THE MORNING PLUM:
We are about to enter a new phase in the escalating political war over possible Russian meddling in our election, and it’s increasingly looking like this could become one of the first defining battles of the Trump presidency, with untold consequences. This new phase will presumably bring to light more facts that will help establish what really happened.
If those facts continue to build a case that Russian interference on his behalf actually happened, can Trump — who continues to sneer at the intelligence community’s conclusion that it did — really outrun those facts forever?
[Republicans ignore Trump’s Russia sycophancy at their peril]
Here is what is coming:
— Today, the Senate Armed Services Community is set to hold a hearing on “foreign cyber-threats,” at which leading intelligence officials will testify. They are expected to defend their conclusion of Russian interference, and perhaps lay out their case for it.
— Also today, President Obama is set to get briefed on the report that the intelligence community is assembling that details that conclusion, reports ABC News, adding that the report is now complete.
— Tomorrow, Trump is scheduled to get a private briefing from intelligence officials on their conclusions. As the New York Times reports, he will essentially receive “a detailed, classified version” of what is presented at today’s hearing. Those conclusions will be the ones in the report delivered to Obama.
— More congressional Republicans may now start publicly criticizing Trump’s position on this whole affair. Trump has been tweeting out a barrage of mockery of the intelligence community and its assessments, most recently putting the word “intelligence” in mock-quotes and ridiculing the “so-called Russian hacking.” You’d think this would become harder to do, once Trump is privately briefed on the evidence.
But even if Trump does continue to mock the intelligence community’s conclusions, this could lead to rising discomfort among congressional Republicans. Here’s why: ABC News also reports that an unclassified version of the intelligence report is expected to be made public on Monday, and on that day, Congress gets its own classified briefing on its contents. As it is, The Post reports today that Republicans on the Hill are increasingly divided, with some more aggressively criticizing Trump’s disparagement of the intelligence community, and others gamely defending it. But a classified briefing could lead more Hill Republicans to speak out against Trump’s stance.
What’s remarkable is that, as all this has escalated, Trump and his allies appear to be digging in harder behind his position, and they, too, are escalating their attacks in the other direction. Fox News’s Sean Hannity, a prominent Trump supporter, gave a high-profile interview to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in which Assange claimed no Russian involvement in the email hacks. Today Michelle Lee has a deep dive into that claim, and reports that Assange refused to back up his assertion; that some independent accountings and the intelligence community discount it; and that “the facts we know contradict Assange’s assurance.”
Yet Trump tweeted support for Assange’s claim. Meanwhile, Trump allies are leaking to the Wall Street Journal that he intends to reorganize our intelligence services, to “pare back” the role of the Director of National Intelligence, and to “restructure the Central Intelligence Agency.” One person close to the Trump transition claimed: “The view from the Trump team is the intelligence world has become completely politicized.” Whether or not this is true, it suggests that the Trump team may be retaliating for the leaks asserting Russian meddling to help him win the election.
To be clear, it’s appropriate and right for us to retain some skepticism of the intelligence community’s conclusions about Russian interference until more evidence comes out. But this could go on for a long time. Congress is set to probe the charges, and while GOP leaders will probably try to limit the scope of investigations, increasing pressure for an independent probe may grow harder to resist. Meanwhile, as this has all played out, Trump has not merely been skeptical of those conclusions. He’s being openly contemptuous of them in a manner plainly designed to discredit in advance the possibility that they may be correct. He has shown no desire to get to the bottom of what actually happened and to establish whether a major undermining of our democracy did take place, which we should all want to do — the president-elect very much included.
But if this story continues to go in this direction, it’s hard to see how Trump’s position will remain sustainable.
[What if Trump is playing Russia like he played the media?]
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* GOP GRAPPLES WITH DILEMMA ON OBAMACARE REPEAL: The New York Times reports that the GOP repeal plan will scrap the mandate, and the Medicaid expansion and subsidies that have expanded coverage to millions. But this is undecided:
It could also repeal some of the taxes and fees that help pay for the expansion of coverage under the Affordable Care Act. But some Republicans have indicated that they may want to use some of that revenue for their as-yet-undetermined plan to replace the health care law….Republicans have not said for sure which taxes they will scrap and which they may keep.
See the problem? If Republicans repeal the law’s tax hikes, they won’t have revenue to cover people under their “replacement” later! Health-care policy is so complicated.
* GOP STRUGGLES WITH TIMING ON OBAMACARE REPEAL: The Associated Press reports that some House conservatives want repeal to take effect before the 2018 midterms, because they worry their voters will be angry if it doesn’t happen quickly:
There’s likely to be a years-long transition period between the repeal and the replacement, but many House Republicans…believe it’s urgent to get the replacement done before the 2018 midterms, or risk voter wrath. “If it hasn’t been done by the 2018s, it’s like, ‘What are you doing?'” said GOP Rep. Mark Amodei of Nevada. “If after five years of Republicans saying it sucks, we don’t do a good job of transitioning and replacing, then Katie bar the door.”
Voters who have been told for years that Obamacare is destroying their freedom will no doubt be enraged if GOP leaders delay repeal’s impact until after the elections (because they have no idea how to replace it).
* TRUMP MIGHT WEAKEN THE ACA THROUGH EXECUTIVE ACTION: The Post reports this interesting nugget:
According to a lobbyist in touch with congressional aides on the ACA issue, the Trump transition team has been considering ways to strip down the health benefits that insurers must provide in plans that they sell to individuals and small businesses. This list of “essential health benefits” was envisioned by the law but was defined in a regulation written by the Department of Health and Human Services. As a result, the incoming administration could alter it without help from Congress.
The ACA’s regulations probably can’t be rolled back through a simple-majority “reconciliation” Senate process, so look for executive actions that chip away at them.
* WILL OBAMA BECOME A PROMINENT TRUMP CRITIC? E.J. Dionne ponders the role that Obama might play in our politics after exiting the presidency:
Obama can take risks in confronting Trump that more conventional politicians…might not. He has the capacity to seize the country’s attention on the issues that matter. … his popularity as he departs and the record he leaves behind on job creation and growth give him added credibility with a broad swath of Americans. My hunch is that Obama would prefer to hang back from politics. My expectation is that Trump will not give him that option.
I fear this is right. As Dionne notes, Obama will have to carefully calibrate his involvement, but if he picks his moments carefully, he might perhaps help restrain Trump’s excesses.
* OBAMA WARNS TRUMP ON DREAMERS: Politico quotes a Democratic source claiming that at a meeting with Dems, Obama recounted that he warned Trump against rescinding the DACA program, which protects “dreamers” from deportation. Note this:
The lawmaker said Obama indicated that a fight over the future of DACA recipients would be one issue that would prompt him to get back in the political arena.
It’s still unclear if Trump will rescind those protections, potentially forcing hundreds of thousands back into the shadows, but if he does, it will prompt an epic political battle.
* ASSANGE ‘WINS NEW RESPECT FROM CONSERVATIVES': Scott Shane reports that Trump and Julian Assange “have formed a united front” to undermine the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia meddled in our election. Here’s how the alliance works:
Mr. Assange, long reviled by many Republicans as an anarchist lawbreaker out to damage the United States, has won new respect from conservatives who appreciated his site’s release of Democratic emails widely perceived to have hurt Hillary Clinton’s campaign. And Mr. Trump has been eager to undercut the conclusion of the F.B.I., the C.I.A. and other agencies that those emails were provided to WikiLeaks courtesy of Russian government hackers.
Among the conservatives who now respect Assange: Sarah Palin, who apologized to him after having called him “an anti-American operative with blood on his hands.”