theintercept--2020-03-04--Candace Valenzuela, Formerly Homeless Congressional Candidate, Advances to Democratic Primary Runoff

Candace Valenzuela, Formerly Homeless Congressional Candidate, Advances to Democratic Primary Runoff in Texas’s 24th District

a local school board member , is headed to a runoff in the competitive Democratic primary in Texas ’ s 24th Congressional District .
With 45 percent reporting , Valenzuela , who highlighted her experience with homelessness in her campaign , won 30.1 percent of the vote , while Kim Olson — a retired Air Force colonel — had 43.2 percent in the suburban district , which spans Forth Worth and Dallas .
Because no candidate is on track for a majority of the vote in the primary , both Olson and Valenzuela are expected to advance to the May @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Valenzuela would be the first black Latina in Congress .
“ Our congressman has been a politician since before I was homeless , sleeping in a kiddie pool outside a gas station , ” Valenzuela noted in her launch ad .
Olson , an establishment-friendly candidate who led the rest of the field in fundraising but didn ’ t have the backing of the House Democrats ’ campaign arm , was charged with war profiteering in Iraq .
As the Los Angeles Times reported in 2006 : “ Pentagon investigators allege that while @ @ @ @ @ @ @ most powerful figures in Iraq , Olson established a U.S. branch of a South African security firm after helping it win more than $ 3 million in contracts to provide protection for senior U.S. and British officials , as well as for KBR , a subsidiary of Halliburton Co. ” Olson struck a plea deal , copping to two lesser charges relating to conflicts of interest and obtaining outside employment without permission and was allowed to retire with an honorable discharge .
Still , it makes it hard to see how that record @ @ @ @ @ @ @ election , despite Olson ’ s effort to get ahead of it in her opening ad : “ Our government couldn ’ t even pay the security detail protecting Americans .
The warrior in me did what I had to do to get the security team paid and save lives.
” EMILY ’ s List — which rarely endorses in a race between two pro-choice women , and even more rarely endorses the progressive of the two — threw its support behind Valenzuela , not necessarily because they prefer Valenzuela ’ s politics @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Olson ’ s electoral baggage .
Presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren , and the campaign arms of the Congressional Black and Hispanic Caucuses , endorsed Valenzuela as well .
Olson , meanwhile , was backed by the groups VoteVets and Serve America , Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton ’ s PAC .
Olson ran for Texas agriculture commissioner in 2018 , losing to the GOP incumbent by 5 percentage points .
A third Democrat , Jan McDowell , ran in the district for the second time .
In 2018 , she came within 4 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Marchant with a threadbare campaign , but raised just $ 73,000 in the 2020 cycle to Valenzuela ’ s $ 442,000 and Olson ’ s $ 967,000 .
On Tuesday night , with nearly half the votes counted , she received 10.1 percent , coming in third , enabling the runoff .
Though Marchant has represented the district since 2005 , Beto O ’ Rourke , the 2018 Democratic nominee for Senate in Texas , carried it by 3 percentage points over Republican incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz .
In addition to the six @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , six other candidates ran in the district ’ s open GOP primary .
Marchant , one of many GOP lawmakers stepping down from office in anticipation of a blue wave , isn ’ t running for reelection .
Former Irving Mayor Beth Van Duyne , who had the backing of President Donald Trump , having served in his administration under the housing department , won the Republican nomination handily , and will likely be a formidable general election opponent .

Candace Valenzuela, a local school board member, is headed to a runoff in the competitive Democratic primary in Texas’s 24th Congressional District. With 45 percent reporting, Valenzuela, who highlighted her experience with homelessness in her campaign, won 30.1 percent of the vote, while Kim Olson — a retired Air Force colonel — had 43.2 percent in the suburban district, which spans Forth Worth and Dallas. Because no candidate is on track for a majority of the vote in the primary, both Olson and Valenzuela are expected to advance to the May 26 runoff election. If elected, Valenzuela would be the first black Latina in Congress.
“Our congressman has been a politician since before I was homeless, sleeping in a kiddie pool outside a gas station,” Valenzuela noted in her launch ad.
Olson, an establishment-friendly candidate who led the rest of the field in fundraising but didn’t have the backing of the House Democrats’ campaign arm, was charged with war profiteering in Iraq. As the Los Angeles Times reported in 2006: “Pentagon investigators allege that while on active duty as one of the most powerful figures in Iraq, Olson established a U.S. branch of a South African security firm after helping it win more than $3 million in contracts to provide protection for senior U.S. and British officials, as well as for KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton Co.”
Olson struck a plea deal, copping to two lesser charges relating to conflicts of interest and obtaining outside employment without permission and was allowed to retire with an honorable discharge. Still, it makes it hard to see how that record gets past the electorate in a general election, despite Olson’s effort to get ahead of it in her opening ad: “Our government couldn’t even pay the security detail protecting Americans. The warrior in me did what I had to do to get the security team paid and save lives.”
The National Republican Congressional Committee quickly took advantage of her record, calling Olson a “disgraced” former Air Force officer and “war profiteer.”
EMILY’s List — which rarely endorses in a race between two pro-choice women, and even more rarely endorses the progressive of the two — threw its support behind Valenzuela, not necessarily because they prefer Valenzuela’s politics to Olson’s but because of Olson’s electoral baggage. Presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, and the campaign arms of the Congressional Black and Hispanic Caucuses, endorsed Valenzuela as well. Olson, meanwhile, was backed by the groups VoteVets and Serve America, Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton’s PAC. Olson ran for Texas agriculture commissioner in 2018, losing to the GOP incumbent by 5 percentage points.
A third Democrat, Jan McDowell, ran in the district for the second time. In 2018, she came within 4 percentage points of unseating incumbent Rep. Kenny Marchant with a threadbare campaign, but raised just $73,000 in the 2020 cycle to Valenzuela’s $442,000 and Olson’s $967,000. On Tuesday night, with nearly half the votes counted, she received 10.1 percent, coming in third, enabling the runoff.
Though Marchant has represented the district since 2005, Beto O’Rourke, the 2018 Democratic nominee for Senate in Texas, carried it by 3 percentage points over Republican incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz. In addition to the six candidates who ran in the Democratic primary, six other candidates ran in the district’s open GOP primary. Marchant, one of many GOP lawmakers stepping down from office in anticipation of a blue wave, isn’t running for reelection. Former Irving Mayor Beth Van Duyne, who had the backing of President Donald Trump, having served in his administration under the housing department, won the Republican nomination handily, and will likely be a formidable general election opponent.


theintercept--2020-03-05--Elizabeth Warren’s Campaign Fell Apart in the Fall, and It Never Recovered

