Trump dramatically accelerates the pace of his efforts to weaponize the federal government to his advantage.

 

RONALD BROWNSTEIN, ATLANTIC

Trump’s open admission yesterday that he’s sabotaging the Postal Service to improve his election prospects crystallizes a much larger dynamic: He’s waging an unprecedented campaign to weaponize virtually every component of the federal government to partisan advantage.

Trump is systematically enlisting agencies, including the Postal Service, Census Bureau, Department of Justice, and Department of Homeland Security, that traditionally have been considered at least somewhat insulated from political machinations to reward his allies and punish those he considers his enemies. He is razing barriers between his personal and political interests and the core operations of the federal government to an extent that no president has previously attempted.

Presidents have always put their stamp on the federal government. It’s common for regulatory agencies, for instance, to dramatically shift direction in their attitude toward Big Business when partisan control of the White House changes. And presidents have always rewarded their political supporters, at times causing scandals because of questionable Cabinet appointments or procurement decisions.

But no matter which individuals were appointed to lead them, some agencies have always been considered more protected from politics. It’s those barriers that Trump, with the tacit support of congressional Republicans, is steadily dismantling. Presidents have used the Postal Service to reward loyalists with jobs since the country’s earliest history. But they didn’t expect what Trump does from the agency. “The whole spoils system goes back to having supporters who were appointed as postmasters,” says Kedric Payne, the general counsel of the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center and a former top official at the Office of Congressional Ethics. “But it wasn’t to disrupt the election.”

Trump has dramatically accelerated the pace of his efforts to weaponize federal actions since his Senate acquittal. Beyond his recent efforts to impede mail delivery, Trump has:

• rapidly purged inspectors general across the federal government, replacing five of them within a short period, including the intelligence-community IG who forwarded to Congress the whistleblower complaint that triggered Trump’s impeachment.
• openly pressured the Justice Department to back off the prosecution of his former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, and to request more lenient sentencing for his ally Roger Stone. Trump later commuted Stone’s sentence outright.
• deployed federal law-enforcement officials from the Department of Homeland Security to confront protesters in Portland, Oregon, and other cities over the explicit objection of governors and mayors.
• enlisted the military into his campaign against protesters, drafting Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley to accompany him during his walk to St. John’s Church in Washington, D.C., after armed personnel forcibly cleared out peaceful protesters. The decision prompted so much concern in the military that Milley later apologized.
• taken repeated steps to manipulate the results of the decennial census in a manner that could undercount people of color and benefit the Republican Party. The Supreme Court stopped Trump from adding a citizenship question to the census, but the administration now says it intends to exclude undocumented immigrants from the population counts used to apportion congressional seats and Electoral College votes among the states. It also announced it will cut off efforts to contact households that haven’t responded to the census on September 30, despite the disruption caused by the coronavirus outbreak. Census experts and former Census Bureau directors have said that such a truncated schedule is guaranteed to undercount minorities.
• 

• Miles Taylor, who served as DHS chief of staff under Trump, says the president is dangerous. 

  In an op-ed for today’s newspaper, the Trump appointee says the president “has tried to turn DHS, the nation’s largest law enforcement agency, into a tool used for his political benefit. He insisted on a near-total focus on issues that he said were central to his reelection — in particular building a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico. … Top DHS officials were regularly diverted from dealing with genuine security threats by the chore of responding to these inappropriate and often absurd executive requests, at all hours of the day and night. … Trump has also damaged the country in countless ways that don’t directly involve national security but, by stoking hatred and division, make Americans profoundly less safe. … It is more than a little ironic that Trump is campaigning for a second term as a law-and-order president. His first term has been dangerously chaotic. Four more years of this are unthinkable.” (Taylor also recorded a video testimonial for Republican Voters Against Trump.)

Trump tries to pin Postal Service funding woes on Democrats, as Pelosi eyes emergency action. Protesters demand postmaster general resign.

Nick Casselli, president of the American Postal Worker’s Union Local 89, in Darby, Pa., said he had been inundated with alarmed messages about delays in mail delivery.Credit...Michelle Gustafson for The New York Times

NY TIMES

President Trump on Saturday accused Democrats of refusing to fund the United States Postal Service as he faced intense criticism from Democrats who say slowdowns in mail delivery, the removal of sorting machines and other changes are threatening the integrity of the general election.

Speaking at a news conference at his golf resort in Bedminster, N.J., Mr. Trump also continued to rail against mail-in voting, calling it “a catastrophe.” But he did not directly say whether he supported the removal of mail-sorting machines and other changes made under the leadership of his postmaster general, Louis DeJoy.

“I don’t know what he’s doing,” Mr. Trump said. “I can only tell you he’s a very smart man. He’ll be a great Postmaster General.”

Democrats have, in fact, pushed for a total of $10 billion for the Postal Service in talks with Republicans on the coronavirus response bill. That figure, which would include money to help with election mail, was down from a $25 billion plan in a House-passed coronavirus measure.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and House Democratic leadership have begun discussing bringing the chamber back early to address the issues with the Postal Service, a move that would cut short the annual summer recess. While the House is not scheduled to return for votes until Sept. 14, Democratic leaders could call lawmakers back in the next two weeks, two people familiar with the talks said on Saturday.


