Durham's indictment of Dem lawyer Michael Sussmann is a "speaking indictment." Is written with much detail to advance narrative that Trump was victim of foul play re: the "secret Russian server" story
Durham’s belief, expressed in this indictment, is basically that Clinton supporters drummed up a thin/bogus Trump Russia tie, fed it to the FBI to get Trump under investigation, then had it leaked to the press to hurt Trump’s campaign.
But Durham does not say any of that is criminal.
The crime he alleges is a false statement made by one person involved, attorney Michael Sussmann, during a meeting with the FBI.
Alleges Sussman said he was not acting on a client's behalf, but that he really was.
The topic at issue here is the claims of secret server traffic between a Trump-tied server and Alfa Bank, a Russian bank.
The server in question was actually "administered by a mass marketing email company" that sent ads for Trump hotels & other clients
There is a whole lot in this indictment about the role of an unnamed Clinton-supporting tech executive in conducting oppo research on Trump.
The executive has not been charged with anything. Reads like Durham putting what he has found out there.
Unnamed tech exec asked employees at a company in which he had an ownership interest to search for data on Trump/Russia ties. Said he was working with someone closely tied to Clinton. Durham says it made those employees uncomfortable to use company data in this way
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That is: Republican voters chose to elevate a bombastic, polarizing candidate and hope he could squeak through the weird recall process, rather than someone who could have plausibly been actually popular in a blue state
And the takeaway is apparently that Elder is the frontrunner to be the GOP's candidate again next year... except in a head-to-head matchup with Newsom that he's far *less* likely to win.
This goes rather too far for me (it depends on the author!) but I do think the value-added from good reported political books is more often about added detail, depth, context, and an eye toward posterity rather than scoops
I have no idea what the "scoops" were in Woodward's "Obama's Wars" at this point but I referred back to it recently because it's a detailed, meeting-by-meeting reconstruction of the policy process that simply couldn't be done in ordinary reporting
But I do tend to be more skeptical of the headline-grabbing, big scoops that get spotlighted to sell the books.
George Tenet had a strong case that "Plan of Attack" exaggerated the significance of the "slam dunk" comment in convincing Bush to go to war newyorker.com/magazine/2007/…
Unpopular take on here but IMO:
-Books are a legitimate medium for reporting
-Reporting and writing them takes time.
-Timing of book release should be up to author and publisher.
I'd say if a reporter unearths information someone set to be executed is innocent, it would be pretty shitty to wait till after they're executed to publish.
When you get to politics, the question of what impact the new information would make gets hazier
Urging Dem voters to abstain from the replacement question is self-interested strategy (Newsom wants to frame the choice as between him and a Republican).
But the replacement vote only matters *if* Newsom loses the recall vote. Picking a replacement candidate doesn't hurt Newsom
IMO there are, or will be, substantive stakes here.
The centrists want to increase their leverage in shaping the reconciliation bill. They want to be able to credibly threaten to kill the bill if their demands aren't met. (cont'd)
Right now, centrists' threat to kill the reconciliation bill isn't the most credible, bc that would mean sinking Biden's whole agenda.
Indeed, that was the point of the Pelosi/progressive strategy. Holding the centrists' beloved bipartisan deal hostage to force their hands
Freeing the hostage means that the centrists have more leverage to make threats and force big changes on reconciliation. And considering all the things Dems hope to do in reconciliation, that could mean very real policy consequences vox.com/22577374/recon…
Senate's imminent passage of infrastructure bill seems to defy many of liberals' heuristics about "how things work" (that all negotiations from Republicans are insincere ploys, that polarization makes bipartisan achievements impossible, that personal relationships don't matter)
FWIW my take a few months back was that: 1. Certain issues (voting rights, immigration) are so polarized that compromise really is impossible 2. On other issues, bipartisanship can be achievable, though it might involve compromises progressives don't love
But many people insisted for months that this was obviously doomed and anyone who thought otherwise was a fool. When there's a surprising outcome, good to take note and update your mental model of the world, at least a bit.