Russian Interference in 2016 US Elections and Ties to Trump Associates

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      After Second Impeachment, Giuliani Vows to Support Trump

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Trump ImpeachmentliveLatest UpdatesTrump ImpeachedHow the House VotedRepublican SupportKey QuotesAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyAfter 2 Impeachments, Giuliani Vows to Continue His Fervor for TrumpWhite House officials are universally angry with Rudolph W. Giuliani and blame him for both of President Trump’s impeachments. But he remains one of few people still willing to join Mr. Trump in the foxhole.Rudolph W. Giuliani spoke at the Trump rally on Jan. 6, before a mob stormed the Capitol. Credit…Brendan Smialowski/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesKatie Rogers and Jan. 14, 2021Updated 8:47 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — When Rudolph W. Giuliani was treating his efforts to carry out President Trump’s wishes to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election as a payment opportunity — he proposed a daily retainer of $20,000 for his legal services from the burgeoning Trump campaign legal fund — the president dismissed it and responded by demanding to personally approve each expense.Nine weeks and another impeachment later, Mr. Trump began the day on Thursday by asking aides to erase any sign of a rift. Stripped of his Twitter account, Mr. Trump conveyed his praise through an adviser, Jason Miller, who tweeted: “Just spoke with President Trump, and he told me that @RudyGiuliani is a great guy and a Patriot who devoted his services to the country! We all love America’s Mayor!”White House officials are universally angry with Mr. Giuliani and blame him for both of Mr. Trump’s impeachments. But the president is another story.Even as he complains about Mr. Giuliani’s latest efforts as fruitless, the president remains unusually deferential to him in public and in private. “Don’t underestimate him,” Mr. Trump has told advisers.But only up to a point. While Mr. Trump and his advisers balked at the $20,000 request weeks ago, it is unclear whether the president will sign off on Mr. Giuliani being paid anything other than expenses.The on-again, off-again tensions are a feature of a decades-long, mutually beneficial relationship between the former New York City mayor from Brooklyn and the former real estate developer from Queens. Although the two were never particularly close in New York, Mr. Trump enjoyed having the former mayor as his personal legal pit bull during the special counsel investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russia.In return, Mr. Giuliani, who failed at his own bid for the presidency in 2008, got to hang out with the president in the Oval Office and used his new connections to pursue lucrative contracts.Mr. Trump deployed Mr. Giuliani on politically ruinous missions that led to his impeachment — twice. Now, isolated and stripped of his usual political megaphones, the president faces the devastation of his business and political affairs for his part in encouraging a pro-Trump mob that went on to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6.Mr. Giuliani — who, for his part, encouraged a group of the president’s supporters that day to carry out “trial by combat” — is one of few people still willing and eager to join Mr. Trump in the foxhole. While most lawyers are reluctant to represent the president in a second Senate impeachment trial, Trump advisers said Mr. Giuliani remained the likeliest to be involved. Despite President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s certification as the winner, Mr. Giuliani has continued to push unproven theories about the election results and falsely attributed the violence to anarchists on the left.A podcast hosted by Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s former chief strategist, was taken down on Thursday because of an interview in which Mr. Giuliani repeated false claims about the election. During the interview, Mr. Bannon pleaded with Mr. Giuliani to move on to a new topic.“I don’t mind being shut down for my craziness,” Mr. Bannon told Mr. Giuliani, according to Alexander Panetta, a reporter for CBC News who listened to the podcast before it was removed. “I’m not going to be shut down for yours.”Mr. Trump has always had an abundance of yes men and women around him, but Mr. Giuliani occupies a unique space in his orbit. Few people have had such durability with the president, and few have been so willing to say and do things for him that others will not.“Your typical role as legal counselor is to tell your client the hard truth and walk them away from risk,” Matthew Sanderson, a Republican political lawyer based in Washington, said in an interview. “Rudy instead seems to tell his client exactly what he wants to hear and walk him toward risk like they’re both moths to a flame.”That journey has left him looking worse for wear. Days after the election, Mr. Giuliani hit the road, challenging the results in a much maligned news conference in front of a Pennsylvania landscaping company. In another appearance that month, Mr. Giuliani was on camera with black liquid, apparently hair dye, streaming down his face as he railed against the election outcome.Few have been so willing to defend the president, and, paradoxically, few have been so damaging to his legacy..css-c7gg1r{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:0.875rem;line-height:0.875rem;margin-bottom:15px;color:#121212 !important;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-c7gg1r{font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:0.9375rem;}}.css-1sjr751{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}.css-1sjr751 a:hover{border-bottom:1px solid #dcdcdc;}.css-rqynmc{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.25rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-rqynmc{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc strong{font-weight:600;}.css-rqynmc em{font-style:italic;}.css-yoay6m{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-yoay6m{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-1cs27wo{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1cs27wo{padding:20px;}}.css-1cs27wo:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}.css-1cs27wo[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-1cs27wo[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-1cs27wo[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-1cs27wo[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-k9atqk{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-k9atqk strong{font-weight:700;}.css-k9atqk em{font-style:italic;}.css-k9atqk a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ccd9e3;}.css-k9atqk a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ddd;}.css-k9atqk a:hover{border-bottom:none;}The Trump Impeachment ›Answers to your questions about the impeachment process:The current impeachment proceedings are testing the bounds of the process, raising questions never contemplated before. Here’s what we know.How does the impeachment process work? Members of the House consider whether to impeach the president — the equivalent of an indictment in a criminal case — and members of the Senate consider whether to remove him, holding a trial in which senators act as the jury. The test, as set by the Constitution, is whether the president has committed “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” The House vote required only a simple majority of lawmakers to agree that the president has, in fact, committed high crimes and misdemeanors; the Senate vote requires a two-thirds majority.Does impeaching Trump disqualify him from holding office again? Conviction in an impeachment trial does not automatically disqualify Mr. Trump from future public office. But if the Senate were to convict him, the Constitution allows a subsequent vote to bar an official from holding “any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States.” That vote would require only a simple majority of senators. There is no precedent, however, for disqualifying a president from future office, and the issue could end up before the Supreme Court.Can the Senate hold a trial after Biden becomes president? The Senate could hold a trial for Mr. Trump even after he has left office, though there is no precedent for it. Democrats who control the House can choose when to send their article of impeachment to the Senate, at which point that chamber would have to immediately move to begin the trial. But even if the House immediately transmitted the charge to the other side of the Capitol, an agreement between Republican and Democratic leaders in the Senate would be needed to take it up before Jan. 19, a day before Mr. Biden is inaugurated. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, said on Wednesday that he would not agree to such an agreement. Given that timetable, the trial probably will not start until after Mr. Biden is president.Mr. Giuliani stepped into the president’s legal affairs in April 2018. His eagerness to attack Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, impressed Mr. Trump, who was constantly making changes to his legal team. Most Trump advisers came to see Mr. Giuliani’s efforts with Mr. Mueller as a success.“There was never a moment when Rudy wasn’t willing to go lower, and that’s what Trump requires,” the Trump biographer Michael D’Antonio said. “He proved that actually delivering for Donald was not as important as continuing to try.”In addition to his work with Mr. Trump, Mr. Giuliani pursued side projects with the added cachet of being the president’s personal lawyer. Free of ethics laws that restrict government employees, Mr. Giuliani pursued lucrative deals even in the midst of the special counsel investigation.And then came the impeachments. When the history of the Trump presidency is written, Mr. Giuliani will be a central figure, first by pursuing a pressure campaign against the Ukrainian government to investigate Mr. Biden’s family members, and then by traveling the country in efforts to overturn Mr. Biden’s victory.Mr. Giuliani’s own legal problems have mounted alongside those of the president. As Mr. Giuliani pursued separate business opportunities in Ukraine, intelligence agencies warned that he could have been used by Russian intelligence officers seeking to spread disinformation about the election — reports that Mr. Trump shrugged off. Mr. Giuliani’s work in Ukraine continues to be a matter of interest in a continuing investigation by federal prosecutors in New York. And his remarks to Trump supporters before the Capitol riot are now the subject of an effort by the New York State Bar Association to expel him.Mr. Giuliani appears undeterred.In a 37-minute video published Wednesday evening, Mr. Giuliani tried to rewrite the history of the Capitol riot. Although Mr. Trump incited his supporters to march to the building and “show strength,” Mr. Giuliani suggested in the video that antifa activists had been involved, a repeatedly debunked theory that has proliferated in pro-Trump circles online.“The rally ended up to some extent being used as a fulcrum in order to create something else totally different that the president had nothing to do with,” Mr. Giuliani said.Now his calls to the president are sometimes blocked at the orders of White House officials. Advisers say that Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, holds Mr. Giuliani partly responsible for the mess currently embroiling the White House.But Mr. Giuliani hangs on in the shrinking circle around Mr. Trump.“He’s not alone,” Alan Marcus, a former Trump Organization consultant, said of the president. “He’s abandoned. Rudy’s just the last in a whole group of people.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Biden to Restore Homeland Security and Cybersecurity Aides to Senior White House Posts

