FALSE ALARMIST
Why COVID deniers and climate skeptics paint scientists as alarmis

Grist / AL DRAGO / AFP via Getty Images

By Kate Yoder on Aug 13, 2020 THE GRIST

In an interview with Fox News last month, President Donald Trump called Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert, an “alarmist,” using a pejorative straight from the playbook of those who deny the science behind climate change. Fauci rejected the characterization, describing himself as a “realist.”

For anyone paying attention to arguments about climate change over recent decades, Trump’s comment sounded awfully familiar: Scientists are alarmists, everything’s a hoax, and hysteria abounds. Michael Mann, a climatologist at Penn State University, wrote an op-ed for Newsweek this week drawing parallels between his experience and Fauci’s during COVID-19. Science deniers have lobbied attacks on the two public figures, he explained, sending death threats, calling them names, and questioning their expertise.

So what do terms like alarmist and hysteria really mean, where did they come from, and how can people respond to such accusations?

The strategies used to dismiss the threats of climate change and coronavirus follow a similar pattern, and they’re employed by many of the same people. It starts with denying the problem exists, as Naomi Oreskes, a professor of history at Harvard who studies disinformation, has explained. Then, people trying to obstruct action deny the severity of the predicament, say it’s too hard or too expensive to fix, and complain that their freedom is under threat. Denying the science requires dismissing what scientists are saying, and the easiest way to do that is by questioning their motives, impartiality, and rationality.

“If we don’t trust scientists or medical experts because we see them as alarmist or hysterical or as contributing overreaction, then we don’t trust the info they’re giving us,” said Emma Frances Bloomfield, an assistant professor of communication at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Back in the day, alarmism was seen as a virtue. The term traces back to the 1790s, around the time that Edmund Burke, the famous philosopher, sounded the alarm against the French Revolution. “We must continue to be vigorous alarmists,” he wrote.

That “sounding the alarm” connotation faded long ago. Now it suggests a person who exaggerates and sensationalizes potential dangers, sowing needless panic. It’s a pejorative that doesn’t fit most scientists. Research has shown that they’re fairly conservative when it comes to the climate crisis. A 2012 study found that their projections have actually underestimated the effects of our overheating planet, like the potential disintegration of the West Antarctic ice sheet. The authors of that study, including Oreskes, wrote that “scientists are biased not toward alarmism but rather the reverse: toward cautious estimates.” They called this tendency “erring on the side of least drama,” and suggested that the tendency to downplay future changes comes from a pressure to appear objective.

The commonly held notion of what a scientist should be was articulated by Robert K. Merton, an American sociologist who outlined the “ideal” expectations for scientists in the 1940s. Merton called for scientists to be unbiased, rational, and to stay clear of conflicts of interest.

Words like overreacting emphasize emotion, detracting from scientific credibility. “Being emotional is something that we try to keep away from science,” Bloomfield said. “When you think about scientists really caring about something, it violates those expectations we have that scientists are balanced and they only look at facts.”

Take hysteria, which comes from the Greek word for uterus. (Plato and Hippocrates thought the womb lurched up and down in the body, causing erratic behavior, emotional outbursts, and insanity among womankind.) The term has a dark and complicated history, but suffice it to say that it made an appearance in 17th-century witch trials, and much later on, during some pretty frustrating visits to the doctor.

“It’s feminizing science as a way to discredit it,” Bloomfield said. Another word to keep an eye out for is shrill, an adjective describing a high-pitched, piercing voice that became a way to stigmatize women (think Hillary Clinton) and sometimes scientists, too.

To counter these attacks, Bloomfield said that one effective strategy is to follow Fauci’s example: Reject the characterization and substitute your own word, like realist instead of alarmist.

Another strategy is to ask questions that challenge assumptions. Bloomfield suggests asking something like, “How many people would have to die for you to be alarmed?” With 164,000 deaths and climbing, more Americans have died from COVID-19 than were killed in World War I. The question forces people to think for themselves and draw their own conclusions.

50 Years of Fighting: Jane Fonda talks activism with rising star Jerome Foster II

Getty Images / onemillionofus
ACING THE PROTESTS
50 Years of Fighting: Jane Fonda talks activism with rising star Jerome Foster II

By Grist staff on Jun 5, 2020


She’s an Academy Award–winning actress-turned-climate evangelist with decades of activism under her belt. He launched a climate strike and an organization dedicated to turning out the youth vote, all before his 18th birthday. The Fix crew at Grist brought together screen legend Jane Fonda, whose multiple arrests for civil disobedience in the last year have only crystallized her image as a seasoned protestor, and Jerome Foster II, founder of OneMillionOfUs and a 2020 Grist 50 Fixer, for a conversation about the past, present, and future of youth activism. Foster and other teenage organizers in the D.C. area helped inspire Fonda’s Fire Drill Fridays movement, and the two have since collaborated.

Grist founder Chip Giller moderated the video conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity. [Editor’s note: The conversation took place on Friday, May 29, before many of the mass demonstrations inspired by the death of George Floyd took place. We reached back out to Fonda and Foster for additional comment, which we’ve included below.]

Q.How did you start working together on the Fire Drill Fridays protests?

Fonda: Last fall, I called Annie Leonard, who is the executive director of Greenpeace USA, and I said, “I want to move to D.C., and I want to do something that’s going to raise the sense of urgency about the climate crisis.” Because I didn’t feel I was doing enough.

There were people, especially young people, who had been in D.C. for over a year protesting every Friday. And so we called all of the main climate strikers to a meeting, and that’s when I met Jerome. I was just so impressed because every Friday, all year long, he has stood by the White House and protested the climate crisis. I wanted his blessing for what we were doing.

I’m glad to say that he spoke at the very first Fire Drill Friday. He may be young, but he has a presence, an authority, a commitment, a passion — and knowledge. I’m just really impressed with him.

Q.Jerome, could you talk about your journey to activism? And your climate awakening?

Foster: I didn’t really know about climate change until I started reading nature books that my parents had gotten me. At the end of every single book, there was this looming ending that was like, “The climate crisis is coming! Be aware of it.” I was 5, 6, 7 years old reading these books, saying, “What is global warming? Why are people talking about it in such a catastrophic way? What is going on?”

In middle school, I started an Instagram page. Something inside me said, “I can’t just sit here and think about it myself and keep reading these books. I have to tell people about it.” Every time I got a like I was super excited. For three years, I was just Instagram-posting and doing social media however I could.

In 2017, I started with the People’s Climate March by organizing the Instagram page for them. After so many years of being on Instagram, I had a really good sense of how to work with it. And then I started The Climate Reporter, which is a blog about youth and climate activism.


