The White Rabbit News

Friday, May 19, 2017

Donald Trump longs to lock up journalists — and sooner or later he’s going to try it

As Trump told Comey, he'd love to emulate his pals Erdogan, Duterte and Putin and crack down on press freedom

President Donald Trump had a news conference with the Colombian president on Thursday when he said, among other things, “There is no collusion between certainly myself and my campaign, but I can always speak for myself — and the Russians, zero.” No, those are not remarks translated into Spanish by Colombian reporters and then back again. He actually said that.

To be fair, what Trump seems to have meant was that he and his campaign had not colluded with the Russians. And for the first time he appears to have made a disclaimer that he is only speaking for himself. Still, it’s so garbled that he could have meant almost anything, including that he literally always speaks for himself and the Russians.

In the past few days, Trump’s persecution complex has reached new heights. At his commencement address to the Coast Guard Academy on Wednesday he lamented, “Look at the way I’ve been treated lately, especially by the media. No politician in history — and I say this with great surety — has been treated worse or more unfairly.” He has taken to calling the Russian investigations a “witch hunt,” even going so far as to boast about it on Twitter on Thursday morning:

Naturally he thinks he’s been targeted in the biggest and greatest witch hunt ever. Apparently, he doesn’t know that there were real witch hunts where people were killed and political witch hunts that destroyed lives of many innocent people. He is certainly unaware that there were leaders who suffered at the hands of political opponents in ways that Trump in his golden palaces eating his two scoops of ice cream and extra sauce every night can only imagine.

I have never seen a more whiny, petulant 70-year-old person in my life. In that one respect Donald Trump may indeed hold the title of “the greatest.”

You will notice that Trump’s main nemesis is still the press, which he has villainized since he began his recent presidential campaign. One suspects that this started out as a shtick, building on the thousands of hours of talk-radio research that his lieutenant at the time, Sam Nunberg, provided him. Beating up on the press is a staple of right-wing media and it receives a huge response from conservative crowds. But until he started the campaign Trump had always reveled in media attention and went to great lengths to draw it. In fact, he considered himself a member of the club. But over the course of time the hatred has obviously become very real and very personal. He loathes the press and considers it the source of all his problems.

Obviously, he isn’t the first president to feel this way. Richard Nixon famously kept an enemies list that included a large number of journalists. But Trump is taking this in a dangerous direction. A New York Times story about a James Comey memo rightly focused on the fact that the president may have tried to obstruct justice by taking the FBI director aside privately to ask him to let Trump’s disgraced former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, off the hook. But Trump said something else at that meeting that has received less attention, according to the Times.

Russia probe reaches current White House official, people familiar with the case say

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BY DEVLIN BARRETT AND MATT ZAPOTOSKY

The law enforcement investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign has identified a current White House official as a significant person of interest, showing that the probe is reaching into the highest levels of government, according to people familiar with the matter.

The senior White House adviser under scrutiny by investigators is someone close to the president, according to these people, who would not further identify the official.

The revelation comes as the investigation also appears to be entering a more overtly active phase, with investigators shifting from work that has remained largely hidden from the public to conducting interviews and using a grand jury to issue subpoenas. The intensity of the probe is expected to accelerate in the coming weeks, the people said.

The sources emphasized that investigators remain keenly interested in people who previously wielded influence in the Trump campaign and administration but are no longer part of it, including former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

Flynn resigned in February after disclosures that he had lied to administration officials about his contacts with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Current administration officials who have acknowledged contacts with Russian officials include Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, as well as Cabinet members Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

People familiar with the investigation said the intensifying effort does not mean criminal charges are near, or that any such charges will result. Earlier this week, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller to serve as special counsel and lead the investigation into Russian meddling.

It is unclear exactly how Mueller's leadership will affect the direction of the probe, and he is already bringing in new people to work on the team. Those familiar with the case said its significance had increased before Mueller's appointment.

While the case began quietly last July as an effort to determine whether any Trump associates coordinated with Russian operatives to meddle in the presidential election campaign, the investigative work now being done by the FBI also includes determining whether any financial crimes were committed by people close to the president. The people familiar with the matter said the probe has sharpened into something more fraught for the White House, the FBI and the Justice Department - particularly because of the public steps investigators know they now need to take, the people said.

When subpoenas are issued or interviews are requested, it is possible the people being asked to talk or provide documents will reveal publicly what they were asked about.

A small group of lawmakers known as the Gang of Eight were notified of the change in tempo and focus in the investigation at a classified briefing on Wednesday evening, the people familiar with the matter said. FBI Director James Comey had publicly confirmed the existence of the investigation in March.

Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores said, "I can't confirm or deny the existence or non-existence of investigations or targets of investigations." An FBI spokesman declined to comment.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said, "as the president has stated before, a thorough investigation will confirm that there was no collusion between the campaign and any foreign entity.''

While there has been a loud public debate in recent days over the question of whether the president might have attempted to obstruct justice in his private dealings with FBI Director James Comey, who Trump fired last week, people familiar with the matter said investigators on the case are more focused on Russian influence operations and possible financial crimes.

The FBI's investigation seeks to determine whether and to what extent Trump associates were in contact with Kremlin operatives, what business dealings they might have had in Russia, and whether they in any way facilitated the hacking and publishing of Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta's emails during the presidential campaign. Several congressional committees are also investigating, though their probes could not produce criminal charges.

A grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, recently issued a subpoena for records related to Flynn's business, The Flynn Intel Group, which had been paid more than $500,000 by a company owned by a Turkish American businessman close to top Turkish officials, according to people familiar with the matter.

The Flynn Intel Group was paid for research on Fethullah Gulen, a cleric who Turkey's current president believes was responsible for a coup attempt last summer. Flynn retroactively registered with the Justice Department in March as a paid foreign agent for Turkish interests.

Separately from the probe now run by Mueller, Flynn is being investigated by the Pentagon's top watchdog for his foreign payments. Flynn also received $45,000 to appear in 2015 with Russian President Vladimir Putin at a dinner for RT, a Kremlin-controlled media organization.

Flynn discussed U.S. sanctions against Russia with Russia's ambassador to the United States during the month before President Donald Trump took office, and he withheld that fact from even Vice President Mike Pence. That prompted then Acting Attorney General Sally Yates to warn the White House's top lawyer he might be susceptible to blackmail. Flynn stepped down after The Washington Post reported on the contents of the call.

The president has nonetheless seemed to defend his former adviser. A memo by fired FBI Director Comey alleged Trump even asked that the probe into Flynn be shut down.

The White House also has acknowledged that Kushner met with Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the U.S., in late November. Kushner also has acknowledged that he met with the head of a Russian development bank, Vnesheconombank, which has been under U.S. sanctions since July 2014. The president's son in law initially omitted contacts with foreign leaders from a national security questionnaire, though his lawyer has said publicly he submitted the form prematurely and informed the FBI soon after he would provide an update.

Vnesheconombank handles development for the state, and in early 2015, a man purporting to be one of its New York-based employees was arrested and accused of being an unregistered spy.

That man - Evgeny Buryakov - ultimately pleaded guilty and was eventually deported. He had been in contact with former Trump adviser Carter Page, though Page has said he shared only "basic immaterial information and publicly available research documents" with the Russian. Page was the subject of a secret warrant last year issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, based on suspicions he might have been acting as an agent of the Russian government, according to people familiar with the matter. Page has denied any wrongdoing, and accused the government of violating his civil rights.

Trump-Russia probe now includes possible cover-up, Congress is told

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BY MATTHEW SCHOFIELD AND LESLEY CLARK

WASHINGTON

Investigators into Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential elections are now also probing whether White House officials have engaged in a cover-up, according to members of Congress who were briefed Friday by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.

That avenue of investigation was added in recent weeks after assertions by former FBI Director James Comey that President Donald Trump had tried to dissuade him from pressing an investigation into the actions of Trump’s first national security adviser, retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, members of Congress said, though it was not clear whom that part of the probe might target.

