He said I was Stupid, I\u2019m Not Stupid<\/p>\n
(another Hamilton quote \u2013 it\u2019s amazing how that musical resonates with our time.\u00a0 \u201cHistory doesn\u2019t repeat \u2013 it rhymes\u201d \u2013 and Lin-Manuel Miranda found the rhythm)<\/em><\/p>\n The President of the United States used the \u201cSaudi\u201d line yesterday to try to explain the fate of Jamal Khashoogi.\u00a0 Khashoogi, a Saudi citizen and critic of \u00a0his government, lived in Virginia and worked for the Washington Post.\u00a0 He walked into the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey on October 2nd<\/sup>.\u00a0 He never came out.<\/p>\n The Turkish government states that a fifteen man Saudi hit squad flew into the country and met at the Consulate.\u00a0 They tortured and killed Khashoogi, dismembered his body and removed it from the country.\u00a0 Turkish intelligence claims to have actual audio evidence of the torture and killing.\u00a0The Saudis claim that Khashoogi left the Consulate, and have denied any knowledge of his fate.<\/p>\n President Trump yesterday stated that he had a conversation with King Salman of Saudi Arabia, who denied any knowledge of Saudi action, and floated the possibility that a \u201crogue unit\u201d of the Saudi government might have been involved.\u00a0 The President lent some credence to the King\u2019s denial, repeating with emphasis the conversation, and leading us to believe that this is the only evidence he has seen.<\/p>\n We\u2019re not stupid, Mr. President.\u00a0 We know that you start every morning with the Presidential Daily Brief on your personal I-Pad (though we also know you have it shortened to match your attention span.) \u00a0We know that US intelligence agencies have better knowledge on this issue than the media, and we hope that you listen to them.\u00a0 Today, rumor has it, that the Saudi\u2019s will change their story, coming up with a \u201cbotched interrogation\u201d defense. \u00a0But it\u2019s clear they did exactly what they wanted to do; you don\u2019t bring a \u201cbone saw\u201d and a forensic specialist to an interrogation.<\/p>\n We also know, Mr. President, that the operational leader of Saudi Arabia is not eighty-two year old King Salman, but your son-in-law\u2019s best buddy Prince Mohammad bin Salman.\u00a0 We know there are serious questions about the mental health of the King, and it is more than possible that he doesn\u2019t know what\u2019s going on.\u00a0 To quote him as the \u201cauthority\u201d of the Saudi state shows that either your stupid, or you think we\u2019re stupid.<\/p>\n Please don\u2019t call us stupid, Mr. President, we’re not stupid.<\/p>\n And then there\u2019s the even more insidious story, that seems to show the White House as \u201cnot stupid.\u201d\u00a0It\u2019s about the media revelation of the Blasey-Ford letter, leading to the crisis in the Kavanaugh nomination.<\/p>\n The Republicans, and by extension the White House, have claimed that somehow the Blasey-Ford letter, accusing Kavanaugh of sexual assault as a teenager, was leaked by Democrats at the last minute to derail the nomination.\u00a0 Republican Senators, including Tom Cotton of Arkansas, have called for an investigation into the matter, targeting Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein\u2019s office.<\/p>\n So how did the Ford letter get leaked to online newspaper The Intercept?<\/em><\/p>\n At first, it seemed reasonable to assume that it was from a Democratic source in Feinstein\u2019s office, or the minority committee staff, or from Democratic Congresswoman Eshoo\u2019s office (who originally received the letter from Blasey-Ford.)\u00a0 It fit into a \u201cDemocratic game-plan\u201d to derail the nomination, and while many fellow Democrats shook their head at the timing, they accepted the action as the \u201chard-ball\u201d required to prevent a conservative Supreme Court takeover.<\/p>\n Eshoo and Feinstein have publicly and vehemently denied their staffs\u2019 involvement, going so far as to outlining the restrictions imposed on knowledge of the letter.\u00a0 The committee staff seems to have found out about the letter from The Intercept <\/em>article, ruling them out of the process.\u00a0 So either Feinstein or Eshoo is flat lying, a possible but wholly indefensible position that will ultimately be revealed, or there was some other process.<\/p>\n Feinstein did release the letter to one other source prior to the \u201cleak,\u201d the FBI.\u00a0 We all hope that the FBI would never step into another political snake-pit, and it is unlikely that they leaked the letter.\u00a0 But, as it was made clear by subsequent events, the FBI regarded this as a background check with rules differing from their normal investigations.<\/p>\n The FBI regards background checks as \u201cworking for a client,\u201d the client being the agency that requested the check.\u00a0 The FBI neither vouches for information nor draws conclusions; they pass the information onto the \u201cclient\u201d for their consideration.\u00a0 So the Blasey-Ford letter, sent from Feinstein, would have been passed to the \u201cclient:\u201d the White House Counsel.<\/p>\n And why would White House Counsel Don McGahn leak out the Ford letter?<\/p>\n If McGahn was worried that the Blasey-Ford story was going to come out, controlling the release of the information would be an important first step to managing the crisis.\u00a0Keeping the \u201cinvestigation\u201d in the controlled environment of the Judiciary Committee, rather than letting the information \u201cappear\u201d on the floor of the Senate during final debate, would give Republicans an opportunity to do exactly what they did:\u00a0 corral their votes, control the story, and slide Kavanaugh onto the Court.\u00a0 And, it would give them a final talking point about the \u201cmob-ruled\u201d Democrats in the process: \u00a0claiming they would do anything, including breaking the Senate rules (enter \u201cSpartacus\u201d) to stop Kavanaugh.<\/p>\n It worked.\u00a0 Kavanaugh is on the Court.\u00a0 Maybe McGahn\u2019s not stupid either.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"