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesA Future With CoronavirusVaccine InformationF.A.Q.TimelineAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyBiden to Restore Homeland Security and Cybersecurity Aides to Senior White House PostsThe two appointments illustrate how the president-elect appears determined to rebuild a White House national security team to focus on threats that critics say were ignored by President Trump.The headquarters of the National Security Agency at Fort Meade, Md. President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. is expected to take a harder stand against Russian hacking.Credit…T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York TimesJan. 13, 2021Updated 7:51 a.m. ETPresident-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., facing the rise of domestic terrorism and a crippling cyberattack from Russia, is elevating two White House posts that all but disappeared in the Trump administration: a homeland security adviser to manage matters as varied as extremism, pandemics and natural disasters, and the first deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology.The White House homeland security adviser will be Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, according to transition officials. She is a longtime aide to Mr. Biden who served under President Barack Obama as senior director for Europe and then deputy secretary of energy, where she oversaw the modernization of the nuclear arsenal.And for the complex task of bolstering cyberoffense and defense, Mr. Biden has carved out a role for Anne Neuberger, a rising official at the National Security Agency. She ran the Russia Small Group, which mounted a pre-emptive strike on the Kremlin’s cyberactors during the 2018 midterm elections, part of an effort to counter Moscow after its interference in the 2016 presidential election.For the past 15 months, she has overseen the agency’s Cybersecurity Directorate, a newly formed organization to prevent digital threats to sensitive government and military industry networks. But it has also been an incubator for emerging technologies, including the development of impenetrable cryptography — the National Security Agency’s original mission nearly 70 years ago — with a new generation of quantum computers.Taken together, the two appointments show how Mr. Biden appears determined to rebuild a national security apparatus that critics of the Trump administration say withered for the past four years. The new White House team will focus on threats that were battering the United States even before the coronavirus pandemic reordered the nation’s challenges.Transition officials say that Ms. Sherwood-Randall and Ms. Neuberger will be given new powers to convene officials from around the government to deal with emerging threats. Both are expected to begin their jobs on Jan. 20, since neither position requires Senate confirmation.Ms. Sherwood-Randall will have to oversee the effort to contain right-wing groups that laid siege to the Capitol last week, and Ms. Neuberger will face the aftermath of the most unnerving cyberbreach to affect the federal government. She will, senior officials say, have to help determine how to make good on Mr. Biden’s vow that the hackers behind the recent intrusion, which has spread across government networks, “will pay a price.”Ms. Sherwood-Randall, a Rhodes Scholar who in recent years has been a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, had been considered a candidate for secretary of energy. The job went to Jennifer Granholm, a former governor of Michigan.She will serve as the White House homeland security adviser, a position created by President George W. Bush that became more powerful under Mr. Obama, and is distinct from the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, who sits in the cabinet.“We’re going to be dealing at once again with border security, biosecurity, global public health and strengthening the resilience of our own democracy,” she said in a brief interview. “The last of those have grown more urgent.”The Coronavirus Outbreak More

