Since you asked, I am 41.
No, I don’t like being 41. For the record, I object to being in my 40s. Aging is dumb. Also, my back hurts.
Anyway, a reminder, per usual: Please share this newsletter with your friends and ask them to hang with us.
PRIMER, of course, is made possible by the INDY Press Club, and yeah, sure, if you want to throw some birthday coins into ye olde jar, I won’t mind.
But I’ve been reminded this week of how fortunate I’ve been during this pandemic.
I have a job when a million people in North Carolina don’t, and when who-knows-how-many people in my industry don’t.
I was able to take (most of) a paid week off; that’s a luxury in short supply.
I still have insurance and my 401K (though I’m scared to check it).
I’ve been able to work with my dogs at my feet and my wife in the other room. It hasn’t been half bad.
So if you’re dying to give me a birthday present — and I know you are — here’s a very brief list of local organizations I’d hope you’d consider supporting. There are, of course, many other worthwhile organizations out there, and I don’t mean to leave anyone out. These are just the handful that came to mind.
Triangle Restaurant Workers Relief Fund
Durham Artist Relief Fund
Y’all have been so kind to me and to the INDY and the Press Club, and so supportive of everything we’re trying to do. I’m grateful for it every day. But I also never want to lose sight of how lucky I am — or to forget that I have a platform that can help those who need it.
—Jeffrey C. Billman, INDY editor. Follow me on Twitter @jeffreybillman.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY [2020-05-15]
→ THE UNITED STATES V. RICHARD BURR.
On Wednesday night, FBI agents executed a search warrant for Senator Richard Burr’s cellphone. A few days earlier, they had served a warrant on Apple to search Burr’s iCloud account, then used the information gleaned there in the second application. For Burr, this is bad all the way around.
The FBI and SEC are investigating Burr for a series of stock sales — valued at up to $1.7 million — he made on February 13, a week before the coronavirus pandemic sent the market into a tailspin. His brother-in-law sold large amounts of shares that same day.
As the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a member of a key health care committee, Burr received private briefings on the scope and danger of the pandemic throughout January. It is illegal for members of Congress to buy and sell stocks based on insider information.
On February 3, Burr co-wrote an op-ed reassuring the public that the administration had things under control. Burr says the stock sales he made 10 days later were based on public information.
The feds reportedly wanted the phone to learn more about Burr’s communications with his stockbroker.
Search warrants tend to come at the end of an investigation, not the beginning, “because it requires sufficient evidence to show a judge probable cause and because it requires notice to the subject, meaning covert investigative steps are no longer possible.”
Recognizing the gravity of his situation, Burr announced yesterday that he would step down as head of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Securing a search warrant for the home of a senior United States senator is no small matter. It’s not just convincing a judge that there is probable cause that the warrant could produce evidence of criminal activity; the application also had to be cleared by senior Department of Justice officials.
That raises an interesting question: Attorney General William Barr has made clear that he’ll interfere with prosecutions to help the president’s criminal pals. So why go after Barr?
After all, there’s been no indication that the feds have targeted Georgia Senator Kelly Loeffler, another Republican who not only sold up to $3.1 million in shares just before the crash but also bought shares in Citrix, which produces teleconferencing software.
It could be nothing more than that evidence is stronger in one case than the other. It’s also possible an investigation into Loeffler is ongoing, and we’ll hear about it soon. But given the way Barr has politicized the DOJ, you’d be forgiven for wondering if something else is at play. Consider:
The basis for the DOJ’s effort to dismiss the charges against Michael Flynn (see below) is, more or less, that the investigation into the Trump campaign’s collusion with the Russian government was illegitimate; therefore, Flynn’s lies to the FBI about his contacts with the Russian ambassador in December 2016 didn’t matter.
Burr’s Senate Intelligence Committee has repeatedly backed the Intelligence Community’s reports that Russian agents interfered in the election on Trump’s behalf, undercutting Trump’s argument that the Russia investigation was cooked up by Democrats who were out to get him and that Russia actually wanted Hillary Clinton to win.
