Good morning.
Friday in Whitewater will be partly cloudy with a high of forty-six. Sunrise is 7:14 AM and sunset 5:00 PM, for 9h 46m 46s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 67.5% of its visible disk illuminated. Today is the {tooltip}four hundred forty-second day.{end-texte}Days since Trump’s election, with 11.9.16 as the first day.{end-tooltip}
On the other side of the world, Australians are celebrating Australia Day: “Celebrated annually on 26 January, it marks the anniversary of the 1788 arrival of the First Fleet of British ships at Port Jackson, New South Wales and the raising of the Flag of Great Britain at Sydney Cove by Governor Arthur Phillip. In present-day Australia, celebrations reflect the diverse society and landscape of the nation and are marked by community and family events, reflections on Australian history, official community awards and citizenship ceremonies welcoming new members of the Australian community.” On this day in 1925, fire destroys the Whitewater Hospital.
Recommended for reading in full —
➤ Susan Hennessey, Quinta Jurecic, and Benjamin Wittes assess Trump’s Effort to Fire Mueller: Reactions to the New York Times Report:
First, the Times’s reporting demonstrates just how out of control the president had become in June, less than a month after firing James Comey as FBI director. A few of his tweets from that time offer a stark reminder that the special counsel’s investigation—and Rosenstein’s appointment of Mueller—weighed heavily even in his public statements.
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Second, Trump’s apparent willingness to fire the special counsel in a fit of rage—even after experiencing the blowback that followed his dismissal of Comey—drives home the fact that his hints about firing other senior members of federal law enforcement are far from idle. Indeed, the Times broke this story only days after Axios reported that Attorney General Jeff Sessions had pressured FBI Director Christopher Wray to dismiss Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. As with McGahn, Wray reportedly threatened resignation and the attorney general ultimately backed off. So when Trump hints about firing Sessions or Rosenstein, it should be clear that they may be in real danger. On the other hand, as Jack Goldsmith argued on an upcoming special edition of the Lawfare Podcast, the fact that Trump could not get his own White House counsel to execute his will on this point shows that the president really is constrained in his apparent desire to shut down the Russia investigation. Particularly in combination with the Axios story about Wray, the incident paints a picture of a president who desperately wants to corrupt the justice system but just can’t get it done: malevolence tempered by incompetence, one might call it.
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Third, in contrast to the many valid reasons to criticize McGahn’s White House tenure, this episode illustrates—at least in this instance—the White House counsel’s deft performance of his duties under difficult circumstances, perhaps even skillful management of a particularly ornery client. McGahn has not always behaved so admirably; he reportedly was willing to carry out Trump’s earlier instruction to pressure Attorney General Jeff Sessions not to recuse himself from this investigation. But in this instance, he allegedly managed to ride out a presidential temper tantrum, both offering the president reasonable advice and declining to carry out a presidential order clearly not made in good faith.
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Fourth, the story also shows rather vividly how successful Ty Cobb has been in calming the president in the months since and persuading him to take a less adversarial posture—at least publicly—toward Mueller and the Russia investigation generally. Consider the difference between Trump in June, who actually gave an order to fire Mueller, and today’s Trump, who has turned over material the special counsel wants and allowed interviews with White House witnesses and has said he is even willing to be interviewed himself. Cobb seems to have convinced Trump that the path to making the Russia investigation go away lies in cooperation. If Cobb is correct that the Mueller investigation will end well for a cooperative Trump, this is all a laudable example of excellent client management. Cobb’s strategy, however, seems to rely on convincing Trump that the investigation is going to conclude in the near future if he just plays along. If Cobb is wrong on this point, and the investigation isn’t, in fact, close to wrapping up, then he may have simply deferred the June explosion to the date when Trump realizes that the end is not in sight. Thursday night’s story shows that this explosion, whenever it happens, can be pretty big.
➤ Huib Modderkolk reports Dutch agencies provide crucial intel about Russia’s interference in US-elections:
It’s the summer of 2014. A hacker from the Dutch intelligence agency AIVD has penetrated the computer network of a university building next to the Red Square in Moscow, oblivious to the implications. One year later, from the AIVD headquarters in Zoetermeer, he and his colleagues witness Russian hackers launching an attack on the Democratic Party in the United States. The AIVD hackers had not infiltrated just any building; they were in the computer network of the infamous Russian hacker group Cozy Bear. And unbeknownst to the Russians, they could see everything.
That’s how the AIVD becomes witness to the Russian hackers harassing and penetrating the leaders of the Democratic Party, transferring thousands of emails and documents. It won’t be the last time they alert their American counterparts. And yet, it will be months before the United States realize what this warning means: that with these hacks the Russians have interfered with the American elections. And the AIVD hackers have seen it happening before their very eyes.
The Dutch access provides crucial evidence of the Russian involvement in the hacking of the Democratic Party, according to six American and Dutch sources who are familiar with the material, but wish to remain anonymous. It’s also grounds for the FBI to start an investigation into the influence of the Russian interference on the election race between the Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and the Republican candidate Donald Trump.
➤ Craig Timberg and Elizabeth Dwoskin report Russians got tens of thousands of Americans to RSVP for their phony political events on Facebook:
Russian operatives used Facebook to publicize 129 phony event announcements during the 2016 presidential campaign, drawing the attention of nearly 340,000 users — many of whom said they were planning to attend — according to a company document released by the Senate Intelligence Committee Thursday.
It’s not possible to know how often people gathered in response to the sham announcements, but the numbers highlight how Russian operatives were successful in prompting Americans to express a willingness to act. In some cases, Russians allegedly working in an office building in St. Petersburg motivated at least some people to mobilize behind various causes, a striking accomplishment for a foreign influence campaign.
“Not only did they influence how people viewed Russian policy, they got people to take physical action. That’s unprecedented,” said Clinton Watts, a former FBI agent who studies Russian disinformation for the Foreign Policy Research Institute. “They just did it persistently, and they did it well.”
➤ Watch Sean Hannity switch gears from denying Trump tried to fire Mueller to acknowledging the truth of that attempt:
Sean Hannity: The New York Times is trying to distract you. They say Trump tried to fire Mueller, but our sources aren’t confirming that!
Sean Hannity, minutes later: Alright, yeah, maybe our sources confirm Trump wanted to fire Mueller. But so what? That’s his right. Anywho… pic.twitter.com/yUIt7Un56d
— Matt Fuller (@MEPFuller) January 26, 2018
(Note Hannity slurs his speech during these segments.)
➤ This Robot Can Walk and Swim — Inside You: