Rick Bright Is Blowing The Whistle On Trumpanzee's Incompetence And Mismanagement

Sunday should be more than interesting at 60 Minutes, when courageous whistle-blower Rick Bright exposes what he knows about the Trump regime's mishandling on the U.S. pandemic response. There's a little CBS video teaser above that's worth watching. The pandemic numbers continue getting worse as the worst of the American governors... drumroll... meet the clownish Brian Kemp of Georgia:

... open wide. Another 579 Georgians were infected by Brian Kemp Wednesday. That brings the state's cases per million to 3,337. So what does that mean in real life? Well, the third worst pandemic-- after the U.S. (with 1,426,241 confirmed cases) and Spain (with 271,095 confirmed cases) is Russia (with 242,271 confirmed cases). But they all have different populations so it's like comparing apples with hamburgers. That's whew use the number of cases per a million people in the population. Russia has just 1,660, bad but not nearly as bad as the Open-Up states like Georgia (3,337 per million), Indiana (3,784), Tennessee (2,397), Iowa (4,212), Mississippi (3,390), Nebraska (4,691) and South Dakota 4,219. In other words, Brian Kemp (R-GA), Eric Holcolmb (R-IN), Bill Lee (R-TN), Kim Reynolds (R-IA), Tate Reeves (R-MS), Pete Ricketts (R-NE) and Kristi Noem (R-SD) are all doing a worse job that fascist murderer Vladimir Putin (R-Russia).

I hope these governors-- and their supporters-- decide to watch 60 Minutes Sunday, a must-watch for the whole nation but Bright testified before the House Energy and Commerce's health subcommittee today. Big PhRMA shill Anna Eshoo is the chair and there are no real Democratic firebrands on the subcommittee-- although people were hoping Debbie Dingell, Peter Welch, Joe Kennedy, John Sarbanes and Nanette Barragán might step up to the plate.

CNN reported, that Bright was planning on telling the committee "that the Trump administration was unprepared for the coronavirus pandemic and warn that the the US will face 'unprecedented illness and fatalities' without additional preparations. 'Our window of opportunity is closing. If we fail to develop a national coordinated response, based in science, I fear the pandemic will get far worse and be prolonged, causing unprecedented illness and fatalities... 'Without clear planning and implementation of the steps that I and other experts have outlined, 2020 will be the darkest winter in modern history.'"

Someone work up nervous this morning

Bright will reiterate that he believes he was removed from his post because he "resisted efforts to promote and enable broad access to an unproven drug, chloroquine, to the American people without transparent information on the potential health risks."

Bright is seeking to be reinstated to his position as the head of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) and the Office of Special Counsel, which is reviewing Bright's complaint, has determined there is reason to believe his removal was retaliatory and is recommending he be reinstated during its investigation, according to Bright's attorneys.

A Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson responded that it was "a personnel matter that is currently under review" but said it "strongly disagrees with the allegations and characterizations."

Expanding on his whistleblower complaint, Bright is expected to testify that he sought to warn his superiors about potential shortages of critical medical supplies earlier this year, but that his "urgency was dismissed" and that he "faced hostility and marginalization from HHS officials" after conveying his concerns about shortages to a senior White House official, Peter Navarro.

"As I reflect on the past few months of this outbreak, it is painfully clear that we were not as prepared as we should have been. We missed early warning signals and we forgot important pages from our pandemic playbook," Bright will testify, according to his written testimony.

In his written testimony, Bright also calls for several key steps to improve the federal government's response to the pandemic and head off a spike in cases in the fall, including increasing public education of preventative measures, ramping up production of essential medical supplies and developing a national testing strategy.

"The virus is out there, it's everywhere. We need to be able to find it, to isolate it and to stop it from infecting more people," Bright plans to say. "We need tests that are accurate, rapid, easy to use, low cost, and available to everyone who needs them."

After today's congressional testimony, Aaron Blake put together a list of 5 takeaways for Washington Post readers:

1- ‘Lives were lost’ because of ‘inaction,' unheeded warnings

Bright said that early inaction by the government-- particularly in the Department of Health and Human Services-- had, in fact, cost lives.

“That inaction has put a lot of lives at risk in our front-line health-care workers” Bright said.

Bright has said that he pushed for ramping up production of medical equipment such as masks, but that it went unheeded for months after he was informed that officials didn’t think there was a “critical shortage” of masks.

“I pushed that forward to the highest levels I could in HHS and got no response,” Bright said. “From that moment, I knew that we were going to have a crisis for our health-care workers because we were not taking action. We were already behind the ball. That was our last window of opportunity to turn on that production to save the lives of those health-care workers, and we didn’t act."

Bright added that even today, the country is dealing with the consequences of that early negligence and that health-care workers are still more at risk than they should be.

“Lives were endangered, and I believe lives were lost,” Bright said. “And not only that: We were forced to procure these supplies from other countries without the right quality standards. So even our doctors and nurses in the hospitals today are wearing N95-marked masks from other countries that are not providing the sufficient protection that a U.S.-standard N95 mask would provide them. Some of those masks are only 30 percent effective. Therefore, nurses are rushing in the hospitals thinking they’re protected, and they’re not.”

2- Administration pushed vastly expanded use of unproven drugs

One of Bright’s key claims is that he was moved to another post after raising objections to the administration pushing the use of the malaria drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine to treat coronavirus.

The administration allowed for the emergency use of the drugs to treat the virus, though later studies-- which have yet to be peer-reviewed and were not randomized-- suggest that the use of the drugs don’t help and can, in fact, have negative consequences. The FDA has now warned about the dangers of using the drugs...

3- Pessimism about 12- to 18-month timeline for vaccine

President Trump has been effusively optimistic about not just treatments such as the chloroquines but about the timeline for a vaccine for the virus.

Shortly before Bright’s testimony Thursday, Trump even said, “I think we’re going to have a vaccine by the end of the year.”

That’s even more optimistic than the 12- to 18-month timeline that medical experts such as Anthony S. Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, have said is realistic for the vaccine. But Bright said that even a year to year-and-a-half timeline might also be overly optimistic.

“I still think 12 to 18 months is an aggressive schedule, and I think it’s going to take longer than that to do so,” Bright said.

4- We don’t have ‘a single point of leadership’ or ‘master plan’

As Trump increasingly criticized Fauci, Bright said the government needs to have more regard for it scientists-- and a more consistent message from the top.

He said that right now the response has been hampered by not having a “single point of leadership.”

“We need to install and empower leadership, and we need to unleash the voices of the scientists in our public health system in the United States so they can be heard and their guidances need to be listened to,” Bright said. “And we need to be able to convey that information to the American public so they have the truth about the real risk and dire consequences of this virus.

He added: "And we don’t have a single point of leadership right now for this response, and we don’t have a master plan for this response. So those two things are absolutely critical.”

Fauci has said in recent days that states that move forward with reopening their economies before meeting the guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are risking new outbreaks-- which could set back the entire response.

5- Azar, Republicans cast Bright as a malcontent skipping work

As Bright offered one of the most significant rebukes of the federal coronavirus response to date, Republicans on the committee and members of the Trump administration sought to undercut his testimony and character. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, in particular, had strong words for Bright.

“Everything he is complaining about was achieved,” Azar said while standing next to Trump on the White House lawn. “Everything he talked about was done. He says he talked about the need for respirators; we procured respirators under the president’s direction.”

Don't Forget The Cover-Up

To Señor Trumpanzee, any Republican civil servant who puts country before Trumpism is automatically a #NeverTrumper. He casts the aspersion on anyone who testifies to the facts, a way of targeting them for his moron followers and supporters. However, that isn't to say that there are no #NeverTrumpers. There are; and almost all of them work at The Bulwark... which, by the way, has recently modified it's logo:

Early yesterday, The Bulwark performed a service by publishing Chris Truax's piece, There Was Also A Cover-up. He pointed out that "Lost in all of the current impeachment talk is the very start of this incident: How the whistleblower complaint was initially handled. As Howard Baker once put it during the Watergate investigation, the question is 'What did the President know and when did he know it?' In Trump’s case, we can add, 'And what did he do about it?' Because the administration’s initial handling of the whistleblower report now looks less like an attempt to preserve executive authority and much more like an attempt at a cover-up."

When the whistleblower filed the complaint, the Office of the Inspector General quickly concluded that it was both credible and “a matter of urgent concern.” Consequently, the OIG had a legal duty to report it to Congress. But when the OIG filed what should have been a pro-forma notification of the complaint with the Director of National Intelligence, something happened. Instead of facilitating the passing of the complaint to the congressional intelligence committees as the law requires, the administration began a frantic effort to bottle it up, permanently.

That effort culminated in an opinion from the Office of Legal Counsel concluding that the president’s efforts to get Ukraine to do him a “favor” and investigate Joe Biden was not “a matter of urgent concern” under the whistleblower act. The OLC’s analysis is a stretch, at best. Seventy Inspectors General, including the Inspector General of the Justice Department itself, signed a joint letter insisting that the OLC withdraw or modify that opinion.

What’s particularly damning about this chain of events is that the OLC opinion only concluded that the statute did not “require” DNI Maguire to send the complaint to Congress. It did not conclude that the complaint could not or should not be sent to Congress.

Nonetheless, Maguire refused to help the whistleblower contact Congress directly even though the law gives a whistleblower the right to do so and directs the Director of National Intelligence to facilitate the whistleblower’s communications with Congress.

So either Maguire was acting entirely on his own, which seems unlikely. Or someone in the chain of command ordered Maguire to bury the complaint.

Who might that have been?

We don’t yet know precisely when President Trump found out about the existence of the complaint. He almost certainly knew about the complaint by the time he dictated the famous “no quid pro quo” phone text to Ambassador Sondland on September 9, because that’s the day that Inspector General Michael Atkinson sent his letter informing Congress that a complaint existed and that it was being buried by the administration.

Whistleblower by Nancy Ohanian

But it’s very possible that Trump learned about the existence of the complaint much earlier. Senator Ron Johnson, one of Trump’s biggest supporters, has provided written evidence about a curious conversation he had with President Trump on August 31, during which Trump denied that congressionally-authorized military aid was being held up to pressure Ukraine and also denied knowing who Ambassador Gordon Sondland was. Since that’s patently absurd-- we know conclusively that Trump knew exactly who Sondland was-- it is difficult to interpret this as anything other than Trump’s efforts to cover his tracks.

One possibility is that Trump learned about the whistleblower complaint directly from the Director of National Security, Joseph Maquire. When Maguire testified before the House Intelligence Committee on September 26, he was asked by Rep. Jim Himes, “Did you or your office ever speak to the president of the United States about this complaint?”

Watch Maguire’s sputtering, play-for-time non-answer. No really, it’s right here. Go watch. Now ask yourself what the odds are that the real, truthful answer to Himes’ question is “no.”

Regardless of whether or not it was Maguire, at some point Trump did find out about the complaint. What did he do then? We won’t know until the House completes its investigation, but I would bet the farm that his response was not, “Why are you telling me this? This complaint is about me. I have a conflict of interest! I can’t discuss this with you.”

As the target of the whistleblower complaint, it is axiomatic that President Trump should not have been allowed to interfere with the processing of the complaint in any way. Arguably, he should not even have been told of its existence. Preventing powerful wrongdoers from suppressing complaints of wrongdoing is the entire reason that whistleblower acts exist.

And yet, various members of the Trump administration-- possibly including Donald Trump himself-- found out about this complaint early in the process and went all out-to ensure that it never saw the light of day.

Trying to interfere with the justice system in a foreign country is bad enough. Interfering with ours is the very definition of impeachable.

How Safe Is The Whistleblower? Are We In The U.S. Or In Russia?

I don't understand why Buzzflash was sending out fundraising e-mails for itself in the midst of the end of the quarter federal elections deadline, but aside from that, one of their e-mails was very worthwhile reading. Whether Trump or Barr had Trump-crony Jeff Epstein murdered while he was in federal custody or not-- one of them probably did, and Trump is blaming Hillary Clinton for the deed (a classic Trump indication of his own guilt)-- Trump has absolutely painted a target on the back on the Ukraine whistleblower. Buzzflash: "His or her personal safety is threatened, attorneys write in letter to Congress. Contrary to some reports, the whistleblower is not currently receiving federal protection. Apparently, Scott Pelley of 60 Minutes claimed that the whistleblower was under federal protection, based on a letter from his or her attorneys. A Wall Street Journal reporter, however, followed up with Mark Zaid, one of the whistleblower’s attorneys, who charged that 60 Minutes 'completely misinterpreted the contents of our letter.' Indeed the letter to congressional leaders from the Compass Rose Legal Group, and an enclosed more detailed letter to Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, emphasized 'conveying our serious [ongoing] concerns for our client’s personal safety.'"

"The letter to Maguire directly quotes Trump’s thinly veiled threat to the whistleblower last week as cause for concern. It also mentions a fifty thousand dollar bounty offered by Trump loyalists to any person who provides information leading to the identity of the whistleblower. On Sunday, Trump asserted that he deserves to 'meet my accuser.' Given that Trump has a history of inciting violence, the whistleblower’s attorneys have good cause to be concerned about his or her personal safety. It begs the question that besides behaving like a mafia don, Trump is engaging in witness intimidation, obstruction of justice and violations of the whistleblower act." Are we in the U.S. or in Russia?

