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Give President Trump credit. Hes invented a new kind of political gaffe. It was on display at the first meeting of the voter fraud commission held at the White House today, when he blurted out a real motive for the whole sorry exercise: to find something.

Of course, the whole notion of a gaffe is somewhat quaint at this point. The dictionary says that a gaffe is a social or diplomatic blunder. Spilling the soup on the hostess, mispronouncing a name. Such missteps involved breached decorum. Over the years, in the political world, it has come to mean a statement by a public figure that inadvertently causes a scandal or controversy. A faux pas, a blooper.

The journalist Michael Kinsley famously explained that a gaffe is when a politician accidentally tells the truth. Ever since connoisseurs have known this as a Kinsley Gaffe.

Along comes Trump. A Trump Gaffe is when he tells the truth about his own malevolent motive for doing somethingand thus undermines the spin of his aides and allies. Thats not to be confused with other stumbles, say, starting World War III. (That would be worse than a gaffe.) But it tells us something about Trump nonetheless.

Examples abound. Take the firing of Federal Bureau of Investigations director James Comey. Everyone knew it would be scandalous if the president axed Comey because he was probing the Trump campaign and its ties to Russias political espionage. So the White House insisted he had acted only on the recommendation of the deputy attorney general, who lashed Comey for his conduct of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. Vice President Mike Pence said Russia had nothing to do with the firing. That was not what this was about, he claimed.

Then, of course, Trump told NBCs Lester Holt, In fact 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, its an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won. Oops!

That same week, Trump shared highly classified intelligence with Russias foreign minister in the Oval Office. H.R. McMaster, his widely respected national security adviser, grimly told cameras, This story is false. Within days, another Trump Gaffe: As President, I wanted to share [information] with Russia which I have the absolute right to do.

Trumps compulsive confessions can be especially hard on the lawyers. When the White House rushed out its executive order banning travel from several Muslim-majority countries, its defenders insisted in court that religion had nothing to do with it. In blocking the move, judges cited Trumps interview with the Christian Broadcast Network, in which he said Christian refugees would get priority. After officials put out a new version, claiming it was merely a pause, Trump demolished their arguments. People, the lawyers and the courts can call it whatever they want, but I am calling it what we need and what it is, a TRAVEL BAN.

Wait, you might be thinking: Trump as truth-teller? Doesnt he lie repeatedly, brazenly? Arent his aides expected to amplify those lies? (Think of Sean Spicers flop-sweat as he insisted that the crowd size at Trumps inaugural set records.) Whats noteworthy is not Trumps precision about facts, but his compulsion to blurt out his own rationale, the darker the better. Its breaking through the fourth wall, a theatrical device familiar to viewers of Richard III or House of Cards.

All of which brings us to todays first meeting of the voting commission. The panel was created to justify one of the more outlandish presidential fibs: the idea that, In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally. After Trump was roundly mocked for his claim of 3 to 5 million illegal voters, the panel was launched in an effort to try to rustle up some evidenceany evidencefor the charge. It was given a bland name, the Presidential Commission on Election Integrity. (Though Trump insisted on proudly calling it his VOTER FRAUD panel.)

The panel has had a slapstick launch. In contrast to voting inquiries in other administrations, with Noahs Ark style balance between the parties, this one is led by two partisan Republicans, Vice President Mike Pence, and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, its vice chair and driving force. Its members include several of the most controversial purveyors of the urban myth of widespread fraud. Kobachs ham-fisted bid for personal voting information about tens of millions of voters, including partial Social Security numbers, provoked a fierce backlash, a flurry of lawsuits, and colorful denunciation from Republican and Democratic officials.

Todays task, plainly, was to start fresh. At its televised White House session, Mike Pence was on message. Three times throughout the day, he purred, using nearly identical wording. We have no preconceived notions or preordained results. Another commissioner chimed in. I appreciate, in spite of some of the media reports Ive seen, that the commission has no preconceived results.

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Time for a Trump Gaffe, this time in his opening remarks. No preconceived results? The goal of the panel, he explained in his remarks, was to find somethingsome evidence of misconduct. He was plainly peeved that so many states had refused to offer up voters personal data. If any state does not want to share this information, one has to wonder what theyre worried about.And I asked the Vice President, I asked the commission: What are they worried about? Theres something.There always is.

Hmm. Theres something. There always is. Where have we heard that before?