thought there was no real chance that Sen. Bernie Sanders would run for president .
Throughout 2017 and 2018 , she and her advisers believed that Sanders would survey the landscape and decide that his biggest contribution could be as kingmaker in a primary , one that would be fought out on terms that he himself had established , with nearly every candidate embracing Medicare for All , a Green New Deal , and a robust role for government that would have been unthinkable just four years earlier , before his 2016 campaign put it all on the map .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ her apartment in October 2018 for what would become an infamous meeting , Sanders still hadn ’ t decided whether he was going to run but was laying the groundwork nonetheless .
It wouldn ’ t be her last miscalculation .
The Massachusetts senator jumped in on New Year ’ s Eve , and signs of trouble emerged early .
The email list she had been building since her 2012 Senate campaign produced an anemic fundraising haul , raising just under $ 300,000 in 24 hours .
Former Rep. Beto O ’ Rourke @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than $ 6 million the first day .
Nevertheless , a year after her meeting with Sanders , she was the party ’ s frontrunner for president , steadily climbing in the polls through the summer until she eclipsed former Vice President Joe Biden .
The clear frontrunner at the October 15 debate , Warren took it from all sides , but none more damaging than the barrage from former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg , who attacked her for not having a plan to “ pay for ” the Medicare for All @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it tonight : a yes or no question that didn ’ t get a yes or no answer , ” he said .
“ Your signature , senator , is to have a plan for everything .
Except this.
” Warren was trying hard not to give an answer she thought would be kryptonite in a general election — that taxes might go up for the middle class — and so she focused on overall costs instead .
“ We can pay for this .
I ’ ve laid out the basic principles @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are going to go up for the wealthy .
They ’ re going to go up for big corporations .
They will not go up for middle-class families .
And I will not sign a bill into law that raises their costs , because costs are what people care about.
” Sen. Amy Klobuchar , teaming up with Buttigieg , compared Warren unfavorably with Sanders — who at the time wasn ’ t seen as a threat , having just emerged from a Las Vegas hospital after a heart attack .
“ At @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and saying how he ’ s going to pay for this and that taxes are going to go up .
And I ’ m sorry , Elizabeth , but you have not said that , and I think we owe it to the American people to tell them where we ’ re going to send the invoice , ” Klobuchar said .
Later that night , news broke that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would be endorsing Sanders , followed soon by Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib , giving Sanders support from three of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rejuvenating his campaign .
On November 1 , Warren responded to the pressure to have a plan to pay for Medicare for All by releasing one .
Health care activist Ady Barkan hailed it as “ perhaps the greatest feat of public policy jujitsu that I have ever seen , ” while Sanders supporters online slammed it .
Matt Bruenig , writing in Jacobin magazine , helped set the tone , matching Barkan ’ s hyperbole and dubbing it “ a disaster.
” His precise objection was narrow — Warren included a head @ @ @ @ @ @ @ should be temporary and slowly transitioned to a traditional payroll tax , while Warren ’ s plan stipulated it would be permanent .
The gap between the genuine objection and the volume at which her plan was criticized became a theme for the next month .
Two weeks later , she announced that she would use a legislative process known as reconciliation to implement a public option in her first year and then , once support had been built for a larger public role in health care , she would push for Medicare @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sanders , meanwhile , said he would introduce a Medicare for All bill immediately and challenge opponents in their home districts .
By now , Sanders was rising , consolidating much of the left , and Warren was falling , taking on a reputation as a politician who responds poorly when attacked .
The Medicare for All rollout mingled with lingering concerns about how she had buckled to President Donald Trump ’ s taunts and taken a DNA test in 2018 .
The dagger , though , had been stuck in by the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ whose positive coverage helped Warren rise through the summer .
On November 4 , the paper ran a survey it had done finding that Warren performed relatively poorly against Trump in the must-win Rust Belt states — losing by 6 points to him in Michigan , while tied in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin , a worse performance in all three than either Biden or Sanders .
With an overwhelmingly well-educated base of voters hellbent on nothing more than defeating Trump , the Times signaling that she wasn ’ t the best one to do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as many of those voters , following the loss by Hillary Clinton in 2016 , were predisposed to believe that a woman was simply unelectable , or at minimum would have a much harder time in 2020 .
As journalists perform autopsies of the Warren campaign after her exit from the race on Thursday , the major question will be what she could have done to avoid or weather that collapse .
Two major decisions will be under the microscope .
The first is more of a tactical choice : staying off television @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on TV ads in Iowa , driving up their poll numbers , Warren largely stayed off , under the argument that the spending only gets a campaign a sugar high and that voters forget ever seeing the ad within a matter of weeks .
Warren ’ s chief strategist , Joe Rospars , has long been skeptical of the value of television ads , and the campaign chose not to engage consultants , whose own financial incentives drive them to urge more and more campaign spending .
It would be better , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spend on a large staff to organize for the caucuses , husband resources , and spend big down the stretch on TV in the weeks leading up to the caucuses .
Mike Bloomberg ’ s and Tom Steyer ’ s campaigns showed that even without any groundswell of support , TV ads can indeed move the needle up to 10 points ( though they spent vastly more than Warren would ’ ve likely been able to ) .
The what-if , then , is whether spending in October and November could have propped @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to prevent the electability death spiral from taking her down the drain .
The best counter to the charge that a candidate can ’ t win is to win .
The second best counter is strong polling .
Declining polling , meanwhile , feeds the perception that a candidate is indeed weak , which scares off more supporters , and so on .
But the bigger strategic decision that fall was to lay off Biden .
Throughout 2019 , Uncle Joe was barely touched by his opponents , each of whom hoped that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or that Biden would just self-combust .
Nobody wanted to look like they were doing Trump ’ s bidding , as he went after Biden relentlessly for corruption in Ukraine .
And the two candidates who hit Biden head-on — Kamala Harris and Julián Castro — soon enough became cautionary tales .
But had Warren done to Biden in the fall what she did to Bloomberg just recently , she may not have been the one to pay the price .
If a genuine ideological debate had broke out between Biden and Warren @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and corporate America , while Sanders was still struggling to escape the low double digits , a large swath of progressives may have rallied to Warren , eager for the fight .
Warren had come into public life battling Biden over bankruptcy , and some of her harshest rhetoric ever has been directed at him , particularly as she warned that “ senators like Joe Biden should not be allowed to sell out women in the morning and be heralded as their friend in the evening.
” Instead , campaign advisers argued that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if it was a game of golf — each player hitting their own shots , aiming for the best round — rather than boxing , where a punch is blocked and met with a counterpunch .
Warren situated her campaign as the heir to several generations of persistent women — from the Bread and Roses strike , to the garment workers in New York , washerwomen in Atlanta , and janitors in Los Angeles — but stopped short of taking the fight directly to Biden until it was too late .
( Though @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cave , which must have been satisfying , if not ultimately enough to win . )
On Super Tuesday , it became clear that in a contest for the support of suburban voters , Sanders is at a major disadvantage .
That ’ s not the case with Warren , but by the time that contest came , she was no longer in it .

