July 19, 2023

Wednesday, July 19, 2023. Annette’s News Roundup.

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What is happening in Washington about Israel?

Israeli President Meets With Biden Amid U.S. Unease With Netanyahu

President Biden’s meeting with Isaac Herzog and accompanying declarations of support for Israel have masked strains between the White House and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

President Biden met with President Isaac Herzog of Israel on Tuesday at the White House, a diplomatic overture to one of America’s key allies amid tensions between the Biden administration and Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister.

In brief remarks before the meeting, Mr. Biden told Mr. Herzog “welcome back — pleasure to have you here” and noted that Israel was celebrating 75 years of existence. He gave Mr. Herzog a fist bump and called the relationship between the United States and Israel “simply unbreakable.”

Mr. Herzog said he brought “greetings and gratitude” from “all sides of the political spectrum” in Israel.

White House officials had described the meeting with Mr. Herzog as an opportunity for Mr. Biden to strengthen an already “ironclad” relationship between the two countries. They said the two leaders would discuss preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon as part of the White House called its “unwavering commitment” to Israel’s security.

But the declarations of mutual respect have masked strains between the two governments that have grown in recent years, as Mr. Biden has become increasingly frustrated with Mr. Netanyahu’s positions on Israeli settlements and efforts to overhaul the nation’s judicial system.

On Monday, Mr. Biden ended months of delay in offering Mr. Netanyahu a formal visit to the United States. After the two leaders talked on the phone, Mr. Biden invited the prime minister to meet in the United States, most likely before the end of the year — though not necessarily at the White House.

The visit by Mr. Herzog, whose position in Israel’s government is largely ceremonial, is an opportunity for Mr. Biden to express his commitment to the Middle Eastern country without delivering the political benefits of a White House visit to Mr. Netanyahu.

Israel is a central U.S. ally in the Middle East and the recipient of billions of dollars in aid each year. White House officials said Mr. Biden planned to emphasize areas of cooperation, including progress toward normalization of relations with other Middle Eastern countries and diplomatic efforts with the Palestinians.

Some supporters in the United States consider Mr. Herzog, who ran against Mr. Netanyahu almost a decade ago, a bridge builder whose efforts to find a middle ground in Israel’s fraught political climate are a welcome change from some of the more extremist elements of the country’s government.

But even before Tuesday, his visit was generating controversy. Several liberal lawmakers said they would boycott Mr. Herzog’s planned speech to Congress on Wednesday to protest Mr. Netanyahu’s government.

Earlier this month, Mr. Biden called Mr. Netanyahu’s cabinet “one of the most extremist” he had seen in decades of foreign policy engagement with Israel — in effect acknowledging the anger among many progressives with the prime minister’s policies.

White House officials had previously said that Mr. Biden planned to raise his concerns about the Israeli government’s expansion of settlements, which the administration considers an impediment to an eventual two-state solution, with a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Officials had said Mr. Biden would also express to Mr. Herzog his discomfort with Mr. Netanyahu’s efforts to make changes to the judicial system that critics say would undermine the power of Israel’s Supreme Court.

“We want to see Israel be as vibrant and as viable a democracy as possible,” said John F. Kirby, a spokesman for the White House’s National Security Council. “And that means that you build programs and reforms and changes in a way that is based on compromise.”

But officials also said the president’s meeting with Mr. Herzog in the Oval Office was an attempt to underscore the history of friendship that has characterized the relationship between the two countries since Israel’s creation.

“As Israel celebrates its 75th anniversary, the visit will highlight our enduring partnership and friendship,” a White House statement said the day before the meeting. “The two leaders will discuss opportunities to deepen Israel’s regional integration and to create a more peaceful and prosperous Middle East.” (The New York Times).

In Congress, Democrats’ Rift Over Israel Flares on Eve of Herzog Visit.

After a leading progressive [Pramila Jayapal] called Israel “a racist state,” Democratic leaders criticized the statement. But a planned boycott of the Israeli president’s speech by liberals underscored tensions.

Representative Pramila Jayapal told a Netroots Nation conference over the weekend that some lawmakers “have been fighting to make it clear that Israel is a racist state.”

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An increasingly deep divide among Democrats in Congress about how strongly — or even whether — to support Israel has reared its head on the eve of a visit by the nation’s president to Washington, as progressives openly condemn the Jewish state and others toil to reconcile their backing for the country with disdain for its current government.

The rift burst into public view over the weekend when Representative Pramila Jayapal, a Washington Democrat who leads the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said at a conference of the liberal Netroots Nation that Israel “is a racist state,” leading to a swift condemnation from House Democratic leaders that prompted her to walk back the comment. Now Republicans, working to exploit the discord roiling Democrats, plan to keep the infighting in the spotlight by holding a vote on Tuesday proclaiming that Israel is not a racist or apartheid state and condemning antisemitism.

