The White Rabbit News

Friday, May 19, 2017

Trump's Staff Are a Bunch of Special Snowflakes Who Deserve No Pity

Officials say they feel "under siege." They knew what they were signing up for.

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By Kali Holloway

Every single person who works for Donald Trump knew what they were signing up for when they accepted the job. Every White House staffer willingly, and in most cases enthusiastically, joined an effort to help Trump in his war on “political correctness,” an all-out attack on those who get lost in their “feewings” about the bad things in the world.

“I am so tired of this politically correct crap," Trump said at a campaign stop in South Carolina to rousing applause from his supporters. In a televised debate, Trump insisted “the big problem this country has is being politically correct...I don't, frankly, have time for total political correctness. And to be honest with you, this country doesn't have time, either."

Those quotes have aged like milk. Turns out the most sensitive and easily triggered people in the country are currently occupying the White House.

The president whines about how badly he’s been treated at every opportunity. Most recently, Trump told graduates of the United States Coast Guard Academy—a group about to enter a military that Trump used deferments to avoid—that “no politician in history...has been treated worse or more unfairly” than he has. Nelson Mandela and Abraham Lincoln were both too dead to voice their disagreement.

Trump’s pity party has reportedly made him into even more of a moody, petulant baby, and he blames staff for his scandal-rife, garbage-fire presidency. The poor treatment has shown the Trump team to be full of sensitive sorts, according to the Washington Post.

For many White House staffers, impromptu support groups of friends, confidants and acquaintances have materialized, calling and texting to check in, inquiring about their mental state and urging them to take care of themselves.

One Republican operative in frequent contact with White House officials described them as “going through the stages of grief.”

What’s with this obsession with self-care, leaning on support networks and fretting over the psychic wages of working for a terrible man to do his terrible bidding? Because it all sounds an awful lot like the stuff of special snowflakes. These are the people who wanted to Make America Great Again by making everyone who wasn’t them STFU.

A Daily Beast report details White House senior and communications staff avoiding press by “hiding in offices”—or what might better be described as retreating to their safe spaces. Politico interviewed “multiple White House officials” who say they “feel under siege,” though they are probably less under siege than the millions of immigrants, Muslims and people of color targeted by Trump policies these staffers are paid to advance. Mark Corallo, who worked for Attorney General John Ashcroft during Bush 43’s tenure, described Trump’s beleaguered staff as “hostages,” a word that has literally zero to do with what is happening here.

“We are kind of helpless,” one official reportedly told Politico, as if quitting, or not going to work for a racist, sexist tyrant in the first place, wasn’t an option. There are plenty of people who are helpless against Trump in this country, but not a single one of them has White House kitchen privileges.

The Washington Post points to what keeps these poor laborers locked in their stations, and it isn’t a guard by the door. Trump staffers are “sticking around purely for self-interest, hoping to juice their future earning potential.”

But pure greed isn't the only thing driving their decisions to stick with it. There seems to be some straight-up delusion in the mix as well.

“With news like this I’m beginning to wonder why Trump ran in the first place and if he really cares about the country,” a senior staffer, who must be trying out material for his standup special, told the Daily Beast. “I miss candidate Trump. Now he’s just a pathetic mess.”

Republicans Don't Give a Damn About Their Country or Its Constitution

The GOP won't move against Trump any time soon, warns the New York Times columnist.

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By Jacob Sugarman

Last week, Donald Trump unceremoniously axed his FBI director amidst an active investigation into his administration's alleged ties to Russia. On Tuesday, we learned of the existence of at least one internal memo detailing the president's attempts to kill the probe, an act that could amount to obstruction of justice. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has appointed a special counsel to aid the law enforcement agency, because acting Attorney General Jeff Sessions was forced to recuse himself from the case. Meanwhile dual reports have emerged that Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn created a back channel with the Kremlin in the months preceding the 2016 election and that he quashed a U.S. military operation as a paid agent for the Turkish government.

Surely Republicans, who hold majorities in the House and the Senate, have finally heard enough. Even a party that nominated a candidate manifestly unfit for any office, much less president of the United States, has to put country first at some point, right?

Not so much, laments Paul Krugman.

In his Friday column, he argues that it's better to think of the GOP not as a party, but as a political apparatus for movement conservatism—a monolith buttressed by a handful of exorbitantly wealthy families. Its governing philosophy is tax cuts for the rich, which it will defend at all cost.

