RUSSIA/РОССИЯ THREAD—ASSANGE CHRGD W/ SPYING—DJT IMPEACHED TWICE-US TREASURY SANCTS KILIMNIK AS RUSSIAN AGNT
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Jared may be on borrowed time:
Kelly struggling to make sense of Kushner's West Wing role
Kelly struggling to make sense of Kushner's West Wing role
Trump has also questioned whether having his family members in the West Wing is creating too much noise.
By ANNIE KARNI and JOSH DAWSEY
09/29/2017 06:51 PM EDT
As Secretary of Homeland Security, Gen. John Kelly spent months touting a hard line on immigration. He argued publicly and privately with Congress that if there were objections to the laws, it was up to legislators to change them — not to blame enforcers on the front lines.
But after a particularly contentious meeting with Democrats on the Hill regarding DACA this past summer, he was informed by Senate leaders that he appeared not to have been “read in” to some conversations going on in the White House, according to three sources with direct knowledge of the matter.
The president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, Kelly learned, had been quietly back-channeling with Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and dikk Durbin (D-Ill.). Kushner, Democratic Hill aides confirmed, had discussed with the two senators a potential deal to protect Dreamers from deportation.
Kelly, according to three sources familiar with the exchange, was livid, not at the content of the discussions — he has said he personally supports DACA — but that they were going on without his knowledge. He called senior White House officials and demanded a meeting with Trump to deliver something of an ultimatum: If Kushner was going to freelance on DHS issues, the president would have to choose between his son-in-law and the four-star general serving in his Cabinet.
A White House official disputed this account, noting that Kelly was not upset — he simply wanted to be briefed on what the administration's strategy was.
Kelly cooled off after speaking to then-chief of staff Reince Priebus and to Kushner directly, according to the sources familiar with the conversation. He ultimately never raised the issue directly with the president, or threatened him with any ultimatum.
But the incident illustrates how Kelly was concerned about a White House where the president's son-in-law had free range to function outside his lane, even before the retired general agreed to join the West Wing.
Now, as Kelly instills a formal organizational chart on top of Trump’s formerly chaotic West Wing, he is still navigating the X-factor of Kushner and Ivanka Trump’s inchoate roles as family members-turned-staffers.
It’s not just Kelly who is uncertain of how to make the arrangement work. In recent months, according to multiple administration officials, the president has also been casually surveying people close to him about whether having his family members in the government is creating too much noise.
“Baby, you’re getting killed, this is a bad deal,” Trump has told Ivanka Trump, in front of other staffers, after soaking in the criticisms of the role his daughter is playing.
He has expressed some of his frustrations with her battered image on Twitter. "When I left Conference Room for short meetings with Japan and other countries, I asked Ivanka to hold seat. Very standard. Angela M agrees!" the president tweeted in July, defending his daughter for taking his seat at the G-20 conference in Hamburg, Germany. "If Chelsea Clinton were asked to hold the seat for her mother, as her mother gave our country away, the Fake News would say CHELSEA FOR PRES!"
Privately, Trump has asked some senior staffers their thoughts on how Kushner and Ivanka Trump can withstand the personal attacks, according to White House officials. Another White House official said the president's concern about their current roles was not driven by any sense that they were unable to serve appropriately, but out of a desire to protect his daughter and son-in-law.
Until Kelly’s arrival, Ivanka Trump and Kushner were seen internally as the people who always had the last word with the president, especially when it came to personnel matters. Their special status irked some of their colleagues. But the concerns voiced to Trump by staffers and lawyers has been more about the legal ramifications that Kushner could inflict on the president, related to the ongoing probes into Russia's role in the 2016 election.
The media glare turned back on the couple earlier this week, when the chair and vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee expressed concern that Kushner had failed to disclose his use of a private email account for White House business and that he did not turn over documents from that account to the committee.
Kushner has also come under scrutiny for attending a Trump Tower meeting with a Kremlin-connected lawyer offering dirt on Hillary Clinton during the campaign.
