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      in US Politics

      China’s ambassador to the US to leave after eight years

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      China’s ambassador to the US, Cui Tiankai, has announced he will leave Washington after eight years, saying US-China relations are at a “crossroads” as the US recalibrates its engagement policies.Cui, whose departure has been the subject of speculation for months, wrote a farewell statement calling on Chinese people in the US to defend their right to be there, and to “shoulder a great responsibility and mission” in furthering the bilateral relationship.“Sino-US relations are at a critical crossroads, and the US’s China policy is undergoing a new round of restructure, facing a choice between dialogue and cooperation, or confrontation and conflict,” he said in his letter.“At this moment, overseas Chinese in the United States shoulder a greater responsibility and mission. I hope you will continue to be a firm promoter and positive contributor to the healthy and stable development of Sino-US relations, and defend your right to be in the US … and safeguard the fundamental interests of the Chinese and American people to promote world peace, stability and prosperity.”Cui is China’s longest-serving ambassador to the US, and was there during a period of upheaval in relations between the two countries under the leadership of Xi Jinping and Donald Trump, including a trade war, tit-for-tat closures of consulates and restrictions on respective foreign journalists, criticism over China’s human rights abuses, worsening tensions over Taiwan, and hostility about the origins and handling of the pandemic.The Biden administration has committed to continue some of Trump’s trade policies towards China, but has sought further cooperation on issues such as climate change, and has courted international alliances in other areas of dispute, in contrast to Trump’s unilateral stance.Amid increasingly public hostility from China’s “wolf warrior” diplomats, Cui was considered a far more measured and moderate voice, including publicly resisting attempts by diplomatic colleagues to push conspiracy theories that the coronavirus began in the US military. However, Cui has pushed back against criticism of China’s hostile actions, and blamed “fake news” for reports on crackdowns in Hong Kong and abuses in Xinjiang.Reporting in recent months suggested the 68-year-old had been deliberately kept in the post to manage relations during the transition into the Biden administration.“Cui was getting very tired and had been wanting to leave for some years,” J Michael Cole said, citing diplomatic sources in Washington.“He leaves at a time when US-China relations are at their lowest point in several years, if not decades. The principal reason for this is not his doing, as he was, by current standards, a rather mild-tempered representative of China abroad.”Qin Gang, the vice-minister of foreign affairs under the foreign minister Wang Yi, is widely tipped to replace Cui. Cole said the appointment was interesting in that Qin has no direct experience in dealing with the US, but added that under the level of control by the Chinese regime there is likely little room for diplomats to manoeuvre.“You could send the most experienced diplomat to Washington and still the relationship would continue to worsen,” he said.Cole said recent remarks by China’s ambassador to France, Lu Shaye, publicly insulting French legislators and academics, suggest that most public moves by diplomats are aimed at domestic Chinese audiences more than where they are posted.“If that is the case, and if Qin, should he be appointed, fits that mould, then we could see more rhetorical sparks in Washington than we did during Cui.” More

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      in World Politics

      The US Must Commit to Protecting Central Americans

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      Recent comments by US Vice-President Kamala Harris over migration from Guatemala are part of an unfortunate pattern. Like Harris, other members of the Biden administration have been telling Central American migrants — many of whom are forced to leave home — “do not come” to the United States because they will be turned away at the US-Mexico border.

      Harris walked back these statements last week, partly in response to criticism from groups like Refugees International that swiftly highlighted the right to seek asylum and international protection. In an interview following her trip to Guatemala and Mexico, she said, “Let me be very clear, I am committed to making sure we provide a safe haven for those seeking asylum, period.” But it remains an open question whether this commitment will be reflected in concrete policy change.

      Joe Biden Faces Many Challenges in Latin America

      READ MORE

      It is time for the United States to show a stronger commitment to the protection needs of Central American migrants. The Biden administration can do so by taking five important steps.