"This structure...rewards, indeed insists on, absolute fealty," Krugman writes. "What this means is that nearly all Republicans in today’s Congress are apparatchiks, political creatures with no higher principle beyond party loyalty."

This explains why Paul Ryan and the rest of the Republican leadership refuse to hold a demonstrably unstable president to account, and likely won't unless he proves a political liability in 2018 and beyond. These scandals could rage on for months or even years if the Democrats don't prevail in the Georgia and Montana House elections. But even if Trump is removed from office, Krugman reasons, "the threat to the Republic will be far from over."

"In a perverse way, we should count ourselves lucky that Trump is as terrible as he is," he observes, ominously. "The point is that given the character of the Republican Party, we’d be well on the way to autocracy if the man in the White House had even slightly more self-control. Trump may have done himself in; but it can still happen here."

Russian officials bragged they could use Flynn to influence Trump, sources say

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By Gloria Borger, Pamela Brown, Jim Sciutto, Marshall Cohen and Eric Lichtblau

Russian officials bragged in conversations during the presidential campaign that they had cultivated a strong relationship with former Trump adviser retired Gen. Michael Flynn and believed they could use him to influence Donald Trump and his team, sources told CNN.

The conversations deeply concerned US intelligence officials, some of whom acted on their own to limit how much sensitive information they shared with Flynn, who was tapped to become Trump's national security adviser, current and former governments officials said.

"This was a five-alarm fire from early on," one former Obama administration official said, "the way the Russians were talking about him." Another former administration official said Flynn was viewed as a potential national security problem.

The conversations picked up by US intelligence officials indicated the Russians regarded Flynn as an ally, sources said. That relationship developed throughout 2016, months before Flynn was caught on an intercepted call in December speaking with Russia's ambassador in Washington, Sergey Kislyak. That call, and Flynn's changing story about it, ultimately led to his firing as Trump's first national security adviser.

Officials cautioned, however, that the Russians might have exaggerated their sway with Trump's team during those conversations.

Flynn's lawyer declined to comment.

"We are confident that when these inquiries are complete there will be no evidence to support any collusion between the campaign and Russia," a White House official said in a statement. "... This matter is not going to distract the President or this administration from its work to bring back jobs and keep America safe."

Flynn has emerged as a central figure -- and Trump's biggest liability -- in the intensifying investigations into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians. His financial ties to Turkish government interests, which paid him $530,000 in a lobbying deal that he failed to disclose during the campaign, are also under scrutiny by federal investigators.

One major concern for Obama administration officials was the subject of conversations between Flynn and Kislyak that took place shortly after President Barack Obama slapped new sanctions on Russia for meddling in the election. Sources tell CNN that Flynn told Kislyak that the Trump administration would look favorably on a decision by Russia to hold off on retaliating with its own sanctions. The next day, Putin said he wouldn't retaliate.

Sources say Flynn also told Kislyak that the incoming Trump administration would revisit US sanctions on Russia once in office. The US has applied sanctions on Russia since 2014 for its actions in Ukraine.

Flynn's calls with Kislyak in December have received the most attention, but his relationship with the Russian ambassador goes back four years.

He first met Kislyak in June 2013 during an official trip to Russia, according to The Washington Post. He led the Defense Intelligence Agency at the time and met his counterparts at the Russian military intelligence agency known as the GRU.

In December 2015, Flynn attended a gala honoring the Kremlin-run TV network RT. Documents released last month revealed that Flynn was paid $45,000 to attend the event, where he sat at the same table as Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Officials noticed an uptick in communication between Flynn and Kislyak shortly after Flynn's trip to Moscow in December 2015.

Trump angrily denied any collusion with Russia this week and denounced the newest investigation -- now in the hands of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III -- as "a witch hunt."

And he has remained steadfast in his loyalty to Flynn, even as the scrutiny surrounding his fired aide continues to weigh down his presidency. Trump urged then-FBI Director James Comey in February to drop the bureau's investigation into Flynn and "let this go," according to a memo Comey wrote at the time. The conversation, first reported by The New York Times earlier this week, has opened the President up to charges from critics of obstruction of justice.

Trump's obvious bond with Flynn, like his relationship with Attorney General Jeff Sessions and other top advisers, appears rooted in the fact that they supported his then-longshot presidential campaign last year at a time when most Republicans were ostracizing him.