Among the legislative options under consideration include a measure put forward by Representative Carolyn B. Maloney of New York, the chairwoman of the House Oversight Committee, that would prohibit agency leadership from enacting any operational changes that were in place before Jan. 1 or once the public health crisis subsides. Such changes would include ending overtime pay or any measures that would delay mail. Lawmakers are also discussing adding language to the bill that would ensure all ballot-related mail is considered First Class Mail and treated as such.

While Democrats have been fighting to include funding for the Postal Service in a coronavirus relief package, it is unlikely that Democrats would act on a standalone funding bill, said the two people, who asked for anonymity in order to disclose details of private discussions, because the current crisis the agency is facing is tied to policy, not funding.


About 100 people gathered in the wealthy residential neighborhood of Kalorama outside the apartment complex of the postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, [above] a Republican megadonor and ally of President Trump who was appointed in May. Videos on social media showed them banging spoons on pots, blaring horns and chanting “resign,” with many in the group wearing masks and remaining socially distanced.
Critics say that changes enacted under Mr. DeJoy’s oversight, like cutting overtime pay for postal workers and removing mail-sorting machines, have slowed the delivery of mail and endangered vote-by-mail operations when millions of people are expected to exercise that option because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Postal Service sent letters in July to all 50 states and the District of Columbia cautioning them that it may not be able to meet their deadlines for delivering last-minute mail-in ballots. News reports about the letters on Friday intensified the criticism directed at the Postal Service and Mr. Trump by Democrats and voting rights advocates, who say the president is deliberately stoking unfounded concerns that voting by mail will lead to fraud and miscounts as a way to cast doubt about the outcome of the election.

In the letters, Thomas J. Marshall, the general counsel for the Postal Service, urged states to require that residents request ballots at least 15 days before an election — rather than the shorter periods currently allowed under the laws of many states.

He said 45 states faced the risk that their timetables could leave some voters unable to get their ballots postmarked by Election Day or received by election boards in time to be counted.

In response to the warning letters, some states, including Pennsylvania and Michigan, have called for extensions on counting late-arriving ballots in the November election.

Mr. DeJoy, who has argued he is modernizing the Postal Service to make it more efficient, has become a target of criticism. Posts on social media showed protesters delivering fake absentee ballots to the entrance of Mr. DeJoy’s building on Saturday, cluttering the glass front doors with folded sheets of paper that read, “Save the post office. Save our democracy.”



Postal workers from small-town post offices to metropolitan distribution centers say they used to operate along a simple motto: Every piece, every day, meaning that they did not leave until all of the day’s mail went out the door. No more, they say.

Postal workers say drivers are being sent out according to set schedules, whether or not all of the morning’s mail is ready for them, and delivery trucks now have strict cutoff times for when they have to be gone. They say they are already short on staff because of quarantines and the coronavirus outbreak, and limits on working overtime are pushing them further behind.

“Mail is coming into the building faster than we can get it out,” said Mary DiMarco, who sorts bundles in a Miami postal center. “I’m concerned about ballots being handled. That they’re not going to be processed in time.”

“The decisions happened so rapidly — now we are seeing the effect of those decisions,” Mr. Freeman said. “People are coming in every day complaining about how long it’s taking them to receive everything: ‘What the heck is going on?’”

He said further delays had occurred after five mail-sorting machines in the major Cleveland-area distribution center were dismantled in recent days. Critics worried that political influence inside the Postal Service have focused on the removal of 671 sorting machines — about one-eighth of its devices — from facilities across the country.
The stakes in this year’s election are higher than ever. While nearly a quarter of Americans voted absentee or by mail in 2016, millions more are expected to mail their ballots this year because of the coronavirus crisis.

In Ohio, mail-in voting has been common for more than two decades, and a quarter of the state’s voters regularly cast their ballots by mail. But some postal workers say the recent changes in work rules have drastically slowed their ability to deliver mail, raising concerns that votes cast just several days before the election might not make it in time to be counted.

The Postal Service’s inspector general said Friday she had opened an investigation into complaints that leading Democrats have filed against the postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, a Republican megadonor and ally of President Trump, who has begun a series of cuts to the agency that Democrats say have slowed down the delivery of mail and endanger vote-by-mail operations.

“We are in receipt of the congressional request and are conducting a body of work to address concerns raised,” a spokeswoman for the U.S. Postal Service inspector general, Tammy L. Whitcomb, said.

Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, Representative Carolyn Maloney, Democrat of New York and others last week requested the inspector general investigate “all recent staffing and policy changes put in place” by Mr. DeJoy.

In ‘The Threat,’ Andrew McCabe Issues the Latest Warning Call About Trump’s America

NY TIMES

On the back cover of his new book, “The Threat: How the F.B.I. Protects America in the Age of Terror and Trump,” Andrew G. McCabe looks preposterously fit (he competes in triathlons). His hands are at his hips, gunslinger style. It’s as if he were a kind High Plains sheriff who had stumbled upon an intolerable rodeo of villainy.