The Senate Intelligence Committee will soon release the final installment of its five-volume report on Russian interference in the 2016 election.
A Trump sycophant — either Senator James Risch of Idaho or Senator Marco Rubio of Florida — is likely to take over the committee.
Yeah, but: Senate Intel Dems say the report will be released anyway.
→ NC’S WEEKLY JOBLESS CLAIMS REPORT GETS LESS TERRIBLE.
Just 56,193 people filed initial jobless claims in North Carolina in the week ending May 9, and while, yes, that would be a staggeringly huge number during almost any other period, it’s a pretty decent improvement. The week before, nearly 86,000 people filed claims. From March 15 through May 12, according to the Division of Employment Security, almost 862,000 individuals filed almost 1.3 million claims (I’ll follow up later today to try to figure out why there are multuples). In that period, 494,251 residents have received $1.8 billion in unemployment compensation, of which:
$559 million came from the state unemployment fund.
$1 billion came from the $600/week pandemic funds Congress approved in the CARES Act.
$237 million came from Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, or federal unemployment funds made available to 990 workers who are ineligible for state unemployment.
RELATED: The Department of Labor says that, nationwide, just under 3 million people filed new unemployment claims, including 842,000 from PUA. Since mid-March, more than 36 million Americans have filed for unemployment.
DEPARTMENT OF BAD IDEAS: Triangle Business Journal editor Sougata Mukherjee — who, I will venture a guess, is writing from the comfort of home, just like me — believes that, as states reopen, the government needs to cut off unemployment funds to those slackers who don’t return to work.
“Congress should enact legislation denying jobless benefits to workers who were laid off or furloughed during the pandemic and given an option to return to work. … The move to deny workers jobless benefits may sound draconian during the pandemic, but it is needed to save our economy.”
Mukhergee’s argument is that people have it so good on the dole right now that employers can’t lure them back to the job. And since a lot of these companies took out PPP loans, and they have to stay fully staffed for the loans to be forgiven, they might get stuck.
The Republican argument — looking at you, Thom Tillis — that the government shouldn’t have paid the extra $600/week was flawed, Mukhergee continues, because “most workers want to go back to work.” But “what we are talking about here are the workers choosing not to go back to work — that, to me, is immoral, because they are hurting the country while it is looking for an economic recovery.”
Let’s do some math! The average unemployment benefit in North Carolina is about $265 (seriously, that's it). Add the $600, and you’re looking at $865 a week to live on, pretax, no insurance or other bennies: $44,980 a year. Not bad, right? Except the federal money runs out in 13 weeks. We’re about six weeks in, so workers who pass up a job now are taking quite a gamble, especially given how many people are looking for work. Many of the job losses, after all, have been in the hospitality sector and other low-wage industries — typically not positions that require advanced degrees.
Just a thought here: Perhaps, if your employees don’t want to come back — and you can’t find replacements when literally one out of five North Carolina workers is unemployment — the problem isn’t with the workers. It’s with the job.
More important, such a law would give employers all the power, particularly once states fully reopen, in the middle of a deadly pandemic: Employees have to come back or lose their benefits altogether. But what if going back to work could put the employee or their loved ones in an unsafe situation?
An example: I have a friend who is a massage therapist. His wife is very immunocompromised. Were he to return to work when those businesses reopen and catch the virus — there is no way to massage people without being up close and personal — and bring it home, his wife’s life could be in danger.
→ CHURCHGOERS DEMAND COOPER LET THEM GO TO CHURCH, PROVE HIS POINT.
About two hundred white people marched in downtown Raleigh yesterday to demand that Governor Cooper allow them to hold worship services in spite of the stay-at-home order. The order, however, doesn’t ban worship services. It instructs congregations to hold them outside or as drive-in services unless that is impossible.