      Rights of Central American Migrants

      First, the administration must commit to increasing resettlement. Politicians who want to emphasize protection sometimes speak about having migrants apply for asylum from home. This confuses asylum, which is requested at the border or from within the US, with resettlement, which is usually applied for from a third country rather than the home country, where it is too dangerous for people seeking protection to await processing.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Unfortunately, no significant US refugee resettlement program for Central Americans currently exists. Harris did not discuss plans to create one, even for the women the administration acknowledges flee violence in Guatemala. The statement that Guatemalans should not come undermines not only the right to seek asylum under US law, but it also bolsters a long history of American refusal to recognize Guatemalans as refugees or the role of US policies in causing forced displacement in the region.

      The Biden administration has allocated some additional refugee visa slots for Central Americans and established a Migration Resource Center in Guatemala to advise people about the availability of refugee resettlement. However, much more needs to be done by the State Department, Homeland Security (DHS) and Congress to build a substantial resettlement program for Guatemalans. The administration should work with Congress to ensure that more Central Americans are referred and are eligible for refugee resettlement.

      Second, the United States must make it possible for additional at-risk youth from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala to qualify as refugees through the Central American Minors (CAM) program. On June 15, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas announced an expansion of the renewed program, which existed under the Obama administration. It allows parents based in the United States to apply to have their children come to the country from Central America as refugees.

      This is welcome news. But the devil is in the details. It remains to be seen if, unlike during the Obama-era CAM program, significant numbers of Guatemalan parents will actually be eligible and helped to apply and if US officials sent to interview children will recognize them as refugees. It is also unclear if, this time around, the US government will ensure the safety of children while they are interviewed in Guatemala and provide them with needed support after they arrive in the US. The Biden administration must revise eligibility, retrain adjudicators and commit resources to make this program a true pathway to security for Guatemalan kids.

      Third, the Biden administration must also restore asylum at the border. Harris’ description of the border as closed does not accurately represent precisely what is happening, only further adding to the confusion. On the one hand, newly arriving migrants cannot ask for asylum at ports of entry along the US southern border and they could be expelled under an unjustified COVID-19-related order. On the other hand, the administration has exempted unaccompanied minors from Central America from this order and is admitting rather than expelling the majority of arriving families. Yet single adult asylum seekers who enter between ports of entry are an enforcement priority. These migrants are either expelled without any screening for their protection needs or detained at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities for long periods.

      Further, the Biden administration recently announced that asylum-seeking families admitted at the border will have their cases adjudicated on a faster timeline in immigration court without ensuring they will have access to counsel. Refugees International encourages the administration to end the COVID-19 expulsion policy, process asylum seekers at ports of entry, release asylum seekers to pursue their claims at their destination locations, and expand access to legal counsel for asylum seekers.

      Fourth, the Biden administration must listen to the voices of Central Americans. Harris’ comments will likely do little to affect migration and may take away from other issues that are of the utmost importance for Guatemalans. Smugglers are not swayed by such remarks and continue to profit off a booming business that feeds on the lack of legal pathways available to Central Americans.

      Guatemalans themselves often have no control over the conditions that force them to migrate, little of which have to do with US immigration policies. Two devastating hurricanes, pervasive violence and crime, and endemic corruption are some of the main reasons why people flee. These drivers will take years to diminish. In the meantime, the United States should work to build trust with Guatemalan civil society and prioritize support to areas that Guatemalans are specifically calling for help. Most notably, the US needs to support Guatemala in reducing corruption, as several prominent organizations in the country have asked for.

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      Finally, the Biden administration must work with Mexico on a holistic approach to migration that goes beyond deterrence and the prevention of northward movement. For decades, the US has asked the Mexican government to help keep migrants from the border through increased enforcement at Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala and ramped up detention and deportation in Mexico. This limits many with international protection concerns from seeking asylum in Mexico or the US.