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      How the Obama-Trump Presidential Transition Led to Chaos

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      On Jan. 5, the night before Congress met to certify Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election, Michael Flynn — the retired three-star general, ousted national security adviser and pardoned felon — gave an interview to the prominent conspiracy theorist Alex Jones in which he assured the viewers of Infowars.com that Donald Trump would serve as president for another four years. It was a certainty, Flynn said. He referred to his experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan — “taking over countries, or running elections in countries” — and broke the present conflict down to the binary of “we” versus “they.” Flynn did not specify how, exactly, the intervention into the American election would work, though he alluded to “procedures” related to Trump’s authorities under a national emergency because of “foreign interference from multiple countries.”

      “They tried to silence you,” Jones said, referring to Flynn’s 2017 expulsion from the White House. “They failed. Now you’ve come through the fire as a phoenix.” Later that night, Flynn addressed a crowd of several thousand (Jones said there were a million) gathered in Washington. “We are the ones that will decide,” Flynn said. The following afternoon, as the electoral votes were being counted, a pro-Trump mob invaded the Capitol.

      Flynn’s re-emergence on the national stage was taking place almost four years to the date after the events that brought him down during the first days of Trump’s presidency — events that have since become the founding legend of a right-wing mythology. The crucial date was Jan. 24, 2017, when Flynn, the incoming national security adviser, sat down in his new West Wing office with two F.B.I. agents, who wanted to talk to him about a series of phone calls he had with the Russian ambassador. The battle that ensued over those phone calls cost Flynn his job, and later he would twice plead guilty to a felony for making false statements.

      Flynn’s dismissal was among the first public flash points in what would become an all-consuming political war over Trump’s relationship with Russia, a fight that would consume both his presidency and the country for years. Trump, for his part, never seemed interested in dispelling his opponents’ suspicions. During a campaign news conference, he asked the Russians to find a tranche of Hillary Clinton’s emails, a request that was directly followed by an actual Russian-backed email hacking attempt. Later, as president, he divulged classified information to Russian officials in the Oval Office, refused to accept his own government’s account of Russia’s role in the 2016 election and sided with Vladimir Putin on that question at a summit in Helsinki. “He just said it’s not Russia,” Trump said. “I don’t see any reason why it would be.” Just this past December, when news of a devastating cyberattack on the federal government was made public, almost everyone, including members of Trump’s cabinet and his former homeland security adviser, attributed the attack to Russia, but Trump pointedly did not. “Everything is well under control,” the president tweeted — before raising the possibility that China, not Russia, was the culprit.

      For many Trump critics, the Russia question still lingers. John Brennan, a former C.I.A. director, has noted Trump’s “strange obsequiousness” to Putin; Jim Comey, a former F.B.I. director, has acknowledged the possibility that the Russians “have leverage.” “I suspect they may have something on him either financial or personal, or both, but that’s just speculation,” James Clapper, a former director of national intelligence, wrote to me in an interview conducted by email in late 2020. “I don’t know, but it’s hard to come up with another plausible explanation for his inexplicable deference.” The worries about Trump’s loyalties extend into his own circle. Dan Coats, who served under Trump as director of national intelligence, harbored “deep suspicions” that Putin “had something” on Trump, according to a book by Bob Woodward. (Some Trump critics remain skeptical. I asked John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser, what he would say to those who claim that Trump is compromised by Russia. “I’d say the same thing to them that I’d say to the Trump campaign about the so-called fraud in the election,” he replied. “Where’s the evidence?”)

      Few Trump allies on Capitol Hill go as far as Flynn or Alex Jones, but many partake of the same grievance narrative, in which the Russia-related wounds inflicted on Trump’s legitimacy after the 2016 election somehow justify their refusal to accept the outcome of this one. “It bothers me greatly that they would be monitoring the incoming national security adviser,” Senator Lindsey Graham told me, referring to Flynn’s treatment by departing members of the Obama administration. “That is really damaging to the transition of power.” (Graham’s claim that Flynn was monitored is misleading. There is no evidence that Flynn’s communications were singled out for persistent surveillance; instead it was what he said and whom he said it to that caused some of his calls to surface later.)

      It took until Jan. 6 for Graham to formally recognize Biden as the legitimate president-elect; when we spoke in mid-December, he did not seem sure how best to refer to his former Senate colleague. “I am sure that the uh, the uh, Biden administration-in-waiting is talking to people all over the world right now,” he said, arguing that Flynn’s engagement with the Russians during the transition was normal. The Obama administration “had no business getting the transcripts” of Flynn’s calls, he said, because Flynn was “talking to the Russian ambassador as the national security adviser.”

      At the more vocal end of electoral deniers is Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio. Without offering any evidence, Jordan alleged that the Obama administration concocted a “plot” to “take down Michael Flynn” because Flynn’s intelligence background meant he would “figure out what they did” to Trump. “We hear so much about this term ‘peaceful transfer of power,’” Jordan told me in mid-December. “They didn’t follow that. They were trying not to let him” — that is, Trump — “be president.”

      The crisis of Trump’s departure from Washington has exposed the degree to which factions in American political life now inhabit entirely separate realities. But to understand that divergence, which has taken increasingly dire forms as a new presidential transition concludes, it’s important to revisit the transition of four years ago: Trump’s own messy ascension to the presidency, with its murkiness surrounding his relationship with Russia and the debate over what to do about it. The questions that Obama’s national-security team had to come to grips with about its successors almost sound like the premise of an airport novel. Was the president-elect a Manchurian candidate? Was he secretly videotaped by the Russian security service? Was his national security adviser a Russian asset? In January 2017, with less than three weeks to go before Trump assumed power, it was up to them to decide how to continue the Russia investigation under a president who could easily wind up in its cross hairs.