Speaking of which, Trump's Kremlin allies are insisting that transcripts of Trump's calls with Putin cannot be released without Russian permission. That would be true-- if the U.S., and not just Trump, were a Russian colony. Reuters: "The Kremlin said on Monday that Washington would need Russian consent to publish transcripts of phone calls between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. Congress is determined to get access to Trump’s calls with Putin and other world leaders, the U.S. House Intelligence Committee’s chairman said on Sunday, citing concerns that the Republican president may have jeopardized national security." As Buzzflash reminded it's readers, "The safety of the whistleblower is deemed clearly at risk by his or her attorneys, and given that any federal protection would ultimately fall under the purview of the Trump administration, such “protection” might be no protection at all."

Eva Putzova is the progressive Democrat running for Congress in Arizona's vast first district. I think she spoke for a lot of Americans when she said yesterday "As if we needed any more reasons to impeach Donald Trump, his not-so-veiled threat of civil war if he is removed from office should be added to the list. Trump is encouraging people to overthrow the government of the United States through violence. This constitutes treason--  the first cause for impeachment under  Article II, Section IV of the Constitution. I encourage the Congress to act accordingly." Montana Democratic congressional candidate Tom Winter sees it much the same way. "The president," he told us today, "is threatening actual war if he is held to account by a democratically elected Congress. How many Rubicons does this administration have to cross before it is held to account?" The progressive Democrat running in the suburbs southwest of Atlanta, Michael Owens told us this morning that "Retweeting the threat of a Civil War is an escalation from Trump that goes far beyond even his normal divisive rhetoric. We should never allow this to be normalized or be excused away. This shouldn't be defended by anyone on either side of the aisle regardless of the color of your district. It is dangerous, hate-filled and anti-American."

Lets send our thoughts and prayers-- for real-- that Adam Schiff gets to the whistleblower before Trump and Barr do. Monday morning, Trump enablers in the Senate were smearing him all morning. Texas Trump-backer John Cornyn-- who is up for reelection next year without a strong Democratic opponent-- started the ball rolling: "It doesn’t come from a person with personal knowledge. It’s like I heard these people say this, and now I’m reporting it. I think that is pretty bizarre. Secondly, after a certain point, it doesn’t just allege facts, it really is kind of a dossier or political diatribe, so I think there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical. Having said that, we are in the process of talking to the director of national intelligence and the inspector general." Strange Cornyn would go with that gaslighting after even the White House-doctored transcript confirmed everything the whistleblower reported.

The Senate Judiciary Committee chair, congenitally dishonest closet queen Lindsey Graham pulled his head out of Trump's ass long enough to lisp through his shit-packed lips that he wants "to know who was the person that went to the whistleblower." You bet he does-- for Trump. Graham, who knows more about blowing than anyone else in the Senate, said "This was a fairly sophisticated effort to write a narrative rather than blow a whistle." Graham is also running for reelection-- and also with the weakest possible opposition, a crooked lobbyist Schumer picked for the job. (A new poll shows Lindsey leading the crooked lobbyist-- but only be 7 points, 50 to 43%.)

But Republicans are realizing this is going to be a very bad electoral cycle for them. Trump's approval rating has cratered and is going lower and, almost daily, Republican congressmembers are eschewing reelection battles for jobs on K Street. Today, Corey Lewandowski announced he's re-thinking his plans to run for the Senate against Jeanne Shaheen in New Hampshire-- a day after a poll came out showing him losing in a landslide 56-34%, numbers that indicate there's not much love for the mediocre Shaheen but total disdain for Trump and his enablers.

Hillary: "The President Asked A Foreign Power To Help Him Win An Election. Again."

So now we all think we know that the whistleblower thing was Trump pressing Volodymyr Zelensky, president of Ukraine, to find some dirt on Biden's lobbyist son. And maybe that's "all" it was; or maybe not. It's certainly bad enough-- despite Trump going from denying the whole thing as "fake news" to imbecilic protestations that the whistleblower is partisan. Even more Trumpoid is him demanding someone throw him a shovel so he could announce he's meeting with the Ukrainian guy at the UN next week. Presumably Trump told him he'd get him some aid if he came up with anything on Biden.

The Washington Post had a 4-person team on the story-- Matt Zapotosky, Greg Miller, Ellen Nalashima and Carol Leonnig-- which wrote that on July 25 Trump pressured Zelensky "to more aggressively pursue an investigation that Trump believed would deliver potential political dirt against" Biden. It's hard to believe the reporting that there was no quid pro quo. But read this carefully because it leaves a lot unaccounted for: The call is part of a broader set of facts included in the whistleblower complaint that is at the center of a showdown between the executive branch and Congress, with officials in the Trump administration refusing to divulge any information about the substance of an Aug. 12 report to the inspector general of the U.S. intelligence community... The disclosure comes amid new details about the White House’s role in preventing Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire from complying with Congressional demands for the material in the complaint."

We'll get to the Wall Street Journal follow-up in a minute, but it's worth taking a look at what Anna Nemtsova reported for the Daily Beast first, namely that Anton Geraschenko, a senior adviser to the country’s interior minister, said that Joe Biden's son Hunter had connections with natural gas company Burisma Holdings but that he sees no indication Biden or his son broke their laws and that if Trump wants them investigated, he'll need to say why and what for. He claims there is no official request for an investigation. 'Clearly,' said Geraschenko, 'Trump is now looking for kompromat to discredit his opponent Biden, to take revenge for his friend Paul Manafort, who is serving seven years in prison.' Among the counts on which Manafort was convicted: tax evasion. 'We do not investigate Biden in Ukraine, since we have not received a single official request to do so,' said Geraschenko."

His remarks last week came amid widespread speculation that Trump "had made vital U.S. military aid for Ukraine contingent on such an inquiry, but had tried to do so informally through unofficial representatives, including his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and Giuliani’s adviser on Ukraine, Sam Kislin. But Geraschenko spoke before the appearance of a Washington Post story on Thursday that implied that an intelligence community whistleblower may have reported that the untoward quid pro quo was put forth directly by Trump in a phone call with Ukraine’s newly elected president last July.

Geraschenko reconfirmed his statements in a phone call on Friday."

OK, so it was the Wall Street Journal that broke this whole whistleblower story and yesterday, their team indicated that it was about Trump pressing Zelensky to dig up some dirt on Biden's son. [Do you recall that before Biden announced he would definitely run, he was always whining mysteriously about how he didn't want his family dragged through the mud? This was the mud he was whining about.]

The Journal asserts that Trump's pressure on Zelensky wasn't just once or twice on that call. In the one phone call he brought it up EIGHT times, pressing him to work with Giuliani on the matter, presumably to concoct some evidence that Biden was on the take.

“He told him that he should work with [Mr. Giuliani] on Biden, and that people in Washington wanted to know” whether allegations were true or not, one of the people said...

Mr. Giuliani in June and August met with top Ukrainian officials about the prospect of an investigation, he said in an interview. The Trump lawyer has suggested Mr. Biden as vice president worked to shield from investigation a Ukrainian gas company with ties to his son, Hunter Biden. A Ukrainian official earlier this year said he had no evidence of wrongdoing by Mr. Biden or his son.

Trump was subtle with his carrots and sticks, congratulating the new president on his election and expressing "hope that his government would push ahead with investigations and corruption probes that had stymied relations between the two countries. Yesterday, Trumpanzee "defended his July call with Mr. Zelensky as 'totally appropriate' but declined to say whether he had asked the Ukrainian leader to investigate Mr. Biden... 'It doesn’t matter what I discussed,' he said. At the same time, he reiterated his call for an investigation into Mr. Biden’s effort as vice president to oust Ukraine’s prosecutor general. 'Somebody ought to look into that,' he told reporters."

In recent months, Mr. Giuliani has mounted an extensive effort to pressure Ukraine to do so. He told the Wall Street Journal he met with an official from the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office in June in Paris, and met with Andriy Yermak, a top aide to Mr. Zelensky in Madrid in August. Mr. Giuliani told the Journal earlier this month that Mr. Yermak assured him the Ukrainian government would “get to the bottom” of the Biden matter.

The August meeting came weeks before the Trump administration began reviewing the status of $250 million in foreign aid to Ukraine, which the administration released earlier this month. Mr. Giuliani said he wasn’t aware of the issue with the funds to Ukraine at the time of the meeting.

He said his meeting with Mr. Yermak was set up by the State Department, and said he briefed the department on their conversation later. The State Department had no immediate comment.

The interactions between the president, Mr. Giuliani and Ukraine have come under scrutiny in recent days in the wake of a whistleblower complaint that a person familiar with the matter said involves the president’s communications with a foreign leader. The complaint, which the Washington Post reported centers on Ukraine, has prompted a new standoff between Congress and the executive branch.

Separately, lawmakers have been investigating whether the president or his lawyer sought to pressure the Ukrainian government to pursue probes in an effort to benefit Mr. Trump’s re-election bid.

...Michael Atkinson, the Trump-appointed inspector general of the intelligence community, met Thursday morning with the House Intelligence Committee in a closed session to discuss the whistleblower complaint. Mr. Atkinson declined to tell lawmakers the substance of the complaint or whether it involves the president, but he did say it involves more than one episode and is based on a series of events, according to several people who attended or were briefed on the meeting.

Joseph Maguire, a retired Navy vice admiral serving as the acting director of national intelligence, is to appear before both the Senate and House intelligence committees next week about the complaint, though it remains unclear if he will be willing to divulge details about its underlying substance.

How Dangerous Is Trump To America As A Foreign Asset?

Yesterday, in his Atlantic column, David Frum delved into a sordid piece of British history that led to the Founding Fathers including the power of impeachment in the Constitution. The recently restored Charles II of Great Britain, in need of money he couldn't get from Parliament, accepted bribes from the French Sun King, Louis XIV, in return for Dunkirk, then a British base on the coast of France (and for Charles' pledge to convert to Catholicism). "Foreign corruption inducing treason," wrote Frum, "was the core impeachable offense in the eyes of the authors of the Constitution." Trump, having never read the Constitution nor bothered studying American history, commits crimes against the Constitution daily and is undoubtably guilty of treason and should be impeached, tried removed from office and them face the most severe criminal consequences for his actions.

Frum, though, uses his intro to go in another direction: the current whistleblower report about promises Trump has made to some unnamed foreign potentate, likely either Putin, Netanyahu or bin Salman. (For example, did bin Salman transfer a billion dollars to Trump for his personal promise to attack Iran, the top priority of both Saudi and Israeli foreign policy?) Frum isn't as speculative:

Which is why a whistle-blower report filed with the inspector general for the intelligence community, reportedly concerning an improper “promise” by President Donald Trump to a foreign leader, has jolted Congress.

...Trump has been engaged in improper contacts with foreign governments for years, and built deep business relationships with foreign nationals. Russian assistance helped elect him. Money from wealthy Russians reportedly helped keep his businesses alive from 2006 to 2016. Since 2016, more and more foreign money has flowed Trump’s way. Trump literally has a hotel open on Pennsylvania Avenue to accept payments—there’s a big carpet in front, his name on the door, nothing even remotely clandestine about the flow of corruption. That corruption seeks returns. Again and again, Trump has acted in ways that align with the interests of foreign states, raising questions about his motives.

Exactly what was promised in this particular conversation, and to whom, America and the world wait to hear. Perhaps there exists a reasonable explanation for a conversation that the Trump administration is trying hard to keep from public view. But the basic grammar of all Trump scandals has been visible from the beginning: many secrets, no mysteries.

What's this all about? If you've been under a rock this week, Congress and a Trumpified intelligence community are fighting over a whistleblower complaint that Trump secretly made "a promise" to a foreign leader that, according to the Washington Post was regarded as so troubling that it prompted an official in the U.S. intelligence community to file a formal whistleblower complaint with the inspector general for the intelligence community... It was not immediately clear which foreign leader Trump was speaking with or what he pledged to deliver."

CNN reported that "the revelations have unleashed a new firestorm in the nation's capital over Trump's perplexing foreign policy dealings and the administration's across-the-board efforts to frustrate Congress' constitutionally authorized role of oversight of the executive branch. But they will also open debate about the extent of the President's powers, which give him expansive latitude in national security."

The drama centers on the refusal of acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire to hand over the whistleblower's complaint to Congress. The stalling had already prompted speculation that Trump or senior aides could be involved.

After a standoff with House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff, Maguire agreed Wednesday to testify next week, in a public hearing about the affair. There is no indication that he will hand over the report-- especially in an open hearing.

Schiff had sent rumors into overdrive on Sunday when he said Maguire had cited a "higher authority" in refusing to hand over the complaint and referred to "privileged communications."

...The reports will trigger a controversy about Trump's handling of intelligence and his opaque conversations with foreign leaders.

A political duel will also rage about the whistleblower's decision to make the complaint. On one hand, the President's sweeping powers in foreign policy conferred by the Constitution and a democratic mandate give him wide latitude to say whatever he likes to a foreign leader. American presidents have been making promises to their counterparts on the world stage for generations. It's a practice that might be said to be part of their job.

...Maguire's conduct appears to be the latest manifestation of the administration's multi-front strategy to thwart Congress' oversight efforts.

If an inspector general in a government department finds misconduct or uncovers information that rises to a high level of wrongdoing defined as "urgent and credible" under whistleblowing legislation, the legal recourse is to involve Congress.

The controversy came to a head only a day after Trump's former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski put on an aggressive display in a House Judiciary Committee hearing that prompted the White House to preview a sweeping executive privilege claim even though he never worked for the federal government.

The White House has sought to prevent testimony from many other current and former executive branch officials, leading to a string of looming court clashes that in themselves fulfill Trump's goal of slowing Democratic investigations.

Maguire is a retired Navy admiral who formerly led the National Counterterrorism Center. He was chosen by Trump following a succession drama after the permanent director-- former Sen. Dan Coats, who was never seen as close to the President-- announced he would step down in July. Trump passed over the office's No. 2, Sue Gordon. Sources told CNN at the time she was not seen as the kind of loyalist Trump wanted in the role.

At the time, Maguire was seen as a force for stability. Trump's first pick to replace Coats, Rep. John Ratcliffe, stepped down after controversy over the Texas Republican's qualifications and amid concern he would be a political appointee who would first be loyal to the President, not his duty as director of national intelligence.

The GOP's Great Putin-Gate Coverup

Philly Congressman Brendan Boyle struck twitter gold yesterday with his comparison between how Republicans reacted to Watergate and how they're reacting to Putingate. So far, Ryan, McConnell, Burr, Nunes and Chaffetz are all about a coordinated effort at covering up the Trump-Putin connection. As House Intelligence Committee ranking Democrtat Adam Schiff told Greg Sargent, he wants to make sure Nunes doesn't put up "any artificial limitation of the scope of the investigation.... We ought to investigate Flynn's contacts with the Russian ambassador... Any of the Russian contacts with the Trump campaign surrogates, which include Flynn, have to be a necessary part of our investigation."

People aren't forgetting Rand Paul's statement so fast-- that there should be no investigation of Flynn while the GOP retains control of Congress. On Tuesday he told Fox viewers that "it looks like the president has handled the situation, and unless there’s some kind of other evidence of malfeasance, this sounds like something that was internal White House politics, and it looks like the president’s handled it. I just don’t think it’s useful to be doing investigation after investigation, particularly of your own party... We’ll never even get started with doing the things we need to do like repealing ObamaCare if we’re spending our whole time having Republicans investigate Republicans. I think it makes no sense."

As one Twitter wag put it on Wednesday, Kellyanne Con-Man and Spicy-Spice are trying to make Trump supporters believe "Michael Flynn died in the Bowling Green Massacre."

And Nunes was on Fox yesterday focusing on leaks, which he blamed on Obama administration holdovers still working for the government. "I think most of this is probably from people who were in the old administration, but there still could be some people that have burrowed in and are providing classified information to the media." Trump's solution? Another nefarious billionaire.

President Trump plans to assign a New York billionaire to lead a broad review of American intelligence agencies, according to administration officials, an effort that members of the intelligence community fear could curtail their independence and reduce the flow of information that contradicts the president’s worldview.

The possible role for Stephen A. Feinberg, a co-founder of Cerberus Capital Management, has met fierce resistance among intelligence officials already on edge because of the criticism the intelligence community has received from Mr. Trump during the campaign and since he became president. On Wednesday, Mr. Trump blamed leaks from the intelligence community for the departure of Michael T. Flynn, his national security adviser, whose resignation he requested.

There has been no announcement of Mr. Feinberg’s job, which would be based in the White House, but he recently told his company’s shareholders that he is in discussions to join the Trump administration. He is a member of Mr. Trump’s economic advisory council.

Mr. Feinberg, who has close ties to Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s chief strategist, and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, declined to comment on his possible position. The White House, which is still working out the details of the intelligence review, also would not comment.

Bringing Mr. Feinberg into the administration to conduct the review is seen as a way of injecting a Trump loyalist into a world the White House views with suspicion. But top intelligence officials fear that Mr. Feinberg is being groomed for a high position in one of the intelligence agencies.

Mr. Bannon and Mr. Kushner, according to current and former intelligence officials and Republican lawmakers, had at one point considered Mr. Feinberg for either director of national intelligence or chief of the Central Intelligence Agency’s clandestine service, a role that is normally reserved for career intelligence officers, not friends of the president. Mr. Feinberg’s only experience with national security matters is his firm’s stakes in a private security company and two gun makers.

The Trumpist contingent in the White House wants Feinberg in the mix because Trump doesn't fully trust Pompeo (CIA) or Coats (DNI), who were pushed on him by McConnell, Ryan and Pence. The Deep State is getting nervous and is already accusing Trump of trying to "politicize" the intelligence services.

Meanwhile, Ted Lieu, who has become Trump's most outspoken and effective antagonist in Congress, released a resource guide, Speaking Truth To Power, for federal employees who wish to break the Administration’s communications blackout on federal agencies. The guide explains how to safely and responsibly share information, and encourages employees to "Know Your Rights" and "Know Your Options." In the "Know Your Rights" section, federal employees can learn about which federal laws apply to them. In the "Know Your Options" section, employees can learn about how to safely disseminate information to agency inspectors general and the press. The resource guide also includes links to an in-depth list of federal whistleblower statutes and information about agency inspectors general. Don Beyer (New Dem-VA) co-wrote it with Ted. "We believe the American people have a right to know how their government works," explained Lieu. "The Trump administration has strapped a muzzle on federal agencies and attacked legitimate whistleblowers. Should federal employees wish to break that silence, we want this to be a resource for the safe and responsible disclosure of information." Trump is no longer as enthusiastic about leaks and whistleblowers as he was during the election campaign.

Note: the U.S. intelligence community has never been a friend of progressives or of democracy-- and, come on, has never been apolitical. You know that; we all know that. They may hate Trump now, but they're not our friends and never have been. Be careful.

A Devil’s Advocate Rings in a Bad Night for Bankers

-by Skip Kaltenheuser

It was a long hard slog to publish Lucifer's Banker. Had Brad Birkenfeld managed to get his book out say, a year or so earlier, we might not be staring at the political train wreck we are now. It might have changed the political landscape, perhaps the standard bearers. Maybe even elevated different issues for the last lap beyond the cursory checklist now fed us. But I’m glad it’s arrived. This book underscores every lament Bernie Sanders uttered about the gravity of the finance sector's black hole. There's ample material to make Washington insiders lose sleep, plenty to bring out loosely-defined authorities saying move along, nothing to see here. Above it all the central question floats like a banshee-- when a whistleblower revealed the largest systematic American tax fraud to surface, why was the only person to go to prison the whistleblower?

Birkenfeld is that whistleblower, logging long house arrest and thirty-one months of a forty-month sentence to a Federal penitentiary, with the added insult of a thirty-grand fine, never mind his legal expenses. His tale of DOJ's whistleblower smack-down, of its shooting the messenger, makes an entertaining read. But it ought to frighten the hell out of everyone. With dollops of irony, fright is likely the reason behind this whistleblower whacking, a warning to those who might raise curtains on the very rich and very powerful and very, very connected.

Birkenfeld worked for UBS in Switzerland as a private banker serving wealthy American clients. He went to jail on what seems a DOJ engineered Catch-22 that made him vulnerable to a charge of covering for a client, a Russian immigrant in California who hit it big in real estate. After Birkenfeld voluntarily approached the US government in 2007, DOJ sought to replace his whistle with a supersonic one no one could hear. It refused to give him the subpoena he requested that would protect him from prosecution under Swiss bank secrecy laws. Those laws once protected Germans from execution under the Third Reich for slipping money out of Germany. Now they serve darker purpose. Try to imagine the incredible weight of the money and power pushing out of Swiss vaults against DOJ's door.

Birkenfeld went to every other agency he could think of. He got the necessary subpoenas he needed and divulged accordingly, including on that client DOJ claimed he covered for. And he cued in the US Senate in a private hearing. But someone in DOJ couldn't take a joke, and they nabbed him as if what he'd already divulged was done in an alternate universe. Given the profile of the case, Birkenfeld has no doubts the hammer came down from on high.

If you'd like to hear the jaw-droppers from that Senate hearing-- most of which were his answers to Senators’ questions, join the club. The government sealed it and refuses to provide Birkenfeld with a transcript of his testimony.

Plenty of black eyes for plenty of politicians, and in particular for the Department of Justice-- let's just lump DOJ with the politicians. This book shreds that agency's credibility, laying bare once again Eric Holder's real legacy-- smooches to banks. Sadly, it's a legacy he's spreading around, including to his former boss.

I interviewed Birkenfeld awhile back as a component for an essay on the revolving door, (my apologies to the editor for my slow pace). The first thing that rides in on Birkenfeld's earnest, down-home Boston accent is that he isn't someone easily intimidated. He knows the territory, remembers who did what and won't quit shoving his boulders up the hill until credit is given where it's due. Gold stars are not in the offing.

That was underscored at Birkenfeld's book party Tuesday night at the National Press Club. He does have an advantage few of the royally screwed enjoy. After he was released a new law brought him an IRS whistleblower award, $104 million before the tax man's knock. Why not? His revelations enabled the US Treasury to recover $15 billion in back taxes, fines and penalties. They also put in motion international investigations of offshore banking's many misdeeds, and juiced up reformers seeking tougher oversight. Impacts on Swiss private banks-- there are scads of such banks, all shapes and sizes-- include a 2013 tax treaty facilitating the exchange of tax data between countries. This put a hitch in Switzerland's offshore tax haven status that vacuumed money. And plenty of dirt. Alas, though trickier, Birkenfeld says the multitude of nefarious practices requiring secret accounts still have plenty of global options.

Thing is, what the US reaped was a fraction of what could have been garnered had the massive tax evasion been fully brought to heel. That failure only increases the debt load every American carries. Why the lack of DOJ prosecutorial enthusiasm against tax cheats and their enabler bankers?

I don't want to step on too many nuggets, but Secretary of State Clinton stepped in to do the negotiations with UBS. She required UBS to disclose only 4,700 out of 19,000 illegal account holders. Birkenfeld's curious, as we all might be, as to who made the selection and how, and why the names were never made public. Why was the fine so inadequate compared to long-term profits, and why did DOJ so carelessly offer undeclared account holders anonymity and repeated amnesties?

Who are these titans of favoritism? Will the real masters of the universe please stand up?

It brings to mind proposals for excessively reduced corporate taxes for repatriating money sloshing around abroad, but I digress.

In Washington's small world of startling coincidence, before the negotiated deal UBS only contributed sixty grand to the Clinton Foundation. Afterwards, notes Birkenfeld, it went up by a factor of ten. UBS also partnered with the Foundation providing a low-interest thirty-two million dollar loan for a Foundation program. And President Clinton, the First, earned over a million and a half dollars "for a series of fireside chats with the bank's Wealth Management Chief Executive, Bob McCann...Bill Clinton's biggest payday since leaving the office of the Presidency."

I’m not a finance guy, but I’m getting better at the smell test. Ah,well, what's to worry? A legion of editorialists, commentators and spinners assures us there's no quid pro quo. The Trump gun at our temple is a curiosity killer.

In Washington, “pay it forward” is a concept not fully embraced.

Birkenfeld reckons Americans are on the hook for a trillion dollars escaping off-shore, so they ought be making demands.

The book balances entertaining asides and stark realities. One notable is how big players like UBS distribute business and retainers to put major law firms on the shelf as they avoid conflicts of interest. And the inescapable revolving door-- lubricated by so-called public servants sugaring up those they're supposed to ride herd on, while anticipating wildly better compensated employment elsewhere. Birkenfeld expresses particular fondness for DOJ prosecutors who shepherded him through his adventure in criminal prosecution. The lead prosecutor negotiated Birkenfeld’s plea and signed off on his motion for a sentence reduction. Then he sat quietly while a judge nailed Birkenfeld with a much longer sentence than Birkenfeld was led to expect.

Later, Birkenfeld discovered his lead prosecutor signed a secret non-prosecution agreement for the UBS kingpin who oversaw the 19,000 US accounts (including all of the North and South American offshore business), the show-runner for approximately $20 billion in assets. That banker was quietly allowed to go back to Switzerland two weeks later while the US Senate committee was on summer recess.

Birkenfeld's lead prosecutor then left DOJ to partner with a law firm that's now defending a Credit Suisse private banker who also handled US accounts (which Birkenfeld told the DOJ prosecutor about in 2007). The Credit Suisse banker is being prosecuted by another prosecutor, still at DOJ, that also dealt with Birkenfeld. Before leaving DOJ, Birkenfeld's lead prosecutor supervised the indictment of the Credit Suisse banker, which was signed by both prosecutors. The former prosecutor now with the law firm isn’t listed as attorney of record on the case. He’s merely a partner in the firm.

In any case, here’s a September 6th letter Birkenfeld sent to the Federal judge hearing the case regarding the Credit Suisse banker.

No word on the future plans of the prosecutor still lingering at DOJ.

Speaking generally, the revolving door is powered by contacts left behind in government.

His book might not be on the White House wish list, but on Oct. 1st Birkenfeld dispatched Lucifer to President Obama, Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Secretary of State John Kerry. It went with this letter urging action and answers. All members of Congress can look forward to Lucifer coming their way.

Among the questions posed, why was a key UBS official allowed to return to Switzerland after he agreed to cooperate but instead pleaded the Fifth at a Congressional hearing? Why was what Birkenfeld characterizes as a sham prosecution conducted against another top UBS official, who was acquitted and returned home after DOJ refused to call Birkenfeld to testify?

That’s high contrast with the French, Greeks, Canadians and others now eager for Birkenfeld’s assistance, which he’s giving, in government actions against the bank.