Slain DNC Staffer’s Family Orders Blabbing Detective to ‘Cease and Desist’

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By ALEX SEITZ-WALD

The family of slain Democratic staffer Seth Rich is threatening legal action against a private investigator after his "outrageous behavior" has given fuel to right-wing conspiracy theories about the unsolved murder of their son.

An attorney representing the family of Rich, who was 27 when he was killed last July, sent a cease and desist letter Friday to Rod Wheeler, a Fox News contributor and former Washington, D.C., homicide detective who was employed by the family and earlier this week told a Fox affiliate that he believed police were covering up details about the crime.

"Your statements and actions have caused, and continue to cause, the Family severe mental anguish and emotional distress. Your behavior appears to have been deliberate, intentional, outrageous, and in patent disregard of the Agreement and the obvious damage and suffering it would cause the Family," wrote Joseph Ingrisano of the law firm Katuk Rock, according to a copy of the letter shared exclusively with NBC News.

"Your improper and unauthorized statements, many of which are false and have no basis in fact, have also injured the memory and reputation of Seth Rich and have defamed and injured the reputation and standing of the members of the Family," Ingrisano continued.

The letter demands Wheeler "immediately and permanently" cease and desist from making any comments about Seth Rich or his death and suggests he could face further legal action either way.

Wheeler could not be reached Friday since the voicemail was full on both his cell phone and office line.

Wheeler's contract with the Rich family prohibited him from speaking to the press without prior approval from the family, a clause he apparently violated when he spoke to Fox 5 D.C. Monday for a story that quickly went viral on the right.

Rich's family also has demanded a retraction and apology from Fox 5 D.C. for the story, but has so far not received one.

Wheeler has since completely recanted his story, both in the press and in a private message to Rich's family.

The private investigator told other outlets the Fox reporter essentially put words in his mouth by giving him information that he then repeated in an on-camera interview. "That story on Fox 5 last night was inaccurate," he told BuzzFeed.

Rich, who was a data analyst at the DNC, was killed while walking home early one Sunday morning last summer in what police suspect was a robbery gone wrong.

However, some have speculated — without any evidence — that Rich was the source of internal DNC emails published by Wikileaks and murdered for the act. The DNC, the FBI, every U.S. intelligence agency, and the cyber security firm hired by the DNC to investigate the breach say those emails were stolen by Russian hackers. But Rich's death has become a useful red herring for those interesting in undercutting the Russian hacking narrative.

That includes allies of President Donald Trump and the Russian government. On Friday, the official account of the Russian Embassy in London tweeted: "#WikiLeaks informer Seth Rich murdered in US but MSM was so busy accusing Russian hackers to take notice."

Wheeler has since admitted he had no first-hand evidence linking Rich to Wikileaks, and subsequent reporting by NBC News and other outlets confirmed Rich was not communicating with the group.

"It never contained any e-mails related to WikiLeaks," a former law enforcement official with first-hand knowledge of Rich's laptop told NBC News.

Rich's family only hired Wheeler on the urging of a conservative Dallas financial adviser and Fox News regular named Ed Butowsky, who offered to cover Wheeler's fees, as NBC News first reported.

Mattis on recent US military deaths: 'They’re not part of a life-insurance corporation'

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By Christopher Woody

A US Navy SEAL was killed and two other special-operations troops were wounded while advising and assisting a Somali-led mission about 40 miles west of the country's capital earlier this month.

The SEAL, 38-year-old Senior Chief Special Warfare Operator Kyle Milliken, was the first American to die in combat in Somalia since 1993.

The mission he was attached to came under fire during a mission against extremist group al-Shabab.

Milliken's death came just a few weeks after dozens of regular US troops were deployed to the country, and his presence in the country was part of a special-operations and counterterrorism deployment the US has dispatched to Somalia in recent years.

Milliken's death comes after several others that took place during counterterrorism operations, including the April 29 death of a US Army platoon leader in Mosul, the April 8 death of a US Army Green Beret in Nangarhar, Afghanistan, and the January 28 death of a Navy SEAL during an operation in Yemen.

Asked about such counterterrorism operations during a Friday briefing at the Pentagon, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford said the "broad guidance" given to US forces working with partners on the ground in Somalia and elsewhere — "that they stay at the last cover and conceal position short of the objective, in that they don't actually close with the enemy" — hadn't changed.

When pressed by CNN's Barbara Starr about Milliken's position with partner forces at the time of his death, Defense Secretary James Mattis said that despite the guidance given to and precautions taken by US forces, risks in such operations could not always be negated.