      The earliest debates about how to deal with Trump have been recorded by congressional testimony, recently declassified documents, investigations by the Justice Department’s inspector general and a five-volume report by the Senate Intelligence Committee. In addition to existing sources, this account draws on interviews and correspondence with more than a dozen participants who experienced both sides of the transition firsthand. Looming over all of those events was the same, bracing question that America faces now, on the eve of a new transition: In our era of extreme polarization, can the presidency successfully pass from one party to the other without the entire political system threatening to fall apart? More

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      With Trump Presidency Winding Down, Push for Assange Pardon Ramps Up

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Presidential TransitionLatest UpdatesHouse Moves to Remove TrumpHow Impeachment Might WorkBiden Focuses on CrisesCabinet PicksAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyWith Trump Presidency Winding Down, Push for Assange Pardon Ramps UpSupporters of the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange have enlisted a lobbyist with connections to the president and filed a clemency petition with the White House.The effort comes at a delicate moment for Julian Assange; the Justice Department announced last week that it would appeal a British judge’s ruling blocking his extradition to the United States.Credit…Henry Nicholls/ReutersJan. 10, 2021, 6:53 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — Allies of the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange have ramped up a push for a last-minute pardon from President Trump, enlisting a lobbyist with connections to the administration, trying to rally supporters across the political spectrum and filing a clemency petition with the White House.The effort comes at a delicate moment for Mr. Assange and during a period of tension between the United States and Britain over a case that his supporters say has substantial implications for press freedoms.The Justice Department announced last week that it would appeal a British judge’s ruling blocking the extradition of Mr. Assange to the United States to face trial on charges of violating the Espionage Act and conspiring to hack government computers. The charges stemmed from WikiLeaks’s publication in 2010 of classified documents related to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.Mr. Assange’s supporters had been optimistic about the prospects of a pardon from Mr. Trump, who has issued dozens of contentious clemency grants since losing his re-election bid. But they now worry that pressure over his supporters’ ransacking of the Capitol last week could derail plans for additional clemencies before he leaves office on Jan. 20.As unlikely as the prospect of a pardon from Mr. Trump might be, Mr. Assange’s supporters are eager to try before President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. takes office.As vice president, Mr. Biden called the WikiLeaks founder a “high-tech terrorist.” Some of his top advisers blame Mr. Assange and WikiLeaks for helping Mr. Trump win the presidency in 2016 by publishing emails from Democrats associated with Hillary Clinton’s campaign, which U.S. officials say were stolen by Russian intelligence to damage her candidacy. Mr. Trump has long downplayed Russia’s role in the 2016 election.For Mr. Assange’s supporters and press freedom advocates, though, the issues at stake transcend him or politics.“This is so much bigger than Julian,” said Mark Davis, a former journalist who worked with Mr. Assange in Australia, where they are from. If Mr. Assange is prosecuted, “it will have a chilling effect on all national security journalism,” Mr. Davis said, adding: “If we can get Julian off, then the precedent hasn’t been set. If Julian goes down, then it’s bad for all of us.”Mr. Davis, who is now a lawyer specializing in national security and whistle-blower cases, is on the board of Blueprint for Free Speech, an Australia-based nonprofit group that advocates for press freedoms and whistle-blower protections. The group, which was started by Suelette Dreyfus, a former journalist who is an old friend and collaborator with Mr. Assange, signed a pro bono contract on Saturday with the lobbyist Robert Stryk to seek a pardon for Mr. Assange.During Mr. Trump’s presidency, Mr. Stryk, who is well connected in Trump administration circles, has developed a lucrative business representing foreign clients in precarious geopolitical situations.He has worked for a jailed Saudi prince who had fallen out of favor with his country’s powerful de facto leader, as well as the administration of President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, which the Trump administration considers illegitimate. Mr. Styrk also worked for Isabel dos Santos, the daughter of Angola’s former president, who is accused of embezzling millions of dollars from a state oil company she once headed, as well as the government of the former Congolese president Joseph Kabila, which had faced American sanctions for human rights abuses and corruption.Mr. Stryk said that he was representing Blueprint for Free Speech to seek a pardon for Mr. Assange without pay because of his belief in free speech, and that he would continue pushing for the pardon in the Biden administration if Mr. Trump did not grant it.“This is not a partisan issue,” Mr. Stryk said.The contract, which he said he had disclosed to the Justice Department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, calls for his company, Stryk Global Diplomacy, to “facilitate meetings and interactions with the president and the president-elect’s administrations” to “obtain a full pardon” for Mr. Assange.Mr. Davis said Mr. Stryk had been chosen partly because of his entree into Mr. Trump’s administration, which the group sees as its best chance to secure a pardon.Mr. Davis noted that Mr. Assange, 49, was indicted during Mr. Trump’s presidency. “We are unabashedly reaching out to the Republican Party on this issue in the final weeks to correct something before it’s too late, and before it become part of Trump’s legacy,” Mr. Davis said.He said, “If Joe Biden is sympathetic, that’s well and good, and we certainly hope he is.” But, he added, “it’s a far simpler process for an outgoing president than an incoming president.”Mr. Assange’s cause has been taken up by a range of media freedom and human rights organizations, public officials and celebrities, including the actress Pamela Anderson.Blueprint for Free Speech is working to harness some of that support, including from Ms. Anderson, a friend of Mr. Assange, who said in an interview that she had been trying to connect with Mr. Trump to plead the case. “I just hate to see him deteriorate in jail right now,” she said of Mr. Assange, describing the pardon push as “a last-ditch effort for all of us who are Julian Assange supporters.”Asked about the effort by Blueprint, Jennifer Robinson, a lawyer representing Mr. Assange, said he “is encouraged by and supports efforts” by a variety of prominent supporters around the world.Mr. Davis stressed that Blueprint’s push was independent of parallel efforts by Mr. Assange’s family and his lawyers, though Mr. Stryk has been in contact with Barry J. Pollack, Mr. Assange’s Washington-based lawyer, who is representing him against the criminal charges.Prosecutors have argued that Mr. Assange unlawfully obtained secret documents and put lives at risk by revealing the names of people who had provided information to the United States in war zones.Mr. Assange’s lawyers have framed the prosecution as a politically driven attack on press freedom.Last month, Mr. Pollack filed a petition for a pardon with the White House Counsel’s Office, which has been vetting clemency requests for Mr. Trump, arguing that Mr. Assange was “being prosecuted for his news gathering and publication of truthful information.”Mr. Pollack declined to comment on the petition, which was obtained by The New York Times, except to say that it was pending.The petition appears to be geared toward appealing to Mr. Trump, who has wielded the unchecked presidential clemency power to aid people with personal connections to him or whose causes resonate with him politically, including a handful of people ensnared in the special counsel’s investigation of Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and ties to his campaign.The petition highlighted that the charges against Mr. Assange stemmed from WikiLeaks’s publication of material that “exposed misconduct committed in Iraq and Afghanistan during wars initiated by a prior administration.” And it notes that the Democratic emails published by WikiLeaks in 2016, which showed some in the party apparatus conspiring to sabotage the campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent of Vermont and Mrs. Clinton’s rival for the Democratic presidential nomination, resulted in the resignations of party officials.The petition does not address the United States government’s findings about Russia’s role in the theft of the emails as part of its effort to undermine Mrs. Clinton, which has long been a sore spot for Mr. Trump.The petition notes that the sentence of Chelsea Manning, the former Army intelligence analyst who provided the military and diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks that led to the charges against Mr. Assange, was commuted by President Barack Obama in the final days of his term.Like Mr. Assange’s lawyers in Britain, Mr. Pollack’s petition raises concerns about Mr. Assange’s health, noting that the prison in which he is being held has been under lockdown after a coronavirus outbreak.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Book Review: ‘Saving Justice,’ by James Comey

