Part 2—Big star asks relevant question: Late last evening, we observed the rarest of cable events.
Shortly after 11 PM Eastern, Brian Williams asked a highly relevant question. Major "journalists" had been blowing past the basic key point involved in his question for months.
Brian spoke with legal commentator Joyce Vance. Incredibly, inexplicab;y, their exchange started like this:
WILLIAMS (8/6/18): Let me ask you a question about 52 U.S. Code 30121, which you, I have no doubt, have committed to memory years ago.Good God! Brian wanted to ask a legal question which cable had blown past for months!
VANCE: I've read it a time or two, yes.
WILLIAMS: I figured.
Brian wanted to ask about 52 U.S. Code 30121, an important part of federal election law. Meanwhile, that exchange was designed to convince us viewers, the so-called "credulous apes," that we were being exposed to highly competent legal analysis.
Inevitably, Vance went on to interpret the law in such a way as to suggest that the Donald J. Trumps, Junior and Senior, will soon be rotting in jail.
So pleasing! But then, that's the product we liberals are served on this corporate "cable news" station. We return to the station night after night knowing which porridge is served.
Vance performed as expected. But the analysts had looked about in wild-eyed surprise even as Williams raised this highly relevant point.
For months, the nation's "journalists," cable and regular, had postponed discussion of this piece of federal law. Instead, they'd offered preferred accounts of what the law surely must mean.
All of a sudden, there was Brian, raising a highly relevant point! What could explain this behavior?
Our young analysts couldn't imagine where Brian had come by his question. But this morning, reading the New York Times, we saw this analysis piece by Charlie Savage, and the mystery had been solved.
Savage's legal analysis piece appears on page A14 of our hard-copy Times. He explores a basic question:
Does "a provision of the Federal Election Campaign Act, Section 30121 of Title 52," mean that Trump Junior broke federal law in seeking damaging information about Hillary Clinton from that Russkie lawyer? Is that what election law holds?
Savage's analysis is much less slanted than Vance's. (This may explain why Savage wasn't interviewed by Williams last night.)
You can read the Savage piece, some parts of which strike us as stronger than others. Even at 1200 words, Savage never fully quotes the relevant passage of 30121, and his clumsy semi-paraphrase strikes us as somewhat bungled.
That said, as he concludes his discussion of 30121, he quotes an expert who seems to be saying that this chunk of federal law doesn't forbid the whole Trump Tower fandango:
SAVAGE (8/7/18): Robert Bauer, a New York University election-law professor who served as White House counsel in the Obama administration, argued that the statute against foreign campaign assistance is so broadly worded that it covers Russia paying spies and hackers to collect and disseminate negative information about Mrs. Clinton to help Mr. Trump win the election—even expenses like their travel for the meeting.Would 30121 render illegal what happened in Trump Tower? Savage presents a range of views, thus leaving the answer in doubt. By closing with Kerr, he may be suggesting that he tilts towards no.
But applying that law to negative information about a political candidate is a stretch, said Orin S. Kerr, a University of Southern California professor and former federal prosecutor.
“The phrase ‘contribution or donation’ sounds like a gift to help fund the campaign or give them something they otherwise would buy,” Mr. Kerr said.
At any rate:
Almost surely, Brian's staff saw Savage's piece on line last night and scripted Brian's question. Vance was there to offer us "credulous apes" the type of answer to which we've become accustomed.
We'll be talking more about 30121 as the week proceeds. For today, we ask you to recall that front-page report by Shear and Schmidt in yesterday's New York Times.
In this morning's New York Times, Savage offers a varied legal analysis, leaving resolution in doubt. As we showed you yesterday, no such scruples stopped Shear and Schmidt from presenting the simple-minded legal analysis they apparently like, or may even believe:
SHEAR AND SCHMIDT (8/6/18): While the president tried again on Sunday to portray the Trump Tower meeting as routine, it is being examined as part of Mr. Mueller’s investigation into whether Mr. Trump’s campaign conspired with the Russians to undermine Hillary Clinton’s campaign.Really? It's illegal for a campaign to accept help from a foreign individual! Writing on something like second-grade level, Shear and Schmidt offered that childish paraphrase of the relevant federal law—of the unnamed 30121.
It is illegal for a campaign to accept help from a foreign individual or government. The president and his son have maintained that the campaign did not ultimately receive any damaging materials about Mrs. Clinton as a result of the meeting. But some legal experts contend that by simply sitting for the meeting, Donald Trump Jr. broke the law.
Shear and Schmidt were really keeping it simple. But is that conduct really illegal? Is it illegal for a campaign to accept "help" from a "foreign individual," if the help in question takes the form of information?