Even as members of Congress were mulling over the expansion of the case into possible cover-up, and its reclassification from counterintelligence to criminal, the scandal appeared to grow. The Washington Post reported Friday afternoon that federal investigators were looking at a senior White House official as a “significant person of interest.” The article did not identify the official, though it noted that the person was “someone close to the president.”

A person of interest is someone law enforcement identifies as relevant to an investigation but who has not been charged or arrested.

Cover-ups have traditionally been a major part of investigations that have threatened previous administrations. Articles of impeachment levied against Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton included allegations of obstruction of justice, as they were suspected of trying to hide other wrongdoing.

“This is a thorough investigation of what happened in the 2016 election, and it can go anywhere,” said Rep. Mark Walker, R-N.C.

The possibility of a cover-up is the third branch of an investigation that began as a look at Russian meddling in the election and broadened into whether members of the Trump campaign had cooperated in that efforts, according to the briefing, members of Congress said.

The election interference aspect, which was first alleged in October in a report by the U.S. intelligence community, appears to be an accepted fact, said Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., who has been at the center of some of the more explosive congressional revelations about the Russia probe.

What’s really left to be determined, Cummings said, is whether there was “collusion with the Russians, and the possibility of an attempt to cover up.”

The most visible questions about the possible cover-up have come since Trump took office, and especially in the days since the president abruptly fired Comey on May 9. News reports that Comey had written memos about his conversations with Trump since January have fueled that aspect of the probe.

Cummings called those memos particularly important after The New York Times reported Friday that Trump had told visiting Russian officials in the Oval Office that firing Comey had taken pressure off the Russia probe.

“This new report that President Trump openly admitted to the Russians that he ‘faced great pressure’ from the FBI’s criminal investigation that was ‘taken off’ when he fired Director Comey is astonishing – and extremely troubling,” Cummings said.

On Friday, members of Congress said, Rosenstein clearly defined his role in Comey’s dismissal, telling the assembly that while he had written a memo criticizing Comey’s flouting of Justice Department rules for his public revelation of aspects of the Hillary Clinton email probe, it was not intended as a justification for firing Comey. The members said he said he’d been told of the decision to fire Comey before he was asked to write the memo.

Rosenstein declined to discuss the timing of the memo and who had asked him to write it, saying the memo and its role in Comey’s firing were likely to be part of the investigation, which will now be led by former FBI Director Robert Mueller, whom Rosenstein appointed special counsel on Wednesday.

“He refused to answer questions and he just kept pushing off everything onto Mueller,” said Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., who pronounced the briefing “useless.”

Despite such frustrations, members agreed that Rosenstein had received a warm reception from both Republicans and Democrats at the meeting, a development that they said showed not only praise for his selection of Mueller to oversee the probe but also a recognition that Republican resistance to an independent probe was futile.

“Everybody applauded,” said Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver, D-Mo. “Well, almost everybody. Let’s say 95 percent applauded. Still, two weeks ago, that would not have happened.”

Cleaver said Rosenstein’s opening statement was “clear, concise” and had let those in the room know “this is a real investigation, looking into very real issues.”

“I came out of there knowing that I trust this deputy attorney general, that I trust this special counsel and while he didn’t answer many questions, he had a clear reason for not answering,” Cleaver said.

Republicans were more reluctant to share details of the briefing, citing its classified nature, but they said they expected Congress to continue its own investigations.

House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., said clearly there might come a time when the special counsel thought the congressional investigation might interfere with his own probe. “But so far, there’s been no suggestion that we can’t move forward,” he said.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said one of his biggest takeaways was that Rosenstein had said he had no evidence that Comey had asked for more resources for the investigation before he was fired.

Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Mich., sounded a note of caution, fearing the public won’t be told the investigation’s results if it falls short of criminal charges.

“If the investigation determines that (cooperation between Trump’s campaign and the Russians) happened but it doesn’t rise to the level not only of criminality but a case that can be made, how will the public ever know about that? A decision to not charge doesn’t necessarily give us any of that information,” he said.