      It remains to be seen whether policy changes like the proposed US-Mexico “Operations Group on Human Smuggling and Human Trafficking” will offer protection to victims of human trafficking at the border, whose needs have been ignored in the past. On his trip to Mexico last week, Secretary Mayorkas met with officials from the National Institute of Immigration (INM), but not with representatives of the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (COMAR). Nor did the delegation from the United States traveling with Mayorkas include officials focused on asylum and humanitarian concerns. In bilateral discussions about migration with Mexico, the Biden administration needs to increase emphasis on access to protection.

      Following Through

      If President Joe Biden is serious about providing protection to Central Americans, his administration must more clearly and consistently articulate its commitment to this goal. It must follow through on the commitment via increased access to refugee resettlement and asylum and to humble and holistic cooperation with regional partners.

      Harris’ approach was a political mistake and a lost opportunity. Other plans announced by the administration indicate a more productive approach that can be best fulfilled by adopting the five steps we have outlined.

      *[Yael Schacher is a senior US advocate and Rachel Schmidtke is an advocate for Latin America at Refugees International.]

      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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      in US Politics

      Trump proposed sending Americans with Covid to Guantánamo, book claims

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      In the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, Donald Trump advocated shipping Americans who contracted Covid-19 abroad to Guantánamo Bay.The stunning revelation is contained in a new book, Nightmare Scenario: Inside the Trump Administration’s Response to the Pandemic That Changed History, by Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damian Paletta, two Washington Post reporters. The Post published excerpts on Monday.According to the paper, at a meeting in the White House Situation Room in February last year, before the onset of the pandemic in which more than 600,000 have now died in the US, Trump asked aides: “Don’t we have an island that we own? What about Guantánamo?”Trump also reportedly said: “We import goods. We are not going to import a virus.”The reporters write that aides blocked the idea when Trump brought it up again.The US holds Guantánamo Bay on a disputed long lease from Cuba. The prison there is used to house terrorism suspects without trial and in extremely harsh conditions and since the 9/11 attacks has been a magnet for condemnation from human rights groups.In 2019, the book A Warning by Anonymous – later revealed to be Miles Taylor, a former homeland security official – reported that Trump suggested sending immigrants to the base in Cuba.According to Taylor, Trump proposed designating all migrants entering the US without permission as “enemy combatants”, then shipping them to Guantánamo.Books about Trump’s rise to power and four years in the White House have proved extremely lucrative. On Monday the news site Axios reported that Trump has spoken to numerous authors working on books about his time in the Oval Office.According to the Post, among scenes reported by Abutaleb and Paletta, Trump is depicted in March 2020 shouting at his health secretary, Alex Azar: “Testing is killing me!”Cases of Covid-19 were mounting at the time, with states entering lockdowns amid public confusion and fear.“I’m going to lose the election because of testing!” Trump reportedly yelled. “What idiot had the federal government do testing?”“Uh, do you mean Jared?” Azar is reported to have answered, referring to Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and chief adviser who was in charge of testing.Trump also reportedly said it was “gross incompetence to let [federal health agency] CDC develop a test”.Kushner is reported to have called a staffer who oversaw a March plan to purchase 600m masks a “fucking moron”, because the masks would not be delivered till June.By then, Kushner reportedly said: “We’ll all be dead.”Detailing such infighting and failures of leadership, the authors reportedly write: “That was what the response had turned into: a toxic environment in which no matter where you turned, someone was ready to rip your head off or threatening to fire you.” More

