truckers are already vaccinated, which means these protests are less about vaccinations than the concept of mandates themselves.
We should expect more of this in the years to come — in North America and across the world, where the protests have already galvanized the far right.
It has been nearly two weeks since the truckers descended on the Ottawa neighborhood surrounding the Canadian Parliament. But in the days since, the protests themselves have ballooned into broader anti-government opposition, with a reported 5,000 protesters in the streets, including some who allegedly are promoting vaccine disinformation and conspiracy theories and engaging in criminal activity. Some protesters reportedly carried swastika flags, while others wore white supremacist extremist logos. An apparent arson attempt in a nearby apartment building is under investigation. A hotline for hate-motivated crimes has received over 200 calls.
The vast majority — about 90 percent — of Canadian truckers are already vaccinated, which means these protests are less about vaccinations than the concept of mandates themselves. The protests coalesced after the new Canadian policy requiring Canadian truckers crossing the U.S.-Canada border to be vaccinated or quarantine for 14 days took effect Jan. 15. The focus of the protests is on “freedom” and “political overreach,” but the protests have also been used to stoke fear about supply chain disruptions and other shortages. The Canadian Trucking Alliance has disavowed the drivers involved in the protests.
What began as an occupational protest about cross-border vaccine mandates quickly grabbed the attention of the far right globally, becoming a “magnet for far-right grievances” and anti-establishment beliefs that are much broader than the original truckers’ anger. U.S. Republican politicians and conservative political commentators have voiced support for the protests, broadening their reach and amplifying videos of the protests on social media. Facebook and Telegram groups of supporters now boast hundreds of thousands of followers globally.
A hotline for hate-motivated crimes has received over 200 calls.
Global support has been consequential. Canadian officials reported that a “significant” number of protesters are coming from the U.S. and that financial support is coming from across the border. A fundraising campaign raised over $8 million in donations on the crowdsourcing site GoFundMe before the site shut it down due to violations of terms of service after the protests ceased being a “peaceful demonstration,” and the site offered to reimburse donors. A Christian fundraising site immediately took up the cause, raising over $5 million within a few days, at twice the speed of the original fundraiser, as the financial crime analyst Jessica Davis reported.
Above all, the protests show clearly that a single issue — such as anger at vaccine mandates — has the power to rapidly mobilize support across the mainstream as well as from the extremist fringe, in ways that local communities, including key targets like state and national capitals, are not prepared for. The response in Ottawa has reflected this struggle, with the cost of policing the protests alone running $800,000 per day, not including overtime costs. Police have worked to disrupt the supply lines of food and fuel to protesters, promised arrests of anyone offering material support and issued hundreds of tickets for disruptive behavior and criminal violations. After 11 days of noise, a resident won a court injunction that silenced the constant air sirens and honking.
Like the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the trucker protests show how anti-government anger has the power to rapidly draw together individuals and ignite the fringe with the mainstream. What’s happening in Ottawa reflects the same kind of lowest common denominator mobilization that brought groups across the conservative and far-right spectrum together to try to stop the U.S. presidential election vote count. In these situations, groups that are normally not ideologically aligned — conspiracy theorists, unlawful militias, anti-vaccine advocates, white supremacist extremists, anti-government extremists and others — join forces with more ordinary voters and protesters in potentially combustive and dangerous ways.
We should all be ready for similar kinds of protests to coalesce globally. Around the world, far-right activists are watching what’s happening in Canada with fantasies of similar resistance in their own countries. Already, a convoy of truckers in the U.S. has announced plans for a similar convoy to head to Washington, D.C., next month.
Organizers planning peaceful protests should prepare to be co-opted by violent extremists, conspiracy theorists and others who pose a danger to the public. A Facebook group set up to organize the purported convoy to Washington reached 100,000 members before Meta shut it down for repeatedly violating policies related to QAnon — prompting the organizers to deny any affiliation with QAnon.
Anti-government and Covid-related protesters — some of whom are stoked by propaganda, disinformation and conspiracy theories — have seized on every opportunity to disrupt and attack new targets, from school board officials and teachers to health care workers and elected officials. The truckers’ protest in Ottawa is one more sign of the creative — and destructive — turns these movements are taking.
Statewide redistricting battles could give Democrats an edge in House races
Christopher Wilson, Senior Writer – February 10, 2022
The newest round of congressional map-drawing may turn out not to be the doomsday some predicted for Democrats, but the legislators who do end up in Washington this decade could be more partisan than their predecessors.
With Republicans holding on to a number of state governments, some analysts believed the decennial process of creating congressional maps could result in the GOP taking control of the House of Representatives through the process of gerrymandering — the term used to define partisan redistricting — alone. The centuries-old process of drawing maps that either contained or split apart certain groups of voters was employed in many states by Republicans after their success in the 2010 midterms.
With Republican control over the redistricting process in a number of key states, the sense was the maps might get even more tilted.
The potential shift comes from a number of factors, including Republican strategies in map drawing, court decisions, maps drawn by nonpartisan commissions, Democrats becoming more aggressive in larger states where they have control and the GOP already maximizing its advantages in some areas.
Michael Li, senior counsel for the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program, told Yahoo News that one of the key factors was Republicans choosing to play defense with established districts.
In Texas, for example, the old map had 11 districts that Donald Trump won by 15 or more points. The new map has 24 such districts out of 27 total seats projected to go Republican, in many instances combining suburban areas with nearby rural areas that are more conservative. In exchange, some Democrats who were in swing seats now find themselves representing districts that Joe Biden won comfortably.
“Republicans, by and large, have chosen to shore up existing gerrymanders and make districts ultra-safe,” Li said. ”They didn’t go out and target Democrats, they didn’t try to take out Democratic incumbents. They said, ‘We’re going to keep the seats that we have, but we’re going to make them safer.’”
Troy Desole votes at Carstens Elementary Middle School in Detroit. (Clarence Tabb Jr./Detroit News via AP)
In Michigan, where voters approved an independent redistricting commission via ballot initiative in 2018, the previous gerrymander was unwound under the new process. The Ohio Supreme Court, meanwhile, rejected a GOP-drawn gerrymander, citing the wishes of voters who had also approved changes in the process via ballot initiative.