FEDS HUNTED DOWN AN UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANT USING CONTROVERSIAL PHONE TRACKER

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By Sam Biddle

AS PART OF A DRAMATIC uptick in the arrest and deportation of undocumented immigrants promised by President Trump, the Detroit News reports that FBI and ICE agents used a powerful, secretive device to find Rudy Carcamo-Carranza, a 23-year-old restaurant worker living in Michigan.

State, local, and federal law enforcement agencies have fought to conceal the details of how they use devices that impersonate the cellular communication relays widely deployed by private companies like Verizon and AT&T. The fake relays, often referred to as Stingrays, after the leading brand of such devices, can trick mobile phones into disclosing their locations, and in some cases can apparently extract the content of voice and text communications. Stingrays can be used across broad geographic areas, or as in the case of Carcamo-Carranza, to pinpoint a single person. According to an affidavit filed by the FBI’s Violent Gang Task Force and obtained by the Detroit News, federal agents hoped that “locating the target cellular device will assist law enforcement in arresting Carcamo-Carranza” on the basis that he was guilty of “unlawful re-entry after deportation.” The Detroit News notes that despite the involvement of the Violent Gang Task Force, Carcamo-Carranza’s “only brushes with the law involve drunken driving allegations and a hit-and-run crash.” Police were able to find Carcamo-Carranza’s cell number after browsing his Facebook private messages, obtained with an earlier warrant. The affidavit briefly acknowledges that cell phones other than the targeted phone could be inadvertently swept up in the Stingray’s dragnet.

Nathan Wessler, an attorney and technology expert at the ACLU, told The Intercept that documents show ICE has been purchasing Stingray devices for years, and presumably been putting them to use. But this case, said Wessler, is “the first time I’m aware of [Stingray] use in an actual immigration enforcement operation.”

AS TRUMP TRAVELS TO SAUDI ARABIA, THE KINGDOM’S D.C. LOBBYING SURGE IS PAYING OFF

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By Lee Fang

AN EXAMINATION BY The Intercept of lobbyist disclosures filed with the Department of Justice under the Foreign Agents Registration Act shows that Saudi Arabia has greatly expanded its spending on influence peddling during the past two years. Since 2015 the kingdom has expanded the number of foreign agents on retainer to 145 individuals, up from 25 registered agents during the previous two-year period.

Perhaps not coincidentally, President Trump, who less than a year ago vilified Saudi Arabia’s influence over the American political establishment, is now marching to the Saudi lobbyists’ tune.

The selection of Saudi Arabia as the first foreign nation Trump will visit as president when he embarks on his maiden overseas trip is just the latest example of Trump changing his behavior to embrace a country responsible for widespread human rights violations, a growing humanitarian crisis in Yemen, and the export of an intolerant form of Islam.

Gone are the days when Trump mocked a prominent member of the Saudi royal family for wanting to “control our U.S. politicians with daddy’s money,” openly alleged that the kingdom was behind the September 11 terror attacks, and demanded that the U.S. receive free oil for protecting the Saudi elite. During his trip this week, Trump is expected to give an address that backs the Saudi government as a strong Muslim ally and a partner in the fight against extremism.

The Saudi lobbying expenditures, totaling over $18 million, eclipse other established interest groups in Washington. For perspective, lobbying heavyweight Google employs 74 registered lobbyists and spent $7 million over the same two-year period on federal influence.

Like others seeking to influence the U.S. government, Saudi Arabia invests in lobbyists with close connections to both major political parties. They include a wide array of former Democratic and Republican elected officials, retired government officials, and even former journalists.

Republicans lobbying for the Saudis include former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and former former Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman. Lott was deeply involved in the White House hiring process, according to reports, and now three former Lott staff members work for Trump. Coleman chairs the Republican dark money outfit American Action Network, which has helped flood the airwaves with campaign commercials help vulnerable House GOP incumbents.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia also paid large fees to the Podesta Group and the Glover Park Group. The Podesta Group is run by Tony Podesta, the brother of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign chairman John Podesta. The Glover Park Group was founded by alumni from President Bill Clinton’s administration.