"When you’re on patrol, you can’t always be in a safe position," Mattis said.

"The lads know they’re not part of a life-insurance corporation. They’re trained for this, and they go out and they do their job the best they can," he added. "I'm confident that our military forces are carrying out the intent, which is they do not put themselves forward to do the job that partnered forces actually want to do but they need our support in doing."

US special operations forces have been tasked with a high operational tempo in recent years, as the war on terror and related operations, especially those against ISIS in the Middle East, have dragged on.

Special operations commanders have acknowledged the strain placed on their forces by the increased operations, but they have emphasized that they are capable of meeting emerging threats around the world.

Others, however, have sounded warnings about how such deployments are eroding special forces units.

"We've mortgaged the future in order to facilitate current operations that has impacted readiness and it's also impacted development of force for the future," Theresa Whelan, principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for special operations, said during a House Armed Services Committee session this month .

Trump administration education budget proposes $10.6 billion in cuts

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By Shelley Connor

Documents obtained earlier this week by the Washington Post outline the Trump administration’s first Department of Education (DoED) budget detail plans to dramatically slash federal funding for public education.

Among the most egregious measures included in the proposal is the complete elimination of a student loan forgiveness program designed to help teachers, social workers, and other public servants with their student debts.

The proposed budget takes aim at student borrowers in other ways, as well. For example, it would eliminate over $700 million in Perkins Loans for disadvantaged students. The budget would also reduce funding for the work-study program, which allows students to work their way through college, by $490 million. And it would put an end to subsidized federal loans, in which the government pays the interest on the loan while the student is still attending school.

Another cut affecting low income college students would eliminate a $15 million program that provides childcare for low-income parents attending college. Funding for Pell Grants, based upon student need, would be maintained—but it would not be increased to meet the needs left by cuts to the Perkins Loan program. An estimated 12 million Americans depend upon financial aid to help with college; these cuts will affect them profoundly.

In K-12 education funding, 22 programs would be eliminated. Among these are a $1.2 billion program for after school programs. These programs serve almost two million children, most of whom are from poor families. Other cuts include $2.1 billion for teacher training and class-size reduction, a $12 million program for gifted students, $12 million allocated for Special Olympics programs, a $27 million arts program, $72 million allocated for foreign language and international studies programs, and $65 million allocated to programs for Alaskan and Hawaiian Native populations.

While other programs will continue, their funds will be cut significantly. Promise Neighborhoods, an initiative designed to support children in impoverished communities, would lose $13 million. An adult literacy program would lose $96 million. Grants for career and technical education would be cut by $168 million; paired with the cuts to college financial aid, such cuts will drastically reduce options for a significant number of students who wish to pursue either a university degree or a career in the skilled trades.

The Trump administration budget also dedicates no money to a fund earmarked for student enrichment and support. This fund assists schools with mental health services, physical education, Advanced Placement courses and Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) instruction. While Congress authorized up to $1.65 billion for the fund, the Trump administration has budgeted zero dollars for the fund in the next fiscal year.

Title I funds, which help poor children, and special education funding will neither be increased nor cut by the budget. Yet while the budget does not explicitly cut these programs, impoverished schools will likely still see a reduction in Title I funding; new laws allow states to spend up to 7 percent of their Title I funding upon school improvements before they disburse the funds to qualifying districts.

In addition, the budget would channel $1 billion of Title I funding to a new grant program. FOCUS, or Furthering Options for Children to Unlock Success, would channel these grants to school districts that allow families to choose which public schools their children attend—the federal, state, and local funds set aside for those children would travel with them to the new school they choose. In such a way, Title I money, along with other school funds, will migrate into wealthier districts at the expense of the districts for which the program was designed.

As the budget makes brutal cuts to public education spending, it allocates $500 million for charter schools—this represents an increase of 50 percent over the current charter school spending by the federal government. Another $250 million will be spent on “Education Innovation and Research Grants,” which would be dedicated for expanding school vouchers for private schools and for studying the impacts of these vouchers. Thus far, the budget does not clarify how much of the $250 million would go towards the studies as opposed to the actual vouchers.

Altogether, the proposed budget cuts $10.6 billion from public education. At the same time, $158 million is proposed for salaries and expenses at the DoED; among these expenses are expanded student loan “servicing” (i.e., collections) and increased security for education secretary Betsy DeVos, who spurned the in-house security team, contracting instead with the US Marshals.

