Former FBI director James Comey, who was fired by Trump, will testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday in its investigation into Russian interference in the election. It should be very interesting, although there was concern that Trump might try to block Comey from testifying. I expect Comey will confirm that Trump asked him to drop the FBI investigation. Comey will testify in both public and private sessions. Comey seemingly intends to make as much public as possible. Trump and the Republicans will try to at the least keep as much as possible in private sessions. I believe on this point it will be public but there are no guarantees. Trump’s claim will be for executive privilege, which is a bit like attorney-client privilege but it protects conversations between the President and various advisors. The problem is that Trump has blathered so much about this on his own that it’s very likely he has waived any privilege.
Meanwhile, Congressional investigators began examining whether Attorney General Jeff Sessions had an additional private meeting (other than the ones he’s admitted) with the Russian ambassador during the Presidential campaign. NBC then reported that the FBI and lawmakers were looking into whether that meeting also included Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, as well as Trump himself. Trump meeting personally with the Russian ambassador during the campaign (assuming that in fact happened) may well prevent him from claiming that his minions did it without his knowledge.
On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin moved from his prior blanket disclaimers and suggested that “patriotically minded” private Russian hackers could have been the ones involved in the cyberattacks involved in the U.S. presidential election. One wonders whether those “patriotically minded” private Russian hackers were paid by the Russian government. Of course, we all know that the Russian hackers were sponsored by the Russian government. Putin just didn’t want any investigation to trace back to computers in the Kremlin.
Also, Trump announced withdrawal from the Paris climate accord. It wasn’t surprising, given his kinship with the Koch brothers and Exxon (former Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson is Trump’s Secretary of State), although apparently there was a major battle within the Trump administration over rejecting the accord. It was horrific, though, and will damage the U.S.’s traditional role since World War II as the preeminent world leader. Between Trump refusing to confirm the obligation of NATO members (including the U.S.) to defend each other (from Russian aggression/expansion) and disavowing the Paris Accord (which was voluntary), he is doing immense damage to the U.S. leadership role which will not be easily repaired even by the next President.
Finally, Yahoo News reported that immediately after Trump became President his administration made a clandestine, forceful push to lift the U.S.’s economic sanctions against Russia. Apparently State Department employees fought against this and were able to delay it long enough that stories about Russian influence on the U.S. election and the Trump administration forced Trump to back down. It's not unexpected but still truly astonishing that Trump during his first week in office tried to kill the sanctions against Russia for seizing Crimea and fomenting revolution in the Ukraine. Thank God the State Department staffers, brave souls that they were, delayed that long enough that Trump had to drop it. Many of them were fired as a result; we didn’t know why at the time.
