CONSORTIUM NEWSLETTER

(MAY 26, 2017)

CELEBRATING THE END OF THIS EASTER SEASON/TIME

  • By the time you receive this material, we will be close to the end of this great liturgical season. Below are two reflections by which we can end this blessed time.
  • “Easter is a sign of hope. Each day has a miracle inside it … and those with eyes to see may find it.

Easter brings us hope

That life can always start anew,

That love can slowly

change the world

By the simple things we do.

Easter is the glorious sign

that God is with us still…

The sign that God still loves us all

And that God always will.”

(Hallmark Easter Card)

  • “Easter is the day of Christ’s victory over sin and death. Baptism initiates us into fellowship with Jesus and gives us the right to stand before God and plead for the graces won by Christ … We are an Easter people – a people who live in full confidence that power will be given us to live a life free from the shackles of shame, fear and despair…
  • Do you believe Jesus of Nazareth was raised from the dead? Do you believe that you, too, will be – and are even now being – raised to new life? What does that mean to you?
  • How can you communicate the joy of Easter to those with whom you will be interacting today? …
  • Pray for the grace to believe that Jesus is truly risen.” (Philip A. St. Romain, theologian, Praying the Daily Gospels: A Guide to Meditation)

TRUMPISM AND CATHOLICISM (Continued and Concluded)