Since Kelly put his firm grip on the West Wing in July, however, the role of the Trump children has shifted. Aides claim the couple was eager for a more functional work environment, and have been happy to fall in line with Kelly’s rules.
But Kushner has also complained to friends and allies about his stunted status in the new regime. He can no longer simply float in and out of the Oval Office, or function in the freewheeling role he has grown used to since the campaign, he has told associates. That marks a change of status for the former real estate scion, who before working as a free-ranging agent for his father-in-law, served as the top dog at his family-owned real estate company in Manhattan.
Kushner’s stand-alone Office of American Innovation, the platform from which he serves as the main point of contact for the tech industry, has received more “scrutiny” since Kelly started, according to a senior administration official.
Ivanka Trump, meanwhile, has been in recent weeks working solely on the issues firmly in her portfolio. She has made a series of public appearances focused on her pet issue of STEM education, and worked the Hill on behalf of the two issues on which she has staked her reputation as an advocate for women’s issues: passing a child-care tax credit and paid family leave.
Administration officials have tried to downplay any personal friction between Kelly and Kushner, the man once seen as a “first among equals” in a West Wing defined by competing power centers.
“Gen. Kelly genuinely likes and respects Jared,” said one administration official familiar with the situation. “They have worked together well since Day One.” In his role as Sunday show surrogate, Kelly last May even forcefully defended Kushner’s behavior on the campaign as a point of contact for foreign governments.
"There's a lot of different ways to communicate, back-channel publicly with other countries," Kelly told “Meet The Press” host Chuck Todd in May, when pressed on reports that Kushner had helped set up a back-channel of communication with the Russians during the 2016 campaign. "I don't see any issue here relative to Jared."
In a statement to POLITICO, Kelly said, “Jared is a valued member of the White House staff.”
One administration official pushed back against the interpretation of Kushner’s sidelined role. In the old world order, the official said, the Oval Office often functioned like Grand Central Terminal at rush hour — filled with aides hanging around because they were afraid of being cut out of a disorganized information loop if they did not attend every meeting. Under Kelly’s leadership, the aide said, Kushner and others have been relieved to sit out meetings that are outside their distinct portfolios and focus on their own work. Kushner, in recent weeks, has been spending his time working on issues related to NAFTA and Middle East peace, a White House aide said.
For now, Kelly is making it work. But it’s a complicated relationship by nature.
“Being family members always put them in a different category,” said Leon Panetta, a former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, who worked with Kelly when he served as Defense Secretary and Kelly was his senior military assistant. “Nevertheless, if you’re going to run the White House and be able to serve the president, there’s a certain amount of discipline family members have to recognize.”
Panetta said he sympathized with Kelly’s challenge, and remembered imposing more restrictions on Hillary Clinton’s advisory role in her husband’s administration. “She was willing to accept greater discipline,” he recalled.
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Kelly struggling to make sense of Kushner's West Wing role
Kelly struggling to make sense of Kushner's West Wing role
Trump has also questioned whether having his family members in the West Wing is creating too much noise.
By ANNIE KARNI and JOSH DAWSEY
09/29/2017 06:51 PM EDT
As Secretary of Homeland Security, Gen. John Kelly spent months touting a hard line on immigration. He argued publicly and privately with Congress that if there were objections to the laws, it was up to legislators to change them — not to blame enforcers on the front lines.
But after a particularly contentious meeting with Democrats on the Hill regarding DACA this past summer, he was informed by Senate leaders that he appeared not to have been “read in” to some conversations going on in the White House, according to three sources with direct knowledge of the matter.
The president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, Kelly learned, had been quietly back-channeling with Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and dikk Durbin (D-Ill.). Kushner, Democratic Hill aides confirmed, had discussed with the two senators a potential deal to protect Dreamers from deportation.