Courts also intervened in states like North Carolina and Pennsylvania, where the GOP had less room to add seats due to previous gerrymanders that had already given them advantageous maps. In most states without a nonpartisan redistricting commission, new maps are drawn after the census every 10 years by the state legislature.
“There was such an extreme advantage for Republicans in 2010, which is actually the reason I got interested in redistricting in the first place, learning what an extreme distortion could happen back then,” said Sam Wang, who runs the Princeton Gerrymandering Project and predicted last May that Democrats would likely fare well in the redistricting process.
“Just statistically, it couldn’t be as bad as [2010], because that was such an extreme.”
Attempting to go through the judicial system has not been a complete success for those seeking less partisan line-drawing. Earlier this week, for example, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a ruling that would have forced Alabama Republicans to draw a second majority Black district in the state.
The court’s new 6-3 conservative makeup makes it likely similar protections could be eliminated there, even with Chief Justice John Roberts — who was among the majority that ruled to begin gutting the Voting Rights Act in 2013 — siding with the three remaining liberals on the Alabama case. The other five conservative justices, however, all sided against forcing the state to draw a second Black-majority district.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Sen. Bernie Sanders attend a joint session of Congress In April 2021. (Melina Mara/AFP via Getty Images)
Another major reason for the swing toward Democrats is their aggressive gerrymandering in the two largest states where the party controls the process: New York and Illinois. (California, with its 52 seats, Is among the states where redistricting is conducted by an independent commission.) Unlike a decade ago, New York Democrats have unified control of the state legislature in Albany, leading to a map that gives them an edge in 22 of the state’s 26 districts, versus 19 of 27 under the old map after the state lost a seat in the census. The map is currently being challenged in court.
Although the GOP is usually much more in favor of partisan gerrymandering over independent commissions, former President Trump decried the Democrats’ New York map.
“Republicans are getting absolutely creamed with the phony redistricting going on all over the Country,” Trump said in a statement last week. “Even the Fake New York Times is having a hard time believing how ridiculous things have gotten. We were expecting to do well in New York and now, we’ll lose 4 seats and the Old Broken-Down Crow, Mitch McConnell, sits back and does nothing to help the Party.”
Despite Trump’s statement, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has no formal role in determining how state-level congressional districts are drawn, although he could in theory push for legislation that would ban partisan gerrymandering. The new maps do not affect U.S. Senate seats.
While Republicans have vented their frustrations about the New York map, they have not worked with Democrats on federal legislation that would prevent such practices.
“All the Republicans complaining about these maps in Congress, they voted against the Freedom to Vote: John Lewis Act which would have banned partisan gerrymandering and struck down the New York map almost instantly,” Li said.
Faith leaders and students stage a sit-in on the steps of the Capitol in January to urge the Senate to pass the Freedom To Vote: John R. Lewis Act. (Leah Millis/Reuters)
While Democrats’ baseline of seats may be higher than anticipated, their potential for growth is limited in many areas. Li noted that Democrats are essentially locked into 37 percent of the seats in Texas, up from just 36 percent in the last map. This is despite President Biden winning 46 percent of Texas voters in 2020 and Democrat Beto O’Rourke winning 48 percent in his 2018 Senate campaign.
Li added that some of the districts drawn by Democrats where Biden won by six or seven points are reliant on the current coalition of voters staying together. In other words, Republicans have a shot at these seats if they earn back suburban votes or make strides with minority communities, especially in a “wave year” in which the GOP racks up wins outside traditionally red areas like in 2010.
“There are a bunch of Biden districts in Virginia that Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin won in 2021,” Li said.
“If every election in the future plays out like Trump-Biden 2020, this is not so bad for Democrats, but Democrats are playing a big bet that there won’t be changes in the electorate. … They may be right, but as we saw from Virginia that coalition may not hang together.”
Kyle Kondik, managing editor for Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball and author of The Long Red Thread, agreed that Democrats have perhaps spread themselves too thin for some states in 2022, pointing to Nevada as a key state to watch.
“The thing about the maps this year is that in all likelihood because of the challenging political environment for Democrats and the history for the president’s party in midterms the democratic maps are going to be stress-tested right away, whereas Republican maps are going to be stress-tested later in the decade if they have a challenging political environment,” Kondik said.
A state districts map is shown as a three-judge panel of the Wake County Superior Court presides over the trial of Common Cause, et al. v. Lewis, et al. in Raleigh, N.C. (Gerry Broome/AP Photo)
Regardless of who ends up controlling Congress in the terms to come, the likelihood of representatives holding more radical views is rising as general elections become safer and safer. When many districts are drawn so incumbents of both parties can expect to win by big margins, and partisan primaries are the only truly competitive contests, candidates tend to be less moderate because they’re looking to win over more extreme voters.
“Sometimes people tend to think about gerrymanders as being, ‘Oh, we’re dating a bunch of seats,’ which certainly does happen,” Li said. “But another form of gerrymandering is just taking competition off the table. You have these really wild suburban rural districts, which could very well produce a more extreme Republican caucus.”
Kondik noted that seats that might not be competitive in 2022 could move into that category later in the decade.
“There have always been a lot of pretty uncompetitive seats, and certainly we’ve seen some big swings in the House in recent years. I don’t think these maps are going to preclude those sorts of big swings when you have a political environment that is changing and can be pretty strongly in favor of one side or the other in a given election year,” Kondik said.
Americans seeking reform that could lead to a more representative Congress are more likely to see success come at the state level. While extending the Voting Rights Act used to be a perfunctory bipartisan tradition, that has faded in recent years amid Republican opposition.
Sen. Joe Manchin. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via Getty Images)
Last year, centrist Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., failed almost immediately in his attempt for a new voting rights bill that could earn 10 Republican votes. The problem is further exacerbated by the current conservative composition of the Supreme Court, which in 2019 ruled that partisan gerrymandering was beyond the court’s purview.