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      in US Politics

      Fox News’ Tucker Carlson is key source for media he ‘hates’, columnist says

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      Tucker Carlson of Fox News is a “go-to source” for the US political media he claims to “hate” and has called “cowards” and “cringing animals not worthy of respect” – according to a columnist for the New York Times.Ben Smith, a former editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed News, outed Carlson as “the go-to guy for sometimes-unflattering stories about Donald J Trump and for coverage of the internal politics of Fox News (not to mention stories about Mr Carlson himself)”.Carlson has become a star of the pro-Trump right – even figuring in polls regarding the next Republican presidential nomination, although he told a podcast last week he will not run – and a hate figure on the US left.Referring to Carlson’s role stoking culture wars over Covid-19, Smith wrote that he dodged the question of whether he has been vaccinated himself.Carlson reportedly replied: “When was the last time you had sex with your wife and in what position? … We can trade intimate details.”Smith wrote: “Then we argued back and forth about vaccines and he ended the conversation with a friendly invitation to return to his show.”Smith also quoted a leading recycler of Washington gossip, Michael Wolff, who has written two Trumpworld tell-alls and last week announced a third.“In Trump’s Washington, Tucker Carlson is a primary supersecret source,” Smith quoted Wolff as writing in a new book of essays. “I know this because I know what he has told me, and I can track his exquisite, too-good-not-to-be-true gossip through unsourced reports and as it often emerges into accepted wisdom.”Smith also quoted a heavily trailed book by Michael Bender, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, entitled Frankly, We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost.According to Smith, Bender recounts a call between Trump and Carlson after the first debate last year, when Trump interrupted and hectored Joe Biden. Carlson is shown letting Trump go to voicemail, then telling him he did not do a good job onstage.“Mr Bender declined to comment on the sourcing that allowed him to so precisely reconstruct a conversation only two people were privy to,” Smith wrote.According to publicity material, Bender spoke to Trump. So have many other authors. Jonathan Karl of ABC News, author of Front Row at the Trump Show, told Axios on Monday: “If you thought there was no more to know, it’s been mind-blowing.”Brian Stelter of CNN, author of Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News and the Dangerous Distortion of the Truth, told Smith “you can see Tucker’s fingerprints all over the hardcover”.But in a week when Carlson pushed conspiracy theories about the 6 January attack on the Capitol, Stelter told Smith they had not spoken for his paperback.Carlson called mainstream US reporters “animals” and “cowards” in April.“I just can’t overstate how disgusted I am,” he told Outkick, “not simply by the details of the lying of the medium, but disgusted by the emphasis. The media is basically Praetorian Guard for the ruling class … I really hate them for it, I’ll be honest.”Detailing the collapse of Times and Politico stories critical of Carlson under attack from the host, Smith compared Carlson to Trump and Joe McCarthy. The senator from Wisconsin fueled anti-communist hysteria in the 1950s and was recently the subject of a biography entitled Demagogue.Carlson told Smith: “I don’t know any gossip.”But Smith said he spoke to 16 journalists from publications other than the Times.One “reporter for a prominent publication who speaks to Mr Carlson regularly” said: “It’s so unknown in the general public how much he plays both sides.”Another said: “If you open yourself up as a resource to mainstream media reporters, you don’t even have to ask them to go soft on you.”Smith said he would not reveal the contents of his own off-record chats with Carlson. More

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      in World Politics

      The Sad Reality of US Dealmaking

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      The fallout from US President Joe Biden’s week in Europe has just begun. There was no dramatic moment that sums it up, though the media vaguely hoped the one-on-one with Russian President Vladimir Putin might produce something akin to the jabs, uppercuts and right crosses of Rocky Balboa vs. Ivan Drago in their opening round. But there was nothing to see. The fight wasn’t televised and Biden carefully avoided the risk of seeing both on stage in a joint press conference.

      Though no spectacular shift in US–Russia relations will likely appear in the months ahead as a result of the encounter, some aspects of Biden’s performance concerning the posture and attitude of the US on the world stage may prove pivotal. Biden’s actions and rhetoric in Europe have contributed in significant ways both to defining his presidential legacy and clarifying the shifting vocation of the US in a world that has become far more complex than the one previous presidents had to deal with.