Elizabeth Warren thought there was no real chance that Sen. Bernie Sanders would run for president. Throughout 2017 and 2018, she and her advisers believed that Sanders would survey the landscape and decide that his biggest contribution could be as kingmaker in a primary, one that would be fought out on terms that he himself had established, with nearly every candidate embracing Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, and a robust role for government that would have been unthinkable just four years earlier, before his 2016 campaign put it all on the map.
When Warren and Sanders got together at her apartment in October 2018 for what would become an infamous meeting, Sanders still hadn’t decided whether he was going to run but was laying the groundwork nonetheless. It wouldn’t be her last miscalculation.
The Massachusetts senator jumped in on New Year’s Eve, and signs of trouble emerged early. The email list she had been building since her 2012 Senate campaign produced an anemic fundraising haul, raising just under $300,000 in 24 hours. Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, by comparison, brought in more than $6 million the first day. Nevertheless, a year after her meeting with Sanders, she was the party’s frontrunner for president, steadily climbing in the polls through the summer until she eclipsed former Vice President Joe Biden.
The clear frontrunner at the October 15 debate, Warren took it from all sides, but none more damaging than the barrage from former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who attacked her for not having a plan to “pay for” the Medicare for All proposal she endorsed. “We heard it tonight: a yes or no question that didn’t get a yes or no answer,” he said. “Your signature, senator, is to have a plan for everything. Except this.”
'Your signature, Senator, is to have a plan for everything. Except this.' — Watch @PeteButtigieg call out @ewarren for her approach to health care #DemDebate pic.twitter.com/0y3mLchhpU — NowThis (@nowthisnews) October 16, 2019
Warren was trying hard not to give an answer she thought would be kryptonite in a general election — that taxes might go up for the middle class — and so she focused on overall costs instead. “We can pay for this. I’ve laid out the basic principles,” she said. “Costs are going to go up for the wealthy. They’re going to go up for big corporations. They will not go up for middle-class families. And I will not sign a bill into law that raises their costs, because costs are what people care about.”
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, teaming up with Buttigieg, compared Warren unfavorably with Sanders — who at the time wasn’t seen as a threat, having just emerged from a Las Vegas hospital after a heart attack.
“At least Bernie’s being honest here and saying how he’s going to pay for this and that taxes are going to go up. And I’m sorry, Elizabeth, but you have not said that, and I think we owe it to the American people to tell them where we’re going to send the invoice,” Klobuchar said.
Later that night, news broke that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would be endorsing Sanders, followed soon by Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, giving Sanders support from three of four members of the so-called Squad and rejuvenating his campaign.
On November 1, Warren responded to the pressure to have a plan to pay for Medicare for All by releasing one. Health care activist Ady Barkan hailed it as “perhaps the greatest feat of public policy jujitsu that I have ever seen,” while Sanders supporters online slammed it. Matt Bruenig, writing in Jacobin magazine, helped set the tone, matching Barkan’s hyperbole and dubbing it “a disaster.” His precise objection was narrow — Warren included a head tax on employers, which Bruenig argued should be temporary and slowly transitioned to a traditional payroll tax, while Warren’s plan stipulated it would be permanent. The gap between the genuine objection and the volume at which her plan was criticized became a theme for the next month.
Two weeks later, she announced that she would use a legislative process known as reconciliation to implement a public option in her first year and then, once support had been built for a larger public role in health care, she would push for Medicare for All in her third year. Sanders, meanwhile, said he would introduce a Medicare for All bill immediately and challenge opponents in their home districts. By now, Sanders was rising, consolidating much of the left, and Warren was falling, taking on a reputation as a politician who responds poorly when attacked. The Medicare for All rollout mingled with lingering concerns about how she had buckled to President Donald Trump’s taunts and taken a DNA test in 2018.
The dagger, though, had been stuck in by the New York Times, the same outlet whose positive coverage helped Warren rise through the summer. On November 4, the paper ran a survey it had done finding that Warren performed relatively poorly against Trump in the must-win Rust Belt states — losing by 6 points to him in Michigan, while tied in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, a worse performance in all three than either Biden or Sanders.
With an overwhelmingly well-educated base of voters hellbent on nothing more than defeating Trump, the Times signaling that she wasn’t the best one to do so was a devastating blow — particularly as many of those voters, following the loss by Hillary Clinton in 2016, were predisposed to believe that a woman was simply unelectable, or at minimum would have a much harder time in 2020.
As journalists perform autopsies of the Warren campaign after her exit from the race on Thursday, the major question will be what she could have done to avoid or weather that collapse. Two major decisions will be under the microscope.
The first is more of a tactical choice: staying off television. While Sanders and Buttigieg spent money on TV ads in Iowa, driving up their poll numbers, Warren largely stayed off, under the argument that the spending only gets a campaign a sugar high and that voters forget ever seeing the ad within a matter of weeks. Warren’s chief strategist, Joe Rospars, has long been skeptical of the value of television ads, and the campaign chose not to engage consultants, whose own financial incentives drive them to urge more and more campaign spending. It would be better, the campaign’s leadership believed, to spend on a large staff to organize for the caucuses, husband resources, and spend big down the stretch on TV in the weeks leading up to the caucuses. Mike Bloomberg’s and Tom Steyer’s campaigns showed that even without any groundswell of support, TV ads can indeed move the needle up to 10 points (though they spent vastly more than Warren would’ve likely been able to). The what-if, then, is whether spending in October and November could have propped up Warren’s poll numbers enough to prevent the electability death spiral from taking her down the drain. The best counter to the charge that a candidate can’t win is to win. The second best counter is strong polling. Declining polling, meanwhile, feeds the perception that a candidate is indeed weak, which scares off more supporters, and so on.
But the bigger strategic decision that fall was to lay off Biden. Throughout 2019, Uncle Joe was barely touched by his opponents, each of whom hoped that either somebody else would hit him first or that Biden would just self-combust. Nobody wanted to look like they were doing Trump’s bidding, as he went after Biden relentlessly for corruption in Ukraine. And the two candidates who hit Biden head-on — Kamala Harris and Julián Castro — soon enough became cautionary tales.
But had Warren done to Biden in the fall what she did to Bloomberg just recently, she may not have been the one to pay the price. If a genuine ideological debate had broken out between Biden and Warren over the social role of Wall Street and corporate America, while Sanders was still struggling to escape the low double digits, a large swath of progressives may have rallied to Warren, eager for the fight. Warren had come into public life battling Biden over bankruptcy, and some of her harshest rhetoric ever has been directed at him, particularly as she warned that “senators like Joe Biden should not be allowed to sell out women in the morning and be heralded as their friend in the evening.” Instead, campaign advisers argued that the race should be treated more as if it was a game of golf — each player hitting their own shots, aiming for the best round — rather than boxing, where a punch is blocked and met with a counterpunch.
Warren situated her campaign as the heir to several generations of persistent women — from the Bread and Roses strike, to the garment workers in New York, washerwomen in Atlanta, and janitors in Los Angeles — but stopped short of taking the fight directly to Biden until it was too late. (Though she did bury Buttigieg in a wine cave, which must have been satisfying, if not ultimately enough to win.)
On Super Tuesday, it became clear that in a contest for the support of suburban voters, Sanders is at a major disadvantage. That’s not the case with Warren, but by the time that contest came, she was no longer in it.


theintercept--2020-03-05--Amid Coronavirus Outbreak, Trump-Aligned Pressure Group Pushes to Stop Medicine Sales to Iran

coronavirus-related public health crisis , an anti-Iran pressure group with close ties to the Trump administration is urging major pharmaceutical companies to “ end their Iran business , ” focusing on companies with special licenses — most often under a broadly defined “ humanitarian exemption ” — to conduct trade with Iran .
With a novel strain of coronavirus rapidly spreading around the world , Iran has been hit particularly hard , with 107 deaths and 3,515 infections recorded so far .
Yet the pressure group , United Against Nuclear Iran , is carrying on with its campaign targeting medical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s special financial channels for humanitarian goods and medicine to reach the beleaguered country .
“ U.S .
sanctions have had a long-term impact on Iran ’ s ability to freely import medical supplies , ” said Tyler Cullis , an attorney specializing in sanctions law at Ferrari & Associates .
He pointed to “ outside groups ” that seek to bolster the Treasury Department ’ s investigatory heft and provide information on companies doing trade with Iran .
“ In tandem with U.S. sanctions , ” Cullis said , “ these @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on companies that engage in lawful and legitimate trade with Iran , including humanitarian trade.
” The medical and humanitarian trade are carved out of crippling sanctions against Iran through special licenses issued by the Treasury Department .
But companies must apply for the licenses then carry out the trade — something United Against Nuclear Iran , known as UANI , seeks to discourage .
“ Their efforts are not insignificant , ” Cullis said .
“ It is , after all , not an altogether lucrative enterprise selling medical supplies to Iran @ @ @ @ @ @ @ groups have a significant impact on the cost-benefit analysis associated with doing business with Iran.
” Joshua Silberberg , a spokesperson for UANI , declined to respond to questions about the group ’ s effort to name and shame companies doing medical trade with Iran .
“ UANI has a long history of expressing support and solidarity with the Iranian people , ” he said , pointing to a statement applauding the finalization of the Swiss Humanitarian Trade Arrangement , an agreement arranged by the U.S. and Swiss governments .
UANI says it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Tehran to desist from its quest for nuclear weapons , while striving not to punish the Iranian people.
” ( The U.S. intelligence community does not believe that Iran has any desire or plans to build nuclear weapons . )
UANI ’ s efforts , however , have extended beyond sanctions into pressuring companies that do legal trade with Iran , often under the Treasury Department ’ s humanitarian exemptions to sanctions — including medical-related trades that would presumably aid in combating a massive public health crisis like this coronavirus outbreak .
UANI @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that provides an online database of companies it believes are conducting business in or with Iran — a name-and-shame strategy to increase Iran ’ s economic isolation .
The pressure campaign has targeted multiple medical companies with Treasury Department licenses to conduct trade with Iran .
Nine pharmaceutical , biotechnology , and medical-device corporations , all with special licenses , are listed on UANI ’ s business registry .
Companies urged by UANI to “ end their Iran business ” include Bayer , Merck , Pfizer , Genzyme , AirSep , Medrad , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Lilly , and Abbott Laboratories .
The legal channels for humanitarian trade are widely reported to be failing to provide a sufficient flow of medicine and other humanitarian goods .
particularly notable in light of the group ’ s close ties to the Trump administration ; Iran ’ s regional adversaries Saudi Arabia , the United Arab Emirates , and Israel ; and the Republican Party ’ s biggest donors , Sheldon and Miriam Adelson .
Senior UANI adviser John Bolton worked for UANI both before and after his stint in the Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s umbrella group , Counter Extremism Project United Inc , paid Bolton $ 240,000 between 2016 and 2017 .
Bolton ’ s appointment as national security adviser was quickly followed by Trump ’ s withdrawal from the nuclear deal with Iran .
Besides Bolton , the Trump administration twice sent Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to UANI ’ s annual conference , held during the United Nations General Assembly .
Pompeo used the occasions to promote outlandish claims about Europe purportedly financing Iranian terrorism and to present the administration ’ s “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s audience , which included senior diplomats and intelligence officials from the Persian Gulf and Israel .
The group ’ s last summit , held in September , featured U.S .
Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell , who is now Trump ’ s acting director of national intelligence , as well as a who ’ s who of the Trump administration ’ s hawkish Middle East partners , including top diplomats from Persian Gulf monarchies and Israel .
( UANI and its affiliated organizations have a number of links to Gulf monarchies , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ advisory board member soliciting “ support ” from the United Arab Emirates . )
UANI ’ s top funder , billionaire Thomas Kaplan — an investor whose companies have looked to profit from “ political unrest ” in the Middle East — was also in attendance at the summit .
Finally , Sheldon and Miriam Adelson ’ s financial support for UANI closely tracks the Republican megadonors ’ hawkish views toward Iran .
In 2013 , Sheldon Adelson told an audience at Yeshiva University that Obama should launch a nuclear strike on Iran @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wiped out ” if it doesn ’ t dismantle its nuclear program .
The Adelsons were Trump ’ s biggest funders in the 2016 election and the GOP ’ s biggest funders in the 2018 cycle .
They are expected to contribute at least $ 100 million to Trump ’ s reelection efforts and Republican congressional candidates in the 2020 cycle .
While the Trump administration ’ s extreme financial pressure against Iran is coinciding with the coronavirus outbreak , Tyler Cullis , the sanctions lawyer , was careful to note that issues @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and humanitarian supplies to Iran began under previous administrations .
“ While those problems have been exacerbated under the Trump administration , ” Cullis said , “ their origination takes place more than a decade ago when prior administrations first started imposing enormous sanctions pressure on Iran ’ s financial sector .
”