“For all the talk from people like Joe Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., about wanting to compromise, that will be increasingly hard in the House,” Li said. “I don’t think this is going to be a House eager to find common ground.”
Ballot initiatives approved by voters like the ones in Colorado and Michigan can lead to fairer lines being drawn in other states, creating more competitive districts. Some states are also experimenting with ranked-choice voting, in which voters list their candidates in order of preference, a process meant to encourage candidates to try to win over more moderates.
“Most questions of reform of democracy, at this point, have been out at the state level because the Supreme Court has basically abdicated its responsibility to level playing fields,” Wang said.
“It’s just basically state-by-state. Anybody who wants to better democracy is gonna have to get down there in the mud and sign their petition and all that stuff. Until we get a different Supreme Court, it’s the only route.”
More US military jets turn to East Europe as possible Russian invasion of Ukraine looms
Rachel Cohen – February 11, 2022
The U.S. Air Force is building up its strike aircraft presence in Eastern Europe as the NATO alliance tries to prevent a potential Russian invasion of neighboring Ukraine this month.
American officials reportedly believe Russia will attack Ukraine within the next two weeks, pinpointing Feb. 16 as the possible start of a physical assault.
About 6,000 troops have deployed from the U.S. to Europe, nearly all of whom are soldiers with the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division. They’re backed by a growing array of military aircraft and rapid-response airmen who can quickly make airfield space to launch combat operations from anywhere.
American fighter jets stationed elsewhere on the continent have moved farther east, including squadrons from Spangdahlem Air Base in Germany and RAF Lakenheath in England. B-52 bombers also arrived at England’s RAF Fairford on Thursday for a previously planned European rotation, as airlifters continue to jump around the region.
“Collectively, this force is trained and equipped for a variety of missions to deter aggression and to reassure and defend European allies/partners,” U.S. European Command said Thursday. “To maintain a heightened state of readiness, the Department of Defense has also repositioned Europe-based units further east and forward-deployed additional U.S.-based units to Europe.”
F-16 Fighting Falcons headed to Romania on Friday “to reinforce regional security during the current tensions caused by Russia’s military build-up near Ukraine,” EUCOM said in a release the same day.
Air Force fighters will practice air-to-air combat maneuvers with other NATO member nations, the command said, looking to improve their ability to work together and communicate well in multinational air operations.
“The additional aircraft and crews will work closely with allies in the Black Sea region,” the command said. “U.S. fighter units will also support NATO’s enhanced air policing mission, working closely with the Italian Typhoons who have been safeguarding the skies since December 2021.”
NATO has sought to bolster stability and security in Europe through air policing and other measures after Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014.
The allied air policing initiative “demonstrates NATO’s solidarity, collective resolve and its ability to adapt and scale its defensive missions and deterrence posture” as military tensions grow in the region, EUCOM said.
American F-15 Eagles arrived at Poland’s Łask Air Base one day earlier with much the same mission.
Together with Polish and Danish F-16s, the jets from the 48th Fighter Wing in England will patrol the skies over the Baltics. Like the F-16s going to Romania, the Eagles will also train on air-to-air and air-to-ground combat tactics.
“U.S. fighters will work closely with Combined Air Operations Centre Uedem based in Germany,” EUCOM said on Thursday. “The CAOC is responsible for directing, tasking and coordinating air operations of allocated assets across northern Europe in peace, crisis and conflict.”
U.S. Air Forces in Europe previously noted that F-16s landed at Łask on Jan. 4 for air policing on NATO’s eastern flank as well.
Earlier this month, airmen with the 435th Contingency Response Group relocated from Germany’s Ramstein Air Base to Poland to prepare for a potential influx of Ukrainian evacuees if Russia invades. A photo posted to the Pentagon’s online image repository Feb. 4 showed C-130J Super Hercules aircraft getting ready to leave.
The group is the only American quick-deploying force in Europe that can build a makeshift airbase from which to launch operations anywhere on the continent.
“Approximately 150 personnel from the 435th Air Ground Operations Wing deployed to support NATO allies and partners, specializing in combat communications, air traffic control, cargo transportation and airfield management,” the 86th Airlift Wing at Ramstein said in a photo caption Tuesday.
A U.S. Air Force airman assigned to the 435th Contingency Response Group waits for further instruction on a C-17 Globemaster III assigned to the 62nd Airlift Wing from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, in Rzeszów-Jasionka Airport, Poland, Feb. 8, 2022. Approximately 150 personnel from the 435th Air Ground Operations Wing deployed to support NATO allies and partners, specializing in combat communications, air traffic control, cargo transportation and airfield management. (Senior Airman Taylor Slater/Air Force)
Other air units are coming from farther afield.
B-52 Stratofortresses from the 5th Bomb Wing at Minot AFB, North Dakota, turned up in England on Thursday as another sign of solidarity. While they’ve arrived for a recurring deployment meant to fend off foreign aggressors — namely Russia — the bombers become part of a growing show of force in the area.
“With an ever-changing global security environment, it’s critical that our efforts with our allies and partners are unified,” said Gen. Jeff Harrigian, who oversees U.S. Air Force operations in Europe and Africa. “We’re in Europe training and collaborating together, because consistent integration is how we strengthen our collective airpower.”
Massive C-17 Globemaster III transport planes left the U.S. for Ukraine earlier in February, including from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington — one of four Air Force installations whose units were placed on alert last month for a possible deployment to eastern Europe.
Another of the four — Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio — hasn’t said whether its Reserve C-17 wing has deployed as well.
A third base on standby, Robins Air Force Base in Georgia, is home to the E-8C JSTARS aircraft tracking ground targets over Europe. Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona, the fourth base, referred questions on whether its EC-130H Compass Call electronic attack planes and others are assisting in Ukraine to Pentagon spokesman John Kirby.
Recent aircraft movements signal a departure from the Air Force’s earlier posture, which centered on reconnaissance missions monitoring the buildup of Russian troops along Ukraine’s borders.