The more cynicalor literarymight remember the instructions the corrupt demagogue Willie Stark gave his henchmen in Robert Penn Warrens classic novel, All the Kings Men. Find some dirt on a judge, Stark told them. There is always something.

Maybe not on the judge.

Stark replied: Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption and he passeth from the stink of the didie to the stench of the shroud. There is always something.

So much for no preconceived notions, election integrity, and other mild reassurances.

Trumps brief flare of candor spoke volumes. The purpose of the panel is not just to try to justify his laughable claims of millions of invisible illegal voters. It aims to stir fears, to lay the ground for new efforts to restrict voting. Trumps claims, after all, are just a cartoon version of the groundless arguments already used to justify restrictive voting laws. Late today Kobach told MSNBC that we may never know if Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. Even the panels missteps can have harsh consequences. Already, were hearing reports from around the country of voters canceling their registrations because they do not want the White House to have their data.

So lets set aside the comic relief, and recognize that an insidious assault on basic democratic values is underway. Thats no gaffe. Thats an outrage.

Michael Waldman is president of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. His most recent book, The Fight to Vote, was recently published in paperback.

Read the original here:
Donald Trump Tells His Voter Fraud Panel: Find Me 'Something' - Daily Beast

President Trump wants to turn back the clock on the progress made by the LGBTQ community and block any hope of full equality. He also wants to reverse advances for womens equality, including by blocking access to abortion and birth control. Hes already promised to appoint judges who will overturn Roe v. Wade, andnow he wants to roll back LGBTQ rights, womens rights, and those of many other Americans under the cover of religious liberty.

We know he wants to do this. We know because he has said so, and because he has taken preliminary steps to put his plan in motion. What we dont know yet is exactly what he is planning on doing, and who he is consulting about it.

Earlier this year, the ACLU filed requests with various federal agencies demanding information on how the administration was planning to expand religious exemptions that pave the way for discrimination. None of those federal agencies complied.

Thats why we are suing today. We are looking to unmask everything we can about Trumps plan, so we can best expose the threat he poses to the rights and dignity of countless Americans.

We know there are materials to uncover.

On May 4, Trump signed a vague and open-ended executive order claiming to promote Free Speech and Religious Liberty. In that order, Trump directed the Department of Justice and Attorney General Sessions to draft a religious freedom guidance. The order said little more.

But we have seen glimmers of what the administration has in mind, and its not good.

Starting with the most recent example, we know that a draft regulation currently circulating would permit any employer that objects for religious or moral reasons to deny its employees insurance coverage for contraception as otherwise mandated by law. The regulation would similarly let any university with religious or moral objections deny its students coverage. Today, if those employers or universities object, the insurance company generally picks up the coverage. That wouldnt be true under the Trump draft. Instead, women would literally pay for their employers religion.

A draft order, leaked in February, suggests more to come. It read like a broad license to discriminate, primarily targeting LGBTQ people and women and also opening the door to others as well. Among other provisions, it proposed to permit discrimination in taxpayer funded foster care services, blocking children from being able to be welcomed into loving homes. It proposed exemptions for institutions that object on religious or moral grounds to interacting with married same-sex couples, transgender people or people who have had premarital sex. And it called for changes to contraceptive coverage now reflected in draft regulation that is circulating within the administration. Really, it was nothing less than a list of many, many ways to sanction institutions to discriminate in the name of religion.

While Governor of Indiana, Vice President Pence signed into law a measure that could sanction discrimination against LGBTQ people and women, among others. That law sparked widespread backlash and cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars.

Again, the question is, what is the administration now planning for the nation?

We are suing to find out. And we are ready to sue again, if appropriate, when the administration starts to act on those plans.

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Religious liberty is fundamental. It guarantees the right to our beliefs. But religious liberty does not mean the right to impose our religion on others. It does not mean the right to harm others. It does not mean the right to discriminate.

We will not sit by while the administration distorts religious liberty to sanction to discrimination against women, religious minorities, and LGBTQ people.

We already know that a majority of Americans disapprove of these types of discriminatory religious exemptions, and believe that licensing discrimination under the guise of religious liberty undermines the foundation of freedom.

If the Trump administration is going to pursue these policies anyways, its time they come clean about what that looks like.

Louise Melling is a Deputy Legal Director of the ACLU and the Director of its Center for Liberty.