I worked with Sunrise, Zero Hour, Citizens’ Climate Lobby, and so many different organizations. And then I got an email from Greta Thunberg saying that she was starting her climate strikes and would love some people in the U.S. to join her. At first, a lot of us were like, “It seems really radical. No one will really pay attention to us.” But then after a couple of weeks, we thought about it and were like, “We’re going to join you.” After that, it just took off. The whole entire environmental movement had just shifted to a youth perspective because of Greta Thunberg.

A different sense of urgency

Q.Jane, what stands out about the young climate activists of today?

Fonda: I met a lot of young climate strikers during Fire Drill Fridays in D.C. Listening to them talk, I realized that this is their future we’re talking about — their future that, well, the fossil fuel industry has compromised. There’s a different sense of urgency from young people. Stemming the tide of the climate crisis is absolutely critical to their lives. And at the same time, they’re mourning. I sense the deep grief in a lot of them. I think we’re all carrying a lot of grief at what’s been lost, and what will be lost.

I was very touched, because I think when you enter activism, when you become part of a movement, it is a great antidote to grief and mourning. Don’t you think, Jerome?

Foster: Yes, exactly.


Fonda: Like, you’re doing everything you can. It helps alleviate the depression.

Foster: Yeah, it really does. I know so many classmates who were like, “This is devastating. I don’t want to have children. I don’t want to go out and enjoy my life, because I know that by the time I turn 30, I won’t [be able to] have the life that I want to have because so many cities and communities will be decimated because of the climate crisis.”

The climate strikes took all the people that were feeling that mourning, and feeling that grief, and told them, “Here’s a way to just go out and show people that there are a lot of people who care about this.”

Fonda: My experience in the last year with the young climate strikers, and young people in general who are activists, [is that] they’re much more serious, maybe because there’s so much on the line. They’re much more conscious of intersectionality. I feel that there’s a depth to young people’s activism today that is crucial.
Lessons from the Vietnam War era

Q.Jane, what did you learn about activism in the ’60s and ’70s, during the civil rights movement and the anti-war efforts, that might apply to climate activism now?

Fonda: I didn’t really become an activist until 1970, and it was pretty much focused on ending the Vietnam War. I had the good fortune to meet and fall in love with a brilliant organizer, Tom Hayden, who had been part of the Students for a Democratic Society and the Port Huron Statement.

The incredible thing that I learned from him: The anti-war movement had been quite violent in their protesting, and they had alienated a lot of what was called Middle America then. Tom realized that if we were going to end the war, we had to appeal to Middle America.

And so I remember — he had this braid all the way down to his waist — cutting off his braid, buying him a tie, a suit, and a jacket. It was the Indochina Peace Campaign, and we traveled across the country for three months, two years in a row, talking to Middle America and explaining why the war needed to end, and asking them to pressure Congress to cut off the funding of the war, and it worked. Revisionist history never gives us credit for what happened.


But that was a very important thing. Rather than dismissing or antagonizing people who don’t yet agree with you, go to them in a manner that they can receive, listen carefully from your heart, and then provide information that they may not have had. There was no Fox News then, but [you can still] give real information to people. It can work.

We’re realizing that in order to survive as a democracy, or to regain our democracy, we’re going to have to make the tent big enough to hold people who … voted for Trump, frankly — people who we don’t agree with, and who don’t necessarily understand the climate crisis, and persuade them to join us. And help them understand that the main focus has to be fossil fuels. We have to end the era of fossil fuels.

Lessons from the ‘The Hunger Games’ era

Q.Jerome, is there anything you’d like people from older generations to better understand about what you and other young climate activists are experiencing?

Foster: In 2018, we were organizing a lot of marches, and adults were coming in saying, “We can take this over. You guys ran the first one. We’re going to do it from now on.” And we were like, “Hold on. We’re working on the same team. This is our Earth, this is everyone’s Earth.” It’s the saying, “You don’t inherit the Earth from your ancestors, you borrow it from your children.”

One of the craziest things to experience as a young person [is knowing that] when you get older, your entire future that you’re studying for, cramming tests for is uncertain. You could have it all taken away with one crazy weather event caused by the climate crisis. And I think that’s something adults also have to understand.

Q.My 14-year-old daughter recently reorganized her books, and she has a whole category that’s called dystopia.

Foster: The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, Divergent — it’s a whole genre that we grew up with. When I was 10, 11, and 12, all my friends were watching The Hunger Games, Twilight, all these crazy end-of-the-world scenarios and I’m like, “Why is this so relatable?” Now, when the climate changes, you’re like, “I know why now.” It’s crazy when you realize why you’ve been stressed out for so long.
About that red coat …

Q.Jane, you’ve previously talked about changing your consumption habits, like your now famous red coat, which may be your last clothing purchase. What inspired these changes?

Fonda: In the last decades, consumerism has become so important, it’s become people’s identity. You go out and shop to feel like you exist, to give yourself identity. That has to end. So I thought, “Well, walk your talk, Fonda.” I said, “I’m not ever going to buy any new clothes again.” And I’m not. I haven’t.

Foster: Same. I knew about “stop shop” for a while, but it took me a while to actually adopt it. It’s a lot harder than you think. I started wearing the blue shirt, and I was like, “So now I’m wearing this shirt all the time. I should just have a couple of other shirts that I wear.” Because I just go to school and go right back home. So it’s not like I’m doing that much.


Jane Fonda, Susan Sarandon, Jerome Foster II, and Martin Sheen marching together during a “Fire Drill Fridays” protest in Washington, D.C. Paul Morigi / Getty Images

Reflections on the protests inspired by George Floyd

Q.Jerome, what have you been feeling and thinking about with respect to the protests?

Foster: When I walk past a police officer, I’m instantly scared. I’m instantly saying, “How can I escape? What’s the escape route?” That shouldn’t be my thought process when I see someone who’s supposed to protect and serve us — and now brutally murders us on the streets.

We’re just so tired of living that way. Living in fear, constant fear, every time you walk out your door, that you can be killed at any time. It’s so real, it’s so visceral.

Q.Did you participate in the protests?

Foster: I went to the protest in D.C. on Monday. It was everyone: There were men, there were women. Every single race was represented: indigenous folks, white folks, Asian folks. All these people came together and said, “This isn’t even just black lives. It’s about black and brown lives. This is about all the different minorities.” That’s really hopeful for me, that we’ll continue to have this strong coalition of different people that are advocating for this.

Black Lives Matter is saying that our lives mean something. When I protested, I protested in my graduation suit. I protested with my Honor Society badge. I protested with all my gear saying that we’re graduating high school, graduating college. We’re doing some amazing things.




Q.Jane, as you’ve watched the protests unfold in cities across the country, what has most resonated with you?