      Biden’s Optimism vs. the Media’s Pessimism

      READ MORE

      Biden seems to realize it as he frequently refers to this moment of history as an “inflection point.” He’s right, though he seems to have seriously misjudged the nature of the tectonic shift the world is undergoing. Biden defines such inflection points as “moments in time when we’ve made hard decisions about who we are.” But the era in which presidential decisions in themselves constituted historical inflection points probably ended in March 2003, when the US, under George W. Bush, invaded Iraq. Forces were then unleashed that no longer await presidential decisions. Powerful undercurrents of history, the economy and of nature itself — all beyond any politician’s control — have been fueling the largely unmanageable force behind today’s inflection.

      Jonathan Lemire and Aamer Madhani are the authors of an AP article that focuses on Biden as America’s pitchman to the rest of the world. The title of the article is: “Biden Abroad: Pitching America to Welcoming If Wary Allies.” Reduced to its essence, Biden’s pitch consisted of reassuring his allies that he can be trusted simply because he is not Donald Trump, even though his policies have shown little indication of breaking with the former president’s innovations.

      Embed from Getty Images

      The world remembers Biden’s previous boss, Barack Obama, who before his election in 2008 claimed to represent a radical shift away from everything that Bush stood for. He even convinced the Nobel committee he was a prince of peace. Once in office, Obama prolonged most of Bush’s policies, including foreign wars, reinforcing the surveillance state and maintaining tax cuts for the wealthy, all of which imperiled the economy itself, leading to the 2008 financial crisis that he was tasked with solving.

      Lemire and Madhani note that whilst the allies in the G7 appeared relieved by the feeling that there was now “a steady hand at the wheel,” they were far from convinced that the US was permanently back on an even keel. They did end up agreeing to the general drift of Biden’s campaign to highlight the opposition between democracy (the West) and autocracy (China and Russia). 

      At the same time, the authors remarked that “Germany, Italy and the representatives for the European Union [were] reluctant to call out China, a valuable trading partner, too harshly.” More significantly, they noted that there was “a wariness in some European capitals that it was Biden, rather than Trump, who was the aberration to American foreign policy and that the United States could soon fall back into a transactional, largely inward-looking approach.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Transactional:

      An adjective that describes not only the willingness to make deals with others, but also the refusal to recognize the existence of anything other than calculation of individual interest in the conduct of one’s affairs and relationships even with permanent partners and allies.

      Contextual Note

      After his meeting with Putin, Biden declared: “This is not about trust. This is about self-interest and verification of self-interest.” He needed to reassure the American electorate that, unlike Trump, he had nothing but mistrust for Putin. But he may have been signaling what most Americans always want to hear: that nobody should be trusted, because all relationships begin — and most end — with the assertion of self-interest. America’s European allies have understood that, despite protestations of solid alliances, special relationships and undying friendship, Trump’s approach of reducing everything to a transactional deal was a true description of the reality of US policy under every recent president.

      The language used by the media demonstrates this reality with some clarity. The AP journalists already described Biden’s action as “pitching America.” In an article with the title, “Biden Struggles to Sell Democracy Abroad When It Faces Challenges at Home,” The Washington Post described Biden’s behavior in Europe to that of a street barker. “But then, like any good pitchman, Biden quickly regained his footing,” the Post reports. Diplomacy always involves self-interest and always contains an agenda, but when it consistently appears as a pitch, potential customers begin to doubt the sincerity. The authors of the AP article make it clear that, however persuasive the pitch, Biden has not yet closed any deal. They even seem to doubt one is likely.

      Historical Note

      Writing for Spectator World, historian Andrew Bacevich commented that Joe Biden’s premise concerning US leadership of democratically-inclined allies sounds like a desire to return to an imagined status quo that, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, appeared to be heralding what George H.W. Bush called “a new world order.” But in this century, history has moved on in ways Biden and most American politicians appear either not to have noticed or persist in willingly ignoring. “The idea that a US-led bloc of Western nations will determine the future of the planet will become increasingly implausible,” Bacevich explains.