Read the rest here:
Donald Trump Is Keeping His 'Religious Liberty' Plan Secret. The ACLU Is Suing So the Public Can See It. - Daily Beast

On the other hand, there's Arizona Republican Sen. Jeff Flake, who just gave us a profile in leadership by standing up to anti-Muslim bigotry directed at one of the Democratic candidates seeking to unseat him in the 2018 election.

Flake's potential Democratic opponent, Deedra Abboud, is a lawyer and the founder of a leadership consulting firm. Abboud is also a hijab-wearing Muslim woman and as such has been subject to hateful anti-Muslims comments since she announced her candidacy in April.

Flake, upon hearing about this display of hate, didn't remain silent. Instead he tweeted his support to Abboud: "Hang in there @deedra2018. Sorry you have to put up with this. Lots of wonderful people across AZ. You'll find them."

Flake didn't have to get involved in standing up to bigotry against one of his political opponents. But as opposed to what we've seen from Trump, Flake has a record of leadership in opposing intolerance.

More:
Jeff Flake sets an example for Donald Trump - CNN

Vice President Mike Pence, President Donald Trump, and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster at a lunch with armed service members at the White House on Tuesday.

Alex Wong/Getty Images

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump hosted several service members at the White House to discuss Afghanistan strategy over lunch. We have plenty of ideas from a lot of people, but I want to hear it from people on the ground, Trump told reporters before meeting the troops.

Meeting the troops is a fine thing for a commander in chief to do, but this kind of symbolic meet-and-greet doesnt substitute for Trump actually doing his job. Our nation deserves an elected leader who will do more than delegate key decisions on war to the Pentagon. Our troops deserve a leader who will do more than promise to make the military great again. And if youre going to meet the troops for lunch, Mr. President, by God, visit them in theater, like your two predecessors, so you get a glimpse of the hardships and sacrifices theyre making on your orders.

In the six months since hes taken office and the 10 weeks of transition before that, Trump has effectively ignored the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, this despite bombastic campaign promises to win in each place (whatever win means). What he has done is cede warmaking authority to Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who now reportedly has plenary power to set objectives, allocate resources, and move troops to fight in both countries. Although National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster reportedly limited Mattis to 3,900 more troops in Afghanistan for now, its clear from Trumps own statements and reporting on the White House that the president has delegated his war powers down to Mattisalong with whatever political risk may come from bad outcomes.

Such a delegation of war power may be attractive to Trump, whose lack of experience is balanced by the incredibly deep expertise of his national security adviser and secretary of defense. Nonetheless, this also represents an abdication by the president, who is the sole elected official of the executive branch and the only person capable of being held politically accountable for decisions involving war and peace. Trump is right to set broad objectives and delegate decisions about tactics and operations to his generals. But he cannot escape responsibility for the strategic decisions about objectives, nor evade his duty to marshal public support and resources from Congress to pursue those ends.

In the Washington arena, Trump has also been AWOL from his important political duties as commander in chief. In February, he submitted a budget that boosted defense spending by $54 billion. However, it soon trickled out that even this increase fell far short of the Pentagons needs to meet the Trump strategy (such as it is) for national security or even dig itself out of the fiscal hole caused by sequestration. In response, the House and Senate armed services committees moved to propose a defense budget $37 billion higher than Trumps. However, given the enormous continuing costs of war in Iraq and Afghanistan and long-deferred modernization projects within each of the services, even these budgets are likely to fall short of military requirements. They also dont keep pace with the wartime budgets proposed during the previous two administrations, which, despite their faults, kept the Pentagon running even at the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

If Trump wanted the military to do less with less, he could. Right now, hes forcing it to do more without adequate resources.

These failureswhich fairly belong to both Trump and Congressare creating risk for our military around the world. The perennial failure of Congress and the White House to reach a budget deal in a timely manner creates uncertainty that ripples through the entire military establishment. This uncertainty adversely affects long-term procurements for aircraft and ships, frustrates personnel planning, and makes it impossible to forecast training resources and rotations. Process failures aside, the Pentagon still does not have the aggregate resources it needs to continue fighting two wars, carry out special operations missions around the world, deter Russia and North Korea through forward deployments, and conduct myriad other missions. All four services arguably need more personnel, newer weapons systems, and more money to fund training. Military aircraft are literally falling out of the sky (and killing troops) because of a lack of resources for training and maintenance and deferred modernization, too. Transforming the military, and adding new capabilities like a cyber corps or space corps, will take even more moneymoney that, so far, Trump has failed to procure from Congress.

