The Weekly List (140 links to news items)

FEBRUARY 03, 2018
Week 64

Experts in authoritarianism advise to keep a list of things subtly changing around you, so you’ll remember.

The news this week was dominated by the Devin Nunes memo, which, following high drama and despite calls to withhold it from US intelligence leaders including Trump appointee Christopher Wray, was released on Friday. Trump suffered no consequences for making highly classified information public, nor for pushing out Deputy Director of the FBI Andrew McCabe, almost assuring he will irreverently continue to take steps to undermine the Mueller probe, likely dispensing with Rod Rosenstein next. With few exceptions, Republicans remain silent and complicit.

This was also the week of Trump’s first State of the Union address which was a blur in the bedlam of Week 64. Critical stories about Russia’s slow creep into our country and Trump’s refusal to impose sanctions were the most alarming stories this week, yet received little attention. Nor did the stories about the continued dismantling of our executive branch agencies, and ICE ramping up their heinous activities, unchecked.

1. On Sunday, Alexey Navalny, an anti-corruption opponent of Putin was dragged violently into a van while protesting in central Moscow. He was later released, pending trial. The US issued no statement on the arrest.
2. On Monday, CIA director Mike Pompeo told BBC News that there has been no significant diminishing of Russian attempts at subversion in Europe and the US, and that Russia will likely target the US midterm elections.
3. On Monday, a Russian jet buzzed an American spy plane over the Black Sea, in what the State Department characterized as an “unsafe” flyby. The encounter was first reported by Russia’s RIA news agency.
4. On Tuesday, Russian news agency TASS first reported that Sergei Naryshkin, the director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (or SVR) visited the US for consultations with US counterparts to discuss the war on terror.
5. On Wednesday, WAPO reported two Russian spy chiefs, Naryshkin and Alexander Bortnikov, who runs the FSB, came to DC to meet with Pompeo. A senior US intelligence official was called back from Moscow for the meeting.
6. The head of Russia’s military intelligence also came to DC, but it is not clear if he met with Pompeo. The meetings raised concerns that the Trump regime is willing to move beyond the issue of election interference.
7. Naryshkin is currently under sanctions imposed by the Obama administration for his alleged role in Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea. SVR is also thought to have played a key role in US election interference.
8. On Friday, CNN reported the CIA followed a multi-agency legal process to give Naryshkin access. In a letter to Sen. Chuck Schumer, Pompeo defended the meeting saying he and others met with Russians “to keep Americans safe.”
9. Schumer said Pompeo’s meeting represented “a serious national security issue,” noting Pompeo did not directly acknowledge that he met with Russian counterparts, and his “refusal to answer that question is deeply troubling.”
10. On Monday, the Trump regime announced it would not implement new sanctions against Russia, despite a law that passed almost unanimously in Congress in August to punish Russia for interfering in the 2016 election.
11. Monday was the deadline to impose sanctions on anyone doing business with Russian defense and intelligence sectors. A State Department spokesperson said, “the mere threat of sanctions will deter Russia’s aggressive behavior.”
12. On Tuesday, Secretary Steven Mnuchin defended the Treasury Department’s decision to delay implementation of Russia sanctions to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, vowing “there will be sanctions.”
13. On Tuesday, BuzzFeed reported the Treasury Department lifted their list of Russian oligarchs from Forbes magazine’s ranking of the “200 richest businessmen in Russia 2017.” Treasury officials did not deny the charge.

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