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Best of 2020Best ComedyBest TV ShowsBest BooksBest MoviesBest AlbumsAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storynonfictionJames Comey’s View of Justice — and How It Differs From Donald Trump’sU.S. Attorney James Comey in his office, December 2002.Credit…Fred R. Conrad/The New York TimesAmazonApple BooksBarnes and NobleBooks-A-MillionBookshopIndieboundWhen you purchase an independently reviewed book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.Jan. 10, 2021, 6:00 p.m. ETSAVING JUSTICETruth, Transparency, and TrustBy James ComeyIn his second debate against Joe Biden last October, Donald Trump inadvertently stated his philosophy of life. The issue was refugees. He said that “low I.Q.” immigrants were the only ones who abided by the law and showed up for their refugee status hearings. A week or so later, The Washington Post reported a similar statement Trump made when he admitted to stiffing his creditors on a Chicago high-rise. He said the chicanery made him “a smart guy, rather than a bad guy.”A smart guy, according to Trump, is someone who is wise enough to cheat. Stupid people abide by the law and attend their refugee status hearings; smart ones abscond. Stupid people pay their debts; smart ones stiff their lenders and dare them to sue. Stupid people believe their elected officials; smart people know the game is rigged. The most distressing aspect of Trump’s enduring appeal, even in defeat, is how many Americans seem to agree with him.The former F.B.I. director James Comey is appalled. In his second attempt at a memoir, “Saving Justice,” there is a story about a small-time drug dealer named Vinnie who is placed in the federal witness protection program. Vinnie begins his new life, falls in love and gets married. The trouble is, Vinnie also was married in his old life. He now has two wives, which makes him a bigamist, which is a crime. “The Department of Justice has an obligation to tell defendants and their lawyers bad stuff about the government’s witnesses,” Comey writes. This is true, even if the “bad stuff” has nothing to do with the facts of the case — Vinnie’s testimony can convict a major drug dealer — and even if the revelation might ruin Vinnie’s new happiness, since Wife No. 2 doesn’t know about Wife No. 1. “I felt sorry for Vinnie in that moment,” Comey concludes. “But the truth was more important than his pain.” We never learn the fate of Vinnie’s marriages or the case in question — he is, after all, in the witness protection program — but Comey hammers the larger point: “The Department of Justice could not accept anything short of the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”Comey’s view of justice — both the concept and the department — is ecclesiastical. U.S. attorneys are members of a sacred order. They make an unequivocal vow to tell the truth, and they do so with a certain style: “They were almost always younger than the other lawyers and stood straighter, buttoned their jackets more quickly, answered more directly, met deadlines and admitted what they didn’t know.”In other words, they are the precise opposite of Donald Trump, who demanded “loyalty” rather than “honesty” from Comey, and fired him as director of the F.B.I. “Saving Justice” is a slight and repetitive book, but not an insignificant one. Comey revealed the crucial moments of his confrontation with the president in his 2018 memoir, “A Higher Loyalty.” They are rehashed here, but within the context of a larger theme: the national descent from strict, fact-based truth into a feckless mirage of “truthiness,” to use Stephen Colbert’s brilliant formulation. Can an institution religiously devoted to the truth, like the Justice Department, survive in a democracy where vast numbers of people believe that the 2020 election was a fraud?Comey is a curious figure. He is smart, admirable, hard-working — and yet slightly smarmy in his rectitude. He begins each chapter with a quote from sources ranging from Virginia Woolf to Malcolm X to the inevitable Dalai Lama. He tries to leaven his supreme pontification with stories of his own flaws, mixed emotions and humility. His height — 6-foot-8 — makes him testy in cramped spaces. His government salary makes it hard for him and his wife to raise five children. Annoyed, he throws his daughter’s obnoxious talking doll out the window of his automobile (of course, he drives back to retrieve it). His pursuit of transparency is rigorous to the point of myopia.But, of course, he is right: You can’t have a working democracy without an agreed-upon standard of truth. You need a “reservoir of trust” in our institutions if the government’s truth-work is to proceed. Conspiracy theories about the Deep State are debilitating. The Justice Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the intelligence community have to be perceived as honest to a fault — even about their own faults.Comey is surprisingly tough on Robert Mueller. He believes Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election is devastating, but too complicated for mass consumption. Attorney General William P. Barr spins up a dust storm of inaccuracies while Mueller “chose to submit his unreadable — and unread — report and then go away without a sound,” Comey writes. “He could have found a way to speak to the American people in their language. … Department policy and tradition gave him plenty of flexibility to speak in the public interest. He chose not to, and, in the end, the only voices most Americans heard were lying to them. No truth, no transparency, and Justice paid the price in lost trust.”He should talk. It was Comey’s epic mishandling of the Hillary Clinton email case in 2016 that, arguably, gave Donald Trump the presidency. Comey defends his Clinton actions in both memoirs. He admits only to sins of honesty. The public was clamoring for a judgment. And the F.B.I.’s conclusion, after overwhelming work on the case, was that Clinton had been sloppy but not venal. “If we couldn’t prove bad intent, there was no prosecutable case,” he writes. Comey chose to announce this dramatically, in public, but not without a bone to his fellow Republicans: Clinton had been “extremely careless,” Comey said. He stewed about the adverb, which turned his report into an op-ed. And then, on the brink of the election, he reopened the case. A computer containing more Clinton emails was found in the possession of former Congressman Anthony Weiner, whose wife, Huma Abedin, worked for Clinton. Now, if there ever was a time for transparency, this was it. Comey could have said: “Look, we found no evidence of criminality in the Clinton case, and I would be very surprised — given the nature of the thousands of emails we’ve read — if this new batch proves otherwise. But we’ve got to look at them, and so we will.” Instead, he sent a damning letter to Congress, announcing that the investigation had been reopened. As Comey might say: No context, no transparency.In fairness, there was probably nothing that Comey could say about the Clinton case that would have stanched the “lock her up” conspiracy-mongering. His battle, and Mueller’s, is against a powerful sludge-tide of cynicism that has been flowing, especially in the media, for 50 years — and, for the past four years, from the White House itself. All politicians are crooked, aren’t they? All politicians lie.If nothing else, Comey has laid out the challenge of the next four years. Joe Biden’s quiet humanity will confront a noisy nation where too many citizens have become so sour that they’ve found solace, and entertainment, in an alternative reality. It will not be easy to lure them away from their noxious fantasies, but fact-based truth is not negotiable.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Donald Trump ha considerado otorgarse un perdón, según colaboradores