Despite a massive coronavirus-related public health crisis, an anti-Iran pressure group with close ties to the Trump administration is urging major pharmaceutical companies to “end their Iran business,” focusing on companies with special licenses — most often under a broadly defined “humanitarian exemption” — to conduct trade with Iran.
With a novel strain of coronavirus rapidly spreading around the world, Iran has been hit particularly hard, with 107 deaths and 3,515 infections recorded so far. Yet the pressure group, United Against Nuclear Iran, is carrying on with its campaign targeting medical trade with Iran despite the Trump administration’s special financial channels for humanitarian goods and medicine to reach the beleaguered country.
“U.S. sanctions have had a long-term impact on Iran’s ability to freely import medical supplies,” said Tyler Cullis, an attorney specializing in sanctions law at Ferrari & Associates. He pointed to “outside groups” that seek to bolster the Treasury Department’s investigatory heft and provide information on companies doing trade with Iran. “In tandem with U.S. sanctions,” Cullis said, “these groups have sought to impose reputational costs on companies that engage in lawful and legitimate trade with Iran, including humanitarian trade.”
“These groups have sought to impose reputational costs on companies that engage in lawful and legitimate trade with Iran, including humanitarian trade.”
The medical and humanitarian trade are carved out of crippling sanctions against Iran through special licenses issued by the Treasury Department. But companies must apply for the licenses then carry out the trade — something United Against Nuclear Iran, known as UANI, seeks to discourage.
“Their efforts are not insignificant,” Cullis said. “It is, after all, not an altogether lucrative enterprise selling medical supplies to Iran, so the name-and-shame operations of outside groups have a significant impact on the cost-benefit analysis associated with doing business with Iran.”
Joshua Silberberg, a spokesperson for UANI, declined to respond to questions about the group’s effort to name and shame companies doing medical trade with Iran. “UANI has a long history of expressing support and solidarity with the Iranian people,” he said, pointing to a statement applauding the finalization of the Swiss Humanitarian Trade Arrangement, an agreement arranged by the U.S. and Swiss governments.
UANI says it aims to persuade “the regime in Tehran to desist from its quest for nuclear weapons, while striving not to punish the Iranian people.” (The U.S. intelligence community does not believe that Iran has any desire or plans to build nuclear weapons.) UANI’s efforts, however, have extended beyond sanctions into pressuring companies that do legal trade with Iran, often under the Treasury Department’s humanitarian exemptions to sanctions — including medical-related trades that would presumably aid in combating a massive public health crisis like this coronavirus outbreak.
UANI operates an “Iran Business Registry” that provides an online database of companies it believes are conducting business in or with Iran — a name-and-shame strategy to increase Iran’s economic isolation. The pressure campaign has targeted multiple medical companies with Treasury Department licenses to conduct trade with Iran. Nine pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical-device corporations, all with special licenses, are listed on UANI’s business registry. Companies urged by UANI to “end their Iran business” include Bayer, Merck, Pfizer, Genzyme, AirSep, Medrad, Becton, Dickinson & Company, Eli Lilly, and Abbott Laboratories.
The legal channels for humanitarian trade are widely reported to be failing to provide a sufficient flow of medicine and other humanitarian goods.
UANI’s efforts are particularly notable in light of the group’s close ties to the Trump administration; Iran’s regional adversaries Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Israel; and the Republican Party’s biggest donors, Sheldon and Miriam Adelson.
Senior UANI adviser John Bolton worked for UANI both before and after his stint in the Trump administration as national security adviser. UANI’s umbrella group, Counter Extremism Project United Inc, paid Bolton $240,000 between 2016 and 2017. Bolton’s appointment as national security adviser was quickly followed by Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal with Iran.
Besides Bolton, the Trump administration twice sent Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to UANI’s annual conference, held during the United Nations General Assembly. Pompeo used the occasions to promote outlandish claims about Europe purportedly financing Iranian terrorism and to present the administration’s “maximum pressure” strategy to UANI’s audience, which included senior diplomats and intelligence officials from the Persian Gulf and Israel.
The group’s last summit, held in September, featured U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, who is now Trump’s acting director of national intelligence, as well as a who’s who of the Trump administration’s hawkish Middle East partners, including top diplomats from Persian Gulf monarchies and Israel. (UANI and its affiliated organizations have a number of links to Gulf monarchies, including a 2014 email from a UANI advisory board member soliciting “support” from the United Arab Emirates.)
UANI’s top funder, billionaire Thomas Kaplan — an investor whose companies have looked to profit from “political unrest” in the Middle East — was also in attendance at the summit.
Finally, Sheldon and Miriam Adelson’s financial support for UANI closely tracks the Republican megadonors’ hawkish views toward Iran. In 2013, Sheldon Adelson told an audience at Yeshiva University that Obama should launch a nuclear strike on Iran and threaten that Iran will be “wiped out” if it doesn’t dismantle its nuclear program. The Adelsons were Trump’s biggest funders in the 2016 election and the GOP’s biggest funders in the 2018 cycle. They are expected to contribute at least $100 million to Trump’s reelection efforts and Republican congressional candidates in the 2020 cycle.
While the Trump administration’s extreme financial pressure against Iran is coinciding with the coronavirus outbreak, Tyler Cullis, the sanctions lawyer, was careful to note that issues with ensuring a robust trade of medical and humanitarian supplies to Iran began under previous administrations. “While those problems have been exacerbated under the Trump administration,” Cullis said, “their origination takes place more than a decade ago when prior administrations first started imposing enormous sanctions pressure on Iran’s financial sector.”