Cooper: “When doing these things together, sitting or standing indoors for more than 10 minutes, we greatly increase the chances of passing to each other a virus that can be deadly. Ask any of the congregations who have experienced outbreaks and deaths due to this virus.”
In an apparent effort to prove that they could not be trusted to congregate indoors responsibly, almost none of the protesters wore masks or engaged in social distancing.
A few county sheriffs have said they would not enforce the order’s prohibitions with regard to religious services.
FASTER, FASTER: Republican lawmakers are cranking up the pressure on Cooper to reopen sooner. In the House, there’s a bill that would essentially nullify his stay-at-home order. In the Senate, Phil Berger is demanding that he allow restaurants and bars to fully open. While a bill to reopen the state immediately could likely pass the General Assembly, Cooper would veto it, and it’s unlikely the GOP would get enough Democrats on board to override him.
In a week, the state will likely enter phase 2 of Cooper’s three-part reopening plan. Cooper and DHHS Secretary Mandy Cohen said the benchmarks are moving in the right direction. Phase 2 will allow bars and restaurants to open with limited capacity, as well as some personal care businesses.
→ THE SHUTDOWN THROUGH SCHEWEL’S INBOX.
Here’s a cool little story from The 9th Street Journal’s Chris Kuo: What a sampling of emails to Durham Mayor Steve Schewel tells us about how residents are reacting to the shutdown.
One recent Tuesday afternoon, Linda Goswick, 73, went to the Durham Costco for the first time in months. When she noticed a woman without a mask behind her in the checkout line, Goswick spun around and told the woman she was breaking the law. Later that day, she wrote an email to the mayor pleading that the city more strictly enforce its mask policy. “I am a lifelong Durham resident,” she wrote. “I want life to get back to ‘normal.’”
“I’m begging you to extend [the stay-at-home order] further,” wrote John Davis. “While the economy *will* recover, we haven’t — to my knowledge — figured out how to bring people back from the dead.”
After reading Ron Chernow’s 1,104-page Ulysses S. Grant biography, Morgan Feldman was ready to browse the stacks at Durham’s public library for something new. Feldman’s May 1 email indicated she’d grown frustrated not just with the shutdown of the library but with, well, everything. “The current closures are the equivalent of a 5 mph speed limit — so it’s safe — and wearing 3 inches of bubble wrap – so it’s safe,” she wrote. “It’s all non-sense and we deserve immediate restoration of services – and the economy in general.”
→ IS THE RESTAURANT-GROCERY HERE TO STAY?
Sarah Edwards takes note of the bars and restaurants that have converted into mini-groceries stories to stay alive during the pandemic — and wonders if that trend might outlive the virus.
“Numerous bars and restaurants across the Triangle have begun selling groceries during the pandemic. It's a long list, and one that continues to grow: you can buy pantry items from Yin Dee, Blue Note Grill, Cocoa Cinnamon, and Breakaway Cafe, to name just a few. You can order raw steaks to cook at home from Stoney River, or paper goods — including a box of 100 latex gloves, a bar of Dial soap, and a bouquet of flowers — from Mavericks. The pop-up shop Alimentari at Mothers and Sons, the brainchild of chef Josh DeCarolis, has a menu of specialty Italian groceries that changes by the day. There are also initiatives like Carrboro United and the ko•mmunity hub, platforms which consolidate restaurant and grocery orders into a weekly hub that hums with no-contact transactions.”
“During a time when a trip to the grocery store can be an anxiety-riddled experience, pre-ordering items from a local restaurant makes sense for consumers. It also makes sense for restaurants looking to carve a small income out of inventory.”
→ WEATHER: 🌤🌤🌤 (high of 83)
I touched briefly on the politicization of the DOJ when I mentioned Burr’s situation. But I also want to take a moment to explain the MAGA crowd’s latest shiny object, and Bill Barr’s bootlicking Justice Department very much comes into play here.