Is it illegal to receive information from a foreign individual! Stating what is blindingly obvious, the Clinton campaign solicited and received such "help" from an array of "foreign individuals" during its fateful campaign:
Christopher Steele is "a foreign individual!" So, presumably, were the unnamed sources for his famous dossier. Indeed, some of those sources may have been Russian individuals. They may have had "ties" to the Russkie government,as the Russkie lawyer allegedly does!
Is it illegal for a campaign to accept help from a foreign individual? The formulation strikes us as ludicrous on its face, but there it was, bold as brass, part pf a front-page news report in our dumbest, most famous newspaper.
One day later, a more specialized Times reporter basically said, Not so fast. Savage's lengthy analysis piece seemed to say that it's not that simple, and that it's not so stupid. That said, Savages piece appeared today on A14. Yesterday, the silly piddle by Shear and Schmidt was, inevitably, part of a front-page report.
Do the provisions of 30121 make Trump and Trump's conduct illegal? The multimillionaire corporate stars who pose as "cable news" journalists had been blowing past this question for months. (So, of course, had the New York Times, as we finally see this morning.)
In the absence of serious analysis, waves of corporate hacks had been paraded across our TV screens, offering highly slanted analyses which serve the tribal narrative. Across the globe, zoologists had watched these unfolding events. As they watched this steady stream of reassuring tribal porridge, they had begin to rethink the earlier breakthrough authored by Desmond Morris.
Morris had called us the naked ape. International experts are now widely subbing in a different word:
Credulous ape, these high-ranking experts have now widely said.
Tomorrow: Natasha had said the same thing!
Transcript of the Williams show: At some point, it should appear here.
"The formulation strikes us as ludicrous on its face"
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't matter, Bob. There's no substance here.
All lib-zombies hear is "WE HATE THE DONALD", and then they get up and start walking, blindly, towards the sound.
And that's all there is to it.
Unlike you and The Donald, we don't have a deep, deep love for the Establishment Elites.
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Juan Cole:
ReplyDelete"Manafort joined Trump’s presidential campaign in March, 2016, having offered to work for free, and tried to persuade delegates to back Trump.
On June 20, 2016, Trump made Manafort his campaign manager. Manafort was intimately involved in running the campaign, overseeing millions of dollars, campaign strategy, and staffing.
Manafort was involved in the infamous meeting on June 9, 2016, with Russian agent Natalia Veselnitskaya, set up by Emin Agalarov and Vladimir Putin, which Trump and his son Don Jr. are said to have attempted to get hacked dirt on Hillary Clinton from the Russians. The quid pro quo would be the lifting of Magnitsky Act sanctions on Putin cronies and oligarchs in Russia who allegedly had been involved in the murder of political opponent.
As campaign chair, Manafort had a plank taken out of the Republican platform that pledged military aid to Ukraine to fight Russian incursions in the east. Manafort had allegedly received over $12 mn from the pro-Russian Ukrainian Party of Regions at one time headed by Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych. When this allegation became public in mid-August, Trump fired Manafort after the latter’s 6 months of direct service, and brought the fascist white nationalist Steve Bannon aboard in the campaign chairman position."
Ah, Juan Cole, another unfortunate victim of TDS. Middle-east expert turned into mccarthyist scum. Sad.
Deleteif Juan Cole rims Establishment asses, like The Donald does, will you let him in your club?
DeleteDon't forget that Manafort, perhaps on Putin's advice, recommended Pence for VP and even lied to Trump about his plane being grounded so that Trump would meet with Pence (who he was initially luke warm about). So, Manafort had a hand in picking Pence.
DeletePence became head of the transition team after Chris Christie's departure and oversaw the efforts to contact Russia and to remove sanctions that got Flynn in trouble. This is why Pence is up to his neck in this mess and will be unlikely to become president if Trump is removed.
"Savage's analysis is much less slanted than Vance's. (This may explain why Savage wasn't interviewed by Williams last night.)"
ReplyDeleteVance is a legal expert and has the credentials to interpret the law. Charles Savage is a journalist. He has the credentials to interview others and write a summary of the law. THAT may be why Vance and not Savage was invited on the show. Setting aside such issues as where these people live, their availability, their pricetag, their interest in appearing on camera, and other factors that may have influenced who appeared on TV and who didn't.
Somerby's assumption that people appear on MSNBC shows due to their bias, because their bias is pleasing to liberals, is (1) an assumption unsupported by facts, and (2) a slander against the shows and their efforts to inform the public.
Joyce Vance (born July 22, 1960) is an American lawyer, who served as the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama from 2009 to 2017.
DeleteBut she is female and youngish and no doubt has a good education. That may be why Somerby chose to slime her as biased (on what basis?).
"In the absence of serious analysis, waves of corporate hacks had been paraded across our TV screens, offering highly slanted analyses which serve the tribal narrative."