The resolution does not mention Ms. Jayapal by name, but it was inspired by her comment and is plainly drafted to drive a wedge among Democrats, putting critics of Israel on the left in the position of either disavowing their views about the government’s actions or refusing to condemn antisemitism.

The divisions were already expected to be on vivid display this week, as a group of left-wing Democrats plans to boycott an address to a joint session of Congress by President Isaac Herzog of Israel in protest of Israel’s policies, and in the wake of President Biden’s invitation on Monday for Mr. Netanyahu to visit the United States. (The New York Times)

One more thing.

On Robert Kennedy, Jr. by his sister Kerry.

"𝘐 𝘚𝘛𝘙𝘖𝘕𝘎𝘓𝘠 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘮𝘯 𝘮𝘺 𝘣𝘳𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳'𝘴 𝘥𝘦𝘱𝘭𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘵𝘩𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘳𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘴 𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘬 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘊𝘰𝘷𝘪𝘥 𝘣𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘦𝘯𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘯𝘪𝘤 𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘨𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨.

𝘏𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘥𝘰 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘐 𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘷𝘦 𝘰𝘳 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘙𝘰𝘣𝘦𝘳𝘵 𝘍. 𝘒𝘦𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘥𝘺 𝘏𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘙𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘴 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳, 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘰𝘶𝘳 50+ 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘳𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘵𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵 𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘪𝘴𝘮 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯"

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Trump is in the News.

The Times calls it a plan to “increase Presidential power.” I call it dictatorship.

Trump must never be in the White House again.

Trump and Allies Forge Plans to Increase Presidential Power in 2025

Donald J. Trump and his allies are planning a sweeping expansion of presidential power over the machinery of government if voters return him to the White House in 2025, reshaping the structure of the executive branch to concentrate far greater authority directly in his hands.

Their plans to centralize more power in the Oval Office stretch far beyond the former president’s recent remarks that he would order a criminal investigation into his political rival, President Biden, signaling his intent to end the post-Watergate norm of Justice Department independence from White House political control.

Mr. Trump and his associates have a broader goal: to alter the balance of power by increasing the president’s authority over every part of the federal government that now operates, by either law or tradition, with any measure of independence from political interference by the White House, according to a review of his campaign policy proposals and interviews with people close to him.

Mr. Trump intends to bring independent agencies — like the Federal Communications Commission, which makes and enforces rules for television and internet companies, and the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces various antitrust and other consumer protection rules against businesses — under direct presidential control.

He wants to revive the practice of “impounding” funds, refusing to spend money Congress has appropriated for programs a president doesn’t like — a tactic that lawmakers banned under President Richard Nixon.

He intends to strip employment protections from tens of thousands of career civil servants, making it easier to replace them if they are deemed obstacles to his agenda. And he plans to scour the intelligence agencies, the State Department and the defense bureaucracies to remove officials he has vilified as “the sick political class that hates our country.”

“The president’s plan should be to fundamentally reorient the federal government in a way that hasn’t been done since F.D.R.’s New Deal,” said John McEntee, a former White House personnel chief who began Mr. Trump’s systematic attempt to sweep out officials deemed to be disloyal in 2020 and who is now involved in mapping out the new approach.

“Our current executive branch,” Mr. McEntee added, “was conceived of by liberals for the purpose of promulgating liberal policies. There is no way to make the existing structure function in a conservative manner. It’s not enough to get the personnel right. What’s necessary is a complete system overhaul.”

Mr. Trump and his advisers are making no secret of their intentions — proclaiming them in rallies and on his campaign website, describing them in white papers and openly discussing them.

“What we’re trying to do is identify the pockets of independence and seize them,” said Russell T. Vought, who ran the Office of Management and Budget in the Trump White House and now runs a policy organization, the Center for Renewing America.

The strategy in talking openly about such “paradigm-shifting ideas” before the election, Mr. Vought said, is to “plant a flag” — both to shift the debate and to later be able to claim a mandate. He said he was delighted to see few of Mr. Trump’s Republican primary rivals defend the norm of Justice Department independence after the former president openly attacked it.

Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump’s campaign, said in a statement that the former president has “laid out a bold and transparent agenda for his second term, something no other candidate has done.” He added, “Voters will know exactly how President Trump will supercharge the economy, bring down inflation, secure the border, protect communities and eradicate the deep state that works against Americans once and for all.”

The two driving forces of this effort to reshape the executive branch are Mr. Trump’s own campaign policy shop and a well-funded network of conservative groups, many of which are populated by former senior Trump administration officials who would most likely play key roles in any second term.

