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      Rahm Emanuel leads confirmed Biden nominees in late-night logjam break

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      Rahm Emanuel leads confirmed Biden nominees in late-night logjam breakEx-Obama chief of staff will go to Japan after deal for vote on Russia pipeline sanctions ends Republican Senate resistance The former Obama White House chief of staff and Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel was among more than 30 ambassadors and other Biden nominees confirmed by the Senate early on Saturday. Trump condemned by Anti-Defamation League chief for antisemitic tropesRead moreThe Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, broke a Republican-stoked logjam by agreeing to schedule a vote on sanctions on the company behind the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that will deliver natural gas from Russia to Germany.With many senators anxious to go home for the holidays, Schumer threatened to keep the Senate in for as long as it took to break a logjam on a number of diplomatic and national security nominees.Emanuel was confirmed to serve as ambassador to Japan by a vote of 48-21. Nominees to be ambassadors to Spain, Vietnam and Somalia were among those confirmed by voice vote after an agreement was reached to vote on Nord Stream 2 sanctions before 14 January.The confirmation process has proved to be frustrating for new administrations regardless of party. While gridlock isn’t new, the struggle is getting worse.Democrats have voiced concerns about holds Republican senators placed on nominees in order to raise objections about foreign policy matters that had little to do with the nominees in question. Holds do not block confirmation but they do require the Senate to undertake hours of debate.Positions requiring confirmation can go unfilled for months even when the nominations are approved in committee with the support of both parties.Biden officials acknowledge the president will end his year with significantly more vacancies than recent predecessors and that the slowdown of ambassadorial and other national security picks has had an impact on relations overseas.Ted Cruz, of Texas, held up dozens of nominees at state and treasury, over objections to the waiving of sanctions targeting the Nord Stream AG firm overseeing the pipeline project. The administration said it opposed the project but viewed it is a fait accompli. It also said trying to stop it would harm relations with Germany.Critics on the both sides of the aisle have raised concerns that the pipeline will threaten European energy security by increasing reliance on Russian gas and allowing Russia to exert political pressure on vulnerable nations, particularly Ukraine.Earlier in the week, Schumer demanded that Cruz lift all of his holds on nominees at the two departments as well as the US Agency for International Development, as part of any agreement on a Nord Stream 2 sanctions. Cruz said he was willing to lift holds on 16. The two sides traded offers on Friday.“I think there ought to be a reasonable middle ground solution,” Cruz said.“Let’s face it. There is little to celebrate when it comes to nominations in the Senate,“ said Senator Bob Menendez, chairman of the foreign relations committee.The New Jersey Democrat blamed Republicans for “straining the system to the breaking point” and depriving Biden of a full national security team, “leaving our nation weakened”.“Something’s going to happen in one of these places and we will not be there to ultimately have someone to promote our interests and to protect ourselves,” he said.Roy Blunt, a Missouri Republican, said some of the gridlock stemmed back to four years ago when Democrats, under Schumer, tried to stop many of Donald Trump’s nominees being confirmed in a timely manner.“Senator Schumer doesn’t have anything close to clean hands here,” Blunt said.Emanuel, also a former member of the House, was backed for the post in Tokyo at a time when Washington is looking to Asian allies to help push back against China.Detractors said they would not back him because of the shooting when he was mayor of Chicago of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, who died when a police officer, Jason Van Dyke, fired multiple times.Emanuel’s handling of the case was criticized, especially as video was not released for more than a year. Van Dyke was convicted of second-degree murder and jailed. Four officers were fired.Biden nominated Emanuel in August. At his confirmation hearing in October, Emanuel said he thought about McDonald every day and that, as mayor, he was responsible and accountable.Eight Republicans voted with a majority of Democrats to confirm Emanuel. Three Democrats voted no: Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and Jeff Merkley of Oregon.TopicsBiden administrationUS foreign policyUS national securityRahm EmanuelUS politicsAsia PacificJapannewsReuse this content More

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      Could There Be War With Russia?

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      First, let’s be clear: Russia already invaded Ukraine. At the end of February 2014, Russian soldiers without insignia seized key facilities in Crimea and then helped secessionists in eastern Ukraine some weeks later. Crimea is now under Russian control and a civil war continues to flare up over the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in the east.

      Second, the United States has repeatedly provoked Russia by pushing the boundaries of NATO ever eastward. Virtually all of Eastern Europe is part of the military alliance, and so are parts of the former Soviet Union such as the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Ukraine is in a halfway house called “NATO Enhanced Opportunities Partners” and it has contributed to NATO-led missions.

      The Response to Russia’s Brinkmanship Over Ukraine

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      A majority of Ukrainians — those not living in Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk — support NATO membership, according to a November 2021 poll. Such poll results are no surprise given that membership would provide Ukraine with the additional insurance of NATO’s collective defense clause. Of all the countries considering membership in NATO, Ukraine is the one that most threatens Russia’s national interests in what it calls the “near abroad.”

      That’s some of the necessary context to the recent news that Russia has been massing around 100,000 soldiers along its border with Ukraine, coupled with medium-range surface-to-air missiles. Russia argues that such maneuvers are purely precautionary. Ukraine and its supporters think otherwise.

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      The United States has rallied its allies to warn Russian President Vladimir Putin not to invade Ukraine. It has promised to levy additional economic sanctions against Moscow as well as send more US troops to Eastern Europe to add to the several thousand American soldiers in Poland as well as those stationed at four US military bases in Bulgaria, a military facility on Romania’s Black Sea coast and elsewhere. The Biden administration has been clear, however, that it wouldn’t send US soldiers to Ukraine to confront Russian invaders.

      Putin, meanwhile, has demanded that Ukraine’s membership in NATO be taken off the table. He has also called for an immediate security dialogue with the United States and has been strategizing with China’s Xi Jinping on how to coordinate their policies.

      The transfer of troops to the Ukrainian border may simply be a test of the West’s resolve, an effort to strengthen Putin’s hand in negotiations with both Kyiv and Washington, a way of rallying domestic support at a time of political and economic challenges or all of the above. Given enormous pushback from the Ukrainian army among other negative consequences of a military intervention, a full-scale invasion of Ukraine is not likely in the cards. Putin prefers short wars, not potential quagmires, and working through proxies wherever possible.