Fonda: I am surprised and heartened by how peaceful the main protests are. It’s much more diverse [than protests of the past] — white, brown, black, young, old — this is different. It signals to me that, in the age of Trump, more people have had their eyes opened to violence against black people and injustice in general, including the COVID-19 crisis, which has affected many more people of color. We’ve seen that our essential workers are largely of color and more are needlessly being put in harm’s way.
The return of ‘I’ve got your back-ism’

Q.Coming out of the pandemic, do you think there are any lessons that could be applied to the climate crisis?

Fonda: I see a lot of lessons coming out, and they’re hopeful lessons. I think a lot of people, especially white people, are recognizing the level of inequality in this country in a very visceral way. I think there is a social solidarity that is happening amongst many, many groups of people. People making masks at home. People bringing food to their neighbors. People coming out of retirement to volunteer in a hospital. So many signs of a renewed sense of community: “I’ve got your back-ism.”

Also, I think people are realizing the importance of a strong federal government, the importance of paying attention to science and expertise, and the importance of being prepared. All of those things are relevant to the climate crisis. We need a strong federal government, and we need [to be prepared according] to the science. I think that’s going to help us going forward.

Foster: What really gives me hope is that we are waking up, finally. We’re waking up, and we’re seeing that the coronavirus crisis can transform what we’re doing in America. The pandemic could be a bridge to a new era of revitalization of our society and our economy. Because a lot of people are suffering. What we need to do is make sure we’re prioritizing resources for them, and this is a really great time to do that.

A Beacon in the Smog®

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VOICES
‘This election is bigger than our generation or even our country’

urbazon / Getty Image

By Nikayla Jefferson on Aug 18, 2020

Nikayla Jefferson is an organizer for Sunrise Movement San Diego and a Public Voices Fellow of The OpEd Project and the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. She is also an incoming political science doctoral student at UC Santa Barbara. Follow her at @kayla_nikayla.

This post has been updated.

I’m 23 and co-chaired the Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign for California because, despite the age gap between Bernie and me, he was the presidential candidate who best understood my generation’s story.

Bernie understood that we’ve grown up in a broken and corrupt system — that we graduate with a lifetime of student debt and then are told we are unqualified for jobs that pay a living wage, and that too many of us are faced with the choice between food and rent. He understood that we’ve lived in the shadow of the Great Recession and an endless war. And he understood that our generation will live the rest of our lives fighting to survive the climate crisis.

For me and many other young people, Bernie was the only candidate who offered the kind of transformative change our country desperately needs.

Over two presidential runs, Bernie spoke our generation’s dream to life. When he lost momentum and dropped out of the race, I was heartbroken. I felt like any chance of a just and livable future was gone with his candidacy.

But after I grieved the Super Tuesday loss, I realized three things. One: The beautiful thing about hope and a dream is that they cannot die with the defeat of one man. Two: This election is bigger than our generation or even our country — the lives of the people we love and the future of our entire species are under imminent threat.

And three: We didn’t lose. Bernie spoke our young progressive dreams to life — loudly enough for the centrist Joe Biden to hear. And he listened.

Biden is now running on the most progressive platform in Democratic-nominee history. He assembled a Bernie–Biden task force with progressive champions like Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Karen Bass; former Bernie campaign political director Analilia Mejia; and the executive director of my organization, the Sunrise Movement, Varshini Prakash. Biden adopted many of Bernie’s ideas as his own: free public college, student loan forgiveness, and a federal $15 minimum wage.

Kamala Harris may not be young people’s ideal VP pick because of her career as a prosecutor and attorney general, but she’s tough, sharp, and may help win over Black and moderate voters. And, I admit, it gives me a bit of excitement to see a Black woman on a presidential ticket.

Biden became more progressive because those of us who supported Bernie’s platform (and Bernie himself) made it clear that we’d accept nothing less. Specifically, Biden shifted to be more aligned with our vision of bold action against the climate crisis. His $2 trillion climate plan looks a lot like the Green New Deal. He is calling for 100 percent clean electricity by 2035, a climate corps for young workers, and an environmental-justice fund to invest in frontline communities.

Our movement made that happen. Biden felt the political pressure exerted by young people and knew it was in his best interest to listen to our demands. We changed American politics forever.

And we will use our voices and bodies and political power to continue to push Joe Biden on policy demands. His plan is good, but it needs to be better. We need hard details like specific dates for fossil fuel phase-out, climate job and investment numbers, and a plan to reach net-zero emissions by 2030.

But in this moment, we must deliver a resounding generational defeat against presidentially authorized white supremacy and deadly science denial. In 2020, Gen Z and millennials must loudly tell the world: The United States of America belongs to us. This is our country and our decade, and we choose to fight against the climate crisis and against racial violence. We choose hope even in the darkest of times. And so we must vote for those who cannot, for those we may not know, for those whose lives depend on us choosing right.

Bernie threw his support behind Biden in his DNC speech last night because a Biden administration offers us a fighting chance at our future. But that chance requires progressives to be unified, or we will fall divided into another fascist four years. For me — a young, Black, queer woman — the price of failure may cost me my life.

When the late John Lewis spoke at the 1963 March on Washington, he was 23 years old. In front of thousands, he spoke to those who said to stop or slow down: “How long can we be patient? We want our freedom and we want it now.” Fifty-six years later, on the floor of the House of Representatives, he said: “The vote is precious. It is almost sacred. It is the most powerful non-violent tool we have in a democracy.”

We, young people, cannot wait or slow down our fight for environmental and racial justice. 2020 will be the hottest year on record, and communities of color will feel this heat the most. If we want a real shot against the climate crisis and racial inequality — our dream of a just and livable future — we’ve got to use the vote as our tool, and use it for all we’re worth. The future is counting on us.

The views expressed here do not reflect any official organizational opinions or positions at Grist and Fix.

It's Bigot Time: Rattled by Kamala Harris, Trump & Friends Go Full White Power

By Jeff Robbins August 18, 2020 POLITICO


Joe Biden's selection of Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate last week placed two facts on graphic display. The first is that President Donald Trump, who is rattled by accomplished women generally, is deeply rattled by Harris, a former prosecutor who, as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, drilled holes in experienced dissemblers like Attorney General William Barr and Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. The second is that Trump's reelection chances hinge on two tactics: discouraging citizens of color from voting in November or preventing them from doing so altogether, and ginning up the largest possible turnout of white voters disposed to think that nonwhites threaten their way of life, if not their existence.

A recent Pew Research Center survey told us what we need to know about Trump's path to retaining power. It found that Biden leads Trump among Blacks 89% to 8%, among Hispanics 63% to 35% and among Asian Americans 67% to 31%. Among white men with college degrees, Biden is ahead 58% to 41%; among white women with college degrees, he leads 63% to 35%.