The expansive Saudi lobbying team has attempted to shape the debate on issues as varied as whether the victims of the September 11 attack may file a lawsuit against Saudi Arabia, arms deals used for the ongoing Saudi-led war in Yemen, and Trump’s upcoming trip to Riyadh this weekend.

Ed Rogers, the chairman of the BGR Group, a lobbying firm on a $500,000 annual retainer from the Saudi government, hailed the trip in a column for the Washington Post on Tuesday, calling the chosen destinations for Trump’s travel “opportune settings for this administration to make a bold statement to the world that the United States is stronger and more committed than ever to leading.”

Arabia Now, a website and social media network operated in part by a Republican digital media firm retained by the Saudi Embassy, began quickly producing content to promote the trip almost as soon as it became public. “With the recent announcement by President Donald Trump that Saudi Arabia will be the first destination of the Trump administration’s inaugural foreign visit, the White House has affirmed the enduring partnership between Saudi Arabia and America,” blared the website on Monday.

Fahad Nazer, a registered Saudi lobbyist, used his Twitter feed to help unveil a new website, hashtag, and logo to promote Trump state visit. The site features a countdown clock for Trump’s visit along with options for promoting pictures and positive stories about the U.S.-Saudi relationship. Previous disclosures show that consultants tapped by the Saudi government have contracted digital agencies that specialize in native advertising, a marketing technique that presents sponsored content into a news format.

And of course influencing the general public isn’t the only goal of Saudi lobbyists. FARA filings show they also inundate members of Congress and federal officials with meetings, dinners, and emails.

The Glover Park Group and several lobbyists from Brownstein Hyatt Farben Schreck, including a former top aide to former Speaker John Boehner, made 350 contacts over a short period of several weeks with Congress over the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act. The contentious legislation, which allows the families of terror victims to bring state sponsors of terrorism to court, was strongly opposed by the Saudi government but passed last year over President Obama’s veto.

Saudi Arabia mobilized a massive lobbying effort against JASTA, and also marshaled the support of former military leader leaders and executives from U.S. firms with business interests in Saudi Arabia, including Dow Chemical and Boeing, to protest the bill.

After passage of JASTA, filings show that Saudi lobbyists arranged all-expense paid luxury trips for veterans to travel to Washington to lobby for amending and defanging the law.

Numerous veterans who participated in the effort say they were misled by the Saudi lobbyists, who denied Saudi Arabia was involved in the advocacy campaign. As part of the same campaign, identical letters to the editor and letters to lawmakers against JASTA, supposedly written by military veterans, copied the same language over and over again, a pattern that suggests the letters were written by the lobbyists.

For the upcoming trip to Saudi Arabia, Saudi lobbying priorities may veer towards securing an increased military partnership with the Trump administration, particularly regarding the Saudi war against Yemen. Axios is reporting that Jared Kushner has met with Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to discuss the sale of munitions for the war, as well as a Saudi commitment to buy $110 billion in U.S. weapons over a 10-year period.

Soon after Trump was elected, Qorvis MSLGroup distributed a newsletter touting the warm relationship between the newly-elected president and Saudi leaders. In the same packet distributed to reporters, the newsletter proclaimed that Saudi Arabia is “leading international efforts to rehabilitate the health sector in Yemen and provide life-saving care to injured and ill Yemenis.”

International observers paint a starkly different picture. The war in Yemen has resulted in more than 8,000 casualties, mostly civilians. Medical facilities have been repeatedly attacked by Saudi-led coalition airstrikes. The ongoing assault on the country has raised the risk of more than 14 million running out of food, and cholera outbreak has already killed at least 34 people.

Moreover, the disclosed records are only the tip of the iceberg of Saudi Arabia’s campaign to influence U.S. politics. Saudi donations to think tanks, universities, and political foundations are not covered by the FARA law. And Trump’s sprawling business empire and network of associates provides other opportunities for establishing relationships. Not long after Trump’s election victory, Saudi’s lobbyists began booking rooms in the Trump International Hotel in Washington. And last month Michael Cohen, Trump’s longtime personal lawyer at the Trump Organization, signed on to work with Squire Patton Boggs, a firm retained to lobby on behalf of the Saudi Kingdom.