Here’s the gist: On Wednesday, acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell declassified the names of Obama administration officials who “unmasked” Michael Flynn in 2016 and 2017, including then-Vice President Joe Biden, which is, according to President Trump, the “biggest political crime and scandal in the history of the USA, by far.”
When a reporter asked Trump what crime had been committed, he told a WaPo reporter: “You know what the crime is. The crime is very obvious to everybody. All you have to do is read the papers, except yours.”
WHAT’S #OBAMAGATE? “Obamagate” began last Friday, when reporters obtained a recording of a phone call in which Obama criticized the DOJ’s decision to dismiss charges against Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser. Over the weekend, Trump began tweeting “OBAMAGATE!” and “He got caught!” and retweeting various conspiracy theorists, as well as a right-wing podcaster who asserted that the outgoing Obama administration had targeted incoming Trump administration officials. It became a hashtag.
Then, Grenell turned over a list of officials who asked for materials that unmasked Flynn between November 8, 2016, and January 31, 2017, to Republican senators, who promptly released it.
Worth keeping in mind, from the report submitted to Congress: “Each individual was an authorized recipient of the original report and the unmasking was approved through [the National Security Agency’s] standard process, which includes a review of the justification for the request.”
In other words: None of this was remotely illegal, let along the worst crime in the history of American politics.
WHAT’S UNMASKING? The U.S. government does not (in theory) spy on American citizens without a warrant. However, it does spy on hundreds or thousands of foreign targets and foreign agents who live in the U.S. If an American citizen happens to call one of these targets, the call gets recorded. In transcripts of those calls, however, the citizen’s name is redacted; he or she is referred to as something like “U.S. Person.” But some administration officials can ask for the name to be “unmasked” if they need to know who it is.
Key fact: It is not unusual. This occurs tens of thousands of times a year. And there’s no way for officials to know for sure who a U.S. Person is in a given conversation until that person is unmasked.
Other key fact: Just because the officials sought the reports doesn’t mean they reviewed them.
WHAT HAPPENED WITH FLYNN? From the moment the FBI opened an investigation into the Trump campaign’s possible ties to Russia, Flynn was on its radar. After all, a few months before joining the Trump campaign in February 2016, he’d taken money from Vladimir Putin and worked as a consultant for Russian (and Turkish) companies; if there was a point of contact between the two, he was a strong a possibility as anyone. After Trump’s victory, Flynn, like other incoming Trump officials, began reaching out to foreign officials, some of whom were under surveillance. Most likely, Obama officials began to see references in intelligence reports to U.S. Persons and asked to see who they were.
Some of the people who asked about references that turned out to be Flynn were intelligence officials who are still in the field; their names are blacked out. Several officials attached to NATO also requested the unmasking. It’s not clear why they were making the requests or what materials they were looking at.
Others were top intelligence and administration officials: the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations; director of national intelligence; director of the CIA; deputy secretary of the Treasury; director of the FBI; deputy secretary of Energy; U.S. ambassadors to Russia and Turkey; Obama’s chief of staff; Vice President Joe Biden.
The requests started on November 30 and ran through January 12.
On December 29, 2016, the Obama administration expelled 35 Russian agents in retaliation for Russian interference in the U.S. election. That day, a U.S. Person called Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, who was under surveillance, and assured him that the Trump administration would go easy on Russia. Obama administration officials wanted to know who that U.S. Person was; lo and behold, it was Michael Flynn.
Per The Washington Post: “Knowing who was speaking to Kislyak was ‘absolutely essential to understanding the significance’ of the conversation, a former senior U.S. official said. That intelligence, a second former senior U.S. official said, ‘provided an explanation for the tepid response of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to the sanctions that were imposed on the 29th of December because we all expected an immediate reciprocal response and we didn’t get it.’”
At the time, the FBI was about to wrap up its counterintelligence investigation. But in early January, intelligence officials learned of Flynn’s conversations with Kislyak and that Flynn lied about them to White House officials. To the FBI, that made Flynn liable to blackmail. They warned the White House, but Trump took no action.