theintercept--2020-03-05--As Trump Stumbles on Coronavirus, Health Experts Warn Against Border Closures

expertise in any relevant field , President Donald Trump has never shied away from making pronouncements about fighting infectious diseases .
“ KEEP THEM OUT OF HERE !
” Trump tweet-bellowed about American health care workers in West Africa who were infected with the Ebola virus in 2015 , calling for harsh border controls to bar travelers from any “ EBOLA infected countries.
” As the world grapples with the spread of a new coronavirus known as Covid-19 , Trump still seems to hold similar beliefs on borders .
He flirted in the past week with suggestions for border restrictions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ good .
But experts warn that some draconian public health interventions — such as completely closing borders — can quickly become counterproductive .
Once a disease has taken hold inside a country , the best options are domestic interventions by state and local public health authorities with ample support from the federal level .
“ I hope President Trump is not thinking about shutting down the borders completely , because then you really do have a situation in which we can ’ t help other nations and the disease will nonetheless be here @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ethicist , public health historian , and dean of the Ohio State University College of Public Health .
“ We will only end up creating vulnerable , underserved populations in this country , and we ’ ll exacerbate the challenges of providing aid to African and Asian countries that have more fragile health care systems.
” Last Friday , Trump mentioned the possibility of closing the U.S. border with Mexico .
“ We are looking also at southern border , ” he said .
“ We have received a lot of power on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of years from the courts .
But we are looking at that very strongly.
” This idea — which probably has more to do with furthering Trump ’ s anti-immigration agenda than fighting an infectious disease — has been echoed by conservative pundits who have the president ’ s ear .
“ So , while we have closed and controlled the doorways at our ports of entry , we have got this wide-open doorway on our southern border , which leaves us exposed to pandemics like this , ” said former Kansas Secretary @ @ @ @ @ @ @ & Friends Weekend.
” “ So , as someone who has been fighting for border control for a long time , I say : ‘ Hey , don ’ t forget we still have that wide-open back door.
’ ” Even Fox News noted that there have been zero reported cases of Covid-19 in the Rio Grande Valley and northern Mexico to date .
There have , however , been cases in U.S. states bordering Mexico , including California , Arizona , and Texas .
Margaret Harris , a World Health Organization spokesperson @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Covid-19 response , echoed the concerns about the false comfort of closing borders .
“ You divert a lot of resources when you are focused on closing borders , rather than focusing on protecting your health workers , preparing your health systems , and enhancing your disease surveillance , ” she told The Intercept .
“ You mistakenly think , ‘ Oh , we closed our borders .
We ’ re fine.
’ But giving people the sense that they are the enemy , that they are the problem , makes people hide @ @ @ @ @ @ @ consequences .
They ’ re not sure that identifying themselves with the authorities will be something that has good consequences for them as we saw with Ebola.
” medieval methods of disease control — quarantines , closing borders , trapping people in outbreak areas — can work , at least for a time .
Interventions like barring entry to non-Americans who were recently in China may have initially slowed the spread of Covid-19 in the United States .
“ We have , through some very good early decisions — decisions that were actually @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up our borders to flights coming in from certain areas , areas that were hit by the coronavirus and hit pretty hard , ” Trump said last Thursday .
“ A lot of people thought we shouldn ’ t have done it that early , and we did , and it turned out to be a very good thing.
” Right now , the United States is employing expanded screening methods for Covid-19 , including temperature checks at airports .
These same types of commonsense public health measures were in use when The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Republic of Congo and Rwanda during an Ebola outbreak last year .
But screening efforts at major crossing points were being undermined by harsh restrictions imposed by the Rwandan military at neighborhood and informal foot crossings .
Those harsh restrictions failed because they encouraged clandestine crossings where there were no screenings at all ; Ebola had the opportunity to spread undetected .
“ People are always going to find a way to cross , ” said Aurelien Pekezou Tchoffo , a WHO doctor specializing in emergency preparedness who strenuously discouraged closing the DRC-Rwanda @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it more difficult to screen people.
” That ’ s why fighting the disease within the country , rather than just at its borders , is so important .
“ Right now , we don ’ t know if we ’ re going to have millions dead in six months to a year , or if we ’ re going to have thousands dead — if it ’ s going to be more like today ’ s flu or the 1918 flu , ” said Fairchild , referring to the 1918 Spanish flu @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 100 million people .
“ The one thing we don ’ t want to do is look back at this moment in time and say we had an opportunity to fund public health interventions that would help to make sure that this doesn ’ t happen again , and we didn ’ t take it.
” The Centers for Disease Control believes the spread of the disease is unavoidable .
“ It ’ s not so much a question of if this will happen anymore , but rather more a question of exactly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people in this country will have severe illness , ” said Nancy Messonnier , director of the CDC ’ s national center for immunization and respiratory diseases , last Wednesday .
But asked about it a day later , Trump offered a completely contradictory judgment .
“ Well , I don ’ t think it ’ s inevitable , ” he began before launching into a meandering response .
Reality upended the president ’ s incoherent pronouncements as word soon emerged that Covid-19 has likely been spreading undetected for around six weeks in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deaths from it were reported this past weekend .
Trump does now admit that “ additional cases in the U.S. are likely.
” Due to his vacillations , it ’ s difficult to discern what the president believes about closing borders in the face of disease .
In an election year , with the stock market in free fall , and some conservative pundits calling for border closures , it ’ s possible that he will insist on draconian “ KEEP THEM OUT OF HERE !
” measures to fight a widening epidemic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a distraction .
Asked what advice she would give Trump in the face of Covid-19 , Fairchild was unambiguous .
“ Put a scientist in charge of the outbreak — someone like Anthony Fauci , and give him free rein .
Also , try to contain the impulse to weigh in via Twitter.
” Unfortunately , the president has put the vice president , Mike Pence , in charge of the response , and while Fauci , the head of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases , is on Pence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are reports that he is being “ muzzled ” for contradicting the president .
( The Intercept ’ s attempts to arrange an interview with Fauci were unsuccessful ) .
Fairchild ’ s advice is pointed .
“ Put the resources back into the epidemic monitoring systems that were created after the Ebola outbreaks that help to identify , test , and control the disease in the countries where outbreaks occur , rather than thinking that we can fortify at the border , ” she said .
“ That ’ s now an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to protect ourselves at the border.
” In the end , Fairchild said it ’ s going to come down to community efforts to combat the virus .
“ These things play out at the community level , ” she said .
“ These communities need the resources .
We ’ re talking about the state health departments and the local health departments.
” Many local and state health departments and hospitals already suffering from recent budget cuts are not only low on funds and personnel , but also facing shortages of critical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ known as N95 respirators , and coronavirus diagnostic testing kits .
“ We need to give resources to the states to ensure that there ’ s a supply of masks , of tests , of respirators , and that ’ s going to require investing in the public health infrastructure , ” Fairchild noted .
“ This can ’ t be done in an episodic way .
It ’ s going to require a sustained effort .
”