      The historian puts in perspective Biden’s insistence on managing an inflection point: “While repeatedly insisting that history had reached ‘an inflection point’, he simultaneously reiterated the claim made by every US president since Harry Truman (Trump excepted) that ‘the partnership between Europe and the United States’ will determine the fate of humankind.”

      The G7 is that partnership, which now includes Japan. But the fate of humankind will rely on the interplay of forces that no single nation or group of nations controls. If there were a way of getting humankind itself into the picture through, say, a global democratic revolution that respects the classic democratic dictum of one man, one vote, the combat to promote democracy over autocracy might make some sense. But that is on no one’s agenda. The degree of inequality between nations and within nations may now have reached a point of no return.

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      Trump’s presidency taught the Europeans about the dangers of getting on board with grand US-led projects. They are beyond risky. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), even more than the Paris climate accord, provides a perfect example. At a truly interesting historical moment marked by the election this weekend of a new president in Iran, the US actually has an opportunity to push toward a solution that would involve reconciling a number of competing interests stretching across a wide expanse of the globe.

      The New York Times believes that the election of Ebrahim Raisi as Iran’s new president may be the perfect opportunity for Biden. Its reasoning makes sense. If Raisi makes the concessions necessary to remove US sanctions, Iranians will have the hope of returning to a prosperous economy. Still, the heritage of Donald Trump has seriously weakened US credibility. “The Iranians have demanded a written commitment that no future American government could scrap the deal as Mr. Trump did,” the Times reports. “They want something permanent — ‘a reasonable-sounding demand,’ in the words of one senior American official, ‘that no real democracy can make.’”

      What the official means is that a real democracy could make that “reasonable-sounding demand,” but not the US version of democracy. The Times explains: “Mr. Biden, like President Barack Obama before him, could never have gotten the consent of two-thirds of the U.S. Senate. So it is termed an ‘executive agreement’ that any future president could reverse, just as Mr. Trump did.”

      Bacevich is right. The US, even with Europe, cannot “determine the future of the planet.” It can’t even define a line of policy that will hold for more than four years. The most powerful nation in the world is also the most powerless.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      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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      in US Politics