Unemployment in the U.S. Is Falling, So Why Isn’t Pay Rising?

Eight possible explanations.

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By Peter Coy

The U.S. economy is behaving mysteriously. Usually wage growth accelerates when the job market is tight: Employers have to pay more to attract and retain workers. But even though the unemployment rate hit a decade low of 4.4 percent in April, average hourly earnings grew just 2.3 percent over the past year—compared with an annual rate of more than 4 percent the last time the jobless rate was this low.

What has happened to the historical, and seemingly logical, link between unemployment and wages? A lot of people want to know, including the policymakers at the Federal Reserve, who’d ordinarily be raising interest rates much more than they have to prevent a wage-price inflation spiral. In the absence of a single convincing explanation, here are eight theories.

One is that the Phillips curve is effectively dead. In textbooks, wage growth is on the vertical axis and unemployment on the horizontal: The curve goes smoothly down to the right as unemployment rises and wage growth falls. In reality, the correlation has been so inconsistent in recent years that a Phillips curve graph looks more like a Jackson Pollock drip painting or the footprints of a staggering drunk. Steve Forbes, the editor-in-chief of Forbes and former Republican presidential candidate, calls the curve “a quack theorem.”

Economists aren’t as quick as Forbes to reject the Phillips curve; it just makes intuitive sense that a tight labor market such as this will eventually push up wages. So some fall back on the explanation that workers’ bargaining power has weakened. The decline of unions is a crucial factor, says Peter Temin, a retired MIT economics professor and author of a new book, The Vanishing Middle Class: Prejudice and Power in a Dual Economy. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says fewer than 11 percent of wage and salary workers were union members last year, down from 20 percent in 1983. Globalization has also weakened the leverage of American workers, says Jonas Prising, chairman of Manpower Group, by allowing companies to shift production where wages are cheaper. “Whether you know it or not, you are competing on a global scale,” Prising says.

It could be that workers are content with what they’re earning. Employees will be more willing to settle for small raises if they’re confident inflation will remain low, as it has since the recession of 2007-09. The tortoise-like pace of wage hikes has beaten the snail-like pace of consumer prices by almost 5 percentage points since unemployment peaked at 10 percent in 2009.

Alternatively, maybe companies are making do with the workers they have—retraining employees rather than paying top dollar for new recruits and raising pay only for the particular jobs where they need to attract talent. “We have very robust development programs to make sure that we got the right labor at the right time and the right place,” Todd Teske, chief executive officer of Briggs & Stratton Corp., which makes lawnmowers and other products, told analysts in an April earnings call.

Then again, maybe the workers simply aren’t worth more money. Output per hour of work has shrunk in four of the past six quarters, according to the BLS. If workers’ productivity is weak, companies may be resisting their wage demands to protect their profit margins, says Daniel Silver, an economist at JPMorgan Chase & Co. Weak productivity growth isn’t entirely workers’ fault: Companies have chosen to stash profits offshore or return them to shareholders rather than invest in the modern equipment and software that would enable their employees to do their jobs efficiently.

Some economists explain the Phillips curve anomaly by saying there’s more slack in the labor market—and therefore less leverage for workers—than the 4.4 percent unemployment rate indicates. Only 78.6 percent of people age 25-54 are employed, down from 80 percent before the last recession. If workers demanded big wage hikes, employers could try to pull people off the sidelines into the workforce. “The unemployment rate is not measuring the tightness of the labor market in the same way it used to,” says James Diffley, chief regional economist for IHS Markit Ltd., which collaborates with payroll services company Paychex Inc. on an index of small-business jobs.