      A hot war with Russia is the last thing the Biden administration wants right now. Nor is an actual détente with Moscow on the horizon. But could Putin’s aggressive move raise the profile of US-Russia relations in such a way as to lay the foundation for a cold peace?

      Fatal Indigestion?

      The civil war in Ukraine does not often make it into the headlines these days. Ceasefires have come and gone. Fighting along the Line of Contact that separates the Ukrainian army from secessionist forces breaks out sporadically. Since the beginning of the year, 55 Ukrainian soldiers have died and, through the end of September, so have 18 civilians, including four children. Many residents of the border towns have fled the fighting, but millions who remain require humanitarian assistance.

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      For the Russian government, this low-level conflict serves to emphasize its main message: that Ukraine is not really a sovereign country. Moscow claims that its seizure of Crimea was at the behest of citizens there who voted for annexation in a referendum. It argues that the breakaway provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk are simply exercising their right of self-determination in a political climate that discriminates against Russian speakers. Such fissures in the territory of Ukraine, according to this logic, suggest that the government in Kyiv doesn’t have complete control over its borders and has thus failed at one of the principal tests of a nation-state.

      For Ukraine, the issue is complicated by the presence of a large number of Russian-language speakers, some of whom feel more affinity for Moscow than Kyiv. A 2019 law that established Ukrainian as the country’s primary language has not helped matters. Anyone who violates the law, for instance, by engaging customers in Russian in interactions in stores, can be subjected to a fine. So far, however, the government hasn’t imposed any penalties. That’s not exactly a surprise given that the current president, Volodymyr Zelensky, who objected to the law when he was running for office, is more comfortable speaking Russian in public.

      Despite its domestic challenges and the recent history of Russian military incursions, Ukraine is very much a country. It is a member of the United Nations. Only a handful of states — Somalia, Palau — have neglected to extend it diplomatic recognition. There is no strategic ambiguity about Ukraine’s place in the international order as compared to, say, Taiwan.

      Not even Putin, despite his paeans to “one Russia,” realistically contemplates trying to absorb a largely resistant country into a larger pan-Slavic federation with Russia and Belarus. After all, Moscow has had its challenges with the much smaller task of integrating little Crimea into the Russian Federation. Upgrading the peninsula’s infrastructure and connecting it to the Russian mainland has cost tens of billions of dollars even as the sanctions imposed by the West have cost Russian corporations more than $100 billion. A water crisis in Crimea — because Ukraine blocked the flow from the Dnieper River into the North Crimean Canal — has offset the infrastructure upgrades Moscow has sponsored, leading to speculation last year that Russian would invade its neighbor simply to restart the flow of water.

      Invading Ukraine to resolve problems raised by the earlier invasion of Crimea would turn Vladimir Putin into the woman who swallowed a fly (and then swallowed a spider to catch the fly, then a bird to catch the spider and so on). Such a strategy promises larger and more diverse meals followed by the inevitable case of fatal indigestion.

      An Improbable Peace?

      So far, the Biden administration has offered a mix of threats and reassurances in the face of a possible Russian invasion. New sanctions and the dispatch of additional troops to Eastern Europe have been balanced by the refusal of the administration at this point to consider any direct involvement in Ukraine to counter Russian forces. Biden communicated this strategy not only in speeches, but in a two-hour telephone call with Putin last week. It was, by all accounts, a diplomatic conversation, with no bridge-burning and no Donald Trump-like fawning.

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      Biden and Putin may meet in early 2022. If that sounds like deja vu, you’re right. After Russia mobilized troops on Ukraine’s border last April, a Biden–Putin summit took place in mid-June in Geneva. Long ago, North Korea discovered that missile launches were an effective way of getting Washington’s attention. Russia can no longer count on Trump’s affection for authoritarian leaders to secure summits, so it has now adopted the North Korean approach.

      The important thing is that Putin and Biden are talking and that the respective diplomatic establishments are engaging with one another. The problem is that both leaders face domestic pressure to take a more aggressive stance. In the United States, bipartisan efforts are afoot to send Ukraine more powerful armaments and escalate the threats against Moscow. In the Russian Duma, far-right nationalists like Vladimir Zhirinovsky and putatively left-wing leaders like Communist Party head Gennady Zyuganov have at one point or another called for the outright annexation of Ukraine’s Donbass region. Also, the approval ratings of both Putin and Biden have been dropping over the last year, which provides them with less maneuvering room at home.

      To resolve once and for all the territorial issues involving Ukraine, the latter has to be sitting at the table. The civil war, although still claiming lives, is thankfully at a low ebb. But it’s important to push through the implementation of the 2014 Minsk accords, which committed Ukraine to offer special status to Donetsk and Luhansk that would provide them greater autonomy within Ukrainian borders. Ukraine can bring such a compromise to the table by pushing stalled constitutional amendments through the parliament.

      Crimea is a different problem. Even if Ukraine has international law on its side, it cannot easily roll back Russian integration of the peninsula. As the Brookings Institution’s Steven Pifer points out, success might be the best form of revenge for Ukraine. If the country manages to get its economic act together — a difficult but not impossible task — it will present itself as a better option for Crimeans than being Moscow’s charity case. Queue a second referendum in which Crimea returns to Ukraine by popular demand.

      The question of NATO membership should be treated with a measure of strategic ambiguity. The US government won’t categorically rule out Ukrainian membership, but it also can deliberately slow down the process to a virtual standstill. Russia has legitimate concerns about NATO troops massed on its border. Putin’s demand that the alliance not engage in a military build-up in countries bordering Russia is worthwhile even outside of its value as a bargaining chip.