  • As we begin the concluding part of this section, I remind you that Trumpism keeps on moving and a lot has happened since the last Consortium newsletter. So please allow me to bring us up to date with material on new events along with material concerned with further development of events already covered. This is absolutely essential if we are to deal with Trumpism as it is now and not exactly the same as last week.
  • The latest poll shows that 84% of President Trump’s supporters approve how he is doing his job (“latest” according to the time of writing).
  • James Comey has agreed to testify publically before a Congressional Committee, i.e., the Senate’s Intelligence Committee, and this will be soon.
  • President Trump has also tweeted (and said) that firing Comey took a lot of pressure off him; unfortunately in his tweet, Trump described Comey as “crazy” and “a real nut job”!
  • Here is the context for the above. Comey was in the habit of writing out fairly detailed memos about important conversations he has had. He “wrote a detailed two-page memo about a conversation he had in the Oval Office with the president the day after Michael Flynn resigned … [On May 16, 2017,] The Washington Post reported that people close to the matter said Comey kept detailed notes of his multiple conversations with Trump. Details of Comey’s notes were shared with a very small circle of people at the FBI and Justice Department, these people said. Comey’s description of the event make clear that his understanding of the conversation was seeking to impede the investigation, according to people who had read the account or had it read to them, these people said …
  • “The White House said the report about the memo was ‘not a truthful or accurate portrayal of the conversation between the president and Mr. Comey.’ The White House said that while the president had repeatedly expressed his view that Flynn was a ‘decent man,’ he had never asked Comey or anyone else to end any investigation involving him. Trump abruptly fired Comey, saying he did so based on his very public handling of the Hillary Clinton email probe. The revelation over the Comey memo comes as Trump and the white House are dealing with the fallout from the president disclosing classified information to senior Russian officials in the Oval Office [which we will see shortly].
  • “But the extraordinary leak of Trump’s private conversations in the Oval Office – and now the leaking of the Comey memo – appear to be a direct consequence of the president’s combative relationship with the U.S. spy agencies. The White House vowed to track down those who disclosed the information …
  • “The White House said the disclosure of the information [to the Russians in the Oval Office] was ‘wholly appropriate.’ In a series of morning tweets, Trump declared he had ‘an absolute right’ as president to share ‘facts pertaining to terrorism’ and airline safety with Russia. ‘Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS [Islamic State] and terrorism,’ he tweeted.” (The Associated Press with files from The Washington Post and Postmedia News, “Trump pushed Comey to end Flynn probe, notes said.” National Post, May 17, 2017)
  • More information regarding Michael Flynn also has come to light. Is he the link between Trump’s election campaign team and the Russians or is it someone else? Is it someone close to the president now or not?
  • The Washington Post “reported that a White House official is a significant person of interest in the probe into possible co-ordination between Russia and Mr. Trump’s campaign” (Joanna Slater, “Trump heads abroad, controversy in tow,” The Globe and Mail, May 20, 2017) but no name was given and President Trump stated there was zero “collusion,” A few days earlier (May 18, 2017), a Trump tweet had stated that the investigation into possible collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia represents “the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history”!
  • Trump also denied he asked Comey to shut down part of the investigation in February 2017 and stated also that any talk he engaged in criminal activity is “totally ridiculous.”
  • New revelations (also on May 18) by Reuters state Flynn and other Trump advisers were in contact via telephone and e-mail at least 18 times with the Russians.
  • “I do not think there is a way out. I cannot see anything that would make [the controversy] go away. The Republicans have to prepare for a long period of torture.” (Robert Jervis, expert on national security at Columbia University)
  • “It is going to be very hard for Republicans to avoid this [controversy]. And it is hard to see how they make progress on the legislative initiatives that seem to be their priority, like health care and tax reform.” (David Leviss, expert)
  • “There is something ironic about Trump complaining to be the victim of the ‘single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history.’ After all, he perpetrated one of the biggest witchhunts in recent US history over former president Barack Obama’s birth certificate. The implication, of course, is that Obama would be an illegitimate president if he were born outside the United States. The accusation reinforced the notion kept alive by mostly far-right conservatives that Obama was not like most Americans and therefore had a suspect political agenda. The unfounded claim had been around for a few years before Trump brought the conspiracy theory to television news… Finally in a much-hyped press conference, Trump said these long-awaited words: ‘President Barack Obama was born in the United States.’” (James Pindell, Ground Game: Inside Presidential Politics with the Boston Globe, May 19, 2017)
  • Finally, for the foreseeable future, the Russian investigation will be on two separate tracks, i.e., a special counsel investigation and Congress’s multiple probes and is going to take time, according to John Barrett, law professor at Saint John’s University.
  • We now come to the President’s comments to two Russian officials in his Oval Office that are causing a great deal of turmoil right now. This was on May 10, 2017.
  • Allegedly, Trump divulged classified intelligence to two high-ranking Russian officials (the Russian foreign minister and the Russian ambassador to the United States) during an Oval Office meeting. The material had to do with an Islamic State plot and was closely-held intelligence from an American intelligence partner (Israel).
  • It seemed to be an on-the-spot decision to reveal this intelligence information to the Russians. There was no one else present. Trump might have been boasting when he did this. Or, as stated by a Washington official, what Trump told Sergey Lavrov (foreign minister) and Sergey Kislyak (ambassador) was a negotiations tactic to create a sense of obligation with the Russian officials and to coax concessions out of them.
  • “The revelation sent a White House accustomed to chaos reeling anew. It is extraordinary for a president to share such information without consent of the country that collected it, apparently violating the confidentiality of an intelligence agreement with Israel … The White House on May 16, 2017, defended President Donald Trump’s disclosure of this classified information to these senior Russian officials as ‘wholly appropriate,’ as Trump tried to beat back criticism from fellow Republicans and calm international allies increasingly wary about sharing their secrets with the new president.” (Vivian Salama and Julie Pace, “Classified intel on Daesh [Islamic State] came from Israel: official,” Toronto Star, May 17, 2017) Israel did issue a statement saying they had full confidence in continuing the sharing of this kind of information. However, an ex-Israeli official, Danny Yatom, said that what Trump did causes heavy damage to Israel’s international spy agency, especially if it reaches the Iranians. Trump had not let the Israeli Prime Minister know in advance about the sharing, as would be expected.