Other economists argue the real problem is that wage growth is being undermeasured. Neil Dutta, head of economics for Renaissance Macro Research, wrote in a May 15 note to clients that the oft-quoted average hourly earnings gauge devised by the BLS may not accurately capture what’s happening in the labor market. It’s true that average hourly earnings growth didn’t accelerate from the first quarter of 2016 to the first quarter of 2017, but other wage indicators from the BLS did, in some cases dramatically. Hourly compensation, which includes benefits along with wages and salaries, grew 3.9 percent in the 12 months through this year’s first quarter, up from 2.4 percent a year earlier. The wages and salaries measure in the Employment Cost Index rose 2.6 percent, up from 2 percent a year before. “Taking an average of all measures points to underlying wage growth of about 3.0 percent,” Dutta wrote. Consider construction: Desperate for skilled help, builders are showering workers with pay hikes and even signing bonuses, says Joseph Natarelli, a partner and head of the construction practice at Marcum LLC, an accounting and advisory firm. Yet according to the BLS, average hourly earnings in construction rose just 2.1 percent in the year through April. Says Natarelli: “I don’t know where that data is coming from.”

Last but not least is the theory that bigger wage increases will begin to appear soon—the forces of supply and demand can’t be denied. Last year, Federal Reserve Board Principal Economist Jeremy Nalewaik released a paper called Non-Linear Phillips Curves With Inflation Regime-Switching. The thrust was that the famous curve has a sharp bend: There’s a wide range of unemployment rates where wage growth is unaffected, but below a certain threshold, wages begin to rise rapidly. “It would be unwise to assume the Phillips curve remains so flat at all levels of the unemployment rate,” Nalewaik wrote.

Joe Lieberman's Benghazi Connection

Trump's possible FBI chief pick lobbied for a Libyan politican who courted a Benghazi terrorist suspect.

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By DAVID CORN

As President Donald Trump escaped Washington on Friday for his first overseas trip, the White House announced that he wasn't yet ready to reveal his pick to replace James Comey, the FBI director he brazenly fired the previous week. But one name on his list appeared to be ahead of the others: former Sen. Joe Lieberman, the onetime Democrat who was Vice President Al Gore's running mate in the 2000 presidential campaign.

Lieberman may not be an odd choice for Trump. He finished up his Senate career as an independent. Perhaps more important, since leaving the Senate in 2013, Lieberman has been a senior counsel at the Kasowitz Benson Torres law firm, which has defended Trump in numerous disputes over the years. But as a member of that law firm, Lieberman also had the unusual job of promoting and representing a Libyan businessman and politician who tried to court an alleged terrorist accused of leading the 2012 attack on the Benghazi compound that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

In Lieberman's final days as a senator, a reporter asked him if he would become a lobbyist. "No, I'm not going to do that," he replied. But in November 2013, as Politicoreported at the time, his law firm signed up as a foreign agent for Basit Igtet, a Libyan businessman and activist who was considering running for prime minister in Libya. Igtet made his money through assorted ventures in Switzerland, where his family had sought exile. He married Sara Bronfman, the daughter of Edgar Bronfman, who had been the billionaire chairman of Seagram and the president of the World Jewish Congress. The foreign agent registration form filed at the Justice Department noted that Lieberman would be part of the team handling this $100,000 project that would provide "government relations services" to Igtet.

A Benghazi native, Igtet was a long-shot candidate for prime minister. As Forbes noted, "Igtet believes he's got the technocratic prowess to transform his country of six million people from the brink of civil war into the crown jewel of northern Africa. But skeptics say his status as a longtime expatriate and his lack of national security experience leave him ill-prepared to grasp control of deteriorating relations among warring rebel factions, police and the army." And having a Jewish wife was probably not an asset.

As part of his campaign, Igtet emphasized his connections to the United States, pointing out his wife was involved with the US-Libya Chamber of Commerce and boasting that he personally knew Secretary of State John Kerry and Sen. John McCain. But Foreign Policy reported in early 2014 that as part of his campaign, he also sought out a terrorist suspect wanted by the United States for orchestrating the attack on the Benghazi facility:

Igtet not only has built ties with America's friends, he's also met with its enemies. He sat down last year with Ahmed Abu Khattala, the Benghazi militant charged by the Justice Department for his involvement in the 2012 attack on the American mission in Benghazi that killed US Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. The State Department declared Abu Khattala a specially designated global terrorist in January.