Note that UBS US employees have long poured money throughout America’s political system, including considerable largess to President Obama since he was a US Senator.

There's been press on Birkenfeld before, much of it sympathetic, when he blew the whistle, when he went to the hoosegow in 2010 and on his record IRS whistleblower award. He's since had plenty of time to ponder life. His book weaves together new threads connecting what happened and why. The resulting fabric is a brilliant lesson on how the fix is in. Read more at Birkenfeld's site. Can a movie be far behind?

Back to Washington's small world of coincidence. The first Sunday after Birkenfeld was sentenced, President Obama went golfing at Martha's Vineyard. His golfing partner was Robert Wolf, Chairman of UBS Americas.

Cue the Church Lady.

---------

A quick aside and a disclosure. Not all the levers of power, the finance villains and their aiders and abettors, are on Wall Street or in mega-banks. This writer has regrettable first-hand knowledge of the impacts on individual families from government indifference to, if not complicity with, people who in my view were financial predators on my mom, at the so-called community bank level. In my view, there was even a well-wired US Attorney-- with a conflicted background - running interference against my efforts to get government to focus on what in my view was glaring bad faith and deception. Confronted, that US Attorney refused multiple opportunities to comment.

In my opinion, we were also treated to a self-serving "trustee" in the DOJ administered bankruptcy system. When I spoke with the top supervisor in the region she asked if I was going to the FBI or planned to try and have him disbarred, warned about liability if I went public with what happened, and was basically told resistance is futile. But she refuses to put in writing that everything the trustee did was hunky-dory.

The saga ultimately cost my 99 year old mom her Iowa family farm and much more, most of it avoidable if, in my view, the trustee had not primarily been self-serving his interests at our expense, in my view to keep his gravy train rolling even if it meant destroying asset value. No matter how high I push it, the FBI won't even acknowledge my complaint. Nor will DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility, famed as a burnout system. I have a legal background and once served as an asst. AG for the state of Kansas. I can't begin to describe my disillusionment with what has happened to justice, and about what I believe to be happening to people across the country who are theoretically less armored.

After reading Birkenfeld's book, and speaking with an FBI whistleblower at the launch party, I have to laugh at my quaint notion that government waits eager to ride to the rescue of the little guy, to champion even those dwelling far beneath potential headlines with political mileage. Nothing to do now but to try and tell the story. No payouts in cases like mine. But if Birkenfeld's book inspires the aggrieved to find voice, to tell their own stories of injustice at the ground level, they may awake others to the peril slack government places us in. That alone would make the book worth its ink.

SK

Hillary, Ed Snowden And The Millennial Vote

Yesterday, Hillary had an OpEd in Policy.Mic, Here's What Millennials Have Taught Me. Her point is that she's been listening to millennials and that she finds then "the most open, diverse and entrepreneurial generation in our country's history." Millennials were the mainstay of the Bernie Sanders movement as-- without the "help" of crooked like Wasserman Schultz, Harry Reid and corrupt party machines from one end of the country to the other, would have won the nomination for him. But now she needs their votes against the Trumpist boogeyman.

She notes that millennials have led "the way to a brighter future for all of us. You've fought for some of the most important accomplishments in our nation's history, like the Affordable Care Act and marriage equality. You've come together to challenge our country to protect human rights and strengthen families by fixing a broken immigration system, reforming our criminal justice system and ending the era of mass incarceration. And you've demanded that people of color be able to live their lives without fear of being killed at a routine traffic stop." And she talks about her own time in college, skipping over the fact that she was on the wrong side of history, an outspoken conservative, president of Wellesley's Young Republicans. Is she still missing the boat?

ObamaCare? Millennials want single payer, not a dysfunctional baby step in that direction, with built in profits for hated pharmaceutical monoplies. And, yes, millennials helped drag her away from her own instinctual, less than stellar record on marriage equality and, apparently, get her to shift her position on a conservative approach to criminal justice. Her attack on Trump is gratuitous and neither here nor there. Millennials are repulsed by him. But what is she offering to draw them in, to make it worth the bother of voting? Is it just a lesser-of-two-evils thing? Is that going to be enough? Maybe. She goes on to list some of her plans.

First, everyone who wants to go to college should be able to without drowning in debt. That's why I worked with Sen. Bernie Sanders to design a plan that will let everyone attend college debt-free. If you already have loans, we'll let you refinance them, defer them to start a business or forgive them if you spend 10 years in public service. You can even see how much you and your family could save under our plan by looking at the "college calculator" on our website. And we'll make sure a four-year degree isn't the only path to a good-paying job by supporting apprenticeships and other high-quality training programs.

Second, everyone should be able to get a job that pays the bills and can support a family. And not only that, you should be able to do work you love and find meaningful. So we'll create more good-paying jobs, raise the minimum wage and guarantee equal pay. This will help a lot of Americans, especially young people struggling to find footing in a difficult economy.

Third, no new parent should have to face the impossible choice between caring for a child or family member and losing a paycheck or even a job. It's outrageous that in 2016, the United States is the only developed country in the world without paid family leave of any kind. So we'll make high-quality child care and preschool available to every family in every community.  I've spent my career fighting to make a difference for children and families, and I can't wait to do even more as president.

Of course, to do any of these things, we can't have secret unaccountable money poisoning our politics. So I'll appoint Supreme Court justices who will overturn Citizens United and even propose a constitutional amendment to do the same. And by doing that, we'll make sure that no special interests can get in the way of protecting and expanding civil rights, LGBT rights and all human rights.

Many of you have shared with me that it feels like you're out there on your own-- like no one has your back. It shouldn't be that way. If I'm fortunate enough to be elected, you will always have a champion in the White House. But I can't do it on my own. I need you to work with me, keep fighting for what you believe, hold me accountable. I can't promise we'll win every fight on our first try. But I can promise you this: I'll never stop fighting for you.

So let's stand together to show the world what our country, and your generation, really stands for. Let's overwhelm division and intolerance with compassion, understanding and unity. Let's make clear that Love Trumps Hate-- not just this November, but always.

Yeah, nice... and Kevin Drum made an even better case for her at Mother Jones Monday morning. He insists there's a top notch postive case to be made for Hillary, over and above how horrible Trump is. He starts with a caveat that she, like all other politicians, is far from perfect. "If you think she's too instinctively hawkish-- as I do-- that might be reason enough for a liberal to vote for someone else. On some issues-- supporting the Iraq War, supporting TPP, voting for the PATRIOT Act, etc.-- she's taken positions that might be flat deal killers. On other issues, you might think she's not strong enough, or that it took her too long to get to the right place. Finally, on a personal level, she's often over-secretive, overly lawyerly, and sometimes skates a little close to some ethical lines. She distrusts the press and withholds information too often. And she is, plainly, an establishment politician, with all the flaws that implies." He then lists 84 points that ought to make progressives (and most millennials are that) consider voting for her. Read it for yourself (here) but, minus the Trumpist threat-- and with all due respects to Kevin-- I'm not convinced. Blue America is now raising money for her campaign and I'm urging my friends and readers in swing states to vote for her.