In the meantime, the entire DoED will see workforce reductions of about 4 percent; about 150 positions will be scrapped by the proposed budget.

This budget demonstrates Trump and DeVos’ well-documented disdain for public education. DeVos has previously characterized federally-funded public education as “arcane” and ineffective; she has also headed an organization, the Acton Institute, that advocated for the repeal of child labor laws. The Trump administration’s budget proposal is but a first, coordinated attack upon public education while benefiting the privatized school companies, for whom George W. Bush and Barack Obama opened the door, at the expense of quality education for working class children—and most especially for impoverished children.

U.S. DRONE STRIKE IN YEMEN KILLED MEN WHO HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH AL QAEDA, ACCORDING TO RELATIVES

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By Shuaib Almosawa & Murtaza Hussain

ON THE AFTERNOON of April 23, an American drone flying over the remote Al Said area of Yemen’s Shabwah province observed a group of men gathering to eat lunch at a security checkpoint.

Mansoor Allahwal Baras, a former Yemeni Army lieutenant in his late thirties, was chief of the checkpoint, and his younger cousin Nasir, 23, was also stationed there. Khalid, another cousin Nasir’s age, was home on vacation from Malaysia, where he was studying English and aiming for his bachelor’s degree. A car full of five others joined them — local militants, but familiar to the Baras men — and they sent someone else to fetch lunch.

As the drone hovered over them, the men did not panic or flee. For many in the region, the buzzing sound of American drones in the sky has become part of the rhythm of daily life.

But then the drone unleashed its payload of missiles, and in an instant, the impromptu gathering was transformed into a nightmare of heat, smoke, and shrapnel. All eight men were killed.

Mansoor’s nephew, Ammar Salim Farid Alawlaqi, heard the explosion from his home nearby, but he didn’t know who had been killed until a cousin called shortly after to tell him what had happened. By some accounts, a second missile had struck his relatives as they went to aid the others.

“We went to the cemetery and found Mansoor, Khalid, and Nasir, all but pieces of flesh [so] that we were not able to tell their appearances,” Alawlaqi told The Intercept in a phone interview. “It was a shock no human can accept and there’s anger at the U.S. government.”

The day after the strike, a Pentagon spokesperson said that the U.S. had killed “eight Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula terrorists.” Pentagon officials later added that a key AQAP leader, Abu Ahmed Al Awlaqi, had been among those hit.

Alawlaqi, a 27-year-old grocer whose aunt was married to Mansoor, gave his own account of what transpired that day, saying that neither his uncle nor the two young men with him were connected to any militant group. What’s more, Alawlaqi says that the five others killed were not current members of AQAP. The man the Pentagon called an AQAP leader was known to Alawlaqi as Muhammad Awad Barasane. He said that Barwane had been with AQAP and then with the Islamic State’s Yemeni branch, but that he had left both groups.

The strike in Al Said was one of the roughly 250 attacks carried out by the United States in Yemen, a campaign that is now alleged to have killed as many as 1,200 people since 2010, up to 200 of them civilians, according to figures kept by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism. President Trump appears to be outpacing Obama in Yemen, with more than 80 strikes since January and a disastrous Special Forces raid that killed 25 civilians, including 10 children. The Trump administration has also lifted Obama-era rules limiting when strikes can take place for certain parts of Yemen. So far, there have only been a small number of alleged civilian casualties in drone strikes under Trump, but Alawlaqi’s account of who was killed on April 23 raises questions about the people that the military is targeting as terrorist threats.

The Pentagon did not respond to questions about the strike and the alleged civilian casualties. While Alawlaqi’s version of events could not be independently confirmed, it would not be the first time that the United States has misunderstood the social dynamics of the remote Yemeni provinces it is bombing, where perceptions of militant groups are often fluid and have more to do with tribe and family than international terrorism.

Alawlaqi’s relatives didn’t avoid the militants, he said, because they were known as local tribesman. “To be honest, the five people in the car had past links to [terror groups], but they had quit this movement two years ago,” he said.

“Relationships between people in the community are about tribe and kinship,” he said, “according to their tribal relationships, people tend to invite each other to eat and talk, regardless of political affiliation.”