      The rogue department: how the Trump DoJ trashed legal and political norms

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      Donald Trump never did much to hide his dangerous belief that the US justice department and the attorneys general who helmed it should serve as his own personal lawyers and follow his political orders, regardless of norms and the law.Former senior DoJ officials say the former president aggressively prodded his attorney generals to go after his enemies, protect his friends and his interests, and these moves succeeded with alarming results until Trump’s last few months in office.But now with Joe Biden sitting in the Oval Office, Merrick Garland as attorney general, and Democrats controlling Congress, more and more revelations are emerging about just how far Trump’s justice department went rogue. New inquiries have been set up to investigate the scale of wrongdoing.Trump’s disdain for legal principles and the constitution revealed itself repeatedly – especially during Bill Barr’s tenure as attorney general, during most of 2019 and 2020. During Barr’s term in office, Trump ignored the tradition of justice as a separate branch of government, and flouted the principle of the rule of law, say former top justice lawyers and congressional Democrats.In Barr, Trump appeared to find someone almost entirely aligned with the idea of doing his bidding. Barr sought to undermine the conclusions of Robert Mueller’s inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 elections, independent congressional oversight, and Trump critics in and out of government, while taking decisions that benefitted close Trump allies.But more political abuses have emerged, with revelations that – starting under attorney general Jeff Sessions in 2018 – subpoenas were issued in a classified leak inquiry to obtain communications records of top Democrats on the House intelligence committee. Targets were Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, who were investigating Kremlin election meddling, and also several committee staffers and journalists.Democrats in Congress, as well as Garland, have forcefully denounced these Trumpian tactics. Garland has asked the department’s inspector general to launch his own inquiry, and examine the subpoenas involving members of Congress and the media. Congressional committees are eyeing their own investigations into the department’s extraordinary behavior.“There was one thing after another where DoJ acted inappropriately and violated the fundamental principle that law enforcement must be even-handed. The DoJ must always make clear that no person is above the law,” said Donald Ayer, deputy attorney general in the George HW Bush administration.Ayer thinks there could be more revelations to come. “The latest disclosure of subpoenas issued almost three years ago shows we don’t yet know the full extent of the misconduct that was engaged in.”Similarly, ex-justice department inspector general Michael Bromwich said: “I think it’s pretty clear Trump had little respect for some of the true bedrock principles that define this country – judicial independence and separation of powers, among others. He also never showed any understanding or appreciation for norms that have historically gone unchallenged – the importance of free and fair elections and the peaceful transfer of power.”In a blistering Washington Post op-ed, Schiff summed up the latest disclosures about the DoJ subpoenas, and the broader politicization at the DoJ under Trump.“The rules established after Watergate to ensure the independence of the justice department served our nation well for half a century, until another president shattered them,” Schiff, now the head of the House intelligence committee, wrote. “Donald Trump had his own enemies list, which included members of the media, elected officials and congressional staff.”But Trump’s repeated strong-arming of his attorney generals were not complete successes, even with Barr.Trump’s desperate drive to overturn Joe Biden’s win reached a fruitless climax when Barr publicly disagreed with Trump’s baseless claims that he lost the election due to massive fraud. Acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen, who succeeded Barr last December, also resisted Trump’s strong arm tactics to open conspiracy driven inquiries into election results in states Biden won.But the late resistance Trump met at the department was largely an exception, although Trump’s first attorney general Sessions incurred Trump’s wrath for recusing himself from the Russia investigations because of a conflict of interest. Trump’s pressure tactics were palpable when Sessions resigned in late 2018. Barr succeeded him in early 2019.Barr spun and distorted the some of the key findings of Mueller’s two-year inquiry into Russian meddling before it was officially released, to sway public opinion and undercut the report’s conclusion that Russia interfered in “sweeping and systematic” ways with an eye to helping Trump win in 2016.Barr publicly tapped Connecticut US attorney John Durham to investigate the origins of the FBI’s 2016 inquiry into Russian meddling, a move several ex DoJ officials criticized as redundant and politically driven, since a similar inquiry was already under way by the DoJ’s own inspector general, but that prompted Trump to exclaim: “I think it’s great.”Last year, Barr drew fire for sentencing decisions that were widely viewed as favoring two Trump associates: long-time Trump confidante and self styled “dirty trickster” Roger Stone, and ex-national security adviser Michael Flynn, both of whom had been convicted in the Russia investigations.In the case of Flynn, who twice admitted lying to the FBI, Barr opted to drop all charges on the grounds that the lies were not material, and Barr sharply reduced a sentence that Stone was supposed to serve. Trump commuted Stone’s sentence before he served any time, and later pardoned both men.“Barr may not have fully appreciated how far Trump was willing to go in turning the DoJ into a plaything for the White House, to protect the president’s friends and pursue his enemies,” said eBromwich. “But Barr proved a willing accomplice on issues ranging from distorting the Mueller report to taking insupportable positions in cases in which Trump took a personal interest.”Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a top Democrat on the chamber’s judiciary committee, said in a statement: “Barr played the role of Trump’s personal fixer, and degraded the Department of Justice – long a citadel of the law – to the role of Trump’s personal law firm. He stonewalled Congress at every turn.”He added: “He trashed Department rules and norms when inconvenient to the president. And he ran political errands for Trump, even if it meant a hit to the Department’s credibility. He left behind a colossal mess that will take lots of time and hard work to clean up.” More

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      What’s in your fridge? New York’s mayoral race descends to salmon and sneakers | Emma Brockes