That leaves exactly one demographic that favors Trump: white Americans without college degrees, and he leads among them by nearly 2 to 1. Therein lies the simplicity of Trump's battle plan: suppressing the vote in communities of color, frightening the devil out of non-college-educated whites and pushing the view that he is the Preserver of White Power incarnate.

It worked for Trump in 2016, and he hopes it will work again in 2020. In the lead-up to Biden's widely expected choice of Harris, whose mother was born in India and father was born in Jamaica, Trump called the movement to affirm that Black lives matter "a symbol of hate," stoking certain whites' fear of Blacks with characteristic elegance. Touting his rollback of an Obama administration rule simply requiring local communities receiving federal funding to study racial discrimination and set goals for reducing segregation, Trump declared himself the savior of lily-white America. "I am happy to inform all of the people living their Suburban Lifestyle Dream," he tweeted, "that you will no longer be bothered or financially hurt by having low income housing built in your neighborhood." Suburbanites, he continued, "are thrilled that I ended the long running program where low income housing would invade their neighborhood." In order to make sure that no whites missed the message, he told reporters on July 31: "You build low-income housing, and you build other forms of housing -- also having to do with zoning -- and destroy people that have lived in communities in suburbia. For years, they've lived there, and they want to destroy their lives and destroy what they have."

If Trump has a distinctive hallmark, it is his lack of class, and he reminded us of it when the selection of Harris was announced. Born and raised in California, Harris is indisputably an American citizen. This did not stop Trump from pointedly encouraging the crackpot hogwash that Harris' citizenship is an "open question." "If she's got a problem, you would have thought that she would have been vetted by sleepy Joe," sneered Trump, thereby encouraging Americans to ingest the snake oil that Harris had "a problem" when she has none. It was the very same racist claptrap that Trump had promoted about Barack Obama. Harris and Obama are both Black, you see, which Trump hopes will suggest that their citizenship is dubious. Trump's Kool-Aid chorus picked up the refrain, with wingman Tucker Carlson acting like a juvenile delinquent by intentionally mispronouncing Harris' first name.

Embarrassing: Read These Incredibly Servile Letters From Trump To Vladimir Putin

In one letter, dated 2007, Donald Trump tells Vladimir Putin, "I am a big fan of yours!"

Daily Beast columnist and Russian media analyst Julia Davis posted to Twitter copies of three letters from Donald Trump to Russian President Vladimir Putin over the years.

In one, which congratulates Putin on being named Time magazine's 'Man of the Year', Trump tells the Russian president, "I am a big fan of yours!"

Read the letters below.











​

Trump: More Americans Have Died Under My Watch Than Michelle Obama Gives Me Credit For

A winning 2020 slogan.MOTHER JONES 8/18/2020

It didn’t take long for President Trump to hit back at Michelle Obama after the former first lady, in a searing speech for the Democratic National Convention on Monday, made the case for why he’s simply not up to the job.

But Trump’s attempt to stick up for himself instantly backfired when he criticized Obama for pre-recording the video of her speech. “It was not only taped,” Trump complained, “it was taped a long time ago because she had the wrong [coronavirus] deaths.”

He’s technically correct here, but that’s not a good thing. Obama, who said there were more than 150,000 US deaths from the coronavirus pandemic, was referring to a number that by Monday had become outdated. The death toll has now surpassed 170,000. Trump apparently wanted to remind everyone that more Americans have died from the coronavirus under his watch than a political opponent had given him credit him for. “She gets these fawning reviews,” Trump continued. “If you gave her a real review, it wouldn’t be so fawning.”

But the self-own goes further. According to the New York Times, Trump—who was speaking at a White House event to mark the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment that gave women the right to vote—was hoping to pardon the suffragist Susan B. Anthony and create a news story that could divert attention from the DNC. Clearly, that plan failed.

Trump disses Michelle Obama: “She was over her head, and frankly, she should’ve made the speech live, which she didn’t do, she taped it. And it was not only taped, it was tape a long time ago, because she had the wrong [coronavirus] deaths.” pic.twitter.com/Ckyj3wtoWq
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 18, 2020

INAE OH News and Engagement Editor Bio | Follow

Since Trump is reminding you, here’s a look back at his disastrous leadership during the coronavirus pandemic.

VIDEO

Related: Trump’s First 100 Days of Deadly Coronavirus Denial

UPDATED 
Republican-led Senate panel found that ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was a 'grave counterintelligence threat' because of his Russia ties

Sonam Sheth

Reuters

The Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday released the final installment in its years-long investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election.

The bipartisan report confirmed much of what the former special counsel Robert Mueller found in the FBI's Russia probe. In some cases, it went further than Mueller did.

It did not find evidence that the Ukrainian government meddled in the 2016 election, as Trump alleged. It also determined that former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was a "grave counterintelligence threat" because of his Russia ties.
Overall, the report threw a wrench into President Donald Trump's efforts to portray the Russia probe as a partisan "witch hunt" and a "hoax."

Scroll down for the biggest takeaways from Tuesday's report.

The Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday released the final installment of its years-long investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election.

Volume 5 of the report was nearly 1,000 pages long and focused primarily on counterintelligence threats, vulnerabilities, and the "wide range of Russian efforts to influence the Trump Campaign and the 2016 election."

Broadly, the bipartisan report confirmed much of what the former special counsel Robert Mueller found in his investigation into Russia's election meddling.

Tuesday's release by the Republican-led Senate panel also threw a wrench into President Donald Trump's efforts to portray Mueller's probe as a partisan "witch hunt" and claims of Russia's interference as a "hoax" intended to undermine his presidency.

Here are the key takeaways from the Senate's report and how they stack up with what Mueller found:

Perhaps the biggest finding was buried in a footnote more than 100 pages into the report: "The Committee's efforts focused on investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election. However, during the course of the investigation, the Committee identified no reliable evidence that the Ukrainian government interfered in the 2016 U.S. election."

Trump and his allies — including some Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee — have repeatedly pushed the conspiracy theory that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election to propel Hillary Clinton to the Oval Office. Although some Ukrainian officials expressed support for Clinton over Trump, the US intelligence community, and now the SSCI, did not uncover evidence of a top-down effort by the Ukrainian government to swing the race in Clinton's favor.

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was a "grave counterintelligence threat" to the US because of his extensive ties to pro-Russian individuals and entities, the report said.
"Taken as a whole, Manafort's high-level access and willingness to share information with individuals closely affiliated with the Russian intelligence services, particularly [Konstantin] Kilimnik and associates of Oleg Deripaska, represented a grave counterintelligence threat," the report said.