Kelly, according to three sources familiar with the exchange, was livid, not at the content of the discussions — he has said he personally supports DACA — but that they were going on without his knowledge. He called senior White House officials and demanded a meeting with Trump to deliver something of an ultimatum: If Kushner was going to freelance on DHS issues, the president would have to choose between his son-in-law and the four-star general serving in his Cabinet.
A White House official disputed this account, noting that Kelly was not upset — he simply wanted to be briefed on what the administration's strategy was.
Kelly cooled off after speaking to then-chief of staff Reince Priebus and to Kushner directly, according to the sources familiar with the conversation. He ultimately never raised the issue directly with the president, or threatened him with any ultimatum.
But the incident illustrates how Kelly was concerned about a White House where the president's son-in-law had free range to function outside his lane, even before the retired general agreed to join the West Wing.
Now, as Kelly instills a formal organizational chart on top of Trump’s formerly chaotic West Wing, he is still navigating the X-factor of Kushner and Ivanka Trump’s inchoate roles as family members-turned-staffers.
It’s not just Kelly who is uncertain of how to make the arrangement work. In recent months, according to multiple administration officials, the president has also been casually surveying people close to him about whether having his family members in the government is creating too much noise.
“Baby, you’re getting killed, this is a bad deal,” Trump has told Ivanka Trump, in front of other staffers, after soaking in the criticisms of the role his daughter is playing.
He has expressed some of his frustrations with her battered image on Twitter. "When I left Conference Room for short meetings with Japan and other countries, I asked Ivanka to hold seat. Very standard. Angela M agrees!" the president tweeted in July, defending his daughter for taking his seat at the G-20 conference in Hamburg, Germany. "If Chelsea Clinton were asked to hold the seat for her mother, as her mother gave our country away, the Fake News would say CHELSEA FOR PRES!"
Privately, Trump has asked some senior staffers their thoughts on how Kushner and Ivanka Trump can withstand the personal attacks, according to White House officials. Another White House official said the president's concern about their current roles was not driven by any sense that they were unable to serve appropriately, but out of a desire to protect his daughter and son-in-law.
Until Kelly’s arrival, Ivanka Trump and Kushner were seen internally as the people who always had the last word with the president, especially when it came to personnel matters. Their special status irked some of their colleagues. But the concerns voiced to Trump by staffers and lawyers has been more about the legal ramifications that Kushner could inflict on the president, related to the ongoing probes into Russia's role in the 2016 election.
The media glare turned back on the couple earlier this week, when the chair and vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee expressed concern that Kushner had failed to disclose his use of a private email account for White House business and that he did not turn over documents from that account to the committee.
Kushner has also come under scrutiny for attending a Trump Tower meeting with a Kremlin-connected lawyer offering dirt on Hillary Clinton during the campaign.
Since Kelly put his firm grip on the West Wing in July, however, the role of the Trump children has shifted. Aides claim the couple was eager for a more functional work environment, and have been happy to fall in line with Kelly’s rules.
But Kushner has also complained to friends and allies about his stunted status in the new regime. He can no longer simply float in and out of the Oval Office, or function in the freewheeling role he has grown used to since the campaign, he has told associates. That marks a change of status for the former real estate scion, who before working as a free-ranging agent for his father-in-law, served as the top dog at his family-owned real estate company in Manhattan.
Kushner’s stand-alone Office of American Innovation, the platform from which he serves as the main point of contact for the tech industry, has received more “scrutiny” since Kelly started, according to a senior administration official.
Ivanka Trump, meanwhile, has been in recent weeks working solely on the issues firmly in her portfolio. She has made a series of public appearances focused on her pet issue of STEM education, and worked the Hill on behalf of the two issues on which she has staked her reputation as an advocate for women’s issues: passing a child-care tax credit and paid family leave.
Administration officials have tried to downplay any personal friction between Kelly and Kushner, the man once seen as a “first among equals” in a West Wing defined by competing power centers.