On Wednesday, military plane-spotting hobbyist Amelia Smith pointed to U.S. Air Force RC-135V/W Rivet Joint planes, used for electronic eavesdropping, as well as a JSTARS jet among nearly two dozen military surveillance aircraft collecting intel over Europe. RQ-4 Global Hawk and MQ-9 Reaper drones have also been spotted on flight radars while gathering information over the region.
Continued, intense maritime surveillance of the Norwegian Sea by U.S. and Royal Air Force P-8A Poseidon jets, plus Canadian CP-140 Auroras, “suggests something of particular interest could be making its way down towards the North Sea,” Smith said on Twitter.
Airman 1st Class Stephen Knotts, 436th Aerial Port Squadron ramp services apprentice, positions a cargo loader to an aircraft during a foreign military sales mission with Ukraine at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, Feb. 10, 2022. Since 2014, the United States has committed more than $5.4 billion in total assistance to Ukraine, including security and non-security assistance. (Roland Balik/Air Force)
Meanwhile, Dover AFB in Delaware has continued packing Javelin anti-tank missiles and other materiel onto aircraft bound for Ukraine.
Ukrainian defense attaché Maj. Gen. Borys Kremenetskyi and Oksana Markarova, the country’s ambassador to the U.S., watched the cargo file onto planes during a visit to Dover on Thursday. The U.S. has promised more than $5.4 billion in military and other aid to Ukraine since 2014.
“The cargo is part of the total $200 million aid agreed upon by U.S. President Joe Biden in connection with Russia’s growing threat,” the Ukrainian Embassy in the U.S. added on Facebook on Thursday.
“We express our gratitude to the United States for the unwavering support of Ukraine and strengthening the defense capacity of the Ukrainian army.”
Russia’s drone army contains heaps of Western electronics. Can the U.S. cut them off?
Jeanne Whalen – February 11, 2022
Russian forces launch an unmanned aircraft during military exercises in the southern Krasnodar region in 2017. (Vitaly Timkiv/TASS/Getty Images) (Getty Images)
In early 2017, Ukrainian forces battling Russia-backed separatists shot down a drone conducting surveillance over Ukraine’s eastern flank.
The unmanned aircraft – nearly six feet long, with a cone-shaped nose and a shiny gray body – had all the external characteristics of a Russian military drone. But when researchers cracked it open, they found electronic components manufactured by half a dozen Western companies.
The engine came from a German company that supplies model-airplane hobbyists. Computer chips for navigation and wireless communication were made by U.S. suppliers. A British company provided a motion-sensing chip. Other parts came from Switzerland and South Korea.
“I was surprised when we looked at it all together to see the variety of different countries that had produced all these components,” said Damien Spleeters, an investigator with the U.K.-based Conflict Armament Research (CAR) group, who traveled to Ukraine to dissect several drones. All were loaded with Western electronics.
Without those parts, said Spleeters, who summarized his findings in a report, Russia would have found it “much more difficult to produce and operate the drones, for sure.”
As tensions mount over a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine, U.S. officials are considering trade sanctions designed to deprive Russia of foreign-made computer chips and electronics. Spleeters’ investigation shows how profoundly the ban could hurt Russia’s military – and why it might be hard to pull off.
Russia is known for its scientists and hackers but makes little of its own electronics or computer hardware, relying largely on imports. Yet blocking the flow of these goods could prove difficult.
Many of the drone components that CAR identified traveled to Russia via obscure middlemen and small trading companies whose businesses could be tough to track.
What’s more, the relatively small quantities that Russia’s military likely needs might allow it to acquire components surreptitiously, said Malcolm Penn, the chief executive of London-based semiconductor research firm Future Horizons.
“If you only want 500 or 1,000 it’s easily doable, and very hard to stop,” he said. “All throughout the Cold War, when in theory there were no exports to the Soviet Union, that didn’t stop them from getting things. There are always men with suitcases that go out to the Far East and buy stuff and come back.”
Another big wild card is China, which could thwart any U.S. attempt to choke off chips to Russia. CAR estimated that the drones it examined were built between 2013 and 2016, when Western suppliers were more dominant in the chip industry. China has since become a much bigger manufacturer of electronic components, and is unlikely to fully comply with any attempted blockade, technology experts say.
Russia relies on Asian and Western countries to supply most of its consumer electronics and computer chips, which are the brains that make electronics function. Russia’s imports of these goods in 2020 exceeded $38 billion, according to United Nations trade data.
The Soviet Union had a variety of small semiconductor factories churning out chips, mostly for military use, according to Penn, who visited some of the facilities in the early 1990s. But the Soviet breakup pushed Russia into a long period of turmoil that thwarted development of high-tech industries and manufacturing.
“The microelectronics industry was completely decimated in the 1990s,” said Sam Bendett, a Russian-military analyst at the Virginia-based research group CNA. “It was just easier to import these technologies, which were widely available in the global market.”
The Russian and Ukrainian embassies in Washington didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Russia retains some manufacturers that produce chips of older designs, including Mikron, which was founded in Soviet times near Moscow. Enterprises in the country also design chips known by the names Baikal and Elbrus – the latter are used by the military – but send many of the designs to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world’s largest chip foundry, for fabrication.
Russian defense contractors in recent years have claimed to have revived some domestic manufacturing of high-tech military equipment, including drones and their components, Bendett said.
The United States and the European Union already restrict their exports of defense-related electronics to Russia, and have toughened those rules in recent years. Yet Russian networks have found ways around those obstacles. In 2015, several Russian agents were convicted of, or pleaded guilty to, federal charges of using a Texas-based company they set up to illegally export high-tech chips to Russian military and intelligence agencies.
Under the broader blockade that U.S. officials are considering, the United States could compel many countries worldwide to cut their chip exports to Russia by telling them they aren’t allowed to use U.S. technology to make components for Russian buyers. Most chip factories worldwide, including those in China and Taiwan, use U.S. manufacturing tools or software in their production process, analysts say.
The United States could limit the ban to Russia’s military and high-tech sectors or could apply it more broadly, potentially depriving Russian citizens of some smartphones, tablets and video game consoles, The Washington Post recently reported, citing administration officials.