So FBI agents arranged an interview. Flynn at first denied the conversation, then denied that sanctions came up. At the end of January, Trump fired Flynn for lying to Vice President Mike Pence and the FBI.
Flynn was arrested and pleaded guilty. He cooperated with the Justice Department until Barr, then the new AG, wound down Mueller’s investigation; after that, Flynn got new lawyers and tried to withdraw his plea.
Earlier this month, the DOJ made a motion to dismiss the charges, even though Flynn has twice pleaded guilty. The DOJ’s position is that, even though Flynn lied to the FBI about the assurances he gave the Russian ambassador, his lies were not materially relevant to the FBI’s Russia investigation.
💭 WHAT’S THIS ALL ABOUT? 💭
Three things, really.
1️ But her emails, 2020: The FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email “scandal” allowed Trump to turn email server management into sinister. He hopes an “investigation” by the Department of Justice he controls — not to mention friendly Senate committees — into the unmasking “scandal” could very well have the same effect: to turn something commonplace and perfectly legitimate into something scandalous. And why not? The media has already shown that it will take the bait.
Senator Lindsey Graham announced that his Senate Judiciary Committee would begin an investigation in June into how the Russia probe got started and whether it was necessary. (Trump urged him to call former President Obama.)
Senator Rand Paul, one of the three who released the list, is pushing for hearings. The other two — Senator Chuck Grassley, who heads the Finance Committee, and Senator Ron Johnson, who chairs the Homeland Security Committee — said they wanted those on the list to “confirm whether they reviewed this information, why they asked for it and what they did with it, and answer many other questions that have been raised by recent revelations.”
2️ Revenge: In the final days of the Obama administration, someone leaked news of Flynn’s phone call the Russian ambassador to The Washington Post. Not long after that, Trump fired him. Then Trump asked FBI director James Comey to go easy on Flynn, which raised Comey’s hackles, which got a ball rolling that led to Comey’s ouster, then to Mueller’s appointment, then to the year-long Russia investigation. Now, with a lackey in charge at DOJ, Trump wants to turn the tables.
Barr appointed U.S. Attorney John Durham, a new hero of the QAnon weirdos, to investigate the investigators — in essence, to find some evidence that invalidates the Mueller investigation and proves that Trump was the target of a massive conspiracy theory. (I know he’s a QAnon hero because, for entirely different reasons, I have a #Durham channel set up in Tweetdeck.)
If you don’t think this is a conclusion in search of evidence, read this quote, from a DOJ spox to (of course) Fox News: “I can tell you that [Durham’s] team is working diligently to get to the bottom of what happened. Because, Martha, what happened to candidate Trump and then President Trump was one of the greatest political injustices in American history and should never happen again.”
Expect show trials: “I hope a lot of people are going to pay a big price because they’re dishonest, crooked people,” President Trump said. “They’re scum — and I say it a lot, they’re scum, they’re human scum. This should never have happened in this country.”
Flynn’s unmasking was routine — given the circumstances, probably inevitable — and hardly suggestive of some conspiracy against him. If anything, the fact that so many officials were interested in intelligence documents where Flynn ended up being referenced is maybe indicative of the problem being with him, not them.
But while “unmasking” will no doubt find its way into the Trump campaign’s lexicon this summer, the potential legal issue is leaking. Toward the end of the Obama administration, someone leaked news of Flynn’s shady phone call with a Russian ambassador to The Washington Post.
3️ SQUIRREL!!!! “We are making this public because the American people have a right to know what happened,” Senators Grassley, Johnson, and Paul said in releasing the list. Perhaps. But if you’re wondering why it’s being made public now, here are a few ideas:
87,000 people have died from COVID-19 in the U.S., with the toll rising by nearly 2,000 every day, an administration failure of unimaginable proportions. By June 1, even the most conservative estimates project about 115,000 deaths.