Mr. Vought and Mr. McEntee are involved in Project 2025, a $22 million presidential transition operation that is preparing policies, personnel lists and transition plans to recommend to any Republican who may win the 2024 election. The transition project, the scale of which is unprecedented in conservative politics, is led by the Heritage Foundation, a think tank that has shaped the personnel and policies of Republican administrations since the Reagan presidency.

That work at Heritage dovetails with plans on the Trump campaign website to expand presidential power that were drafted primarily by two of Mr. Trump’s advisers, Vincent Haley and Ross Worthington, with input from other advisers, including Stephen Miller, the architect of the former president’s hard-line immigration agenda.

Some elements of the plans had been floated when Mr. Trump was in office but were impeded by internal concerns that they would be unworkable and could lead to setbacks. And for some veterans of Mr. Trump’s turbulent White House who came to question his fitness for leadership, the prospect of removing guardrails and centralizing even greater power over government directly in his hands sounded like a recipe for mayhem.

“It would be chaotic,” said John F. Kelly, Mr. Trump’s second White House chief of staff. “It just simply would be chaotic, because he’d continually be trying to exceed his authority but the sycophants would go along with it. It would be a nonstop gunfight with the Congress and the courts.”

The agenda being pursued has deep roots in the decades-long effort by conservative legal thinkers to undercut what has become known as the administrative state — agencies that enact regulations aimed at keeping the air and water clean and food, drugs and consumer products safe, but that cut into business profits. (The New York Times).

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Trump is notified he's a target of the US criminal probe into efforts to overturn the 2020 election

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump said Tuesday he has received a letter informing him that he is a target of the Justice Department’s investigation into efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, an indication he could soon be charged by U.S. prosecutors.

New federal charges, on top of existing state and federal counts in New York and Florida and a separate election-interference investigation nearing conclusion in Georgia, would add to the list of legal problems for Trump as he pursues the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

Trump disclosed the existence of a target letter in a post on his Truth Social platform, saying he received it Sunday night and that he anticipates being indicted. Such a letter often precedes an indictment and is used to advise individuals under investigation that prosecutors have gathered evidence linking them to a crime; Trump himself received one soon before being charged last month in a separate investigation into the illegal retention of classified documents.

A spokesman for special counsel Jack Smith, whose office is leading the investigation, declined to comment.

Legal experts have said potential charges could include conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstruction of an official proceeding, in this case Congress’ certification of President Joe Biden’s electoral victory.

Smith’s team has cast a broad net in its investigation into attempts by Trump and his allies to block the transfer of power to Biden in the days leading up to the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, when Trump loyalists stormed the building in a bid to disrupt the certification of state electoral votes in Congress. More than 1,000 people accused of participating in the riot have been charged.

Smith’s probe has centered on a broad range of efforts by Trump and allies to keep him in office, including the role played by lawyers in pressing for the overturning of results as well as plans for slates of fake electors in multiple battleground states won by Biden to submit false electoral certificates to Congress.

Prosecutors have questioned multiple Trump administration officials before a grand jury in Washington, including former Vice President Mike Pence, who was repeatedly pressured by Trump to ignore his constitutional duty and block the counting in Congress of electoral votes on Jan. 6.

They’ve also interviewed other Trump advisers, including former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, as well as local election officials in states including Michigan and New Mexico who were targets of a pressure campaign from the then-president to overturn election results in their states. A lawyer for Giuliani, who participated in a voluntary interview, said Tuesday that he did not receive a target letter.

Trump has consistently denied wrongdoing and did so again in his Tuesday post, writing, “Under the United States Constitution, I have the right to protest an Election that I am fully convinced was Rigged and Stolen, just as the Democrats have done against me in 2016, and many others have done over the ages.”

Trump remains the Republican party’s dominant frontrunner, despite indictments in New York arising from hush money payments during his 2016 campaign, and in Florida, which appear to have had little impact on his standing in the crowded GOP field. The indictments also have helped his campaign raise millions of dollars from supporters, though he raised less after the second than the first, raising questions about whether subsequent charges will have the same impact.

A fundraising committee backing Trump’s candidacy began soliciting contributions just hours after he broke the news of the new letter, casting the investigation as “just another vicious act of Election Interference on behalf of the Deep State to try and stop the Silent Majority from having a voice in your own country.”

Trump was traveling to Iowa Tuesday, where he was taping a town hall with Fox News host Sean Hannity.

The Trump indictments have proven politically challenging for some of Trump’s rivals, who must be mindful of his deep support among many of the party’s primary voters.

Asked about the letter during a press conference in South Carolina, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Trump’s most serious challenger, said he hadn’t seen it, but delivered his most forceful critique to date of Trump’s inaction on Jan. 6.