“Gen. Kelly genuinely likes and respects Jared,” said one administration official familiar with the situation. “They have worked together well since Day One.” In his role as Sunday show surrogate, Kelly last May even forcefully defended Kushner’s behavior on the campaign as a point of contact for foreign governments.
"There's a lot of different ways to communicate, back-channel publicly with other countries," Kelly told “Meet The Press” host Chuck Todd in May, when pressed on reports that Kushner had helped set up a back-channel of communication with the Russians during the 2016 campaign. "I don't see any issue here relative to Jared."
In a statement to POLITICO, Kelly said, “Jared is a valued member of the White House staff.”
One administration official pushed back against the interpretation of Kushner’s sidelined role. In the old world order, the official said, the Oval Office often functioned like Grand Central Terminal at rush hour — filled with aides hanging around because they were afraid of being cut out of a disorganized information loop if they did not attend every meeting. Under Kelly’s leadership, the aide said, Kushner and others have been relieved to sit out meetings that are outside their distinct portfolios and focus on their own work. Kushner, in recent weeks, has been spending his time working on issues related to NAFTA and Middle East peace, a White House aide said.
For now, Kelly is making it work. But it’s a complicated relationship by nature.
“Being family members always put them in a different category,” said Leon Panetta, a former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, who worked with Kelly when he served as Defense Secretary and Kelly was his senior military assistant. “Nevertheless, if you’re going to run the White House and be able to serve the president, there’s a certain amount of discipline family members have to recognize.”
Panetta said he sympathized with Kelly’s challenge, and remembered imposing more restrictions on Hillary Clinton’s advisory role in her husband’s administration. “She was willing to accept greater discipline,” he recalled.
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Y'all should peep this National Security Podcast as well by J. J. Green who is a Nat Sec reporter...dude is official:
@DonKnock @SJUGrad13 @88m3 @Menelik II @wire28 @smitty22 @Reality @fact @Hood Critic @ExodusNirvana @Blessed Is the Man @THE MACHINE @OneManGang @dtownreppin214 @JKFrazier @tmonster @blotter @BigMoneyGrip @Soymuscle Mike @Grano-Grano @.r.
@DonKnock @SJUGrad13 @88m3 @Menelik II @wire28 @smitty22 @Reality @fact @Hood Critic @ExodusNirvana @Blessed Is the Man @THE MACHINE @OneManGang @dtownreppin214 @JKFrazier @tmonster @blotter @BigMoneyGrip @Soymuscle Mike @Grano-Grano @.r.
:deadkoolaid::deadkoolaid::deadkoolaid::deadkoolaid:
British courts may unlock secrets of how Trump campaign profiled US voters
Carole CadwalladrSaturday 30 September 2017 19.05 EDT
David Carroll of Parsons School of Design is trying to access US voter information held by tech firms through the UK courts. Photograph: Christopher Lane for the Observer
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Carole Cadwalladr
@carolecadwalla
Saturday 30 September 2017 19.05 EDTLast modified on Saturday 30 September 2017 19.52 EDT
A US professor is trying to reclaim his personal data from the controversial analytics firm that helped Donald Trump to power. In what legal experts say may be a “watershed” case, a US citizen is using British laws to try to discover how he was profiled and potentially targeted by the Trump campaign.
David Carroll, an associate professor at Parsons School of Design in New York, has discovered a transatlantic legal mechanism that he hopes will give him access to information being sought by both the FBI and the Senate intelligence committee. In recent weeks, investigators looking at how people acting on behalf of Russia targeted American voters have focused on Trump’s data operation. But although the FBI obtained a court order against Facebook to make it disclose evidence, the exact way in which US citizens were profiled and targeted remains largely unknown.