Below is far from a scientific poll, but I asked twitter users who they would rather see as a U.S. senator, Ed Snowden or Patrick Murphy. Murphy is an unaccomplished Florida backbencher in Congress currently playing a bit role in the rise of Marco Rubio. Saudi Arabia's member of the House Intelligence Committee-- an actual traitor, not a whistleblower-- Murphy signed a letter urging President Obama to deny Snowden a pardon. These were the results:

What would get me enthusiastic about Hillary as something more than a way of stopping Trump? In the Oliver Stone film, Snowden, Hillary and Trump are represented, not by actors, but with archival footage. Predictably, Trump calls for Snowden's execution. Hillary isn't quite as bad but her attitude on Snowden is as bad today as her attitude about same sex marriage was not all that many years ago. She should reexamine that attitude. That may say a lot more to millennials, who overwhelmingly see him as a whistleblower and not as a the traitor the decrepit House Intelligence Committee is trying to paint him as.

This is very tough for any politician. I asked every member of Congress I know and every congressional candidate I know for a statement on Snowden. Other than from a handful of courageous Berniecrats, the silence was deafening. The kind of leadership it would take to stand up-- like Bernie has-- and make a case for Snowden would be monumental... and would say something undenialbly powerful to millennials about Hillary. Monday morning the editors of The Guardian called attention to the unbearable hypocrisy of the editors of the Washington Post on the matter. The Post, they wrote "stunned many people in the United States, including a large section of the country’s journalistic community, by coming out against a pardon for whistleblower Edward Snowden. Despite the newspaper having been responsible for publishing leaks by the former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor, its latest editorial urges President Barack Obama not to pardon him... Two other newspapers that published Snowden’s revelations-- the Guardian and the New York Times-- have run opinion pieces calling on the US administration to allow him to return to the US without facing any charges."



One of the Berniecrats who did get back to me on this was Kerith StranoTaylor, a congressional candidate running in PA-05, a very conservative district in north-central Pennsylvania. Imagine if Hillary issued a statement like this:

Ed Snowden is the collateral damage of a misguided effort to privatize our national security.  First, in an effort to "shrink government' thousands of private contractors were entrusted with unfettered access to the most secret details of our national security. Our government was spying on its own citizens. He pulled back the curtain. Snowden should be pardoned. He revealed to America that the erosion done to our civil liberties under the Patriot Act was too great. Without his actions, would the Patriot Act have ever been curtailed? Prosecuting Snowden at this point is as egregious as the threatened 16-year sentence for Deric Lostutter, the hacker that exposed the 2012 high school football players' rape case in Stuebenville, Ohio. Three boys who witnessed the rape (and did nothing to stop it) were granted immunity from prosecution, but the man who notified the world of the rape, is facing 16 years in prison. This is not the way the world was supposed to work. I do not condone vigilantism. We are a country of laws. However, our Justice system allows for leniency when warranted, and this is a case where a pardon is more than appropriate.

Wendy Reed is the progressive Democrat taking on Republican Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy in the Bakersfield area. Her instincts are just right even if she hasn't immersed herself in this case. "I am happy to stand with whistleblowers and patriots who do for American democracy what journalists used to do" she told us a few moments ago. "With what little I know about the Snowden situation, I do support clemency."

Ray Metcalfe is the most recently endorsed Blue America candidate. He's running for the Alaska Senate seat currently occupied by Lisa Murkowski and he has very strong feelings about the Ed Snowden controversy. "Personally I consider Edward Snowden to be a hero," he told us yesterday, "and, according to polling information published in the Christian Science Monitor, 60 percent of Americans age 18 to 29, agree. I believe the law should protect, not prosecute, those who expose criminal activity in our government; unfortunately it does not. Prosecuting someone thought to be a hero by so many would be extremely divisive among Americans. Oliver North got off on technicalities after lying to Congress about the Reagan Administration's cocaine smuggling to fund the Contra rebels, and years later, six of his coconspirators were pardoned. Now President Obama wants to prosecute Snowden for telling the truth. What's wrong with this picture? The practice of classifying information is thought to be done to keep information from the enemy. Unfortunately it has all too often become a tool for keeping Americans from knowing what their government is doing. If elected, I will advocate for whistle blower protections and restrictions for what purposes information can and cannot be classified."

Another was San Antonio's Tom Wakely, a candidate in TX-21. An army veteran, his thoughts on Snowden explains why he has so much enthusiasm for his campaign in Austin and San Antonio. "Tones of politicians and journalists," he wrote, "like to wax poetic on their personal interpretations or strict adherence to our Constitution. However, in the wake of what Edward Snowden revealed to the world, we aren't having a proper discussion about the 4th Amendment. Warrantless data espionage should be a huge issue not just for politicians and journalists, but for every person on the planet. All too often you hear the argument from the public that they likely have nothing to hide, and subsequently don't care. Would that argument apply to physical frisks whenever authorities felt like it? Would the same argument apply to authorities keeping a physical eye on you at all times? I'm willing to bet for most folks that they'd feel extremely uncomfortable. Now the Washington Post is calling for their own source to not be pardoned. What a dangerous precedent this sets. 'Thanks for the scoop on unconstitutional searches, good luck in jail.' Is this really what journalists want? I can't imagine all the reporters of the Washington Post agreeing with this sentiment. There are a lot of questions regarding Snowden's decisions in the aftermath of these leaks, but I'd be willing to bet he'd cooperate and be able to answer all of them if our government granted him the ability to return home. I liken Snowden to Daniel Ellsberg, who changed my views on the Vietnam War and allowed me to become part of the Veterans for Peace movement. Our government is supposed to be for the people. Edward Snowden proved that in the online realm, the government is skeptical of the people. Snowden acted for the people. We should bring him home with a pardon."

If you're already a DWT reader, you already know Tom Wakely and Wendy Reed. Ray Metcalfe is a former Alaska state legislator renowned for anti-corruption crusades in his state and Kerith is a biker and an attorney and you can help them all win their races by contributing at the Blue America thermometer below:

UPDATE: Grayson

Grayson was overseas when the Intelligence Committee sent their letter to Obama urging him to not pardon Ed Snowden. When he got back, he told me that "President Obama issued Presidential Policy Directive 19 for the specific (and much needed) purpose of protecting whistleblowers in the so-called 'intelligence community.' To say that anyone could be prosecuted for such whistleblowing-- in a secret trial, no less-- makes a mockery of that directive. Why even pretend that we protect whistleblowers, when in fact the military-intelligence complex gnaws at their bones mercilessly?"