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Presidential TransitionliveLatest UpdatesCalls for Impeachment25th Amendment ExplainedTrump Officials ResignHow Mob Stormed CapitolAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyWashingtonDonald Trump ha considerado otorgarse un perdón, según colaboradoresEl presidente ha insinuado, de acuerdo con personas enteradas, su intención en las últimas semanas. No queda claro si lo había discutido después de alentar a sus seguidores a marchar hacia el Capitolio, al que algunos de ellos irrumpieron.El presidente Trump le ha dicho a sus asesores lo mucho que le gusta tener el poder de otorgar perdón.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesMichael S. Schmidt y 7 de enero de 2021Actualizado 16:55 ETRead in EnglishEl presidente estadounidense, Donald Trump, ha insinuado a sus colaboradores que tiene intenciones de otorgarse un indulto a sí mismo en los últimos días de su presidencia, según dos personas con conocimiento de las discusiones. La medida implicaría un uso de los poderes presidenciales extraordinario e inexplorado en la historia de Estados Unidos.En varias conversaciones después del día de las elecciones, Trump ha comentado a sus asesores que considera la posibilidad de otorgarse un perdón y, en otras instancias, ha preguntado si debería hacerlo y qué impacto político y legal tendría en él, según dos personas. No estaba claro si ha tocado el tema después de incitar a sus seguidores el miércoles a irrumpir en el Capitolio en un ataque de turba.Trump ha mostrado que su interés en perdonarse a sí mismo va más allá de reflexiones ociosas. Hace mucho tiempo que insiste en que tiene el poder de perdonarse a sí mismo y típicamente cuando sondea a sus asesores es síntoma de que se prepara a avanzar con sus intenciones. También ha estado cada vez convencido de que quienes él percibe como sus enemigos utilizarán las palancas legales para atacarlo cuando abandone el cargo.Ningún presidente estadounidense se ha otorgado a sí mismo un perdón por lo cual la legitimidad de un posible acto de autoclemencia jamás ha sido puesta a prueba en el sistema legal. Los expertos legales no están de acuerdo en si las cortes lo reconocerían. Pero sí concuerdan en que un autoperdón presidencial crearía un peligroso nuevo precedente para que los presidentes declaren unilateralmente que se encuentran por encima de la ley y se protejan de tener que responder por los crímenes que hayan cometido en el cargo.Un portavoz de la Casa Blanca no respondió a una solicitud de comentario.Trump ha considerado una variedad de perdones preventivos para su familia, entre ellos sus tres hijos mayores —Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump e Ivanka Trump—, su yerno y asesor sénior de la Casa Blanca, Jared Kushner, y para sus aliados cercanos, como Rudolph W. Giuliani, abogado personal del presidente. Trump ha expresado preocupación a sus consejeros de que el Departamento de Justicia de Biden pudiera investigarlos a todos ellos.Trump, quien le ha contado a sus asesores que le complace mucho tener el poder de otorgar clemencia, durante semanas ha solicitado a sus ayudantes y aliados que le sugieran a quién perdonar. También ha ofrecido perdones preventivos a consejeros y funcionarios de su gobierno. Muchos de ellos se han sorprendido porque no consideraban encontrarse en riesgo legal y creyeron que aceptar el ofrecimiento sería visto como una admisión de culpabilidad, según las dos personas.Los perdones presidenciales solo aplican en casos de leyes federales y no protegen de ser enjuiciado o investigado por crímenes estatales. Un perdón serviría en contra de cargos que podrían ser presentados por los fiscales que investigan las finanzas de la Organización Trump en Manhattan.Las discusiones entre Trump y sus asesores sobre el tema de un perdón para el presidente surgieron antes de que el fin de semana presionara a funcionarios del estado de Georgia para que le ayudasen a cambiar los resultados de las elecciones presidenciales o de que incitara a una turba que luego atacó el Capitolio el miércoles. Los aliados de Trump creen que ambos episodios exponen aún más a Trump a verse involucrado en un proceso penal.Cuando los asesores instaron a Trump a que emitiera el miércoles una condena enérgica y él rechazó ese consejo, el abogado de la Casa Blanca, Pat A. Cipollone, advirtió a Trump que podría quedar legalmente vulnerable por los disturbios, dado que de antemano había instado a sus partidarios a marchar al Capitolio y a “luchar”, según personas informadas sobre la conversación. A los asesores de la Casa Blanca les pareció que Trump disfrutaba viendo las escenas que se transmitían en la televisión.Más allá de eso, no queda claro el alcance del riesgo de sometimiento a procesos penales de Trump. El exfiscal especial Robert S. Mueller III, identificó diez ocasiones en las que Trump pudo haber obstaculizado la justicia pero no dijo si el presidente había quebrantado la ley e invocó restricciones legales y de hecho que obstaculizan que se juzgue a un presidente en funciones. Exfuncionarios del Departamento de Justicia y expertos legales dijeron que varios de esos actos deberían ameritar un procedimiento judicial.En 2018, fiscales federales en Nueva York nombraron a Trump como conspirador en un esquema de financiación ilegal de campaña.Una turba de partidarios de Trump irrumpió en el Capitolio el miércoles, después de que el presidente los azuzó.Credit…Kenny Holston para The New York TimesLos