Konstantin Kilimnik, a former Russian intelligence operative with close ties to Manafort, "may be connected" to the GRU's "hack-and-leak operation related to the 2016 U.S. election."

The GRU is Russia's primary military intelligence agency, and the "hack-and-leak" operation the committee mentioned refers to the GRU's efforts to breach the Democratic National Committee's servers in 2016 and disseminate damaging information via WikiLeaks and the Russian hacker Guccifer 2.0.

Tuesday's report was the first time Kilimnik was identified specifically as an intelligence officer. As The New York Times pointed out, Mueller's report on Russian interference identified him as someone with ties to Russian intelligence. The Senate report said Kilimnik "almost certainly helped arrange some of the first public messaging that Ukraine had interfered in the U.S. election."

he report hinted at the possibility that Manafort had knowledge of the GRU's hacking campaign. "Two pieces of information ... raise the possibility of Manafort's potential connection to the hack-and-leak operations," the report said. Several subsequent paragraphs were redacted.

Manafort's involvement in the hack-and-leak operation is "largely unknown," the report said, and the committee did not have "reliable, direct evidence" showing that he and Kilimnik discussed the breach. However, "the content of the majority of the communications between Manafort and Kilimnik is unknown" and there is no "objective record" of the two men's conversations when they met in person.

The longtime Republican strategist Roger Stone drafted at least eight tweets supporting Russia for then Republican candidate Donald Trump in July 2016. The report said Stone emailed the drafts to one of Trump's assistants with the subject line, "Tweets Mr. Trump requested last night."

"Many of the draft tweets attacked [then Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton] for her adversarial posture toward Russia and mentioned a new peace deal with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, such as 'I want a new detente with Russia under Putin,'" the report said.

Stone was in communications with both WikiLeaks and the Russian hacker Guccifer 2.0 during the election; according to the Mueller report, Guccifer 2.0 was a conduit set up by Russian military intelligence to anonymously funnel stolen information to WikiLeaks.
The Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation found "significant evidence to suggest that, in the summer of 2016, WikiLeaks was knowingly collaborating with Russian government officials," the report said. Two bullet points directly following that statement were redacted from the report, as were significant portions of a footnote on the page.
Michael Cohen, Trump's longtime former lawyer and fixer who later flipped against him, said that after he was indicted by the Southern District of New York, he "discussed a potential pardon for himself with Jay Sekulow 'more than a half dozen times.'" Sekulow is one of Trump's personal defense attorneys. Cohen "further stated that he understood that the pardon discussions had come from Trump through Sekulow."

Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who attended a 2016 Trump Tower meeting with campaign officials, "has significant and concerning connections to Russian government and intelligence officials, and has not been forthcoming about those relationships." The next nearly four pages of the report contained redacted information.

The White House's broad claims of executive privilege "significantly hampered and prolonged the Committee's investigative effort," the report said.

The FBI gave "unjustified credence" to the so-called Steele dossier, an explosive collections of uncorroborated memos alleging collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government officials, the report said. The dossier was put together by the former MI6 agent Christopher Steele, and it "lacked rigor and transparency about the quality of the sourcing."
The FBI did not take the "necessary steps to validate assumptions about Steele's credibility" before relying on the dossier to seek renewals of a surveillance warrant targeting the former Trump campaign aide, the report said.

The bureau also "did not effectively adjust its approach to Steele's reporting once one of Steele's subsources provided information that raised serious concerns about the source descriptions in the Steele dossier."

WHO IS GOING TO JAIL?

Senate made criminal referral of Trump Jr., Bannon, Kushner and two others to federal prosecutors
The committee detailed its concerns in a letter to the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., in June 2019, an official said.

Steve Bannon, left, and Jared Kushner, right, listen as President Donald Trump meets with members of his Cabinet at the White House on June 12, 2017.Kevin Lamarque / Reuters file

Aug. 18, 2020 By Ken Dilanian

WASHINGTON — The Republican and Democratic chairmen of the Senate Intelligence Committee made criminal referrals of Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Steve Bannon, Erik Prince and Sam Clovis to federal prosecutors in 2019, passing along their suspicions that the men may have misled the committee during their testimony, an official familiar with the matter told NBC News.

The official confirmed reports in the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post, which reported on the matter last week. A criminal referral to the Justice Department means Congress believes a matter warrants investigation for potential violation of the law.


The committee detailed its concerns in a letter to the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., in June 2019, the official said.

Related
Manafort associate is Russian spy, may have helped coordinate e-mail hack-and-leak, report says

The Post reported that the letter was divided into two sections. One named those suspected of making false statements, the Post said: Bannon, former Trump campaign co-chair Clovis, and private security contractor Prince.

A second section raised concerns about the testimony of other witnesses, including Trump Jr. and Kushner, whose statements were contradicted by Trump campaign aide Richard Gates, though it did not pointedly make a false-statements allegation, the Post reported.

The Los Angeles Times reported that the committee questioned whether Bannon lied about his interactions and conversations with Prince about a meeting in the Seychelles between Prince and a top Russian official. Prince told special counsel Robert Mueller’s prosecutors that he briefed Bannon on the January 2017 meeting, but Bannon said the conversation never happened.

Related
Trump says he didn't discuss hacked emails with Stone. A bipartisan report says he did.

A lawyer for Prince told the Post that if there was such a referral, it did not appear to have resulted in an investigation. There has been no public indication of any probe.

Lawyers for Trump Jr., Kushner, Bannon and Clovis have previously denied that their clients misled the committee.

Ken Dilanian is a correspondent covering intelligence and national security for the NBC News Investigative Unit.

MOTHER JONES
RUSSIA INVESTIGATION

A Senate Intelligence Committee Report Reveals Damning New Information About Trump’s Russia Ties

Its three-year probe links Paul Manafort to Russian intelligence and finds Trump’s campaign helped Vladimir Putin’s 2016 attack.DAVID CORN

DAN FRIEDMAN

Donald Trump, Paul Manafort and Ivanka Trump during the 2016 Republican National Convention  Mark Reinstein/ZUMA Wire

During the 2016 presidential race, while Vladimir Putin attacked the election in part to help Donald Trump, there was a “direct tie between senior Trump Campaign officials and the Russian intelligence services.” This damning statement comes from a long-awaited bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report released on Tuesday morning. The report, 966-pages long, is the final volume resulting from the committee’s investigation of Russian intervention in the 2016 campaign. It is full of revelations and findings that make clear that there is no Trump-Russia “hoax” and that Trump and his campaign aided and abetted Moscow’s assault on American democracy and sought to exploit it.

The report also explores the question of whether Russian intelligence developed blackmail material on Trump, revealing new information on this dicey subject but without reaching a conclusion.