      Another major thorn in US-Russia relations is Washington’s opposition to the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Germany. Obviously, it should be up to Germany where it gets its energy, and surely Russia is no worse than some of the places the US has imported oil from in the past (like Saudi Arabia). But the Nord Stream 2 pipeline is yesterday’s problem. The pipeline will soon become a huge stranded asset, a piece of infrastructure that will send unacceptable amounts of carbon into the atmosphere and will be made redundant by the falling price of renewable energy. The European Union, additionally, is considering a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism that will only add to the cost of imported natural gas, stranding that particular asset even earlier than expected.

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      Everyone talks about the United States and China working together to battle climate change. The same spirit of cooperation should animate US-Russia relations. The Russian government has been a little bit more forthcoming of late on setting decarbonization goals, but it has a long way to go, according to the analysis of these three Russian environmental activists.

      Imagine Washington and Moscow working together to wean themselves off of their mutual dependency on fossil fuels. Let’s call it a “green détente” that includes regular “carbon control” summits designed to reduce mutual emissions, much as arms control confabs have aimed to cut back on nuclear armaments.

      Of course, there are plenty of other issues that can and will come up in talks between the two superpowers: denuclearization, cyberwarfare, the Iran nuclear agreement, the future of Afghanistan, UN reform. Sure, everyone is talking about avoiding worst-case scenarios right now. The conflict over Ukraine and the conflict inside Ukraine are reminders that the United States and Russia, despite powerful countervailing pressures, can indeed go to war to the detriment of the whole world. Perhaps Putin and Biden, despite the authoritarian tendencies of the former and the status-quo fecklessness of the latter, can act like real leaders and work together to resolve mutual problems that go well beyond the current impasse in Ukraine.

      *[This article was originally published by FPIF.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      The Response to Russia’s Brinkmanship Over Ukraine

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      The Russian military buildup along Ukrainian borders conducted over the last few months — similar to an escalation by Russia in April — has led to new direct talks between US President Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. The biggest fear in the West is whether Russia intends to invade Ukraine. The Russian leadership has claimed that its more than 100,000 troops deployed along Ukrainian borders are on Russian territory, are conducting routine training and should not worry anyone. 

      Russia’s Actions Threaten OSCE Legitimacy

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      In stark contrast, Russia perceives the potential deployment of NATO troops close to its borders as a major security threat. This reveals that Russia understands very well the signals it is sending by amassing an unprecedented-in-size military strike group to Ukraine’s frontiers. There is solid evidence that Russia is engaging in a bold brinkmanship game over Ukraine, using the logic of threat to create strategic ambiguity about a potential military invasion. Its goal is to force Western concessions on Ukraine, in particular, and to obtain a strategic carte blanche in the post-Soviet area more generally.   

      The Logic of Threats

      Following a videoconference on December 7 between Biden and Putin, the Russian leadership sent a number of signals that created more clarity about the Kremlin’s intentions. Their form was accurately reflected in a few analyzes published by the Russia-based Carnegie Moscow Center. One Russian analyst argued that, unless Putin’s demand for guarantees that Ukraine will never join NATO is accepted, the United States would see a military defeat of Ukraine, which would be “an especially humiliating re-run of recent events in Afghanistan.” Another Russian expert hinted that, unless the US ensures that Ukraine implements the Russian version of the Minsk agreements, it may risk a war in Ukraine.

      The Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, confirmed that the West should accept these two conditions if it wants to avoid Europe returning to “the nightmare scenario of a military confrontation.” Following the teleconference, the deputy foreign minister, Sergey Ryabkov, reiterated the idea, stating that if NATO refuses Russia’s right to veto the alliance’s further expansion to the East, it will risk “serious consequences” and would lead to “its own weakened security.”

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      These are the most direct and bold threats that the Kremlin has issued against the West since the collapse of the Soviet Union. There are strong signals that this brinkmanship over Ukraine is a strategic calculation, triggered by the Kremlin’s perception that both the European Union and the United States are irresolute. 

      For instance, in his November 18 address to foreign policy officials, Putin observed that Russia has managed to create a feeling of tension in the West. He went on to recommend that this state of tension “should be maintained for as long as possible” and exploited to demand “serious, long-term guarantees” to prevent NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia. 

      Following Putin’s videoconference with Biden, the Russian foreign ministry published its concrete demands for talks on a new European security order. Among these demands, Russia requested that NATO withdraw its 2008 Bucharest summit “open doors” pledge for Ukraine and Georgia.

      Assessing the Risk of War

      Why is Russia so bold to directly threaten war and confront the West with an ultimatum: either accept a war in Europe or give up the post-Soviet area? The Kremlin has concluded that there is little appetite in the West to confront Russia on Ukraine, beyond economic sanctions. 

      Russia’s leadership has also come to believe that the West is extremely risk-averse and not ready to call the Kremlin’s bluff. The brazenness of the threats, the reference to NATO’s “humiliation” in Afghanistan and interviews with Russian and foreign experts confirming the strategic timidity of the West — all of this speak to that. For instance, in an interview with Harvard’s Timothy Colton in the Russian newspaper Izvestia during the recent “Valday Club” conference, the reporters emphasized the idea that Ukraine is not important to the US. In an interview with the former US ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, the journalists of the Echo Moskvy radio station pointed out that “we sell the Americans their own fears.”

      Under the current conditions, the risk of a massive conventional Russian invasion of Ukraine is very small. Russia is not yet ready for a total break up with the West, similar to the one the USSR had, which would be very likely if it attacked Ukraine. Therefore, the question of whether Russia is going to attack Ukraine is not helpful for strategic planning. Instead, for a more effective engagement of Russia, the EU and the US should ask: What actions, short of giving up Ukraine’s sovereignty, should be taken to decrease the risk of war?

      Responding to Russia’s Threats

      There are three strategic objectives that the European Union and the United States should pursue and strengthen. They all stem from an effective crisis diplomacy rationale. First, it is necessary to signal a strong resolve to impose high costs on Russia where it is vulnerable. Second, it is necessary to make these signals credible. Third, it has to engage in intensive diplomacy to show that Russia’s demands are not linked to its actual security concerns. 