indultos pueden ser amplios o específicamente diseñados. Los abogados defensores en casos de cuello blanco dijeron que Trump se beneficiaría más al citar crímenes específicos si se perdona a sí mismo, pero esos detalles podrían ser políticamente perjudiciales al sugerir que reconocía haber cometido esos crímenes.The Presidential TransitionLatest UpdatesUpdated 7 de enero de 2021 a las 21:15 ETBetsy DeVos, education secretary, is second cabinet member to resign.Here’s what Trump’s cabinet members have said about the storming of the Capitol.Lawmakers fear a coronavirus outbreak after sharing close quarters in lockdown.Un perdón presidencial autoconcedido complicaría la ya tensa cuestión que enfrenta el Departamento de Justicia de Biden sobre si investigar y eventualmente enjuiciar a Trump. Los demócratas y exfuncionarios del Departamento de Justicia aseguran que si Trump se perdonara a sí mismo y el Departamento de Justicia evitase procesar a Trump estaría mandando un inquietante mensaje a los estadounidenses sobre el Estado de derecho en el país y a los futuros presidentes sobre la posibilidad de burlar la ley.“El Departamento de Justicia de Biden no querrá acceder a un autoperdón de Trump, que implica que el presidente está literalmente por encima de la ley federal”, dijo Jack Goldsmith, profesor de Derecho en Harvard y ex alto funcionario del Departamento de Justicia en el gobierno de George W. Bush.Un autoperdón estaría alineado con el uso sin precedentes que Trump ha hecho del poder de clemencia. Los autores de la Constitución otorgaron a la figura del presidente casi total autoridad para perdonar crímenes federales y posicionaron así al jefe del poder ejecutivo como un contrapeso del poder judicial y también para intervenir en el sistema de justicia y mostrar misericordia y gracia a los oprimidos.Pero Trump ha desdeñado el proceso formal establecido por el Departamento de Justicia para asegurarse de que los perdones se otorguen de manera justa. En cambio, ha usado su poder de clemencia como ningún otro presidente para favorecer a sus aliados, socavar a sus rivales y beneficiar a su agenda política. De los 94 perdones y conmutaciones de pena que Trump ha otorgado, el 89 por ciento estuvieron destinados a personas que tienen vínculos personales con él, lo ayudaron políticamente o cuyos casos lo impactaron, según un conteo llevado a cabo por Goldsmith.El único presidente que recibió un indulto fue Richard Nixon. Un mes después de que Nixon dejó la presidencia, su exvicepresidente, Gerald Ford, lo perdonó por todos los crímenes que cometió en el cargo. La medida fue ampliamente criticada en ese momento por permitir que la presidencia estuviera por encima de la ley. Los partidarios de Ford culparon al indulto por su derrota en las elecciones dos años después aunque, en última instancia, el indulto llegó a ser visto como un movimiento que ayudó al país a pasar la página tras el caso Watergate.Trump ha sostenido a lo largo de su presidencia que dispone de la autoridad para perdonarse a sí mismo y discutió esa posibilidad por primera vez con sus asistentes durante su primer año en el cargo. Esas conversaciones empezaron cuando los vínculos de su campaña con Rusia estaban bajo el escrutinio de investigadores que intentaban determinar si había obstruido a la justicia.Los expertos jurídicos no están tan seguros de que Trump disponga de un “derecho absoluto” para otorgarse a sí mismo un perdón, como ha declarado.El Departamento de Justicia observó en un breve comentario de agosto de 1974, apenas cuatro días antes de la renuncia de Nixon, que “parecería” que los presidentes no pueden perdonarse a sí mismo “según la regla fundamental de que nadie puede ser juez en su propio caso”.Pero el presidente no se limita por dichas opiniones y no hay nada que impida que Trump firme un perdón para sí mismo. La duda sería si el Departamento de Justicia en otro gobierno estaría dispuesto a respetar un perdón así y con ello renunciar a procesar eventualmente a Trump y, de ser el caso, si el sistema judicial al final decidiría que el perdón protege al mandatario de enfrentar cargos.“Solo una corte puede invalidar un autoperdón, y puede hacerlo solo si el gobierno de Biden presenta un caso en contra de Trump”, dijo Goldsmith. “Un autoperdón de Trump haría entonces más probable que el equipo de Biden procese a Trump por crímenes cometidos en el cargo”.A lo largo de la presidencia de Trump, él y sus aliados han concebido los perdones presidenciales como un modo de ayudarle a protegerse en investigaciones penales. Durante la investigación sobre Rusia, Trump y su abogado personal John M. Dowd ofrecieron perdones a sus excolaboradores. Uno de ellos, su expresidente de campaña Paul Manafort, despreció un ofrecimiento de la fiscalía para llegar a un acuerdo de colaboración.Michael S. Schmidt es un corresponsal que cubre seguridad nacional e investigaciones federales desde Washington. Ha formado parte de dos equipos que ganaron premios Pulitzer en 2018: uno por un reportaje sobre el acoso sexual laboral y otro por la cobertura de los vínculos de la campaña del presidente Trump con Rusia. @NYTMikeMaggie Haberman es corresponsal de la Casa Blanca. Se unió al Times en 2015 como corresponsal de campaña y fue parte del equipo que ganó un premio Pulitzer en 2018 por informar sobre los asesores del presidente Trump y sus conexiones con Rusia.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Biden to Tap More Former Obama Officials for Top National Security Jobs