CAR determined that the drones it investigated were used for reconnaissance missions in eastern Ukraine, where Russia has been fueling a separatist war since 2014.
At the invitation of Ukraine’s security services, Spleeters from CAR flew to Kyiv in late 2018 to dissect the drone that was shot down in 2017.
Using a duffel bag stuffed with screwdrivers, Allen keys and cameras, Spleeters disassembled and photographed the aircraft, looking for serial numbers and markings that could help identify where the parts came from.
He and his colleagues then contacted the component suppliers to try to trace how the parts wound up in the drone.
One motion-sensing chip was manufactured by the British company Silicon Sensing Systems, which makes components for drones, car navigation systems and industrial machinery. The company told CAR that it sold the chip in August 2012 to a Russian civilian electronics distributor, sending it via UPS in a package with 50-odd components, according to the CAR report.
The Russian distributor told Silicon Sensing that the chip was to be used in a drone; it later added that it sold the chip to a Russian entity called ANO PO KSI, which it said purchased such items for educational institutions in Russia, according to the CAR report.
ANO PO KSI, which is an acronym for Professional Association of Designers of Data Processing Systems, was sanctioned by the United States in 2016 for allegedly aiding Russian military intelligence.
On its website, ANO PO KSI describes itself as a nonprofit group that makes high-tech products, including document scanners and cameras, for the Russian government and business customers. The organization didn’t respond to a request for comment.
In an email to The Post, Silicon Sensing said it “vigorously” complies “with all export control laws and policies everywhere we do business.”
“These components were sold in 2012 to a commercial company that was not on an embargo list at that time. We have ceased doing business with that company and any related entities,” Silicon Sensing added.
The drone also contained U.S.-made components designed for navigation and wireless communication. One of the suppliers, Digi International, based in Hopkins, Minn., told CAR that it sold the wireless communications component to a U.S.-based distributor in March 2012, but that the distributor was unable to identify the ultimate recipient, according to the CAR report.
Digi International told The Post that it screens all sales to be sure it isn’t supplying any prohibited parties in violation of U.S. export control laws.
“We do not know how the product in question ended up in a Russian drone. We do not condone the use of our modules by foreign actors in military use cases,” the company said in an emailed statement.
Maxim Integrated, of San Jose, Calif., told CAR that it manufactured a navigation component found in the drone in 2013 and shipped it to its distributors in January 2014. It added that the component “is not designed for use in unmanned aerial vehicles.”
Maxim’s parent company, Analog Devices, declined to clarify for The Post what the component is used for. In an emailed statement, the company said it “is committed to full compliance with U.S. laws including U.S. export controls, trade sanctions and regulations.”
Other companies in Switzerland and the U.K. told CAR they were unable to track the chain of suppliers that had handled their components.
The drone’s engine – a single-cylinder unit with an electronic ignition – traveled a particularly mysterious route, from a small company near Frankfurt, Germany, that makes parts for model airplanes.
The company, 3W-Modellmotoren Weinhold, which didn’t respond to The Post’s request for comment, told CAR that it had sent the engine to World Logistic Group, a company based in the Czech Republic, in October 2013.
The Czech company, which ceased operations in 2018, could not be reached for comment. The company was founded in the spa town of Karlovy Vary in 2008 by two residents of Moscow, according to Czech business registration documents identified by CAR and reviewed by The Post.
From 2012 to 2014, a third Moscow-area resident served as a director of the company, according to those documents. CAR researchers found that this person was also a member of an advisory council to the Main Directorate of Public Security for Moscow’s regional government.
The directorate was established to “implement state policy in the field of public and economic security,” according to the website of Moscow’s regional government.
According to CAR, similar drone models have been recovered after flying over Syria and Libya, countries where Russian troops or mercenaries have also engaged in military action. Lithuania, a member of NATO, discovered an identical model that crashed on its territory in 2016. That one contained foreign-made components and Russian software, according to CAR and Lithuanian security services.
The case shows “that Russia uses [drones] for intelligence collection not only in conflict zones but also in peacetime in neighbouring NATO countries,” Lithuanian authorities said in a 2019 document.
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The Washington Post’s Natasha Abbakumova in Moscow contributed to this report.
Map reveals your life expectancy depending on the state you live in
Andrea Michelson – February 11, 2022
A map shows life expectancy at birth for the United States in 2019.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Life expectancy data from 2019 showed a national average of 78.8 years.
Hawaii had the highest life expectancy, at 80.9, and Mississippi had the lowest at 74.4.
Most of the states with lower life expectancies were located in the South and had higher poverty rates.
A National Vital Statistics Report published Thursday captured a six-year gap in life expectancy between states with the highest and lowest estimates at birth.
Based on data collected in 2019, Hawaii had the highest average life expectancy: 80.9 years. On the lower end, Mississippians born in 2019 could expect to live an average of 74.4 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics.
The national average life expectancy for 2019 was 78.8 — just a fraction of a point up from 2018. Since the center collected these data on the eve of the pandemic, the effects of COVID-19 on life expectancy statistics have yet to be documented.
Video: Animated map shows best and worst states to raise a family in 2017
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Here’s how the states stacked up in 2019:
Longest-living states tend to be financially well-off
Hawaii’s impressive life expectancy is tied to more than just surf and sand. The state also has one of the higher median household incomes, after the District of Columbia, Maryland, and New Jersey.
Life expectancy and socioeconomic status tend to follow similar geographic patterns, Elizabeth Arias, the lead author of the CDC report, told NBC.
“Really well-to-do areas had really high life expectancies,” she told the outlet, noting that just nine percent of Hawaii residents lived below the poverty line in 2019.
The maps don’t line up exactly, but many of the wealthier states had relatively high average life expectancies in the 2019 report and past analyses.
The states with the highest life expectancies after Hawaii were California, New York, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Washington state, Colorado and Vermont. With the exception of Vermont, these states’ median incomes were between $5,000 to $15,000 higher than the national average in 2019.