A good chunk of the report is dedicated to Paul Manafort, who was a senior Trump campaign official for about five months in 2016. The committee notes that Manafort, who was imprisoned in 2018 for committing fraud and money laundering, posed a “grave counterintelligence threat” due to his Russian connections. The report details his extensive dealings during the campaign with a former business associate named Konstantin Kilimnik, who the committee describes as a “Russian intelligence officer.” (Special counsel Robert Mueller characterized Kilimnik as an “associate” of Russian intelligence.) The committee puts it bluntly: “Kilimnik likely served as a channel to Manafort for Russian intelligence services.” Throughout the campaign, according to the report, Manafort “directly and indirectly communicated with Kilimnik,” Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, and several pro-Russian oligarchs in Ukraine:

On numerous occasions, Manafort sought to secretly share internal Campaign information with Kilimnik. The Committee was unable to reliably determine why Manafort shared sensitive internal polling data or Campaign strategy with Kilimnik or with whom Kilimnik further shared that information. The Committee had limited insight into Kilimnik’s communications with Manafort and into Kilimnik’s communications with other individuals connected to Russian influence operations, all of whom used communications security practices.

So their conversations were hush-hush.

The report continues: “The Committee obtained some information suggesting Kilimnik may have been connected to the [Russian intelligence’s] hack and leak operation targeting the 2016 U.S. election.” Whoa. This report is saying that Trump’s campaign manager was in close contact with a Russian intelligence officer who might have been tied to Putin’s covert attack on the 2016 campaign to help elect Trump. Moreover, the report reveals that the committee found “two pieces of information” that “raise the possibility” that Manafort himself was connected “to the hack-and-leak operations.” The report’s discussion of that information, though, is redacted. Whether this counts as collusion or not, it’s a big deal.

Manafort, according to the committee’s investigation, also explored using his access to Trump to help advance Russian interests. He discussed with Kilimnik promoting a pro-Russia “peace plan” for Ukraine that would have entailed creating an autonomous zone in eastern Ukraine, a scheme Manafort knew would offer a “‘backdoor’ means for Russia to control eastern Ukraine,” the report says. Manafort understood that Kilimnik had cleared the plan with “someone in the Russian government.” Why was Manafort willing to assist a move seemingly at odds with US interests? “Manafort could benefit financially,” the committee explains.

The picture gets worse for the Trump-Russia truthers. Manafort, the report says, “worked with Kilimnik starting in 2016 on narratives that sought to undermine evidence that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. election.” That is, Manafort helped Russia cover up its attack. And it wasn’t just Manafort. The committee states, “The Trump Campaign publicly undermined the attribution of the hack-and-leak campaign to Russia and was indifferent to whether it and WikiLeaks were furthering a Russian election interference effort… The Campaign was aware of the extensive media reporting and other private sector attribution of the hack to Russian actors prior to that point.” So though the committee found no evidence that Trump and his crew engaged in a criminal conspiracy with Moscow, it has concluded that Trump, Manafort, and others aided and abetted the Russian assault by denying or dismissing its existence. This is not a new observation, but it is an important point that has often been drowned out by Trump’s shouts of “no collusion.”

The report’s findings show that the FBI and CIA were right to be alarmed by contacts between Russians and the Trump campaign (this included interactions beyond Manafort’s) and that the bureau was justified in opening up an investigation in mid-summer 2016. As the report puts it, “Taken as a whole, Manafort’s high-level access and willingness to share information with individuals closely affiliated with the Russian intelligence services, particularly Kilimnik and associates of Oleg Deripaska, represented a grave counterintelligence threat.”

The Senate Intelligence Committee’s release contains other eye-popping material. In a section on Russian kompromat—the use of compromising material—the committee explores several allegations that Russian intelligence had developed blackmail on Trump based on his personal conduct during trips to Russia. The report goes far beyond the infamous “pee tape” rumor. It states that Trump “may have” begun a short affair with a Russian woman during a 1996 trip to Moscow—without reaching a firm conclusion. And it reports that the committee spoke with a Marriott International executive who said he’d heard two colleagues discuss the existence of a video showing Trump in the elevator of the Moscow Ritz-Carlton with “hostesses” during a 2013 visit there. But the two other executives denied any such discussion. The committee said it could not resolve the matter.

The committee’s report includes plenty of information to inconvenience Republicans and conservatives who have tried to erase the Trump-Russia scandal. It shows that Donald Trump Jr.—and possibly Manafort and Jared Kushner—deliberately tried to collude with a secret Russian government effort to boost the Trump campaign. (“The Committee found evidence suggesting that it was the intent of the Campaign participants in the June 9, 2016 [Trump Tower] meeting, particularly Donald Trump Jr., to receive derogatory information that would be of benefit to the Campaign from a source known, at least by Trump Jr. to have connections to the Russian government.”) The report suggests that Trump Jr. knew that Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal lawyer, had lied to Congress about Trump’s efforts to secretly score a big Moscow tower project while he was campaigning for president. It also states that Putin “almost certainly” knew of this project—meaning that the Russian leader possessed information that he could have leaked to embarrass Trump during the campaign. The report reveals that Trump Jr. would only submit to an interview with the committee after he learned he might be held in contempt.

The committee describes how Trump and his campaign used Roger Stone to try to get inside information they could exploit on the Russia-WikiLeaks operation. (Trump likely lied about this to Robert Mueller—which could be a crime—and the committee report, approved by Republicans and Democrats, strengthens the case against Trump. Actually, it nails it.) The report notes that in the summer of 2016, Carter Page, then a foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, met in Moscow with a person who presented “counterintelligence concerns” and that Page did not explain to the committee all his actions while in the Russian capital.

The report does reaffirm there were serious problems with the FBI’s surveillance of Page and the bureau’s use of the Steele Dossier to obtain a search warrant for Page after he had left the Trump campaign. Naturally, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), the acting chair of the committee, fixated on the report’s findings regarding the FBI and the Steele memos, long a hobbyhorse of the right and Trump. He sidestepped the most significant aspects of the investigation: Trump’s campaign was run by a counterintelligence threat, and Trump and his lieutenants assisted a foreign adversary’s attack on the United States. These are truths that Trump and his enablers with the GOP and the conservative movement cannot handle. And the report discloses a related truth they largely wish to ignore: Russia is currently intervening in the 2020 election to help Trump.

The end of the report includes a statement from Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), a committee member, who maintains that the report excessively redacted material and did not go far enough. He writes, “The Committee investigated interactions between Donald Trump and particular Russians and identified deeply concerning financial links, it did not seek to answer key questions about Donald Trump’s finances that relate directly to counterintelligence. In short, the Committee did not follow the money.” Wyden alleges that information on this front “and other revelations in the report suffice to establish that Donald Trump poses a counterintelligence threat to the United States.”