At least 36 million people are out of work, and the country is facing its highest unemployment rate since the Great Depression.
Recent polling shows Joe Biden ahead of Trump by about 6 points nationally, as well as in Florida, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Arizona, and basically tied in Georgia and Texas. Sure, a lot of that will change, but if the election were held tomorrow, Trump would be a longer shot than he was four years ago.
On Tuesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House’s infectious disease expert, warned against reopening too quickly, which drew a quick rebuke from the president. On Thursday, Dr. Rick Bright, who was removed as the director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority after pushing back on Trump’s promotional of miracle drugs, testified to Congress that “lives were lost” because of the government’s inaction.
What it means: The president desperately wants to change the subject.
→ APPEALS COURT ALLOWS EMOLUMENTS LAWSUIT TO PROCEED.
The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals is allowing a lawsuit against President Trump brought by Maryland and the District Columbia to proceed after a three-judge panel dismissed it. The lawsuit accuses Trump of violating the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause — that is, illegally accepting payments from foreign and state governments — through his hotel in Washington.
“The emoluments case centers on the president’s hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue in Northwest Washington. Foreign governments, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Bahrain, have booked rooms and events there since Trump entered the White House. Trump’s Justice Department lawyers say the president is not violating the emoluments clauses, because the language bars only payments in exchange for official action or as part of an employment relationship.”
“The ruling from the full 4th Circuit is at odds with a March decision in a separate, similar case that barred individual members of Congress from suing the president over his private business. The split rulings suggest that the Supreme Court will have the final word in the cases involving the rarely tested emoluments provisions intended to prevent foreign and state officials from exerting undue influence on U.S. leaders, including the president.”
Raise your hand if you know how this one’s going to end.
EVERYTHING IS GRIFT: Two stories, one day.
Story 1: The federal government has paid Trump’s company $970,000 since he took office, including more than 1,600 nightly room rentals at Trump’s hotels and clubs, according to The Washington Post.
Story 2: A company whose largest shareholder is Trump’s campaign manager received $800,000 from the small business bailout fund.
→ TRUMPIFIED POSTAL SERVICE CAVES, REVIEWS PACKAGE DELIVERY FEES.
Under a White House threat to let it go belly-up, the Postal Service has begun a “review” of its package delivery contracts, an apparent first step toward jacking up rates on Amazon. (Trump, of course, is mad at The Washington Post and wants to take it out on Jeff Bezos.)
“Trump for years has alleged, without evidence, that the Postal Service is undercharging companies, particularly Amazon (whose founder and chief executive, Jeff Bezos, owns The Washington Post). The agency has steadfastly rejected that assessment, saying it charges what it can given a competitive marketplace.”
“Trump has recently threatened to withhold a $10 billion line of credit approved by Congress in a coronavirus stimulus package unless the Postal Service quadruples what it charges to deliver packages. Independent analysts warn that such a change would devastate the agency, which has increasingly relied on such deliveries for a fast-growing portion of its business.”
→ THE EPA DECLINES TO REGULATION ANOTHER DANGEROUS CHEMICAL.
While you weren’t looking, the Environmental Protection Agency decided to once against stop protecting the environment. This time, the EPA has opted not to impose limits on perchlorate, a toxic chemical compound that contaminates water and has been linked to fetal and infant brain damage.
“The decision by Andrew Wheeler, the administrator of the E.P.A., appears to defy a court order that required the agency to establish a safe drinking-water standard for the chemical by the end of June. The policy, which acknowledges that exposure to high levels of perchlorate can cause I.Q. damage but opts nevertheless not to limit it, could also set a precedent for the regulation of other chemicals, people familiar with the matter said.”
“The decision is the latest in a string of Trump administration regulatory actions that weaken toxic chemical regulations, often against the advice of E.P.A.’s own experts, in ways favored by the chemical industry.”
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