While he lacks expertise in any relevant field, President Donald Trump has never shied away from making pronouncements about fighting infectious diseases. “KEEP THEM OUT OF HERE!” Trump tweet-bellowed about American health care workers in West Africa who were infected with the Ebola virus in 2015, calling for harsh border controls to bar travelers from any “EBOLA infected countries.”
As the world grapples with the spread of a new coronavirus known as Covid-19, Trump still seems to hold similar beliefs on borders. He flirted in the past week with suggestions for border restrictions that would probably do more harm than good. But experts warn that some draconian public health interventions — such as completely closing borders — can quickly become counterproductive. Once a disease has taken hold inside a country, the best options are domestic interventions by state and local public health authorities with ample support from the federal level.
“I hope President Trump is not thinking about shutting down the borders completely, because then you really do have a situation in which we can’t help other nations and the disease will nonetheless be here,” said Amy Fairchild, an ethicist, public health historian, and dean of the Ohio State University College of Public Health. “We will only end up creating vulnerable, underserved populations in this country, and we’ll exacerbate the challenges of providing aid to African and Asian countries that have more fragile health care systems.”
Last Friday, Trump mentioned the possibility of closing the U.S. border with Mexico. “We are looking also at southern border,” he said. “We have received a lot of power on the southern border over the last couple of years from the courts. But we are looking at that very strongly.” This idea — which probably has more to do with furthering Trump’s anti-immigration agenda than fighting an infectious disease — has been echoed by conservative pundits who have the president’s ear.
“So, while we have closed and controlled the doorways at our ports of entry, we have got this wide-open doorway on our southern border, which leaves us exposed to pandemics like this,” said former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach on “Fox & Friends Weekend.” “So, as someone who has been fighting for border control for a long time, I say: ‘Hey, don’t forget we still have that wide-open back door.’”
Even Fox News noted that there have been zero reported cases of Covid-19 in the Rio Grande Valley and northern Mexico to date. There have, however, been cases in U.S. states bordering Mexico, including California, Arizona, and Texas.
Once a disease has taken hold inside a country, the best options are domestic interventions by state and local public health authorities with ample support from the federal level.
Margaret Harris, a World Health Organization spokesperson and medical doctor currently involved in the Covid-19 response, echoed the concerns about the false comfort of closing borders.
“You divert a lot of resources when you are focused on closing borders, rather than focusing on protecting your health workers, preparing your health systems, and enhancing your disease surveillance,” she told The Intercept. “You mistakenly think, ‘Oh, we closed our borders. We’re fine.’ But giving people the sense that they are the enemy, that they are the problem, makes people hide because they become very frightened of the consequences. They’re not sure that identifying themselves with the authorities will be something that has good consequences for them as we saw with Ebola.”
So-called medieval methods of disease control — quarantines, closing borders, trapping people in outbreak areas — can work, at least for a time. Interventions like barring entry to non-Americans who were recently in China may have initially slowed the spread of Covid-19 in the United States. “We have, through some very good early decisions — decisions that were actually ridiculed at the beginning. We closed up our borders to flights coming in from certain areas, areas that were hit by the coronavirus and hit pretty hard,” Trump said last Thursday. “A lot of people thought we shouldn’t have done it that early, and we did, and it turned out to be a very good thing.”
Right now, the United States is employing expanded screening methods for Covid-19, including temperature checks at airports. These same types of commonsense public health measures were in use when The Intercept investigated border crossings between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda during an Ebola outbreak last year. But screening efforts at major crossing points were being undermined by harsh restrictions imposed by the Rwandan military at neighborhood and informal foot crossings. Those harsh restrictions failed because they encouraged clandestine crossings where there were no screenings at all; Ebola had the opportunity to spread undetected. “People are always going to find a way to cross,” said Aurelien Pekezou Tchoffo, a WHO doctor specializing in emergency preparedness who strenuously discouraged closing the DRC-Rwanda border. “It will just make it more difficult to screen people.”
That’s why fighting the disease within the country, rather than just at its borders, is so important. “Right now, we don’t know if we’re going to have millions dead in six months to a year, or if we’re going to have thousands dead — if it’s going to be more like today’s flu or the 1918 flu,” said Fairchild, referring to the 1918 Spanish flu outbreak that killed between 50 million and 100 million people. “The one thing we don’t want to do is look back at this moment in time and say we had an opportunity to fund public health interventions that would help to make sure that this doesn’t happen again, and we didn’t take it.”
The Centers for Disease Control believes the spread of the disease is unavoidable. “It’s not so much a question of if this will happen anymore, but rather more a question of exactly when this will happen and how many people in this country will have severe illness,” said Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s national center for immunization and respiratory diseases, last Wednesday. But asked about it a day later, Trump offered a completely contradictory judgment. “Well, I don’t think it’s inevitable,” he began before launching into a meandering response. Reality upended the president’s incoherent pronouncements as word soon emerged that Covid-19 has likely been spreading undetected for around six weeks in Washington state, where the first U.S. deaths from it were reported this past weekend. Trump does now admit that “additional cases in the U.S. are likely.”
Due to his vacillations, it’s difficult to discern what the president believes about closing borders in the face of disease. In an election year, with the stock market in free fall, and some conservative pundits calling for border closures, it’s possible that he will insist on draconian “KEEP THEM OUT OF HERE!” measures to fight a widening epidemic. And this would most likely be a distraction.
Asked what advice she would give Trump in the face of Covid-19, Fairchild was unambiguous. “Put a scientist in charge of the outbreak — someone like Anthony Fauci, and give him free rein. Also, try to contain the impulse to weigh in via Twitter.” Unfortunately, the president has put the vice president, Mike Pence, in charge of the response, and while Fauci, the head of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is on Pence’s coronavirus task force, there are reports that he is being “muzzled” for contradicting the president. (The Intercept’s attempts to arrange an interview with Fauci were unsuccessful).
Fairchild’s advice is pointed. “Put the resources back into the epidemic monitoring systems that were created after the Ebola outbreaks that help to identify, test, and control the disease in the countries where outbreaks occur, rather than thinking that we can fortify at the border,” she said. “That’s now an archaic notion that we’re going to protect ourselves at the border.”
In the end, Fairchild said it’s going to come down to community efforts to combat the virus. “These things play out at the community level,” she said. “These communities need the resources. We’re talking about the state health departments and the local health departments.” Many local and state health departments and hospitals already suffering from recent budget cuts are not only low on funds and personnel, but also facing shortages of critical supplies, including specialized face masks, known as N95 respirators, and coronavirus diagnostic testing kits.
“We need to give resources to the states to ensure that there’s a supply of masks, of tests, of respirators, and that’s going to require investing in the public health infrastructure,” Fairchild noted. “This can’t be done in an episodic way. It’s going to require a sustained effort.”


theintercept--2020-03-05--Boris Johnson Went from Big-City Mayor to National Leader. Mike Bloomberg Could Not.