He asserted that the committee blocked the release of key information about Manafort:

Information related to Manafort’s interactions with Kilimnik, particularly in April 2016, are the subject of extensive redactions. Evidence connecting Kilimnik to [Russian intelligence’s] hack-and-leak operations are likewise redacted, as are indications of Manafort’s own connections to those operations. There are redactions to important new information with regard to Manafort’s meeting in Madrid with a representative of Oleg Deripaska. The report also includes extensive information on Deripaska, a proxy for Russian intelligence and an associate of Manafort. Unfortunately, much of that information is redacted as well.

Wyden also points out that the committee blocked information on the role of “Russian government proxies and personas in spreading false narratives about Ukrainian interference in the U.S. election. This propaganda, pushed by a Russian intelligence officer and other Russian proxies, was the basis on which Donald Trump sought to extort the current government of Ukraine into providing assistance to his reelection efforts and was at the center of Trump’s impeachment and Senate trial.”

Perhaps most serious, Wyden charges that the “report includes redacted information that is directly relevant to Russia’s interference in the 2020 election.” So the American public is not being given information regarding the security of the 2020 election and Putin’s ongoing effort to assist Trump. Without that—even after nearly 1,000 pages—the whole story is still not being told. 


Sen. Ron Wyden Says Evidence of Ongoing Russian Election Meddling Is Being Covered Up

MOTHER JONES 8/18/2020

Russian Look via Zuma

The Senate Intelligence Committee released its fifth and final volume in its years long counterintelligence investigation on Tuesday, offering new detail and reporting on connections between President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and the Russian hack-and-leak operation aimed at Hillary Clinton. But several of the Democratic members of the committee, most notably Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, say the report blocks the American public from a key piece information: what the Russians are doing right now to intervene in the 2020 election to help Trump.New information “remains needlessly classified.”

“The…report includes a wealth of extremely troubling new revelations about the counterintelligence threat posed by Donald Trump and his campaign,” Wyden said in a standalone statement included at the end of the report. However, Wyden added, a lot of the new information “remains needlessly classified” in the report, including “redacted information that is directly relevant to Russia’s interference in the 2020 election.”

Wyden, who has developed a reputation for presciently and publicly flagging major intelligence issues without revealing classified information, was backed up in another statement attached to the report he co-authored with Democratic Sens. Martin Heinrich, Dianne Feinstein, Kamala Harris, and Michael Bennet. The group noted that the value of the committee’s extensive investigation “is not purely historical,” not only because the lessons of Russia’s interference remain valuable, but also because—and as Trump’s own intelligence officials assert—”Russia is actively interfering again in the 2020 US election to assist Donald Trump, and some of the President’s associates are amplifying those efforts.”

While the US intelligence community and law enforcement officials—some of whom have access to some of the redacted information—repeatedly say they’ve learned the lessons of 2016, the vast majority of that information will remain hidden not only to citizens, but to state and local election officials who are on the frontline of defense against what the US government says are active influence and interference operations being carried out by some of the world’s most sophisticated intelligence agencies.

Republican Senators James Risch, Marco Rubio, Roy Blunt, Tom Cotton, John Cornyn, and Ben Sasse offered their own statement, claiming the report shows “no evidence” that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government. That claim runs contrary to the findings laid out in the first pages of the report stating that Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign chairman who is now in prison, had active connections with Russian intelligence officers while running the campaign and up into 2018.

According to Wyden’s statement, the report’s redactions give cover for the Republican senators to make such claims. As an example, he cited redactions that block the public from knowing exactly what the committee found with respect to Manafort’s connections with Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian intelligence officer, including indications that Manafort himself was “connected to Russia’s hack-and-leak operations.” He also notes that the committee’s findings about the role of Russian disinformation in the attempts to tie Vice President Joe Biden to corruption in Ukraine—and ultimately the source of Trump’s impeachment in January of this year—are similarly hidden behind redactions.

That could be a boon to Trump and his allies, who have continued to seek to tarnish Biden with the material in hopes of defeating him in November. “Only when the American people are informed about the role of an adversary in concocting and disseminating disinformation can they make democratic choices free of foreign interference,” Wyden warned.

AJ VICENS Reporter Bio | Follow

Chrystia Freeland Named Canada’s New Finance Minister

Bill Morneau resigned from the senior cabinet position Monday.

SHE WAS THE BUSINESS EDITOR FOR THOMPSON REUTERS

By Zi-Ann Lum
Althia Raj
08/18/2020

ADRIAN WYLD/CP

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland listens to a speaker during a news conference in Ottawa on April 7, 2020.


OTTAWA — Chrystia Freeland has been sworn in as the federal finance minister who will oversee Canada’s economic recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic, a task her predecessor warned would be “extremely challenging.”


The appointment was made official Tuesday with a ceremony at Rideau Hall. Bill Morneau stepped down as finance minister Monday evening.


Freeland’s succession of the coveted portfolio makes her Canada’s first female finance minister. Her appointment was first reported by CTV News Tuesday morning.


She retains her position as deputy prime minister, but her previous role as minister of intergovernmental affairs now belongs to veteran Liberal MP Dominic LeBlanc, who held the portfolio from July 2018 to November 2019.

LeBlanc will continue to serve as the president of the Privy Council.

Prior to entering politics as a star candidate for the Liberals in a 2013 byelection race in Toronto Centre, Freeland rose the ranks in journalism as a business reporter and editor. She wrote for the Financial Times, the Washington Post, the Economist, and worked as a senior editor with the Globe and Mail, the Financial Times and Thomson-Reuters in New York City before deciding to run for public office.


She has written two books, including “Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else.” Before the Liberals were elected in 2015, she co-chaired Trudeau’s economic advisory council with former MP Scott Brison.

Watch: Bill Morneau resigns as finance minister. Story continues below video.


The Alberta-born mother of three has represented the Toronto riding of University—Rosedale since 2015. She was appointed Trudeau’s first minister of international trade, overseeing the final negotiations of the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).

After Donald Trump’s election as president of the United States in November 2016, Freeland became the lead on the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) renegotiations. She kept that portfolio as she moved to become Canada’s foreign affairs minister in 2017.

Following the 2019 election, Freeland was named deputy prime minister and given the task of intergovernmental affairs. She has earned praise from former opponents for her work on the new NAFTA negotiations. Provincial premiers of different political stripes have also spoken highly of working with her during the government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.Ontario’s Progressive Conservative Premier Doug Ford had glowing words to say about Freeland’s promotion Tuesday, calling her a “good friend.” Ford said the pair have a solid relationship and that he’s excited to continue working with Freeland in her new portfolio.