Igtet says he told Abu Khattala that he is opposed to Libyans "being kidnapped or transferred somewhere else"—a reference to the U.S. policy of rendition, which Libyans saw firsthand last year when US commandos snatched al Qaeda suspect Abu Anas al-Libi off a Tripoli street and eventually brought him to New York to stand trial. Abu Khattala fears this could be his own fate.

"We are Libyans, this is our country and if someone has done something wrong here, they have to be judged in this country," said Igtet. "Abu Khattala told me he is sure of his innocence. He said he has no problem to go to the court in Benghazi and face these issues there."

Khattala never made it to a Benghazi court. In June 2014, he was captured by US special forces in a villa south of Benghazi, interrogated on a Navy ship for 13 days, and brought to the United States. US prosecutors have accused him of being a ringleader of the Benghazi assault. He has denied the charge. His trial is scheduled to begin in September.

Contacted by Mother Jones, Lieberman's office said he was not available for comment.

When Khattala was nabbed, he was one of the FBI's most-wanted terrorists, and bureau agents participated in the mission that grabbed him. Yet months earlier, Lieberman was working for a Libyan who had reached out to Khattala. Now, Lieberman may be Trump's choice for FBI chief. If Lieberman does end up in the job, it will certainly be a first: an FBI director who once was a foreign agent for an overseas politician who cozied up to an alleged terrorist accused of killing Americans.

Will Republicans and conservatives care about this Benghazi connection?

Trump Told Russians That Firing ‘Nut Job’ Comey Eased Pressure From Investigation

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By MATT APUZZO, MAGGIE HABERMAN and MATTHEW ROSENBERG

WASHINGTON — President Trump told Russian officials in the Oval Office this month that firing the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, had relieved “great pressure” on him, according to a document summarizing the meeting.

“I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job,” Mr. Trump said, according to the document, which was read to The New York Times by an American official. “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”

Mr. Trump added, “I’m not under investigation.”

The conversation, during a May 10 meeting — the day after he fired Mr. Comey — reinforces the notion that Mr. Trump dismissed him primarily because of the bureau’s investigation into possible collusion between his campaign and Russian operatives. Mr. Trump said as much in one televised interview, but the White House has offered changing justifications for the firing.

The White House document that contained Mr. Trump’s comments was based on notes taken from inside the Oval Office and has been circulated as the official account of the meeting. One official read quotations to The Times, and a second official confirmed the broad outlines of the discussion.

The day after firing Mr. Comey, Mr. Trump hosted Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, in the Oval Office, along with the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey I. Kislyak. The meeting ignited controversy this week when it was revealed that Mr. Trump had disclosed intelligence from an Israeli counterterrorism operation.

A third government official briefed on the meeting defended the president, saying Mr. Trump was using a negotiating tactic when he told Mr. Lavrov about the “pressure” he was under. The idea, the official suggested, was to create a sense of obligation with Russian officials and to coax concessions out of Mr. Lavrov — on Syria, Ukraine and other issues — by saying that Russian meddling in last year’s election had created enormous political problems for Mr. Trump.

The president has been adamant that the meddling did not alter the outcome of the race, but it has become a political cudgel for his opponents.

Many Democrats and some Republicans have raised alarms that the president may have tried to obstruct justice by firing Mr. Comey. The Justice Department’s newly appointed special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, was given the authority to investigate not only potential collusion, but also related allegations, which would include obstruction of justice.

The F.B.I.’s investigation has bedeviled the Trump administration, and the president personally. Mr. Comey publicly confirmed the existence of the investigation in March, telling Congress that his agents were investigating Russian efforts to influence the outcome of the presidential election and whether anyone in the Trump campaign had been involved. Mr. Trump has denied any collusion and called the case a waste of money and time.

At first, the White House said Mr. Trump fired Mr. Comey based on the recommendation of the Justice Department, and because of Mr. Comey’s handling of the F.B.I. investigation into Hillary Clinton last year. Officials said it had nothing to do with the Russia investigation.

But the president undercut that argument a day later, telling NBC News, “When I decided to just do it, I said to myself — I said, you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story.”