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      The biggest vulnerability of Russia is the high military costs of an invasion. Providing defense equipment to Ukraine, deploying instructors and even small military units for joint exercises with Ukrainian troops in the vicinity of the line of contact in Donbas and near Crimea — on a rotational basis — would serve as a passive obstruction to potential Russian attacks. These are the most effective deterrence tools, which would greatly strengthen the credibility of the resolve of the EU and the US from Russia’s outlook. 

      Finally, the EU and the US should confront Russia’s manipulation of the “indivisible security” concept, which is a major element of its international propaganda campaign. To counter Russia’s legalistic approach and hidden agenda, they should suggest and discuss alternative proposals, such as the pact of non-aggression or parity of forces in the border areas. The West should not ignore that its response to Russia’s threat of war is likely to affect how other international actors — China, for example — view its resolve in responding to comparable challenges in other regions.

      *[This article was originally published by the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), which advises the German government and Bundestag on all questions related to foreign and security policy.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Discredited Steele Dossier Doesn't Undercut Russia Inquiry

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      Donald J. Trump and his backers say revelations about the Steele dossier show the Russia investigation was a “hoax.” That is not what the facts indicate.WASHINGTON — Former President Donald J. Trump and his allies have stepped up an effort to conflate the so-called Steele dossier with the Russia investigation following the indictment of a researcher for the document on charges that he lied to the F.B.I. about some of its sources.Mr. Trump and his supporters have long sought to use the flaws of the dossier to discredit the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election — and the nature of numerous links between Russia and the Trump campaign — as a “hoax.”But the available evidence indicates that the dossier was largely tangential to the Russia investigation. Here is a look at the facts.What was the Steele dossier?It was a series of memos about purported Trump-Russia links written by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent, during the 2016 campaign.It cited unnamed sources who claimed there was a “well-developed conspiracy of coordination” between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, and that Russia had a blackmail tape of Mr. Trump with prostitutes. In addition to giving his memos to his client, Mr. Steele gave some to the F.B.I. and reporters. Buzzfeed published 35 pages in January 2017.Many things that were not immediately apparent about the dossier have since become clearer. It grew out of a political opposition research effort to dig up information about Mr. Trump funded by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic Party. Their law firm, Perkins Coie, contracted with a research firm called Fusion GPS, which subcontracted research about Trump business dealings in Russia to Mr. Steele. Mr. Steele in turn hired Igor Danchenko, the recently indicted researcher, to canvass for information from people he knew, including in Europe and Russia.What was the Russia investigation?It was a counterintelligence and criminal inquiry into the Russian operation to manipulate the 2016 presidential election by hacking and anonymously dumping Democratic emails and by spreading propaganda using fake accounts on American social media platforms. The scrutiny of Russia’s activities included examining the nature of links between Trump campaign associates and Russians to see if there was any coordination.The F.B.I. launched the investigation in July 2016, and a special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, eventually took over. His March 2019 report detailed “numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign” and established that “the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts.” He did not charge any Trump associate with a criminal conspiracy.Was the dossier a reliable source of information?No. It has become clear over time that its sourcing was thin and sketchy.No corroborating evidence has emerged in intervening years to support many of the specific claims in the dossier, and government investigators determined that one key allegation — that Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Michael Cohen, had met with Russian officials in Prague during the campaign — was false.When the F.B.I. interviewed Mr. Danchenko in 2017, he told the bureau that he thought the tenor of the dossier was more conclusive than was justified; for example, Mr. Danchenko portrayed the blackmail tape story as rumors and speculation that he was not able to confirm. He also said a key source had called him without identifying himself, and that he had guessed at the source’s identity. The indictment accuses Mr. Danchenko of lying about that call and of concealing that a Democratic Party-linked public relations executive was his source for a claim about Trump campaign office politics.Did the F.B.I. open the investigation because of the dossier?No. Mr. Trump and his allies have insinuated that the F.B.I. based the Russia investigation on the dossier. But when