As mayors , they were strikingly similar .
“ They have in common this curiosity of having been directly elected mayors of very large global cities .
That is a small club — in fact , there ’ s really only two members of it in the Anglosphere .
… As mayor , they broadly came from the same ideological standpoint , ” Tony Travers , an expert on municipal politics at the London School of Economics , says .
They were both pro-business and pro-development , cut with dashes of environmentalism and social liberalism .
Both stood on conservative @ @ @ @ @ @ @ won .
“ I should say how much every current mayor — and there ’ s a lot of mayors here today — owes to you , for what you ’ ve done , the leadership you ’ ve shown , ” Johnson said .
He praised Bloomberg ’ s ban on smoking in certain public places in New York ; Bloomberg , in turn , said Johnson had done a “ great job ” with traffic policies in London .
Toward the end of the discussion , the moderator , Walter Isaacson @ @ @ @ @ @ @ suggestions that they would run for higher office .
When Bloomberg said he wasn ’ t planning on launching a presidential bid — because , he said , he wouldn ’ t win — Johnson mimed an incredulous expression , and mouthed , “ Why not ?
” He tried to rally the audience : “ Who thinks Mike could win ?
” A cry of support was not forthcoming .
“ They do , ” Johnson reassured Bloomberg , of the audience .
“ Come on !
” In October 2015 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ London , and Mike Bloomberg , his former New York City counterpart , sat onstage at a conference in London and sang each other ’ s praises .
Both Bloomberg and Johnson did subsequently run for national office , at times when the center of political gravity in their respective countries had shifted toward “ left-behind ” regions far — culturally , economically , and sometimes , geographically — from the big cities they once led .
While Johnson was able to shift his politics to accommodate that , Bloomberg was not .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ successful Brexit campaign of 2016 ( I worked on the opposite campaign to Johnson ’ s ) ; subsequently he became prime minister , and held onto power with a thumping election win last year .
Bloomberg ’ s bid for the presidency , by contrast , is now over , following a poor Super Tuesday performance in which his sole victory came in American Samoa , despite his titanic advertising spending across the political map .
There are clear differences between the current politics of the U.S. and the U.K. , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them .
And , even as mayors , there were profound differences between Bloomberg and Johnson — not least in political style .
“ Johnson is a far more experienced speaker and television performer , and would not have made the mess Bloomberg made of the recent debate , ” Andrew Gimson , Johnson ’ s biographer , says .
And while Bloomberg built a business empire , Johnson once quit a management consultancy job after a week , because , he said , “ I could not look at an overhead projection @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conscious.
” More recently , Johnson allegedly said , in response to private sector concerns about Brexit , “ fuck business.
” But where Johnson has been remarkably successful in shedding his metropolitan image — in part because of his willingness to indulge nativism — Bloomberg did not manage a comparable transformation .
was at least the fourth occasion on which Johnson , as mayor , encouraged Bloomberg to run for president .
He once called Bloomberg “ the dean of our profession.
” In a hand-scrawled note sent in 2015 , Johnson @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dynamism , technological optimism , and can-do spirit , ” adding that all he wanted to do was “ take a fraction of that mental zap , bottle it , and uncork it somewhere in London.
” On occasion , Bloomberg returned such compliments .
When Johnson was first elected mayor of London , in 2008 , Bloomberg was one of the first politicians to call and congratulate him .
He traveled to London within a week of Johnson being sworn in .
Ahead of time , sources told The Telegraph , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ work as a journalist , that the visit would “ play a key role in defining the Johnson administration ” — both in policy terms and because Johnson wanted to emulate Bloomberg ’ s successes representing a conservative party in a liberal city .
After an early period of chaos , Johnson embraced a similar managerial style to that of Bloomberg , delegating many municipal functions to deputies , though perhaps for different reasons to Bloomberg ’ s .
“ I think in Bloomberg ’ s case , that would have been because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be able to choose good people and delegate , ” Travers says .
Johnson , by contrast , has never seemed as interested in the nuts and bolts of governing .
“ Boris is not a technocrat , ” Travers says .
“ He ’ s a political politician and nothing much more.
” Still , their respective tenures saw policy similarities , some of which initiated with Bloomberg , who took office six and a half years prior to Johnson .
Some , but not all : Johnson aggressively championed the “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ launched it and became synonymous with it , even though his predecessor initially planned it ) ; years later , Bloomberg launched a similar initiative in New York .
Through the years , the mayors spoke of having influenced each other on other projects , including around volunteering and urban green space .
Both mayors harbored obsessions with development — consequences be damned .
On Bloomberg ’ s watch , roughly 40 percent of New York was rezoned ; among other things , he oversaw the rapid gentrification of previously industrial parts of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Willets Point , Queens , that endangered that area ’ s working-class car repair industry .
Johnson , for his part , erected controversial public artworks , and sunk more than $ 50 million of public money into a “ garden bridge ” over the Thames that never got built .
Like Bloomberg , Johnson endorsed stop-and-frisk policies as mayor .
( He oversaw a slight expansion of London ’ s police force despite a sharp national decline in police numbers . )
More broadly , both men left office with reputations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — for favoring big business and the rich over their cities ’ neediest residents .
New York and London were reshaped , of course , by broader forces of globalized capital , and not merely by Bloomberg and Johnson .
But as Travers puts it , the mayors “ just embraced them.
” It ’ s no accident that Bloomberg and Johnson ’ s respective successors , Bill de Blasio and Sadiq Khan , ran on platforms highlighting those who were being left behind by inequality .
( Though Khan and Bloomberg are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Khan indicated that he ’ d like to see Bloomberg take on Trump in November . )
In 2015 , as Johnson neared the end of his tenure as London mayor , outlandish rumors started to circulate in the press that Bloomberg might try and run to replace him , on the Conservative ticket .
( Bloomberg is an honorary knight of the British Empire and has called London his “ second home ” ; his significant financial investments in the U.K. , party sources said , could have fast-tracked a bid @ @ @ @ @ @ @ post , Johnson wrote that there might be something in the rumors — and said that if they were true , he would approve .
“ There is only one way to graduate upwards from the position of Mayor of New York , ” Johnson wrote , “ and that is to become the leader of a city that has regained its status as the greatest on earth.
” Johnson has managed to graduate into a higher role .
Why could Bloomberg not achieve a comparable feat ?
Critics of Johnson say he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no true beliefs , willing to say different things for different audiences to gain and keep power ; there ’ s no contradiction in Johnson being a relatively liberal mayor of London and then an illiberal prime minister , such critics say , because both positions are a facade .
Bloomberg does not fit in the same category .
“ They are opposite ends of the spectrum politicians , ” Sonia Purnell , another biographer of Johnson , says .
“ Bloomberg is quite dry , technocratic … managerial .
Johnson can ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ alone a city and heaven forbid a country hit by multiple crises — but he has an astounding gift for self promotion.
” “ My charm , if you will , is that I say what I believe — and do it .
Unfortunately , some people don ’ t like that , ” Bloomberg said last year , with his typical charm .
There are other aspects of Johnson ’ s recent transformation — including tapping into nativist , anti-immigrant sentiment among sections of voters — that weren ’ t available to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ looking to run on the Democratic ticket .
“ It ’ s just not gon na happen on a national level for somebody like me starting where I am , unless I was willing to change all my views , ” Bloomberg accurately forecast in 2019 .
And unlike Johnson , who has long played the part of a quintessential British eccentric , Bloomberg ’ s name is synonymous with his financial media empire and international philanthropy .
Still , a large part of Johnson ’ s success has come in winning over @ @ @ @ @ @ @ traditionally have supported left-wing parties .
In the U.S. , too , it ’ s not just the right that ’ s seen a backlash against the sort of neoliberal , urban-centric politics Johnson and Bloomberg practiced as mayors .
Both wings of the Democratic Party are looking for a presidential candidate who can appeal to suburban and rural “ heartland ” voters who feel alienated from big-city capitalism , even if they disagree on how to do that .
A big-city , overtly pro-business technocrat doesn ’ t fit the bill .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ match such sentiments , Bloomberg tried an alternative strategy — to spend whatever it took to win power , without fundamentally reinventing his image or platform ( his conveniently timed apology for stop-and-frisk notwithstanding ) .
As a candidate , Bloomberg repeatedly emphasized his mayoral record and the virtues of technocracy — not least in a coronavirus-themed ad dressed up as a faux presidential address to the nation .
It ’ s not clear if Bloomberg and Johnson still talk .
( Bloomberg ’ s presidential campaign , before it folded , did @ @ @ @ @ @ @ . )
But Bloomberg certainly took a dim view of Johnson ’ s post-mayoral pivot — mostly due to Brexit , which Bloomberg once called “ the stupidest thing any country has ever done.
” In an interview with Britain ’ s Sunday Times in 2018 , Bloomberg was asked about Johnson , and shook his head .
“ When he was mayor we spent a lot of time together , ” Bloomberg said .
“ I don ’ t know how he went so crazy .
”