  • In a string of tweets, Trump stated he has “an absolute right” as president to share “facts pertaining to terrorism” and airline safety with Russia. However “it was, perhaps, even more remarkable that Trump chose to confide in representatives of an adversary, who could use the information to find its source. A U.S. official who confirmed the disclosure to the Associated Press said the revelation potentially put the source at risk … Coming days before Trump’s first trip abroad, it also raised questions about his standing with world leaders and led some countries to start second-guessing their own intelligence-sharing agreements with the U.S.” (ibid.)
  • So some nations are reconsidering these agreements. A senior European intelligence official said his country may stop sharing information if it can confirm Trump shared classified information with the Russians. Such sharing could be a risk for their sources.
  • This kind of disclosure is not the first time Trump’s team handling of secrets has set off alarm bells. “In the weeks before Trump took office, Obama administration officials were so concerned by the Trump transition team’s handling of classified documents that they moved swiftly to exert more control over the sensitive materials, according to two former U.S. officials. The officials said transition officials removed classified materials from secure rooms and carried them between buildings in Washington without permission. Worried about keeping tabs on the highly sensitive material, the Obama administration officials set new limits on some classified information and explicitly barred Trump aides from viewing that material in their transition offices.” James Pindell, Ground Game: Inside Presidential Politics With The Boston Globe, May 17, 2017)
  • In this difficult situation, Vladimir Putin of Russia tried to help Trump! He said the incident did not involve leaking classified material and Trump did nothing wrong. He also said the foreign minister told no one. The whole thing shows that there is evidence of political schizophrenia in the United States and Trump’s critics are not letting him do his job, added Putin.
  • There clearly are problems with the White House staff.
  • One is the following. “ ‘Trump is putting a lot on the backs of his spokespeople, while simultaneously cutting their legs out from underneath them,’ said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist and former advisor to Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida. ‘There is nothing more discouraging or embarrassing for a spokesman [spokesperson] than to have your boss contradict you. In political communications, you are only as good as your credibility.’” (James Pindell, Ground Game: Inside Presidential Politics With The Boston Globe, May 15, 2017)
  • Trump’s aides are constantly competing with each other to get his attention. So there are warring factions in the White House: “warring factions scramble to put media stories that help their cause in front of a President addicted to his own courage” (Adam Radwanski, “Opinion: the value, and peril, of courting Kushner,” The Globe and Mail, May 20, 2017).
  • This cannot be good for staff morale and unhappy aides have a difficult time doing a good job and following their vocation in government. May God bring peace to this community and make it a better functioning community for the common good and welfare of the American people! Amen!
  • One person in the news of the mess in the White House and American government which floods us now is the very interesting Sally Yates. Let us take a quick peek at this situation because of her importance and because she appeared before a United States Senate subcommittee in mid-May, 2017.
  • Days before Trump took over the office of President, Yates “took charge of the Department of Justice while the new president’s appointees waited to be confirmed by the US Senate … she had been appointed to be deputy general by the Obama administration. Most likely she had no expectation that she would continue in that role after Trump took office (these appointees rarely stay on for the next administration if the White House changes partisan hands) … In this role, she was also in charge of the FBI, which had been investigating Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser.” (James Pindell, Ground Game: Inside Presidential Politics With The Boston Globe, May 8, 2017)
  • Trump did fire her. She was fired because she did not agree to enforce Trump’s original travel ban for some predominantly Muslim nations. He basically wanted to make an example out of her. In a tweet, Trump suggests she authorized the release of classified information to the media.
  • Yates told White House counsel about the Justice Department’s concerns that Flynn might be compromised on January 16, 2017; Trump did not request his resignation until February 13, 2017.
  • When Yates testified before the Senate, she contradicted what the White House had stated what they knew and when they knew about Flynn’s deeper ties to Russia. “Among the issues: Flynn accepted payment from Russia and Turkey during the 2016 campaign, which he confirmed after he resigned from the Trump administration” (ibid.).
  • I saw and heard Yates on television news a number of times and especially during Anderson Cooper’s interview on CNN. I was really taken with her talents and abilities of exposition: she was accurate, concise, put no one down, knowledgeable, knew her limits regarding information, answered questions directly, did not conjecture, well-informed, respectful of all (even of those who had put her down), clear, without rancor, sensitive, sensible, and spoke only about what she knew. She was a real breath of fresh air in the chaos and morass that Washington has become. Many more like her are needed if the mess is ever to be cleaned up!
  • People like her and for me she became a person of hope because if there were more people like her, the mess in Washington could be cleared up: all of us need more people like her so that sanity comes back to themess Trumpism has created and continues to create. May God raise up persons like her so that things in Washington may come back to normal. Amen.
  • Another person I heard and saw speak in my coverage of the news and media who also impressed me was James Clapper. Clapper was a former director of national intelligence in the United States.
  • As Trump was working hard to get a successor to Comey, lawmakers from both political parties “urged him to steer clear of any politicians for the job and said he must ‘clean up the mess that he mostly created’” (Hope Yen, “U.S. democracy ‘under assault,’” Waterloo Region Record, May 15, 2017).
  • “Clapper spoke following Trump’s sudden firing of Comey, which drew sharp criticism because it came amid the FBI’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election. Clapper said America’s founding-fathers had created three coequal branches of government with checks and balances.” (ibid.) So, for Clapper, the very basis of American democracy is under assault – quite a charge! For Clapper, President Trump and alleged Russian ties are eroding the founding fathers’ checks and balances; he gave this warning and expression of dismay over Comey’s abrupt firing while in the midst of a probe “into Moscow’s meddling in U.S. elections and possible ties with the Trump campaign” (ibid.).
  • Clapper declared that the Russian interference was one front eroding the American governmental structure of checks and balances but he also added that “I think as well our institutions are under assault internally.” When asked if he was speaking about the President, he replied “exactly.” And here is what The Economist of May 13-19, 2017 (“Leaders: The sacking of James Comey – You’re fired!”) has to say about this matter. “[In the firing of Mr. Comey,] if Mr. Trump is lashing out at an uppity underling, that is a bad sign. It suggests the president does not respect the vital principle of an independent, non-political FBI – which, for all his faults, Mr. Comey represented.

Taken with the contempt Mr. Trump has shown for judges who challenge his executive orders, America’s system of checks and balances is under stress.” (emphasis added – the same point Mr. Clapper made!)