counterintelligence agents launched the effort on July 30, 2016, they did not yet know about the dossier. An inspector general report established that Mr. Steele’s reports reached that counterintelligence team on Sept. 19, 2016.The basis for the investigation was instead that WikiLeaks had disrupted the Democratic National Convention by releasing Democratic emails believed to have been stolen by Russian hackers, and that an Australian diplomat said a Trump campaign foreign policy adviser had bragged to him about apparent outreach from Russia involving an offer to help the campaign by anonymously releasing information damaging to Mrs. Clinton.Did the F.B.I. take any investigative step based on the dossier?Yes. The F.B.I. took the dossier seriously based on Mr. Steele’s reputation, and used some of it — without independent verification — for a narrow purpose that led to a dead end and became a political debacle. It included several claims from Mr. Steele’s memos in applications to wiretap Carter A. Page, a former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser with ties to Russia. In 2019, the Justice Department’s inspector general sharply criticized the F.B.I. for numerous flaws in those wiretap applications.While the dossier-tainted wiretap of Mr. Page has received significant attention, it was a small part of the overall investigation, which issued more than 2,800 subpoenas, executed nearly 500 search-and-seizure warrants, obtained more than 230 orders for communications records, made 13 requests to foreign governments under mutual legal assistance treaties, and interviewed about 500 witnesses. Mr. Page was not charged with a crime, and only a handful of the 448 pages in the Mueller report focus on him.Did investigators rely on the dossier for their findings?No. The Mueller report does not present claims from the dossier as evidence, and many of the issues focused on by investigators did not come up in the dossier.The dossier makes no mention, for example, of a July 2016 meeting at Trump Tower between Russians and senior campaign officials including Donald Trump Jr., who eagerly accepted the request for a meeting after being told they were bringing dirt on Mrs. Clinton.Nor does the dossier mention that in August 2016, Konstantin V. Kilimnik — described in the 2019 Mueller report as having “ties to Russian intelligence” and in a partly declassified, bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report in 2020 as a “Russian intelligence officer” with possible ties to Russia’s election interference operations — flew to the United States to meet with Mr. Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort.Investigators established that the two had discussed whether Mr. Trump, if elected, would bless a peace plan effectively allowing Russia to control eastern Ukraine, and that Mr. Manafort had shared internal polling data and campaign strategy information with Mr. Kilimnik, which the Treasury Department later said he passed on to a Russian spy agency. (The government has not declassified evidence for its escalating accusations about Mr. Kilimnik.)The Senate report said Mr. Manafort’s “willingness to share information with individuals closely affiliated with the Russian intelligence services” represented a “grave counterintelligence threat.”Did Mueller rely on the dossier for any criminal charges?No. The special counsel investigation led to indictments of 34 people and three companies. Many of those indicted — like Mr. Kilimnik — reside abroad and have not faced trial. Mr. Mueller obtained nine guilty pleas or jury convictions, including half a dozen close Trump associates. None of those indictments cited the dossier as evidence.The fact that Mr. Mueller did not obtain sufficient evidence to charge Trump associates with conspiracy is subject to disputed interpretations that overlap with the debate over the dossier’s significance. Trump supporters frame the lack of conspiracy charges as proof there was no collusion. By combining this with the false premise that there would not have been any Russia investigation without the Steele dossier, they portray Mr. Trump as a victim of a hoax.Beyond pointing out that there is a range of cooperation and coordination that falls short of the legal definition of “conspiracy,” Trump skeptics argue that Mr. Mueller never definitively got to the bottom of what happened in part because of Mr. Trump’s efforts to impede the investigation — like dangling a pardon before Mr. Manafort to keep him from cooperating.What was the main impact of the dossier?Beyond its narrow role in facilitating the F.B.I.’s wiretap of Mr. Page, the dossier’s publication had the broader consequence of amplifying an atmosphere of suspicion about Mr. Trump.Still, the dossier did not create this atmosphere of suspicion. Mr. Trump’s relationship with Russia had been a topic of significant discussion dating back to the campaign, including before the first report that Russia had hacked Democrats and before Mr. Steele drafted his reports and gave some to reporters.Among the reasons: Mr. Trump had said flattering things about Russian President Vladimir V. Putin, kept bringing on advisers with ties to Russia, had financial ties to Russia, publicly encouraged Russia to hack Mrs. Clinton, and at his nominating convention, the party dropped a plank that called for arming Ukraine against Russian-backed rebels. In March 2017, the F.B.I. publicly acknowledged that it was investigating links between Russia and Trump campaign associates. More