McCabe’s prose is lean, too. (Not that he wrote this book. In his acknowledgments, he thanks “a great writing and editing team.”) The first sentence demands to be read in the voice of Jack Webb from “Dragnet”: “Between the world of chaos and the world of order stands the rule of law.”

McCabe is, of course, the former deputy director of the F.B.I. who was fired last March, just 26 hours before his scheduled retirement. He was briefly the F.B.I.’s acting director, after the dismissal of James B. Comey. The president hooted on Twitter: “Andrew McCabe FIRED, a great day for the hard working men and women of the F.B.I. — A great day for Democracy.”

“The Threat” is a concise yet substantive account of how the F.B.I. works, at a moment when its procedures and impartiality are under attack. It’s an unambiguous indictment of Trump’s moral behavior. “Let me state the proposition openly,” McCabe writes. “The work of the F.B.I. is being undermined by the current president.”

It’s a rapid-fire G-man memoir, moving from the author’s training in Quantico (shades of “The Silence of the Lambs”) through his experiences chasing the Russian mob, the Boston Marathon bombers and others. The book is patriotic and oddly stirring. It has moments of opacity, where you feel he is holding back at crucial moments, but it is filled with disturbingly piquant details.

McCabe made headlines after a recent “60 Minutes” interview, during which he reported that top Justice Department officials, disquieted by Trump’s firing of Comey, discussed trying to encourage cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office. He also confirmed a New York Times report that the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, offered to wear a wire during his meetings with Trump.

These stories, frustratingly, were in the TV interview but are not in this book. But there are many other gleanings.

McCabe’s accounts of his baffled interactions with Jeff Sessions, the former attorney general, would be high comedy if they were not so dire. They are a highlight, or a lowlight, of this book. We see a Sessions who is openly racist. “Back in the old days,” he says to the author about the F.B.I., “you all only hired Irishmen. They were drunks, but they could be trusted.”

Sessions seemed not to read his daily briefings. He had “trouble focusing” and “seemed to lack basic knowledge about the jurisdictions of various arms of federal law enforcement.”

Sessions concentrated almost solely on the immigration aspect of any issue, McCabe writes, even when there was no immigration aspect. Similarly, “Sessions spent a lot of time yelling at us about the death penalty, despite the fact that the F.B.I. plays no role of any kind in whether to seek the death penalty.”

A recent cartoon in The New Yorker depicted a person feverishly covering two walls with a link chart, with names and Scotch tape and Magic Marker, of the Trump administration’s alleged misdeeds. Another person stands watching from a doorway. The caption is: “Hon, Mueller’s got this. Come to bed.”


ImageAndrew G. McCabeCreditRandall Slavin

It turns out that Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, has strong opinions about charts. McCabe worked under him at the bureau. “He detested diagonal lines,” McCabe writes. “Some colors he liked. Some he didn’t.” McCabe explains the reasons for these preferences.

He writes about Mueller: “Sometimes he would take out the chart and suddenly you would see his face fall, as if to say the kind of thing that he would rarely say: Who made this piece of crap?”

Mueller is, in this book, the Mueller we have come to know: punctual, determined, the antithesis of casual, with a special loathing for people who speak when they don’t know what they are talking about.

McCabe’s memoir joins a roster of recent and alarming books by high-ranking members of the United States’ justice and intelligence communities, each pushing back sharply against the president’s war on facts and competence.

These books include Comey’s “A Higher Loyalty” as well as “The Assault on Intelligence,” by Michael V. Hayden, the former director of the National Security Agency, and “Facts and Fears,” by James R. Clapper Jr., the former director of national intelligence, written with Trey Brown.

Each is its own Paul Revere ride of warning. Each is a reminder that we will be reading about Trump and his administration for the rest of our lives, for the exact opposite reason that we will also be reading about Lincoln and his for the rest of our lives.

He wades back through the big muddy of the Benghazi hearings. He writes of his fears about the increasing use of encryption.

He spends a good deal of time talking about Hillary Clinton and her email server. He argues that Comey, whom he admires, made crucial mistakes in how he handled the matter. “As a matter of policy, the F.B.I. does everything possible not to influence elections. In 2016, it seems we did.”

He recounts the attacks on his credibility, by Trump and others, after his wife, Jill, ran for Virginia’s State Senate as a Democrat in 2015. He hurt his own credibility, according to the F.B.I. inspector general, by making false statements about his contacts with the media.

The Trump-bashing texts between Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, his F.B.I. subordinates, did something worse: They cast doubts about the impartiality of the agency. McCabe rushes past this material too swiftly. Yet if McCabe has made mistakes, his basic decency shines through in this memoir.

He adds to our understanding of how deeply Trump remains under Vladimir Putin’s sway. After a North Korean ballistic missile test, Trump told an F.B.I. briefer that reports of the test were a hoax. McCabe writes, incredulously: “He said he knew this because Vladimir Putin had told him so.”

About Trump, the author asks, “What more could a person do to erode the credibility of the presidency?” He watches this moral limbo dancer go lower and lower. Yet he sees the president as a symptom as much as a disease.

“When is the right time,” he asks, “to give up on people’s general ability to understand any slightly complicated statement that they don’t agree with?”