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      Trump Was Briefed on Uncorroborated Intelligence About Chinese Bounties

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTrump Was Briefed on Uncorroborated Intelligence About Chinese BountiesThe unverified intelligence echoes a similar report, deemed credible by the C.I.A. but dismissed by the president, that Russian military agents had offered payments for attacks on Americans in Afghanistan.President Trump and the first lady, Melania Trump, this month at Joint Base Andrews outside Washington.Credit…Erin Scott for The New York TimesDec. 30, 2020President Trump was briefed this month about intelligence reports that China had offered to pay bounties to fighters in Afghanistan who attacked American soldiers there, but the information was uncorroborated and comes months after Mr. Trump dismissed as a “hoax” a C.I.A. assessment that Russia had paid for such attacks.It is unclear whether the intelligence on China shows that any bounties were paid, or whether any attacks on American personnel were even attempted. United States intelligence agencies collect enormous amounts of information, much of which turns out to be false or misleading.The information, included in the president’s written briefing on Dec. 17 and relayed verbally by the national security adviser, Robert C. O’Brien — was earlier reported on Wednesday night by Axios and confirmed by U.S. officials.It comes at a time when Trump administration officials, including the director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, have sought to put more pressure on China, partly in the hope of limiting any plans by the incoming Biden administration to ease tensions with Beijing.Mr. Trump, Mr. Ratcliffe and other officials have also sought to direct attention toward Chinese misbehavior in areas where other American officials consider Russia to be a greater threat, including computer hacking and the use of disinformation to disrupt American politics.After the disclosure this month that the United States government had been subjected to a huge cyberbreach that American officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, confidently attributed to Russia, Mr. Trump angrily cast doubt on that notion and sought to implicate Beijing. “Russia, Russia, Russia is the priority chant when anything happens,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter, charging that the news media avoids “discussing the possibility that it may be China (it may!).”The Axios report said on Wednesday that the underlying intelligence on the bounties, about which it obtained no further details, would be declassified, although it was unclear why or for whom. White House officials would not elaborate but did not dispute that the intelligence was uncorroborated.Although tensions between the United States and China have escalated significantly during the Trump era, Beijing is not known to provide substantial support to anti-American proxies in combat zones like Afghanistan, and some national security experts were initially skeptical that Beijing would support attacks on Americans. By contrast, many considered similar reports about Russian bounties to be credible.If confirmed, and particularly if traced to political leaders in Beijing, such an action by China would constitute a grave provocation that might demand a response by President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. after he takes office in January.A Biden transition official would not say on Wednesday night whether Mr. Biden, who now receives official daily intelligence briefings, had been presented with the same information as the president.But the official said that the Biden team would seek to learn more about it from the Trump administration and that it underscored the importance of a fully cooperative transition process, including with the Defense Department, which Mr. Biden on Monday accused of “obstruction.”“Right now,” Mr. Biden said in Wilmington, Del., “we just aren’t getting all the information that we need from the outgoing administration in key national security areas.”Months before the report involving China, the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies were investigating reports collected this year, and first reported by The New York Times, that Russian military intelligence agents had offered to pay Taliban-linked fighters in Afghanistan for the killing of American soldiers there.The C.I.A. assessed with medium confidence that Russia had covertly offered and paid the bounties to a network of Afghan militants and criminals. The National Security Agency placed lower confidence in the intelligence. But Mr. Pompeo, for one, took the reports seriously enough to issue a stern face-to-face warning this summer to his Russian counterpart.Mr. Trump was similarly provided with a written briefing on that intelligence, but publicly he dismissed it as “fake news” and an extension of what he called the “Russia hoax,” including the investigation into his 2016 campaign’s ties to the Kremlin. At the same time, the president suggested that subordinates had not done enough to draw the report about Russia to his attention.“If it reached my desk, I would have done something about it,” Mr. Trump said in July. United States officials have said that the assessment regarding Russia was included in his written intelligence brief in February, but that he rarely reads that document.In multiple subsequent conversations with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Mr. Trump did not raise the matter.Many questions are outstanding about the unverified intelligence regarding China, including when such bounties were said to be offered, by whom and to whom. The United States and its coalition partners in Afghanistan are fighting not only the Taliban but also Al Qaeda, the Islamic State and various other militant and criminal groups.The reportedly planned release of more information comes at a time when Democrats and many career intelligence officials are concerned that Trump officials like Mr. Ratcliffe have sought to selectively declassify intelligence for political purposes, like the Russia investigation and election interference.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More