But British data protection laws may provide some transparency on the company at the heart of Trump’s data operation – Cambridge Analytica– and how it created profiles of 240 million Americans. In January, Carroll discovered he – and a group of other citizens – had the right under UK law to ask for his personal data back from the company, and when it failed to supply it, he started filing pre-trial actions to sue the company under British law. The lawsuit is the result of a unique situation, according to Ravi Naik of Irvine Thanvi Natas, the British solicitor who is leading the case. It arose because although Cambridge Analytica is largely owned by Trump’s biggest donor, hedge-fund billionaire Robert Mercer, and though its vice-president at the time of the US election was Trump’s former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, the company was spun out of an older British military and elections contractor, SCL, with which it still shares staff, directors and a London office.
Naik says: “It’s this fascinating situation because when it became apparent that Cambridge Analytica had processed Americans’ data in Britain, it suddenly opened up this window of opportunity. In the US, Americans have almost no rights over their data whatsoever, but the data protection framework is set up in such a way that it doesn’t matter where people are: it matters where the data is processed.
“I’m a human rights practitioner and in the past most of my cases were national security issues, but increasingly it’s about data protection and the way people are affected by the misuse of their data. I see this as an issue affecting fundamental rights and it’s taking citizen activism to uncover what’s going on, to request data. I really hear echoes of the civil rights movement in people becoming more aware, more resistant and willing to fight.”
As an academic, Carroll had studied advertising, data and design, but he was still shocked when Cambridge Analytica eventually sent him a “profile” that it had created about him though not the data it was created from. “It was very strange and unsettling because they had given me ‘scores’ for different issues but I had no idea what they’d based this on.” The company scored him 3/10 on “Gun Rights Importance”, 7/10 on “National Security Importance” and “unlikely” to vote Republican.
“I was perplexed by it. I started thinking, ‘Have I had conversations about gun rights on Facebook? Where are they getting this from? And what are they doing with it?’” He reported the firm to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office, which is investigating the use of data in political campaigning; he has also launched a CrowdJustice campaign and is appealing to the public to help him take the case as far as he can through the British courts.
“There are so many disturbing aspects to this. One of the things that really troubles me is how the company can buy anonymous data completely legally from all these different sources, but as soon as it attaches it to voter files, you are re-identified. It means that every privacy policy we have ignored in our use of technology is a broken promise. It would be one thing if this information stayed in the US, if it was an American company and it only did voter data stuff.”
But, he argues, “it’s not just a US company and it’s not just a civilian company”. Instead, he says, it has ties with the military through SCL – “and it doesn’t just do voter targeting”. Carroll has provided information to the Senate intelligence committee and believes that the disclosures mandated by a British court could provide evidence helpful to investigators.
Frank Pasquale, a law professor at the University of Maryland, author of The Black Box Society and a leading expert on big data and the law, called the case a “watershed moment”.
“It really is a David and Goliath fight and I think it will be the model for other citizens’ actions against other big corporations. I think we will look back and see it as a really significant case in terms of the future of algorithmic accountability and data protection. These issues are so critical and in the US there are only these incredible, lethargic data laws largely because of the incredible power of the lobbying industry.”
Paul-Olivier Dehaye, a Swiss mathematician who has created the firm PersonalData.IO to help people reclaim their data, and who helped Carroll with his quest, said it was important that people realised that there are tools they can use against big corporations.
“In the US election, the FBI has been trying to get information from the top down but this doesn’t help with regard to the French election or Brexit,” Dehaye said. “And we know we just cannot trust Facebook, even with good intent, to run our elections fairly. There are a few huge companies amassing vast amounts of data on vast amounts of people and there’s no democratic oversight.”
Pasquale said news that Facebook information had been used by Russian agents to target US citizens may prove to be a tipping point. “It shows this information has now been weaponised by a state actor. What we’re seeing is really a failure of the first order. Mark Zuckerberg wrote this 6,000-word letter about creating a global political community and yet we now know that Facebook was a platform for a devastating attack on the most robust democracy in the world.”
Since you’re here …
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Well that's pretty random
the fact that i'm not shocked by the president being called a bytch and a cheap cracka on tv really says something about the current atmosphere.
shyt is wild.
shyt is wild.