Southern states had some of the lower life expectancies
Most of the states with the lowest average life expectancies were located in the South, according to the 2019 report.
West Virginia, Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Ohio made up the lowest percentile along with Mississippi.
Many of those states had relatively high percentages of residents living before the national poverty line. NBC reported that Mississippi had the largest portion of people in poverty in 2019: 19.5 percent, according to the US Department of Agriculture.
Smoking tobacco is also more prevalent in the South, ABC reported. The South and the Midwest have higher rates of obesity than other regions in the US, according to the CDC, as well as poorer access to healthcare in some southern states. Mississippi, Tennesseee, and Oklahoma have some of the higher uninsured rates in the country, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s State Health Facts.
While Mississippi had the lowest life expectancy across populations, West Virginia had the lowest average for women: 77.3 years. However, the report found life expectancy was higher for women in every single state and in Washington, D.C.
US conservative figures cheer on Canadian trucker protest
David Bauder – February 10, 2022
This combination photo shows, from left, Tucker Carlson, host of “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” and Sean Hannity, host of “Hannity” on Fox News. Several conservative media figures in the United States, including Carlson and Hannity, have taken up the cause of Canadian truckers who have occupied parts of Ottawa and blocked border crossings to protest COVID-19 restrictions and vaccine mandates. (AP Photo/File)ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK (AP) — Several conservative media figures in the U.S. have taken up the cause of Canadian truckers who have occupied parts of Ottawa and blocked border crossings to protest COVID-19 restrictions and vaccine mandates.
Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity cheered the truckers on while showing four live reports from Ottawa this week. Tucker Carlson’s online store is selling “I (heart) Tucker” T-shirts edited to say “I (heart) Truckers.”
“Send our solidarity, love and support to all of the brave people who are there,” Hannity told Fox reporter Sara Carter, who was with the protesters in Ottawa, on his show Thursday. “Don’t give up.”
The Canadian protesters are protesting vaccine mandates for truckers and other COVID-19 restrictions and are railing against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, though many of the country’s infection measures are already rapidly being lifted as the omicron surge levels off. The five-day blockade has disrupted the flow of goods between the U.S. and Canada and forced the auto industry on both sides to roll back production.
In a bulletin to local and state law enforcement officers, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security warned that it has received reports of similar protests being planned in the United States.
The agency said the protests could begin in Southern California as early as this weekend and potentially spread to Washington around the State of the Union address in March.
Between Jan. 18 through Thursday, Fox News Channel had devoted 10 hours and 8 minutes of airtime to the story, according to the liberal watchdog Media Matters for America, which frequently criticizes the network.
A senior Canadian government official said Friday that the Fox coverage has “fanned the flames and contributed to misinformation” about the protests in Canada.
“The right-wing media in America have really gone in for totally inaccurate claims,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. “The Canadian media doesn’t repeat that misinformation the way the U.S. media does.”
Ben Shapiro of The Daily Wire said on his show, sitting in front of a headline that said Canadians were “fed up” with Trudeau, that mandates had to stop. The protesters are particularly upset about a requirement that all truck drivers entering the country be fully vaccinated against the coronavirus. An estimated 90 percent of Canadian truckers already are.
“Nobody wants giant bridges shut down,” Shapiro said. “Obstructing traffic is bad no matter what you are protesting for. However, the cause of this protest happens to be righteous.”
The lead story on the Red State website for a time Thursday was headlined, “East Bound and Down: US Truck Convoy is Being Planned, Could Be Headed to DC.” Reporter Sarah Lee mocked a “very silly” piece in Politico that included a quote from an analyst who works for a think tank that tracks extremism, who noted worrying parallels to the buildup before the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol insurrection.
Hannity’s support for what Ontario Prime Minister Doug Ford has called an occupation comes after months where he decried violence and destruction of property at some Black Lives Matter protests in the United States.
The difference, Hannity asserted, is the Canadian “Freedom Convoy” is peaceful. On Monday, Hannity interviewed a reporter from the conservative website Rebel News, who described the Ottawa protest site as a “family environment” and “like a Canada Day festival every day.”
The protests have been largely peaceful, although some residents have complained of harassment and there is an arson investigation tied to one incident. Shapiro said critics of the truckers are guilty of “nutpacking,” or focusing on a crazed person and linking them to the entire protest movement.
It’s a familiar tactic in politics: pointing to a more extreme position held by a member of an opposition party and saying it represents everyone.
Lara Trump, the former U.S. president’s daughter-in-law and a Fox News contributor, offered her support for the truckers on Hannity’s show Tuesday.
“Right here in America, people are cheering them on, because this is about freedom,” she said.
In a lengthy monologue on his show this week, Carlson suggested that it was inconsistent for the “intellectual elite” to largely support protest movements started by workers yet oppose this one. He said that many times trends start in the United States and move to Canada, but this time the opposite could happen.
“The trucker convoy in Canada is pretty cool,” he said. “People getting together to promote human rights. Who’s against that?”
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Associated Press writer Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to this report.
Republican resistance to Trump suggest his once vise-like grip on the party could be slipping
David Jackson, USA TODAY – February 10, 2022
WASHINGTON – Donald Trump’s hold on the Republican Party may or may not be slipping – but it is being tested.
In the past week alone, prominent Republicans – including Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell and Trump’s own former vice president, Mike Pence – have pushed back on the ex-president, especially after allies persuaded the party organization to censure two GOP lawmakers over a Jan. 6 investigation.
Recent polls show a softening of Trump’s numbers, though he remains the top-rated Republican and is certainly the most well-funded.
The result could split the Republican party, with ever more fervent Trump followers on one side and those disenchanted by the former president on the other, complicating GOP efforts to take back control of Congress and pass their own policy priorities.
“Every day, thousands of Trump supporters decide to move on,” pollster Frank Luntz said. “But every day, the remaining Trump backers increase their intensity.”
That intensity, he said, will keep Trump on top of the GOP – “for now.”
Former President Donald Trump and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell
Trump allies scoff at the notion that he is somehow losing his lead position in the Republican Party.
Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich called it “wishful” and “unsubstantiated” thinking from “the same people who have gotten it wrong about President Trump for years.”
Noting that Trump’s organization raised $52 million over the last six months from 1.6 million donors, Budowich said “candidates, party leaders, and donors continue to flock to Mar-a-Lago to seek President Trump’s support.”
Republican pushback
Still, there are tremors in Trump’s political universe.
The Republican National Committee’s decision to censure Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger – the only two Republicans on a special House Jan. 6 committee probing the attack – triggered the sharpest rebukes yet from Republicans over Trump-style politics.
Along with that censure, the RNC also described Jan. 6 as “legitimate political discourse,” setting off further words of disagreement within the party.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and other Republicans said the censure further divided the party ahead of a challenging set of elections. They said intraparty disputes over Jan. 6 distract Republicans from their main campaign message of attacking the Biden administration and the Democratic Congress.
While they were at it, Republicans took aim at a part of the censure resolution that said Cheney and Kinzinger were engaged in a “Democrat-led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse,” a frequent Trump talking point.
Authors of the resolution said the reference was to bystanders ensnared in the Jan. 6 investigations, but many Republicans said there was nothing “legitimate” about the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol building.
While Trump and allies have tried to downplay the violence of Jan. 6, McConnell made clear his own feelings Tuesday: “It was a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election from one administration to the next.”
In a statement late Wednesday, Trump blasted “Old Crow Mitch McConnell” for criticizing the RNC over the censure of Cheney and Kinzinger, which he called “a good and very appropriate thing to do as it pertains to our great Republican Party!”
On the same day that the RNC censured the Trump critics, former Vice President Mike Pence weighed in with his most negative assessment yet of Trump.
During a speech in Florida, Pence said Trump is erroneous in claiming that the then-vice president could have set aside electoral votes from states that Biden won, essentially reversing the election results.
“President Trump is wrong,” Pence said. “I had no right to overturn the election.”
In various states, a few Republicans have pushed back on some of Trump’s endorsed candidates.
After Trump endorsed former State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus for a congressional seat in Tennessee, even some longtime supporters criticized the choice. They said the ex-president should have gone with another pro-Trump candidate, Robby Starbuck.
“Nope. Trump has this completely wrong,” tweeted long-time Trump backer Candace Owens about the Tennessee race.
Softer Numbers
Recent polling data has encouraged critics of Trump’s influence within the GOP.
An NBC News poll in January said 56% of Republicans identify themselves as supporters of the Republican Party, while 36% said they consider themselves Trump supporters first. During Trump’s presidency, more Republicans consistently described themselves as Trump supporters than party people.
A recent survey by Echelon Insights showed growing Republican ambivalence about Trump’s remaining political ambitions.
For sure, 54% of Republicans hailed Trump’s presidency and believe he “should remain the leader of the Republican Party,” according to Echelon Insights. But 22% said that while they believe Trump was a great president, “it is time for the Republican Party to find a new leader;” and another 18% said Trump “was not a great president and the Republican Party would be better off without his influence.”
If Trump is losing power within the Republican Party, it will be a slow and uneven process over many months, analysts said.
A Marquette Law School Poll in late January said that Trump has a favorability rating among Republicans of 74% – but a smaller percentage of 63% want him to run for president again. The other 37% – more than a third party – do not want Trump to seek the presidency in 2024.
“More than a third of the party is not anxious for a rerun of Trump,” said Charles Franklin, the political scientist who directs the Marquette poll.
At this point, Franklin said, Trump remains highly regarded within the party: “There is some loosening of the grip, but it’s the nature of these things to exaggerate how much looser.”
Endorsements and elections
Trump’s political demise has been predicted many times since he launched his first presidential campaign in 2015, so caution is always warranted.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, often mentioned as a potential Republican opponent of Trump in 2024, told Fox News that Democrats and the media are driving stories about Trump-GOP divisions.
DeSantis, whose polls numbers are rising in hypothetical 2024 match-ups against Trump, praised the former president (and Florida resident) and called him an asset to the party.
Trump “wants to see Republicans doing well,” DeSantis told Fox.
Nonetheless, a lot of Republicans are interested in the idea of a DeSantis challenge to Trump. A USA Today/Suffolk poll put DeSantis within striking distance of Trump in a hypothetical Florida primary in 2024. Trump’s lead over DeSantis in that poll was within the poll’s margin of error.
Republican strategist Liz Mair cited the surge in support for DeSantis as evidence of possible Trump slippage that can only encourage challengers.
“We’re not far off some real ugliness, in my opinion,” Mair said. “And it could make 2016 look like a friendly backyard football game by comparison.”
Trump and the midterms
If he is to hold power, Trump’s candidates need to do well in this year’s mid-term elections.
Among the higher profile races, Trump is backing a Republican primary challenger to Cheney, Wyoming attorney Harriet Hageman. (Kinzinger is not seeking re-election in Illinois because of redistricting).
In the Georgia gubernatorial race, Trump is backing former U.S. Sen. David Perdue in a primary against incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp, who is under attack by Trump for not helping overturn his election loss in the state to Biden.
The Trump effect will be felt as far away as Alaska. Trump has enthusiastically endorsed Kelly Tshibaka, who is running against incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski, one of the seven GOP senators who voted to convict Trump of impeachment charges.
Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow in governance studies with the Brookings Institution, said some of Trump’s candidates “are often in for a fight with other Republicans” – one of what she called “three cracks in what Trump would like to believe is monolithic control over the Republican Party.”
In a Brookings report, Kamarck said the other signs are that “the hard-core Trump base appears to be shrinking” and “heavy hitters are stepping up to challenge Trump’s version of the election, which has become his dominant message.”
Alyssa Farah Griffin, a White House communications director under Trump, said this year’s Republican primaries and general elections will determine the extent of Trump’s control of the GOP. She noted that Pence and McConnell are also campaigning for various Republican candidates.
“If Pence/ McConnell are the biggest king makers who help moderates hold seats and protect incumbents Trump is going after, things could shift,” Farah Griffin said.
And Trump faces the prospect of more political pushback in future months – especially if he has problems with the legal system. He is under investigation in New York City over past business practices and in Atlanta over his pressure on Georgia election officials to “find” more votes and overturn his loss of the Peach State to President Joe Biden.
Mair said she has always believed that Republicans would eventually tire of Trump, and look for someone new.
“The question,” she said, “is whether anyone else will emerge who is also interesting.”
Report: Archives asks Justice to probe Trump record handling
February 9, 2022
Former President Donald Trump speaks at a rally, Saturday, Jan. 29, 2022, in Conroe, Texas. (Jason Fochtman/Houston Chronicle via AP) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Washington Post reported Wednesday that the National Archives and Records Administration has asked the Justice Department to investigate whether former President Donald Trump violated federal law in the handling of documents.
The Associated Press was unable to independently confirm the report.
The referral followed several Post stories chronicling how then-President Trump dealt with documents, including tearing them up. In one report, since confirmed by the National Archives, the agency arranged the transport of 15 boxes of documents from the Mar-a-Lago property in Florida after Trump’s representatives discovered them and notified the archives.
The Post says the referral is asking the Justice Department to investigate whether Trump violated the Presidential Records Act, which requires that all presidential records of an administration be turned over to the archives when a president leaves office.
The Archives did not return multiple messages seeking comment. The Justice Department declined comment.
Trump said in a statement that “following collaborative and respectful discussions, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) arranged for the transport of boxes that contained Presidential Records in compliance with the Presidential Records Act” from Mar-a-Lago that will one day become part of the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library.
The statement went on to say that the media’s “characterization of my relationship with NARA is Fake News. It was exactly the opposite! It was a great honor to work with NARA to help formally preserve the Trump Legacy.”
In its own statements earlier this week, the archives acknowledged Trump representatives had been cooperating with NARA and had located records “that had not been transferred to the National Archives at the end of the Trump administration.” NARA arranged for them to be transported to Washington. “NARA officials did not visit or raid the Mar-a-Lago property,” the agency said.
NARA said the former president’s representatives are continuing to search for additional records that belong to the archives.
In a separate statement, Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero said: “Whether through the creation of adequate and proper documentation, sound records management practices, the preservation of records, or the timely transfer of them to the National Archives at the end of an Administration, there should be no question as to need for both diligence and vigilance. Records matter.”
The issue of presidential records, the Trump administration and the archives has been central to the investigation by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection that sought to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election. Trump tried to withhold White House documents in a dispute that rose to the Supreme Court.
In an 8-1 ruling last month, the Court let stand a lower court ruling that said the archives could turn over documents, which include presidential diaries, visitor logs, speech drafts and handwritten notes dealing with Jan. 6 from the files of former chief of staff Mark Meadows. At the time, the House committee agreed to defer its attempt to get some documents, at the request of the Biden White House.
A referral for potential criminal prosecution from a federal agency or from Congress does not mean that the Justice Department is likely to bring charges or that it will even investigate the matter.
Questions about Trump’s handling of records date back to 2018, when Politico reported that Trump aides, fearing he might violate the law, routinely pieced documents together with tape because of his habit of tearing them up.
Trump denies report he flushed printed paper down White House toilet
Dylan Stableford, Senior Writer – February 10, 2022
Former President Donald Trump issued a lengthy statement Thursday disputing reports that 15 boxes of records that the National Archives and Records Administration retrieved from his Mar-a-Lago resort may have included classified documents — and denying the revelation in an upcoming book that former staffers in the White House residence periodically discovered wads of printed paper clogging a toilet.
In the statement, Trump said that the boxes “contained letters, records, newspapers, magazines, and various articles” and were turned over “following collaborative and respectful discussions” with the National Archives.
“The papers were given easily and without conflict and on a very friendly basis,” Trump said. “In fact, it was viewed as routine and ‘no big deal.’ In actuality, I have been told I was under no obligation to give this material based on various legal rulings that have been made over the years.”
Trump did not specify which legal rulings he was referring to.
“Crooked Hillary Clinton, as an example, deleted and acid washed 32,000 emails and never gave that to the government,” Trump continued, repeating an attack line from his 2016 presidential campaign. Clinton repeatedly said that the emails deleted from her private server when she was secretary of state were not work related and did not contain classified material. A subsequent FBI investigation found no evidence that the emails were “intentionally deleted in an effort to conceal them.”
Aides carry boxes to Marine One before outgoing President Trump departs the White House, Jan. 20, 2021. (Photo by Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)
The Presidential Records Act requires the preservation of memos, letters, notes, emails, faxes and other written communications related to a president’s official duties.
Last week, the National Archives confirmed reports that records turned over from the Trump White House “included paper records that had been torn up” by the former president.
On Monday, a spokesman for the National Archives said that in mid-January it “arranged for the transport” from Mar-a-Lago 15 boxes containing presidential records that had been improperly removed from the White House, and that Trump’s representatives have informed the agency that “they are continuing to search for additional Presidential records that belong to the National Archives.”
According to the Washington Post, the boxes contained Trump’s correspondence with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un — which Trump had described as “love letters” between him and the elusive dictator.
The Post also reported that the National Archives has asked the Justice Department to examine Trump’s handling of White House records, sparking “discussions among federal law enforcement officials about whether they should investigate the former president for a possible crime.”
President Trump speaks during an election night event in the East Room at the White House early in the morning on Nov. 4, 2020. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Meanwhile, Axios reported Thursday that a forthcoming book by New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman includes reporting that “staff in the White House residence periodically discovered wads of printed paper clogging a toilet” — and believed the president had tried to flush them down it.
Trump said the report was “categorically untrue and simply made up by a reporter in order to get publicity for a mostly fictitious book.”
After the former president’s denial, Jennifer Jacobs, a reporter for Bloomberg News, tweeted that sources told her that White House staff “did find clumped/torn/shredded papers and fished them out from blocked bathroom toilet — and believed it had been the president’s doing.”
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