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      After Time in U.S. Prisons, Maria Butina Now Sits in Russia's Parliament

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      Maria Butina, convicted of serving as an unregistered foreign agent before and after the 2016 election, insists she “wasn’t a spy” and that her Duma seat is “not a reward.” Her critics call her a Kremlin “trophy.”MOSCOW — When Russia’s lower house of Parliament, or Duma, assembled last month for the first time following elections in September, one of its newest members was a name more familiar in the United States than in her home country.Maria V. Butina made headlines across America when she was convicted three years ago of operating as an unregistered foreign agent trying to infiltrate influential conservative political circles before and after the 2016 election.She is now focused on playing a prominent role in Russia’s political system — through legal means this time, and with the support of President Vladimir V. Putin’s United Russia party.Ms. Butina, 33, who returned to Russia in October 2019 after spending 15 months in several U.S. penitentiaries, including four months in solitary confinement, now represents the impoverished Kirov region in the Duma.Her critics have characterized her rapid political rise as a thank you from the Kremlin, a claim she rejects.“It’s not a reward,” Ms. Butina said in an interview at a cafe in central Moscow near where she lives. “I wasn’t a spy. I wasn’t working for the government. I was just a civilian.”But in December 2018, Ms. Butina pleaded guilty to conspiring, under the direction of a Russian official, to “establish unofficial lines of communication” with high-level Republicans on behalf of Russia’s government from 2015 to 2017.Prosecutors said she had tried to broker a meeting between then-candidate Donald J. Trump and Mr. Putin during the 2016 presidential campaign, and the judge at her sentencing hearing noted she had been sending political reports to Russia at the same time Russian intelligence operatives were trying to sway the election.Since coming home, Ms. Butina has used her experiences with Washington insiders — and the time she spent in prison — to cast herself as an expert on both America and penal systems.That was evident in April when she ambushed Russia’s most famous political prisoner, the opposition politician Aleksei A. Navalny, on a surprise visit to the penal colony where he is held and which is notorious for harsh treatment.Granted access as part of a civilian monitoring program, Ms. Butina favorably compared Mr. Navalny’s conditions to the U.S. prisons where she had served time.In a widely seen video broadcast by the state-owned Rossiya-24 television network, she said she was impressed by the facility’s food and medical services. Then she confronted Mr. Navalny, who at the time of her visit was one week into a 24-day hunger strike declared because he had been denied medical treatment for severe pain in his back and right leg.“You can walk normally,” Ms. Butina tells Mr. Navalny, who did not consent to be filmed.Mr. Navalny repeated to her that he was being denied access to his doctor, and walked off.“I don’t judge Navalny. I said in that video what I saw,” Ms. Butina said in her interview.Since coming home, Ms. Butina has used her experiences with Washington insiders — and the time she spent in prison — to cast herself as an expert on both America and penal system.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesMaria Pevchikh, who heads the investigative unit of Mr. Navalny’s organization, the Anti-Corruption Foundation, said she believed Ms. Butina’s Duma seat was a gift not for her activities in the United States, but for her harassment of Mr. Navalny. He had embarrassed Mr. Putin by exposing the government’s plot to kill him, and revealing the luxurious nature of a Black Sea palace believed to be purpose built for the Russian president.“If anything, this was a reward for what she did by visiting Navalny in prison, and that TV episode, which was highly embarrassing and disgusting,” Ms. Pevchikh said. “Not many people would agree to do that. And she did.”In the United States, Ms. Butina’s case was treated like the plot of a Cold War thriller, and her love life — including a relationship with a Republican operative, Paul Erickson, whom she met in Russia in 2013 and who would later be convicted of financial crimes and pardoned by Mr. Trump — was dissected in lurid detail on cable news.In Russia, however, the pro-government media portrayed her story as a miscarriage of justice. Ms. Butina was seen as a scapegoat for Democrats’ failure to come to grips with Mr. Trump’s victory. Russia’s Foreign Ministry said it exemplified America’s rampant “Russophobia.” Over a caviar-laden meal at a restaurant featuring cuisine from her native Siberia, Ms. Butina insisted that she wanted to use her new status as a national lawmaker to improve relations between Washington and Moscow.“I believed in the friendship between the two nations, and I still do believe in it,” said Ms Butina. “We can be friends, we must be.”Yet in her frequent TV appearances and on social media, she has been outspoken in her criticisms of America, especially when it comes to meddling in the affairs of other countries and race relations.“She is quite a good trophy” for the ruling party, Ms. Pevchikh said. “Just talking nonstop about how bad things in America are.”Ahead of the recent Duma elections, she published a post about U.S. interference in foreign elections during the Cold War on Telegram, the social-media platform. “Their logic is that the U.S. can intervene in the elections of other countries, but Russia cannot,” she wrote.Ms. Butina, who worked before joining the Duma for RT, a government-backed television channel, frequently comments on systemic racism in America, as pro-Kremlin figures have done for decades.In October 2020, Ms. Butina published a memoir, “Prison Diaries,” which discusses how her imprisonment affected her political views.While her time in prison did not make her any less of a gun-rights advocate — she said losing her lifetime N.R.A. membership particularly stung — it did diminish her affinity for the Republican Party, she said, as she witnessed America’s structural inequality first hand.Much of the book explores her experiences with Black inmates, and she said her time in prison had broken down a lot of stereotypes she had once held — and showed her how racist the views were of many of those American influencers she had been close to.Ms. Butina wants to use her new Duma platform to help Russians imprisoned abroad, saying she was eager to campaign against solitary confinement and torture. But when she was asked about a recent leaked cache of graphic videos that purported to show torture and rape in Russian prisons, Ms. Butina hesitated to comment, saying they needed to be verified.Some of the Russian figures she has publicly supported include the convicted arms dealer Viktor Bout, known as the “Merchant of Death.”In October 2020, Ms. Butina published a memoir, “Prison Diaries,” in which she detailed her four months in solitary confinement.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesMs. Butina, who during her time in the United States earned a master’s degree in international relations, with a focus on cybersecurity, from American University in Washington, continues to be highly active on social media. That was certainly the case in the United States, too, before she attracted the attention of F.B.I. investigators with her photographs with prominent Republicans like Donald Trump Jr., Rick Santorum and Scott Walker, as well as the N.R.A.’s leader, Wayne LaPierre.Her connection to Russian government figures predates both her time in the Duma, and the United States. She arrived in Moscow from her native Siberian city of Barnaul in 2011 and soon after was hired as special assistant by a Russian senator, Aleksandr P. Torshin, an influential member of United Russia who later would become deputy governor of Russia’s Central Bank.Still, in Russia, she is not a well-known personality, said Andrei Pertsev, a political journalist with the independent news outlet Meduza.“The broad masses do not know her,” he said.Ms. Butina was now just one among many “propagandists” in the 450-member Duma, Mr. Pertsev said, adding that in his view her elevation to the body — her seat was given to her by the governor of the Kirov region — was a way for the government to imbue her statements against America with more heft.With her new job, “it is as if the speaker’s status rises, and these things, they sound more weighty,” said Mr. Pertsev, who shares something unwelcome in common with Ms. Butina.His media outlet, Meduza, was designated a “foreign agent” by Russian authorities earlier this year, a charge that echoes the one against Ms. Butina, who failed to register her activities with the Justice Department as required by U.S. law.But in Russia, the foreign agent label is primarily wielded against Russian citizens engaged in independent journalism or human rights work, and it has been increasingly applied to organizations and individuals whose work displeases the Kremlin.“Don’t compare our law with your law,” Ms. Butina said, adding that she found the Russian law less onerous in its requirements than the American one.As part of her U.S. plea deal, Ms. Butina had to admit to being part of an organized effort, backed by Russian officials, to persuade powerful conservatives that Russia should be counted as friend, not foe.During her defense, her American lawyers argued in court that Ms. Butina’s efforts had been well-intentioned and stressed that she had never tried to hide what she called her “diplomacy project.” Back in Russia, she denies ever having been part of a broader plot and insists she acted on her own.“If I had known that I have to register to build peace between the two nations by my own initiative,” she said, “I would have loved to.”Alina Lobzina contributed reporting. More

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      Russian source for Steele’s Trump dossier arrested by US authorities