Some of these resource shortfalls could be addressed through strategy or better management. Shortening the list of military obligations would reduce the numbers of troops, ships, planes, and bases drawing on the massive Pentagon budget. Managing the Pentagon better could shave a little off the top as well. But so far Trump has chosen neither better strategy nor better management; hes doubled down on commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan without a clear strategy for either and blustered his way into confrontations elsewhere. If Trump wanted the military to do less with less, he could make that happen, but right now hes forcing it to do more without adequate resources.

Trumps abdication of his leadership role and refusal to give the troops resources would be enough to declare him a failure as commander in chief. Hes also added insult to injury through his repeated missteps and gaffes involving service members and veterans, from the campaign trail to the White House. Hes not just insulted them. Hes actively sought to corrode their integrity, by politicking before military audiences and using them as props for his most controversial domestic policy proposals like the travel ban.

Wednesdays lunch with troops fits into this model. Trump isnt interested in fulfilling his constitutional role as commander in chief of the armed forces, nor in a serious policy discussion with veterans of our Afghanistan wars. Hes using the troops as props, attempting to hide behind their bright medals and pressed uniforms, and to use their credibility for his own political gain. While the soldiers invited to the White House undoubtedly had experiences to share with the president, its unclear how much these troops personal vignettes will help the president decide on the future of the war at this inflection point.

Top Comment

Trump has no choice but to bow out of making military decisions. He knows nothing of relevance, and he has no concept how to learn anything of relevance to the issues. More...

Summoning the troops to the White House for such a lunch is a presidential prerogative, to be sure. But its imperious to do so and unlikely to instill confidence among members of the military or the public. Trump has now had six months in office to visit the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, like his predecessors did on multiple occasions. (President Barack Obama first visited Iraq in April 2009 and then visited Afghanistan in March 2010.) Trump even had a perfect opportunity to do so in May, during his Middle East trip, when Air Force One literally had to skirt Iraq when flying between Saudi Arabia and Israel. And yet he avoided landing in Iraq or Afghanistan, missing the opportunity to see these battlefields, hear directly from commanders there, and meet the troops following his orders.

We might not expect more of President Trump based on his own history of evading wartime service. Nonetheless, Trumps advisersincluding McMaster, who wrote a book titled Dereliction of Duty regarding leadership failures during the Vietnam Wardo know better. Our troops deserve a better commander in chief, and our nation needs a better president, for these wars continue to grind on and consume American blood and treasure even if the president wants to ignore them.

See more here:
Donald Trump Is Abdicating His Role as Commander in Chief - Slate Magazine

Who was at the meeting?

Paul

Manafort

Former campaign

manager

Donald

Trump Jr.

Eldest son

Jared

Kushner

Son-in-law,

senior adviser

Natalia

Veselnitskaya

Russian

lawyer

Anatoli

Samochornov

Translator

Rinat

Akhmetshin

Russian-American

lobbyist

Irakly Kaveladze

Associate of

Russian

businessman

Rob

Goldstone

Music producer,

publicist

Paul

Manafort

Former

campaign

manager

Jared

Kushner

Son-in-law,

senior adviser

Donald

Trump Jr.

Eldest son

Rob

Goldstone

Music producer,

publicist

Natalia

Veselnitskaya

Russian

lawyer

Anatoli

Samochornov

Translator

Rinat

Akhmetshin

Russian-American

lobbyist

Irakly Kaveladze

Associate

of Russian

businessman

Donald

Trump Jr.

Presidents

eldest son

Jared

Kushner

Son-in-law,

senior adviser

Paul

Manafort

Former

campaign

manager

Rob Goldstone

Music producer,

publicist

Natalia

Veselnitskaya

Russian lawyer

Anatoli

Samochornov

Translator

Rinat

Akhmetshin

Russian-

American lobbyist

Irakly Kaveladze

Associate

of Russian

businessman

The meeting was set up over a series of emails between Donald Trump Jr. and Rob Goldstone, a music producer and publicist.

Mr. Goldstone offered potentially damaging information about Hillary Clinton that he said was part of Russia and its governments support for Mr. Trump.

Donald Trump Jr. responded within minutes. He gave no indication that he was surprised or disturbed by the provenance of the promised material or the notion that it was part of a continuing effort by the Russian government to aid his fathers campaign. If its what you say I love it especially later in the summer, he wrote.

Worked on

Miss Universe

in Moscow

Aras Agalarov

Russian

Read the original here:
What We Know About Donald Trump Jr.'s Russia Meeting - New York Times