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Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) questions former CIA Director John Brennan. Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

The Republicans still are not serious about investigating the Trump-Russia scandal. That message came through resoundingly when the House Intelligence Committee held a public hearing on Tuesday morning with former CIA chief John Brennan. (Actually, this was not officially a committee hearing. Democrats on the committee were informed earlier that this would be considered a "task force" hearing because the Republican chairman of the committee, Rep. Devin Nunes, could not appear because he had recused himself from the Russia investigation.)

At the witness table, Brennan told a harrowing tale. As CIA director last summer, he saw what was happening with the hack-and-leak attack on the Democratic National Committee, and he reviewed top-secret intelligence and concluded that Russia was mounting this assault to disrupt the election, hurt Hillary Clinton, and help Donald Trump. He also at the time was aware of intelligence that showed contacts between Trump associates and Russia, and that caused him to conclude a thorough FBI investigation was warranted. He testified, "I saw interaction" that warranted concern.

This was a big deal. In March, then-FBI chief James Comey revealed during testimony to this committee that in July 2016 the bureau launched an investigation of contacts between Trump associates and Russia. Now the CIA head from then was stating that there was clear intelligence that justified that probe. He also revealed that in early August he was so concerned about the Russian operation he spoke to the head of Russia's FSB, the country's intelligence service, and warned him to knock it off. Brennan also revealed that in August and September he briefed a small number of congressional leaders and shared with them top-secret intelligence about Moscow's effort to subvert the election in part to benefit Trump. (This means that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan knew many details about the Russian operation but didn't challenge or correct Trump's continued public assertions that Russia was not necessarily the culprit in the DNC hack.)

Yet once again Republicans did not focus on the main elements of the story. When the Republicans on the committee had the chance to question Brennan, they did not press him for more details on Russia's information warfare against the United States. Instead, they fixated on protecting Trump.

The Republicans zeroed in on the issue of whether Trump and his associates colluded with any Russians involved in the attack on US democracyto push Brennan to say he had not seen concrete evidence of such conspiring. Reps. Tom Rooney (R-Fla) and Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) grilled Brennan repeatedly on this point. They posed the same basic query: Did you see any evidence that Trump or his associates plotted with Russians? "I don't do evidence. I do intelligence," Brennan replied. Still, they kept pressing him. They were obviously hoping he would state that he had not come across any such evidence so Trump and his champions could cite Brennan as a witness for their claim no collusion occurred.

In the face of this questioning, Brennan repeatedly stated that the intelligence he saw regarding contacts between Trump associates and Russia was worrisome and deserved full FBI scrutiny. So the Republicans failed in their mission to provide cover for Trumpand they ended up highlighting the legitimacy of the FBI inquiry begun under Comey.

A similar effort fell flat. Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) questioned Brennan about the intelligence community assessment released in early January that concluded the Russian clandestine operation was designed to assist Trump. He several times asked Brennan if there had been evidence contrary to this conclusion that was not included in the report. Brennan explained that the assessment was the result of a thorough interagency process that looked to develop a consensus position. Still, King seemed to suggest that the assessment might be open to question. And Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) asserted he had reviewed raw intelligence, and he insisted the information supporting the assessment that Moscow had preferred Trump was not as solid as the intelligence community maintained. Here were Republicans trying to find wiggle room for Trump.

Rooney took another stab at undermining the dominant narrative of the Trump-Russia scandal. He asked whether the Russians had been rooting for Clinton to fail or for Trump to win. "It was both," Brennan replied. Rooney suggested that the Russians had gathered information damaging for Clinton's campaign that it did not release, and he asked Brennan, what would that mean for the conclusion that Russians were trying to help Trump? It appeared as if Rooney thought this would be an a-ha! moment: If the Russians sat on anti-Clinton material, well, that must be an indicator they hadn't' engaged in cyber-skullduggery to help Trump. Brennan shot this down with a simple reply: Since the Russians, like many others, believed Clinton would win, they might have been holding on to that material to damage her once she became president.

Rep. Michael Turner (R-Ohio) also tried to race to Trump's rescue. Complaining that some Democrats on the committee have publicly said they have seen evidence of Trump-Russia collusion, Turner asked Brennan if it would be accurate to characterize the intelligence Brennan saw when he was CIA chief as evidence of collusion. Brennan responded that this would not be an accurate characterization. Turner smiled, as if he had just blown a hole in the Democrats' case. Moments later, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) asked Brennan if he had seen the evidence and material shared by the FBI with the House Intelligence Committee in classified meetings. No, he had not. So Turner had proved nothing.

Perhaps the most absurd act of GOP distraction came when Rep. Ben Wenstrup (R-Ohio) raised an episode from 2012, when President Barack Obama was caught on a hot mic telling Dmitry Medvedev, then the president of Russia, that he would have more flexibility to negotiate with Vladimir Putin after the US presidential election. Calling this moment "pretty disturbing," Wenstrup asked Brennan, "Would you question that interaction?" Brennan didn't take the bait and said he had nothing to say in response. Wenstrup suggested that perhaps this should be investigated. Brennan didn't reply.