“I sent her a message this morning. She was swamped as deputy prime minister and if there was one person I have confidence in, it’s Chrystia Freeland.”

Freeland steps into the role after Morneau announced his decision to leave politics.
ADRIAN WYLD/CP

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland looks for a seat as Bill Morneau and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wait in the House of Commons on May 13, 2020.


Morneau resigned Monday following a morning meeting with the prime minister. He said his decision was based on timing, explaining it was never his intention to run for more than two elections.

“As we move to the next phase of our fight against the pandemic and pave the road towards economic recovery, we must recognize that this process will take many years,” he told reporters hastily called to a news conference.

“It’s the right time for a new Finance Minister to deliver on that plan for the long and challenging road ahead.”

A senior adviser in the Prime Minister’s Office told HuffPost that Morneau was concerned with the possibility he would table a budget, upon which an election would be called, that he would not be there to defend or promote.

The former Morneau Shepell executive chairman said he is leaving politics — including his Toronto Centre seat — to prepare his candidacy to become the next secretary general of the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD).

He said the prime minister did not ask for his resignation and “has given me full support in this quest.”

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Bloc Will Try To Trigger Election If PM, Morneau, And Telford Don’t Quit

Trump’s ‘Absurd’ Tariffs Will Be Met With $3.6B Response: Freeland


Morneau also leaves amid a cloud of controversy over his failing to recuse himself in the handing out of a multi-million-dollar contract to WE Charity, an organization that employs one of his daughters.

Tuesday, Conservative finance critic Pierre Poilievre accused the prime minister of “inventing a conflict” to force Morneau out.

If Trudeau fired Morneau for his role in the WE Charity controversy, then the prime minister would resign as well, Poilievre said.

Both Trudeau and Morneau have apologized for failing to recuse themselves from cabinet discussions related to the Liberal government’s decision to award the WE Charity the administration of a since-cancelled $912-million student grant program. Both men have connections with the Toronto-based international charities.

Last month, Morneau admitted to making a $41,000 mistake when he and his family accepted free travel from the WE Charity to visit the organization’s school projects in Kenya and Ecuador in 2017. He said he was unaware he had not paid for the trips and repaid the organization for the travel.

Morneau also told the House of Commons finance committee that his wife donated $100,000 to the charity in the last two years.
CP/ADRIAN WYLD

Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre speaks about the resignation of the finance minister during a news conference on Aug. 18, 2020 in Ottawa.

Poilievre also cast aspersions on the news Freeland will become the next finance minister. He pointed out that Freeland was chair of the cabinet committee that initially approved the WE Charity deal.

“For Freeland, higher taxes is a religion,” he said, suggesting her to be no different than Morneau. “Regardless though of how you play musical chairs, we still have the same corrupt and incompetent prime minister ahead of the same corrupt and chaotic government.”

Morneau’s resignation came after weeks of speculation about his political future, fed by anonymous leaks suggesting a fraying relationship between Trudeau and his finance minister.

Differing opinions about handling the growing deficit and emergency COVID-19 spending fuelled tensions between the two men, according to the Globe and Mail. Reuters reported disagreements over proposed funding for green initiatives further added to problems.

The prime minister’s office attempted to quell the leaks of bad relations with a statement last week saying Trudeau has “full confidence” in Morneau. But Trudeau, who was on vacation, made no additional measures to publicly support his finance minister.

After his announcement that he is leaving politics, Morneau described the disagreements he’s had with the prime minister as “necessary vigorous debate.”

With files from Ryan Maloney and Sherina Harris

Zi-Ann LumPolitics Reporter, HuffPost Canada

Althia Raj Ottawa Bureau Chief, HuffPost Canada

Canada's finance minister quits amid charity scandal and tensions with Trudeau

CONSERVATIVES ATTACKS TAKE DOWN MINISTER

Issued on: 18/08/2020 -
Canada's Minister of Finance Bill Morneau looks at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during a press conference in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada March 11, 2020. © REUTERS/Blair Gable/File Photo

Text by:NEWS WIRES

Canada's finance minister resigned on Monday amid friction with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over spending policies and after coming under fire for his ties to a charity tapped to run a student grant program.

Bill Morneau said he would not run for parliament again and would instead seek to become the next secretary general of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Just last week, Trudeau had expressed confidence in his finance minister as rumors swirled of a rift between the two men. Morneau, 57, has been in the job since Trudeau's Liberals took power in 2015.

"This morning I went to the prime minister and I tendered my resignation," Morneau told reporters at a hastily arranged news conference on Monday evening.

"It's appropriate that the prime minister find someone with a longer term approach for the role, since I'm not running for office," he added.

Morneau and his team have pushed back against other cabinet ministers about how much pandemic funding was needed, including to what extent the post-lockdown recovery could be helped by investing in environmental projects, sources told Reuters on Sunday.

Trudeau, who campaigned on a platform to tackle climate change, believes the 2021 budget should have an ambitious environmental element to start weaning the heavily oil-dependent economy off fossil fuels and he recently hired former Bank of England Governor Mark Carney as an informal adviser, aides say.

Canada's budget deficit is forecast to hit C$343.2 billion ($253.4 billion), the largest shortfall since World War Two, this fiscal year. Total coronavirus support is nearly 14% of gross domestic product.

'Consumed by scandal'

The Canadian dollar showed little reaction to the news.

"We had a little bit of a sell-the-rumour type weakness in the lead up to the resignation," said Ray Attrill, head of forex strategy at National Australia Bank in Sydney. "There doesn’t seem to be any suggestion at this stage that this any broader implications for the Canadian government."

Possible replacements for the key post include Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, Foreign Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne and President of Canada's Treasury Board Jean-Yves Duclos.

In a statement, Trudeau thanked Morneau for his service over the past five years and said he would "vigorously support" Morneau's bid to head the OECD.

Adding to Morneau's challenges, several cabinet members were upset when he disclosed he had forgotten to repay travel expenses covered for him by a charity at the heart of an ethics probe. Morneau and Trudeau are facing ethics inquiries related to the charity.

Morneau's resignation "is further proof of a government in chaos," said Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer said on Twitter, adding the "government is so consumed by scandal that Trudeau has amputated his right hand to try and save himself."

The clash reflected concerns among business leaders that Ottawa had little apparent interest in the economy, sources told Reuters.

Business and analysts have also fretted about Ottawa becoming distracted by the discord as it tackles the coronavirus crisis.

"I doubt you'll be seeing other finance ministers around the world step down at this time of elevated economic and fiscal uncertainty," David Rosenberg, chief economist at Rosenberg Research & Associates. "It's like a boxer being forced to take his gloves off in the fifth round."

(REUTERS)