DeleteI've been seeing a wave of former assistant district attorneys, prosecutors, attorneys and law professors. On what basis does Somerby call these people with legitimate credentials and relevant experience, hacks?
Today's conservative talking point is: create confusion about whether the June 9th meeting was illegal or not and argue that what the Trump campaign did was routine and not against any laws, especially since nothing came of that meeting.
ReplyDeleteSomerby nails every point in today's post. As always, talking as if he were a liberal engaging in critical thinking, not as a conservative trying to convince the base that Trump did nothing wrong and they are just out to get him, those biased members of the press and those yucky liberals.
This is speculation, but what if the meeting were held and the Trump staff pointed out to the Russians that they could not legally accept any help from them without being in legal jeopardy. What if the remainder of the meeting were about using a "cut-out" like Wikileaks to make the dirt available to the campaign without it coming directly from the Russians themselves to the campaign.
Wouldn't that be a conspiracy to circumvent federal election law? If they discussed the hacking prior to its occurrence, as the timing suggests, they would also have been engaging in conspiracy to hack the DNC email files. That is certainly illegal because the hacking itself is illegal, witness the 13 indictments emerging from the Mueller investigation.
So, this focus on whether receiving imaginary dirt on Hillary was illegal or not may be a total red herring. We don't know what happened at that meeting but Mueller does. There are witnesses who were at that meeting who have been interviewed about it. We won't know what the charges are until they are filed. But we do know about the lying and the cover-up of that meeting. Why is that lying OK with Somerby? Why would people lie about something that is perfectly legal and routine in a campaign? Why would Trump be upset about the possible legal jeopardy of his son (as evidenced by his recent tweets)? Trump has presumably obtained legal advice about that jeopardy. What do you suppose he is being told and how does it differ from this attempt by the Trump team to mop up the mess for his supporters?
Does Somerby think we are idiots? What an ass he has become.
Somerby is doing two things here. First, he acts as a media critic (the role he is known for) by charging MSNBC with biased coverage. He finds that their coverage of the Trump Tower meeting is designed to convince the viewer of its illegality. In general, that is a not an unreasonable criticism to make. My complaint in this regard is that Somerby misses the nuance in their coverage. He finds blatant bias, and an unequivocal stance about the meeting. But there has been a more nuanced discussion. They have had guests, many of them lawyers, some of whom clearly find illegality, but others who express uncertainty about the interpretation of the statutes.
ReplyDeleteThe other thing Somerby does here, which takes him outside the role of media critic, is to opine about the underlying issue. He doesn't just critique the media's handling of the issue; he expresses an opinion about the issue itself. He uses the word "ludicrous" to attack the notion that it is "illegal for a campaign to accept help from a foreign individual." He is putting his thumb on the scales, to use his own phrase. It's not enough for Somerby to question the media's coverage of the issue and ask us to consider potential bias in their reporting. He also wants to influence his reader's opinions about the issue at hand. He seems to be biased himself.
TDH uses the word ludicrous to attack the “formulation” of the claim. In other words, he doesn’t think the blanket statement “illegal for a campaign to accept help from a foreign individual” could possibly be true.
DeleteAnd he’s right; it’s not true.
It’s perfectly legal, for instance, for a foreign national to donate his or her time to a campaign as long as that time isn’t spent on management of the campaign.
Such a broad statement, TDH says, would preclude Steele from working on his infamous dossier for Clinton and the DNC. But Clinton and the DNC retained a US company, Fusion GPS, to do the oppo research, and Fusion hired Steele. As long as Clinton and the DNC weren’t directing Fusion’s employment, Steele’s work is likely legal.
TDH is biased in favor of exactitude. And sure, he can be an annoyingly-compulsive fuss-budget on the topic, but so what?
Some people say that the issue involves Trump interacting with the Russian government, possibly involving a quid pro quo.
DeleteDoes TDH try to couch its intent with careful wording? I have heard this, some people say. Either way its a beautiful thing.
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ReplyDeleteHere's what Joyce Vance said:
ReplyDelete"it's an interesting question and under this statute where there's been relatively little litigation, not a lot of appellate case law, certainly people will have different opinions. But a "thing of value" is really something that people would typically pay money for. People pay a lot of money for opposition research. It seems likely that that's a possibility here, and one of the most intriguing aspects of this statute is that it's not just illegal to actually receive this sort of help from a foreign government; it's also illegal to solicit that help from a foreign government. So just based on what we know it's surely only the tip of the iceberg compared to what Mueller has. It looks like the participants in this meeting have a lot of trouble on their hands."
That doesn't fit Somerby's "Vance went on to interpret the law in such a way as to suggest that the Donald J. Trumps, Junior and Senior, will soon be rotting in jail. "
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