The sound of a drone overhead also wasn’t a warning sign. “The drones here are hovering 24 hours nonstop, whether day or night. Sometimes they disturb people sleeping with their annoying buzzing noise,” Alawlaqi said. “But it has become so routine for the general public, people don’t check whether it’s hovering above them or not.”

Alawlaqi told The Intercept that even if the militants were “wanted by the Americans, they have no right to target them while among innocent people.”

He believes the strike must have been based on bad intelligence. “When someone is wanted, they need to have enough evidence,” he said.

After the strike, a few local government representatives came to pay respects to the families of those killed. But Alawlaqi has heard nothing from the U.S. government.

Yemen as a whole is caught in the grip of a massive humanitarian crisis. A U.S.-backed Saudi military campaign in the impoverished country has led to massive civilian casualties, as well as food shortages and disease epidemics. Despite growing international outcry over the conflict, no political solution seems to be in sight, as the Saudi-led alliance has repeatedly committed itself to extirpating the Yemeni Houthi rebel movement at all costs. Even in areas like Shabwa, where many Yemenis are fighting the Houthis, when it comes to American counterterrorism operations, there is a sense that civilian populations are being lumped together with terrorists, in order to justify military operations.

“What hurts is that there’s a deliberate stereotyping, categorizing people under these [militant] currents,” Alawlaqi said. “If the population of this area is estimated at 20,000 people, and the militants are no more than 150 people, how can they treat all the population as though they are under the militants’ control?”

James Comey Will Testify Publicly Before Congress

The ousted FBI director will discuss the political firestorm surrounding his dismissal in an upcoming Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, senators announced Friday.

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By MATT FORD

James Comey, the former FBI director whose sudden firing last week by President Trump sparked a massive political firestorm that has yet to abate, will testify in an open hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Senators Richard Burr and Mark Warner, the committee’s Republican chair and Democratic vice chair, said Comey would speak some time after Memorial Day on May 29.

“The Committee looks forward to receiving testimony from the former Director on his role in the development of the Intelligence Community Assessment on Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections, and I am hopeful that he will clarify for the American people recent events that have been broadly reported in the media,” Burr said in a statement.

Comey’s testimony is poised to be a potentially momentous event for the Trump presidency. The former director’s unexpected ouster from the FBI sparked bipartisan concerns about potential White House interference in an ongoing counterintelligence and criminal investigation related to Russian interference in the 2016 election designed to boost Trump's candidacy. Administration officials initially attributed the decision to a memo written by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein that criticized Comey’s public statements regarding the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server. Clinton has blamed *Comey's actions* for her November defeat.

But President Trump himself undercut that narrative almost immediately, telling NBC News in an interview he had planned to fire Comey before seeing Rosenstein’s memo. The New York Times reported Friday Trump also privately told top Russian officials the next day in the Oval Office he had fired Comey because the director was a “nut job,” and that his dismissal would “relieve pressure” on Trump from the Russia investigation.

The controversy culminated Wednesday in the appointment of Robert Mueller, Comey’s predecessor at the FBI, as special counsel by Rosenstein to oversee the Russia investigation. Mueller’s investigative portfolio includes not only the cyberattacks targeting the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta attributed to Russian intelligence agencies, but also the question of whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Moscow to undermine Clinton’s campaign.

Mueller’s purview will also likely include the question of whether Trump or any other administration officials tried to interfere in or obstruct the federal probe.

Multiple legal experts have warned that Trump’s comments on NBC News could be construed as evidence of obstruction of justice. His Oval Office comments reported Friday by the Times deepened those concerns.

“It is always hard to make a determination outside a courtroom about the strength of a legal case, but this is disturbing,” said Michael Gerhardt, a University of North Carolina law professor who studies impeachment proceedings. “A string of voluntary comments have been made acknowledging the Russian investigation was a motivation for the firing of Comey. Trump digs himself more deeply into the hole he's been digging for a while.”

Whether Trump tried to pressure Comey himself will also likely be a central topic of his upcoming testimony. The Times reported earlier this week Comey had drafted a memo detailing a February conversation with Trump in which the president urged Comey to drop an ongoing federal probe into Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security advisor. That memo is believed to be one of many describing his interactions with Trump.

Democratic and Republican lawmakers alike have expressed an interest in learning more about the memos and the events they describe. “Director Comey served his country with honor for many years, and he deserves an opportunity to tell his story,” Warner said in a statement. “Moreover, the American people deserve an opportunity to hear it.”

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

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By HEATHER DIGBY PARTON

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.