“I think it was shown how he was in the White House and didn’t do anything while things were going on. He should have come out more forcefully,” DeSantis said. However, he added, “But to try to criminalize that, that’s a different issue entirely.”

House speaker Kevin McCarthy, who had previously criticized Trump for his actions that day, accused Democrats of trying to “weaponize government to go after their number one opponent.”

Trump, since leaving office, has increasingly downplayed the events of Jan. 6, describing the rally he held that day as a “lovefest” and “a beautiful thing.” He has also embraced defendants jailed over their alleged roles in the insurrection, including promising to pardon a “large portion” and to issue an official apology to them if he is reelected to the White House. In June, he spoke at a fundraiser for the defendants and earlier this year collaborated on a song called “Justice for All,” a version of the Star-Spangled Banner sung by the J6 Prison choir and recorded over a prison phone line that is overlaid with Trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

One purpose of a target letter is to advise a potential defendant that he or she has a right to appear before the grand jury. Trump said in his post that he has been given “a very short 4 days to report to the Grand Jury, which almost always means an Arrest and indictment.” Aides did not immediately respond to questions seeking further information.

Prosecutors in Georgia are conducting a separate investigation into efforts by Trump to reverse his election loss in that state, with the top prosecutor in Fulton County signaling that she expects to announce charging decisions next month.

In his post on Tuesday, Trump wrote that “they have now effectively indicted me three times ... with a probably fourth coming from Atlanta” and added in capital letters, “This witch hunt is all about election interference and a complete and total political weaponization of law enforcement.”

Trump was indicted last month on 37 federal felony counts in relation to accusations of illegally retaining hundreds of classified documents at his Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago. He has pleaded not guilty. A pretrial conference in that case was set for Tuesday afternoon in Fort Pierce, Fla.

(Associated Press).

(Truth Social).

One more thing.

Israeli Artifacts Reportedly Remain at Trump Mar-a-Lago Estate.

The artifacts were loaned to the United States in 2019, with how they wound up at Mar-a-Lago unclear.

Antiquities loaned to the United States by Israel in 2019 were meant to be returned after only a few weeks. Now, nearly four years later, they've been at Mar-a-Lago according to a new report, with Israeli officials attempting to get them back.

Artifacts, including ancient candles, were meant to be displayed at the White House for a Hanukkah event, according to a report by Israeli newspaper Haaretz. They did not end up being displayed, and were stranded in the United States after COVID-19 pandemic protocols prevented an employee of the Israeli Antiquities Authority from traveling to America to retrieve them. Israel Hasson, the former director of the IAA, reportedly said the items were too delicate to be sent back any other way.

Instead of going to Saul Fox, a major donor to the IAA based in America, for safekeeping as Israeli officials requested, the artifacts reportedly wound up at former President Donald Trump's Florida resort and club, where Trump has also been charged with illegally housing classified documents.

It is not currently known how the Israeli antiquities wound up at Mar-a-Lago. The IAA and Israeli government have been attempting to retrieve the artifacts from Mar-a-Lago, according to Haaretz, but have not yet been successful in their endeavors. (The Messenger).

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The long arm of the law continues to charge the election criminals of 2020.

16 'fake electors' in Michigan face felony charges.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel walks to her seat before the State of the State address on Jan. 25 at the state Capitol in Lansing, Mich.
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Michigan's attorney general has announced charges against 16 people for serving as so-called fake electors following the 2020 presidential election.

The electors signed documents falsely attesting that Donald Trump won the state in the election. Trump lost Michigan to Joe Biden.

The broader fake elector scheme is part of special counsel Jack Smith's ongoing federal investigation into Trump and the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Those charged in Michigan include Meshawn Maddock, a former co-chair of the state Republican Party. Each defendant faces a slew of felony charges including election law forgery.

"The false electors' actions undermined the public's faith in the integrity of our elections and, we believe, also plainly violated the laws by which we administer our elections in Michigan," Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, said in a statement Tuesday.

The statement details:

These defendants are alleged to have met covertly in the basement of the Michigan Republican Party headquarters on December 14th, and signed their names to multiple certificates stating they were the "duly elected and qualified electors for President and Vice President of the United States of America for the State of Michigan." These false documents were then transmitted to the United States Senate and National Archives in a coordinated effort to award the state's electoral votes to the candidate of their choosing, in place of the candidates actually elected by the people of Michigan.

The charges in Michigan came hours after Trump revealed that he received word that he's a target of a federal grand jury probe investigating his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Trump has called the federal investigation into his actions a "witch hunt."

Michigan was one of several states that saw pro-Trump fake electors submit letters to the federal government. Some fake electors have defended their actions by saying they were merely doing so in case Trump's challenges of the election were successful. (NPR)

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President Obama on librarians, books and Democracy.

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