Gowdy finished up his questioning by concentrating on leaks and the unmasking within top-secret reports of Americans picked up incidentally by US intelligence surveillance. This has become a favorite topic of Republicans looking to defect from the core features of the Trump-Russia scandal. And Gowdy, a bit defensively, noted he had waited until the end of the hearing to pose these questions so the claim could not be made that Republicans are "hyperfocused" on the matter. Yet compared with previous hearings, Gowdy was restrained in declaiming leaks. This time he did not suggest, as he has before, that journalists should be prosecuted for publishing stories containing classified information.

When the hearing ended, the Republicans departed the room quickly. A few Democratic members lingered. One complained about the slow pace of the committee's investigation. Another pointed out that Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas), who's leading the committee's Russia investigation in Nunes' absence, had barely participated in the hearing. Conaway had opened the hearings without any reference to the interactions between Trump associates and Russia, but he had presented a prayer that invoked Jesus. As one Democrat noted, Conaway did not ask a single question during the proceedings. "That tells you all you need to know," this member said.

The rest is here:
Republicans Focus on Protecting Trump at Russia Hearing - Mother Jones

President Trump's $110 billion weapons deal with Saudi Arabia could have an unannounced side benefit of giving the United States leverage to reduce the Muslim monarchy's support for radical clerics, according to Republican lawmakers.

"There's no doubt there are things the Saudis are going to have to do to improve on as well," Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., told the Washington Examiner.

There are signs Trump is aware that the deal could help him address the problem. Just last year, presidential candidate Donald Trump was accusing Saudi Arabia of funding terrorism. A veto-proof majority of Congress voted last fall to allow the victims of the 9/11 attacks to sue the Saudi Arabian government, and the Saudis were criticized heavily for financing schools around the world that teach a fundamentalist variant of Islam known as Wahhabism.

"That's the issue, in addition to other human rights concerns and other things," Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Ill., said of the Wahhabist schools. "It's the incendiary, it's the kindling."

In public, Trump framed the arms deal as a means of getting Saudi Arabia, long a critical partner for U.S. security interests in the Middle East despite its ideological moorings, to counteract Iranian aggression and support for terrorism in the region. Those interests alone justify the agreement in the minds of many lawmakers.

"What's our list of high priority issues? Terrorism, pushing back against Iran, stability in the Middle East," said Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill. "When you put that kind of in a list, it makes sense to continue a strong relationship with Saudi Arabia."

But Rubio suggested that it could also be a way to extract reforms in Saudi Arabia. "I imagine if a year from now Saudi Arabia, two years from now, has not improved in its ability to control radicalism, portions of that deal would be on the table in terms of revoking it," he told the Washington Examiner.

Roskam concurred. "I think that there will be a great deal of interest in posing those questions to the Saudis, what are their next steps in terms of the recognition of their exporting of Wahhabism," he said.

U.S. policymakers have struggled to strike a balance between the need for that relationship, which has buttressed the American economy and foreign policy interests in the Middle East for decades, and the danger posed by radical Saudi-backed schools. Saudi Arabian leaders are "both the arsonists and the firefighters" in the struggle against most jihadists, the Brookings Institution's William McCants told the New York Times in August.

"They promote a very toxic form of Islam that draws sharp lines between a small number of true believers and everyone else, Muslim and non-Muslim," he said.

The Saudis might not readily agree with that assessment, according to Roskam. "It's not clear to me that the Saudis recognize to the same extent that we do the concern about exporting Wahhabism," he said.

But that's where the arms deal could be useful. "To Senator Rubio's point, if you have a longer-term deal and delivery is not all at once, then you can stage it," Roskam said.

See the article here:
Trump gets new leverage over radical Saudi clerics, Republicans say - Washington Examiner

Top Republican lawmakers have expressed concerns about the cuts President Trump plans to make for the 2018 budget year, which is due out Tuesday.

The blueprint is certain to include a wave of cuts to benefit programs such as Medicaid, food stamps, federal employee pensions and farm subsidies. The fleshed-out proposal follows up on an unpopular partial release in March that targeted the budgets of domestic agencies and foreign aid for cuts averaging 10 percent -- and made lawmakers in both parties recoil.

The new cuts are unpopular as well.

We think it's wrongheaded," Rep. Mike Conaway, R-Texas, chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, said about the looming cuts to farm programs. "Production agriculture is in the worst slump since the depression -- 50 percent drop in the net income for producers. They need this safety net.

The House had a bitter debate on health care before a razor-thin 217-213 passage in early May of a GOP health bill that included more than $800 billion in Medicaid cuts over the coming decade. Key Republicans are not interested in another round of cuts to the program.