      by

      Trump-Russia investigationRussian source for Steele’s Trump dossier arrested by US authoritiesFive-page indictment released by justice department accuses analyst Igor Danchenko of lying to FBI Luke HardingThu 4 Nov 2021 15.34 EDTLast modified on Thu 4 Nov 2021 16.33 EDTA Russian analyst who was the main source for Christopher Steele’s dossier on Donald Trump and Moscow has been arrested by US authorities, the justice department said on Thursday.Igor Danchenko now faces charges as part of the investigation by John Durham, the special counsel appointed by the Trump administration to examine the origins of the FBI’s investigation into links between the Trump campaign and Russia.Danchenko collected much of the intelligence behind Steele’s dossier during three trips to Russia in summer and autumn 2016. He was the chief source behind its most incendiary allegation: that Trump was compromised during a trip to Moscow in November 2013 for the Miss Universe beauty pageant.Trump has vehemently denied the claim. Last summer, however, a report by the Senate intelligence committee said that the FSB spy agency presided over a network of secret cameras inside the Ritz-Carlton hotel where Trump stayed, including in guest bedrooms. An FSB intelligence officer was permanently on site, it said.Trump in Moscow: what happened at Miss Universe in 2013Read moreThe five-page indictment released on Thursday accuses Danchenko of lying repeatedly to the FBI when interviewed in 2017 – a criminal offense. These include over his dealings with an unnamed US PR executive with close links to the Democrats. The executive’s information found its way into some of the dossier’s memos, a fact Danchenko allegedly concealed.The FBI further accuses Danchenko of making up a conversation with Sergei Millian, a Russian American property broker with links to Trump, who appears in the dossier as “source D”. He appears to have been credited by Danchenko with the claim that Trump watched sex workers perform “golden showers” by urinating on each other at the hotel. In 2019, the special counsel Robert Mueller said no criminal wrongdoing had taken place between the Trump campaign and Moscow. But Mueller noted that there were multiple contacts in 2016 between Russian spies and Trump aides. The Kremlin had run a “sweeping and systemic” operation to help Trump win, Mueller said.Trump’s justice department claimed the former president was the victim of a witch-hunt. It repeatedly cited the dossier as evidence that the FBI’s investigation into Trump’s relations with Russia was biased and unfair. But the FBI investigation began independently from the dossier, after it emerged Moscow had hacked thousands of Democratic party emails.Democrats believe Durham’s inquiries to be politically driven. But so far the Biden administration has not tried to stop him. Danchenko is the third person, and second in a two-month span, to face indictment with five separate counts on Thursday of lying. In September cybersecurity lawyer, Michael Sussmann was also accused of lying to the FBI.Speaking to the Guardian in October, Danchenko, who is based in Washington DC, defended his work on the dossier. “I stand by it,” he said. He said he did not resile from explosive allegations that Trump may have been secretly filmed with sex workers during his Moscow trip. “I got it right,” he declared.He said the “salacious” material in the dossier formed a small part of a 35-page document. The allegation would be “amusing”, he said, were it not for the fact that any covert FSB recording might be used for blackmail purposes. Trump’s false ‘Russian spy’ claims put me in danger, says Steele dossier sourceRead moreThe bipartisan report by the Senate intelligence committee was dismissive of Steele’s dossier, but corroborated key elements in it. It laid out multiple contacts between Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager who features in the dossier, and Konstantin Kilimnik, described as a Russian intelligence officer. Speaking last year Danchenko said a campaign against him by leading Republicans was designed to deflect from the damaging Senate report. It included claims – which he denies – he was a Russian spy. “I think they thought I would be an easy target to discredit the dossier. By doubling down on this they would be able to discredit the whole Russia investigation,” he said.During his interviews with the FBI, Danchenko appeared to downplay the reliability of his own information – a point seized upon by Republican commentators. According to the justice department inspector general, Michael Horowitz, Danchenko told the bureau his work with sub-sources in Russia amounted to “hearsay” and “conversation had with friends over beers”. Statements about Trump’s sexual activities were “jest”, he said. A lawyer for Danchenko had no immediate comment.TopicsTrump-Russia investigationTrump administrationRussiaDonald TrumpEuropeUS politicsFBInewsReuse this content More

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      Trump response to Capitol attack can’t be ‘swept under rug’, White House says – live

      by

      Key events

      Show

      5.45pm EDT
      17:45

      Texas Republicans pass voting maps that entrench power of whites

      5.02pm EDT
      17:02

      Today so far

      4.47pm EDT
      16:47

      Progressives voice optimism about reaching deal after meeting with Biden

      3.33pm EDT
      15:33

      Mayorkas tests positive for coronavirus

      2.29pm EDT
      14:29

      ‘Crime scene do not enter’ tape outside home linked to Deripaska, after raid

      2.07pm EDT
      14:07

      Trump’s response to Capitol attack cannot be ‘swept under the rug,’ Psaki says

      12.31pm EDT
      12:31

      Interim summary

      Live feed

      Show

      5.45pm EDT
      17:45

      Texas Republicans pass voting maps that entrench power of whites

      Sam Levine

      Texas Republicans are on the verge of enacting new voting maps that would entrench the state’s Republican and white majority even as its non-white population grows rapidly.
      Texas Republicans approved the congressional plan on Monday evening, sending it to Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, who is expected to sign the measure.
      The Texas maps offer perhaps the most brazen effort in the USs so far this year to draw new district lines to benefit one political party, a practice called gerrymandering. The proposed congressional map would blunt growing Democratic strength in the Texas suburbs. Texas Republicans already have a 23-13 seat advantage in the state’s congressional delegation and the new maps would double the number of safe GOP congressional seats in the state from 11 to 22, according to the Washington Post.
      Democrats would have 12 safe seats, up from eight. There would be just one competitive congressional district in the state, down from 12.
      Read more:

      5.14pm EDT
      17:14

      The Supreme Court has declined to stop a vaccine requirement for health workers in Maine.
      Justice Stephen Breyer declined to hear an emergency appeal to block a vaccine requirement announced by Maine governor Janet Mills. The policy requires health workers to get vaccinated against Covid-19 by 29 October or risk losing their jobs.
      According to the state’s dashboard tracking vaccinations among health workers, between 84 and 92% of workers are vaccinated in various settings so far.
      This is the first time the Supreme Court has dealt with a statewide vaccine mandate.

      5.02pm EDT
      17:02

      Today so far

      That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, will take over the blog for the next few hours.
      Here’s where the day stands so far:

      The House select committee investigating the Capitol insurrection is expected to hold Steve Bannon in contempt for refusing to comply with the panel’s subpoenas. The expected committee vote comes one day after Donald Trump filed a lawsuit seeking to block certain White House documents from the subpoenas by claiming executive privilege, which is considered a dubious legal argument given that he is no longer president.
      The White House said Trump’s response to the insurrection cannot be “swept under the rug”. “Our view, and I think the view of the vast majority of Americans, is that former President Trump abused the office of the presidency and attempted to subvert a peaceful transfer of power,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said when asked about Trump’s lawsuit. “The former president’s actions represented a unique and existential threat to our democracy that we don’t feel can be swept under the rug.”
      FBI agents raided a Washington home linked to Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch with ties to Vladimir Putin who was sanctioned by the treasury department in 2018.
      Progressive lawmakers voiced optimism about reaching a deal on the reconciliation package after meeting with Joe Biden at the White House this afternoon. The president is now meeting with a group of centrist Democratic lawmakers to continue the negotiations over the reconciliation package and the infrastructure bill. Democrats are still working to reach an agreement on the top-line cost of the reconciliation package, and House progressives are holding up the passage of the infrastructure bill until a deal is struck.

      Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

      4.47pm EDT
      16:47

      Progressives voice optimism about reaching deal after meeting with Biden

      Progressive lawmakers expressed optimism about reaching a deal on the reconciliation package after meeting with Joe Biden at the White House this afternoon.
      Pramila Jayapal, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said the group had a “really good, productive meeting” with Biden, Vice-President Kamala Harris and treasury secretary Janet Yellen.
      “And I think we all feel still even more optimistic about getting to an agreement on a really transformational bill,” Jayapal told reporters after the meeting.
      Jayapal said she was confident that “a majority” of progressive priorities would be included in the final bill, and she thanked Biden for his engagement in the negotiations.
      When asked if they agreed to a top-line cost of the bill, Jayapal said that Biden has consistently pushed for a price tag between $1.9tn and $2.2tn, after moderates like Joe Manchin indicated they would not support a $3.5tn package.
      “It’s not the number that we want,” Jayapal said. “But at the end of the day, the idea that we can do these programs, a multitude of programs and actually get them going so that they deliver immediate transformational benefits to people is what we’re focused on.”

      4.24pm EDT
      16:24

      Joe Biden’s first meeting with congressional Democrats has now ended after about two hours, according to the White House.
      The president’s first meeting was with members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and Vice-president Kamala Harris and Treasury secretary Janet Yellen attended as well.
      Biden will now meet with some of the centrist Democrats in Congress to continue discussions about the infrastructure bill and the reconciliation package.

      Updated
      at 4.35pm EDT

      4.04pm EDT
      16:04

      Gloria Oladipo

      In an attempt to recruit more officers, US Capitol police chief Thomas Manger is using the 6 January insurrection as a reason for why more people should join the force.
      As seen in a promotional video titled The US Capitol Police: A Call to Service, Manger describes how the attack, which many have cited as a failure on the part of Capitol law enforcement, made him want to once again join the force.

      U.S. Capitol Police
      (@CapitolPolice)
      One of our top priorities is to hire more officers to protect Congress and the U.S. Capitol: pic.twitter.com/xbKBOhmNpz

      October 19, 2021

      “I wanted to be a police officer again. I wanted to be there to help. We are looking for really good men and women who have that spirit for public service, who want to serve their country,” said Manger in the video.
      Following the insurrection, officers testified during a House committee about the events of 6 January, describing being swarmed and attacked by rioters as well as the trauma they dealt with.

      Updated
      at 4.35pm EDT

      3.33pm EDT
      15:33

      Mayorkas tests positive for coronavirus

      Gloria Oladipo

      US Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has tested positive for Covid-19, according to DHS spokesperson Marsha Espinosa.
      “Secretary Mayorkas tested positive this morning for the Covid-19 virus after taking a test as part of routine pre-travel protocols. Secretary Mayorkas is experiencing only mild congestion; he is fully vaccinated and will isolate and work at home per CDC protocols and medical advice. Contact tracing is underway,” said Espinosa in a statement to CNN.
      Mayorkas will no longer be participating in a planned trip to Colombia with secretary of state Antony Blinken and will be working from home, reports CNN.

      Updated
      at 4.44pm EDT

      3.19pm EDT
      15:19

      Gloria Oladipo

      An FBI spokesperson has said that the agency is conducting law enforcement activity in a New York City building in connection with an investigation into Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch whose Washington, DC home was raided today, according to ABC news.
      Stay tuned as more information emerges.

      3.13pm EDT
      15:13

      Gloria Oladipo

      House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland discussed the best strategy for Democrats to pass the Biden administration’s $3.5tn spending package, arguing that lawmakers should fund fewer programs for longer, reports Politico.
      “My own view is that we ought to do fewer things better. We ought to make sure that which [programs] we include in the bill will have a real impact,” said Hoyer.
      Hoyer added that he wants “sense of permanency to those policies” that make it in the final version of the financial bill.
      Democrats are still working to get the megabill passed before a self-imposed deadline of 31 October but face opposition from key moderates such as Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. Lawmakers including House speaker Nancy Pelosi of California have supported the idea of funding fewer programs, but contention remains around which programs will get cut, including threats to key climate change legislation.
      Hoyer added that Democrats are still aiming towards passing the social spending package and the infrastructure bill by the Halloween deadline and that “if [Congress] make significant progress that’ll also be success towards those ends.”

      2.53pm EDT
      14:53

      Gloria Oladipo

      Five people with the climate activist group Sunrise Movement will begin participating in a hunger strike in front of the White House tomorrow at 9am to demand that Congress pass the climate initiatives in the Biden administration’s $3.5tn spending package, a key part of Biden’s “Build Back Better” agenda, reports the New Republic.
      “We’re here to highlight how dire this moment is,” said Kidus Girma, 26, who is participating in the strike. “A couple hundred people in a two-part building in D.C. are deciding the scope of what climate justice can look like—and not just climate justice, but a lot of critical programs that before this pandemic folks did not think were possible.”
      Protestors decided to strike after news broke from the New York Times on Friday that Democrats were considering getting rid of the Clean Energy Payment Program, an initiative that would award utilities who increase their use of renewable energy, because of holdout from Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia and other centrists.
      The hunger strike is apart of a longer week of actions targeting key Democrats who have not supported the legislation. Yesterday, Sunrise activists previously protested outside of Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona’s Phoenix office. Protestors have also previously protested by Manchin’s yatch.
      Protestors are asking people to participate in the hunger strike on Thursday, followed by a nationwide strike from school–coined Fridays for Future–that will result in a break in fasting.

      Updated
      at 2.53pm EDT

      2.29pm EDT
      14:29

      ‘Crime scene do not enter’ tape outside home linked to Deripaska, after raid

      Joanna Walters

      In further developments in the story of Russian metals billionaire Oleg Deripaska, FBI agents have raided a mansion in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods of Washington, DC, that is linked to him.
      Deripaska has ties to the Kremlin and Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s former election campaign manager who served time for fraud and was pardoned by the former president. More