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      It is hard to pick a favourite moment from the New York mayor’s race, entering its final stage of the primaries this week. It could be the episode in which two candidates – Shaun Donovan and Ray McGuire – were asked to guess the average house price in Brooklyn and answered $100,000, which would have been correct in 1985. (For those operating in 2021, the correct answer is $900,000).It could have been the implosion of the Dianne Morales campaign, the most progressive candidate by far, predictably destroyed from within when staffers complained she’d created a “hostile” environment and that the work, presumably stuffing envelopes, was “repetitive and unstructured”. Meanwhile, it is hard not to love the storyline still playing out around Eric Adams, Brooklyn borough president and current frontrunner in the primary and therefore the election: that he secretly lives in New Jersey.The mayoral race in the US’s biggest city has always been a weird combination of national and parish politics, a magnet for cranks and hustlers, as well as Bloomberg-style billionaires. Four of the last six mayors in New York have been Democrats – Republican voters are outnumbered six to one in the city – and the lion’s share of coverage goes on the Democratic field; this year, not even the rightwing New York Post bothered to endorse a candidate in the Republican primary.Still, even among Democrats it can be hard to get New Yorkers to pay attention to the race much in advance of the final election. A few months ago, the only candidate with name recognition and the early frontrunner was Andrew Yang, the former presidential candidate and CEO of assorted failed startups, running on the “visionary” ticket, and about whom it remains a mystery that he has ever sought election for anything.Yang’s lead took a hit during the pandemic, when it transpired that he had cleared out of the city to his second home upstate. For a hot second, Scott Stringer, the 61-year-old New York City comptroller and the most experienced politician in the field, glided into first place, until two accusations of sexual misconduct surfaced (he denies them) and that was the end of him.And so we arrive at the portion of the campaign represented by Eric Adams’ fridge. New Yorkers will tolerate, even celebrate, a certain amount of eccentricity in their mayor; look at the enduring affection for Ed Koch, the Democratic mayor of the late 70s and 80s whose theatrics made him loved even as the city slid into bankruptcy. Anthony Weiner, the disgraced candidate in the 2013 race, was given a second chance after his sexting shenanigans largely based on the force of his personality.Adams, 60 years old and a police officer before he went into politics, is not a showman in this style. The fact that the biggest of scandal of his run for office has been so entertaining, however, has probably helped his campaign more than it has hindered it. Two weeks ago, in a move worthy of Matt Hancock, Adams invited press to his apartment in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighbourhood of Brooklyn, in an effort to shut down rumours that he actually lived in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Reporters scoured the scene, noting, despite Adams’ dietary preferences, the number of non-vegan items in his fridge (salmon, dairy), and the presence of sneakers that appeared to belong to Adams’ adult son, Jordan. If his judgment is off – the main takeaway from the episode was the foolishness of inviting a reporter to your home – Adams came out of it looking relatably shambolic.There has never been a female mayor of New York. By far the sanest candidate, endorsed by the New York Times and running just behind Adams in the polls, is Kathryn Garcia, the former head of the city’s sanitation department and popular on both left and right of the party. She hasn’t been involved in any scandals, save for her brilliantly amateurish campaign video in which, after uttering a few lines in an Ingmar Bergman-esque monotone, she broke through a sheet of glass stamped with In Case of Emergency Break Glass and stalked off in a leather jacket straight from an 80s Heart video.Garcia’s weakness is one that often dogs competent women outflanked in politics by flamboyant and incompetent men: her public persona is not “fun”. It is serious and impressive. In some inchoate way, someone who knows the sewers of New York – and the 10,000 public service workers who maintain them – would seem to know the city at an unparalleled level. And yet a quick glance at Bill de Blasio, the current mayor and a man the city unites in despising, reminds us that serious and impressive doesn’t always win the day. De Blasio popped up last week to illustrate how ranked choice voting works, by holding up a chart of his favourite pizza toppings. (Number one: green peppers. The man’s a disaster.) More