"I would think that the health care bill is our best policy statement on Medicaid going forward," said Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

The presidents budget plan promises to balance the federal ledger over the next 10 years, even while exempting Social Security and Medicare retirement benefits from cuts. To achieve balance, the plan by White House budget director Mick Mulvaney relies on optimistic estimates of economic growth, and the surge in revenues that would result, while abandoning Trump's promise of a "massive tax cut."

Instead, the Trump tax plan promises an overhaul that would cut tax rates but rely on erasing tax breaks and economic growth to end up as "revenue neutral."

Trump's earlier blueprint proposed a $54 billion, 10 percent increase for the military above an existing cap on Pentagon spending, financed by an equal cut to nondefense programs.

Trump's full budget submission to Congress is months overdue and follows the release two months ago of an outline for the discretionary portion of the budget, covering defense, education, foreign aid, housing, and environmental programs, among others. Their budgets pass each year through annual appropriations bills.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Hill Republicans wary of cuts in Trump's 2018 budget plan out Tuesday - Fox News

Republicans on Capitol Hill spent last week fending off mobs of reporters who rarely asked a question about the GOP agenda.

Instead they wanted to know how Republicans feel about the escalating problems bubbling up from the Trump administration.

Drowned out were the talks about GOP's efforts to reform the tax code and repeal Obamacare, which led some to speculate that the Republican agenda has essentially been sidelined, perhaps permanently.

That's not true, say GOP lawmakers, who blame the Capitol Hill media for downplaying coverage of their agenda in favor of round-the-clock reporting of Trump's troubles.

"Today, I have dealt with healthcare, we've started to wade into actual tax reform," Sen Jim Risch, R-Idaho, told the Washington Examiner. "We can't make headlines, though. How can you make headlines when there is already a headline: Trump did fill in the blank."

Republicans are indeed working intensively on plans to make major reforms to the tax code as well as repeal and replace Obamacare.

The House Ways and Means Committee held its first major public hearing on tax reform on Thursday and has been meeting privately for weeks with lawmakers as well as key players in the Trump administration, including Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., denied the problems at the White House are interfering with completing tax reform.

"Our goal, and I feel very confident we can meet this goal, is calendar year 2017 for tax reform," Ryan said last week. "And I think we're making good progress."

In the Senate, Republican lawmakers meet daily to discuss how to write legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare, while two separate working healthcare groups are holding several meetings each week.

"We are doing stuff all the time," said Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. "All the press wants to cover is whatever is going on at the White House."

A new study backs up the GOP's complaint.

Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy issued a report last week that found Trump was the topic among all news stories 41 percent of the time during his first 100 days in office. That's triple the level of coverage for previous presidents.

Almost all of the media coverage of Trump was negative, Harvard's analysis found, "setting a new standard for unfavorable press coverage of a president."

Trump's problems have literally migrated to Capitol Hill.

A half-dozen committees in the House and Senate are delving into allegations that Trump campaign officials colluded with Russian operatives ahead of the November election.

Investigative committees are also digging for information about Trump's decision to fire FBI Director James Comey and whether Trump tried to pressure Comey to drop his probe into ousted national security adviser Mike Flynn.

Nearly every day key lawmakers fire off requests to the White House for documents and information relating to the various congressional investigations.

On Thursday, only a smattering of reporters lurked around a closed-door GOP meeting on healthcare reform. Most of the media were elsewhere in the Capitol staking out a private briefing by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who was summoned to explain to senators how Trump went about firing Comey.

This week, much of the attention will swing back to the House, where Comey has been invited to testify before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., said he has been misquoted by media who report he believes Trump's difficulties hobble the agenda.

"I'm saying it has diverted our attention," McCain told the Washington Examiner. "I have not seen it slow down the agenda."

McCain said he anticipates producing a major defense bill in June and Republicans are spending their daily meetings "going over certain aspects of healthcare reform," not talking about Trump's problems.

"It's sucking the oxygen out of the room because it is dominating the media," McCain said.

The true threat to the GOP agenda, Republicans argue, is the Democrats who have so far moved to slow down or stop legislation and executive branch appointments.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told NBC after Trump's election that for most of the president's agenda, "we're going to have to fight him, and we'll fight him tooth and nail."

Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, said Democrats are upholding Schumer's pledge as they employed yet another delaying tactic on a Trump nominee, this time former Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, who is awaiting a Senate vote to be confirmed as the ambassador to China.

Instead of simply voting on the nomination, Democrats are forcing Republicans to hold a cloture vote that follows a two-day delay.

"Here we have cloture on an Iowa governor, who everybody knows and everybody likes," Roberts said. "So we just burn two days."

Excerpt from:
Trump coverage drowns out Republicans' agenda - Washington Examiner

New York Times

Republicans Watch Their Step in a Slow Retreat From Trump New York Times WASHINGTON Republicans on Sunday inched away from President Trump amid mounting evidence that he may have sought to interfere in the federal investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. In a sign of growing anxiety, several important ... and more »

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Republicans Watch Their Step in a Slow Retreat From Trump - New York Times