In October 2015, Boris Johnson, then the mayor of London, and Mike Bloomberg, his former New York City counterpart, sat onstage at a conference in London and sang each other’s praises.
“I should say how much every current mayor — and there’s a lot of mayors here today — owes to you, for what you’ve done, the leadership you’ve shown,” Johnson said. He praised Bloomberg’s ban on smoking in certain public places in New York; Bloomberg, in turn, said Johnson had done a “great job” with traffic policies in London. Toward the end of the discussion, the moderator, Walter Isaacson, asked both men about the widespread suggestions that they would run for higher office. When Bloomberg said he wasn’t planning on launching a presidential bid — because, he said, he wouldn’t win — Johnson mimed an incredulous expression, and mouthed, “Why not?” He tried to rally the audience: “Who thinks Mike could win?” A cry of support was not forthcoming. “They do,” Johnson reassured Bloomberg, of the audience. “Come on!”
As mayors, they were strikingly similar. “They have in common this curiosity of having been directly elected mayors of very large global cities. That is a small club — in fact, there’s really only two members of it in the Anglosphere. … As mayor, they broadly came from the same ideological standpoint,” Tony Travers, an expert on municipal politics at the London School of Economics, says. They were both pro-business and pro-development, cut with dashes of environmentalism and social liberalism. Both stood on conservative tickets in famously liberal cities, and won.
Both Bloomberg and Johnson did subsequently run for national office, at times when the center of political gravity in their respective countries had shifted toward “left-behind” regions far — culturally, economically, and sometimes, geographically — from the big cities they once led. While Johnson was able to shift his politics to accommodate that, Bloomberg was not. Johnson played a large part in the successful Brexit campaign of 2016 (I worked on the opposite campaign to Johnson’s); subsequently he became prime minister, and held onto power with a thumping election win last year. Bloomberg’s bid for the presidency, by contrast, is now over, following a poor Super Tuesday performance in which his sole victory came in American Samoa, despite his titanic advertising spending across the political map.
There are clear differences between the current politics of the U.S. and the U.K., the seismic realignments caused by Brexit chief among them. And, even as mayors, there were profound differences between Bloomberg and Johnson — not least in political style. “Johnson is a far more experienced speaker and television performer, and would not have made the mess Bloomberg made of the recent debate,” Andrew Gimson, Johnson’s biographer, says. And while Bloomberg built a business empire, Johnson once quit a management consultancy job after a week, because, he said, “I could not look at an overhead projection of a growth profit matrix and stay conscious.” More recently, Johnson allegedly said, in response to private sector concerns about Brexit, “fuck business.”
But where Johnson has been remarkably successful in shedding his metropolitan image — in part because of his willingness to indulge nativism — Bloomberg did not manage a comparable transformation.
The 2015 conference was at least the fourth occasion on which Johnson, as mayor, encouraged Bloomberg to run for president. He once called Bloomberg “the dean of our profession.” In a hand-scrawled note sent in 2015, Johnson praised Bloomberg’s “energy, dynamism, technological optimism, and can-do spirit,” adding that all he wanted to do was “take a fraction of that mental zap, bottle it, and uncork it somewhere in London.” On occasion, Bloomberg returned such compliments.
When Johnson was first elected mayor of London, in 2008, Bloomberg was one of the first politicians to call and congratulate him. He traveled to London within a week of Johnson being sworn in. Ahead of time, sources told The Telegraph, a British newspaper for which Johnson used to work as a journalist, that the visit would “play a key role in defining the Johnson administration” — both in policy terms and because Johnson wanted to emulate Bloomberg’s successes representing a conservative party in a liberal city.
After an early period of chaos, Johnson embraced a similar managerial style to that of Bloomberg, delegating many municipal functions to deputies, though perhaps for different reasons to Bloomberg’s. “I think in Bloomberg’s case, that would have been because as a businessperson, you need to be able to choose good people and delegate,” Travers says. Johnson, by contrast, has never seemed as interested in the nuts and bolts of governing. “Boris is not a technocrat,” Travers says. “He’s a political politician and nothing much more.”
Still, their respective tenures saw policy similarities, some of which initiated with Bloomberg, who took office six and a half years prior to Johnson. Some, but not all: Johnson aggressively championed the “Boris bikes” cycle-here scheme (he launched it and became synonymous with it, even though his predecessor initially planned it); years later, Bloomberg launched a similar initiative in New York. Through the years, the mayors spoke of having influenced each other on other projects, including around volunteering and urban green space.
Both mayors harbored obsessions with development — consequences be damned. On Bloomberg’s watch, roughly 40 percent of New York was rezoned; among other things, he oversaw the rapid gentrification of previously industrial parts of Brooklyn, and a neighborhood regeneration plan in Willets Point, Queens, that endangered that area’s working-class car repair industry. Johnson, for his part, erected controversial public artworks, and sunk more than $50 million of public money into a “garden bridge” over the Thames that never got built.
Like Bloomberg, Johnson endorsed stop-and-frisk policies as mayor. (He oversaw a slight expansion of London’s police force despite a sharp national decline in police numbers.) More broadly, both men left office with reputations — in progressive circles, at least — for favoring big business and the rich over their cities’ neediest residents. New York and London were reshaped, of course, by broader forces of globalized capital, and not merely by Bloomberg and Johnson. But as Travers puts it, the mayors “just embraced them.”
It’s no accident that Bloomberg and Johnson’s respective successors, Bill de Blasio and Sadiq Khan, ran on platforms highlighting those who were being left behind by inequality. (Though Khan and Bloomberg are friends, and before Bloomberg dropped out, Khan indicated that he’d like to see Bloomberg take on Trump in November.)
In 2015, as Johnson neared the end of his tenure as London mayor, outlandish rumors started to circulate in the press that Bloomberg might try and run to replace him, on the Conservative ticket. (Bloomberg is an honorary knight of the British Empire and has called London his “second home”; his significant financial investments in the U.K., party sources said, could have fast-tracked a bid for citizenship.)
In a Facebook post, Johnson wrote that there might be something in the rumors — and said that if they were true, he would approve. “There is only one way to graduate upwards from the position of Mayor of New York,” Johnson wrote, “and that is to become the leader of a city that has regained its status as the greatest on earth.”
Since then, Johnson has managed to graduate into a higher role. Why could Bloomberg not achieve a comparable feat? Critics of Johnson say he has always been a political chameleon with no true beliefs, willing to say different things for different audiences to gain and keep power; there’s no contradiction in Johnson being a relatively liberal mayor of London and then an illiberal prime minister, such critics say, because both positions are a facade. Bloomberg does not fit in the same category. “They are opposite ends of the spectrum politicians,” Sonia Purnell, another biographer of Johnson, says. “Bloomberg is quite dry, technocratic … managerial. Johnson can’t run a whelk stall — let alone a city and heaven forbid a country hit by multiple crises — but he has an astounding gift for self promotion.”
“My charm, if you will, is that I say what I believe — and do it. Unfortunately, some people don’t like that,” Bloomberg said last year, with his typical charm.
There are other aspects of Johnson’s recent transformation — including tapping into nativist, anti-immigrant sentiment among sections of voters — that weren’t available to Bloomberg. For starters, he was looking to run on the Democratic ticket. “It’s just not gonna happen on a national level for somebody like me starting where I am, unless I was willing to change all my views,” Bloomberg accurately forecast in 2019. And unlike Johnson, who has long played the part of a quintessential British eccentric, Bloomberg’s name is synonymous with his financial media empire and international philanthropy.
Still, a large part of Johnson’s success has come in winning over voters in the north of England who traditionally have supported left-wing parties. In the U.S., too, it’s not just the right that’s seen a backlash against the sort of neoliberal, urban-centric politics Johnson and Bloomberg practiced as mayors. Both wings of the Democratic Party are looking for a presidential candidate who can appeal to suburban and rural “heartland” voters who feel alienated from big-city capitalism, even if they disagree on how to do that. A big-city, overtly pro-business technocrat doesn’t fit the bill.
Where Johnson shed his political skin to match such sentiments, Bloomberg tried an alternative strategy — to spend whatever it took to win power, without fundamentally reinventing his image or platform (his conveniently timed apology for stop-and-frisk notwithstanding). As a candidate, Bloomberg repeatedly emphasized his mayoral record and the virtues of technocracy — not least in a coronavirus-themed ad dressed up as a faux presidential address to the nation.
It’s not clear if Bloomberg and Johnson still talk. (Bloomberg’s presidential campaign, before it folded, did not respond to a request for comment.) But Bloomberg certainly took a dim view of Johnson’s post-mayoral pivot — mostly due to Brexit, which Bloomberg once called “the stupidest thing any country has ever done.”
In an interview with Britain’s Sunday Times in 2018, Bloomberg was asked about Johnson, and shook his head. “When he was mayor we spent a lot of time together,” Bloomberg said. “I don’t know how he went so crazy.”


theintercept--2020-03-05--New Bill Would Protect Journalists From Being Prosecuted for Publishing Classified Information

“ When I think about espionage , I ’ m thinking about somebody like Aldrich Ames , ” Wyden said in an interview , referring to the CIA officer who passed secrets to the KGB before his arrest in 1994 .
“ What my bill does is refocus the Espionage Act to the core issue , which is ensuring that the more than four million government employees and contractors with a security clearance don ’ t violate their oaths by divulging government secrets.
” The legislation to amend the 1917 Espionage Act was introduced by Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Ro Khanna in the House of Representatives .
Wyden and Khanna told The Intercept they crafted the legislation to preserve the government ’ s need for secrecy while strengthening protections for members of the press and expanding legal channels for government whistleblowers .
Almost a year after the Trump administration unsealed an indictment against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange , two progressive members of Congress are trying to prevent a World War I-era secrecy law from being used to investigate and prosecute journalists for publishing classified information .
The Espionage Act makes it a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ relating to the national defense ” with people who are not authorized to hear them .
The statute makes no exception for members of the press who obtain and report classified information , but there is broad agreement among legal scholars that prosecuting a journalist for unearthing and publishing government secrets would violate the First Amendment .
The Wyden-Khanna bill would narrow the scope of the law to primarily target offenders with current or expired security clearances , as well as any agents of a foreign government to whom they may pass @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the public could be prosecuted if they committed a separate crime in the course of obtaining the information , but not for soliciting information or for “ speech activity ” like publishing .
Journalists “ shouldn ’ t be prosecuted simply for getting information from a source or transmitting that information , ” Khanna said in an interview .
Hackers who break the law to get secret information should be prosecuted , he said , but to prosecute those who obtain such information legally would be tantamount to “ criminalizing speech.
” The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Espionage Act , which allows anyone to be charged for “ conspiring ” with leakers .
Press freedom advocates have long worried that that part of the act could be abused by overzealous prosecutors to criminalize standard journalistic practices such as asking for information .
In April 2019 , the government unsealed an indictment against Assange charging him with one count under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act .
The indictment alleged that as part of his relationship with former U.S. Army Pfc .
Chelsea Manning , he had offered to help @ @ @ @ @ @ @ computer system .
Around that time , Manning transmitted documents to Assange that WikiLeaks would later publish : case files of men detained at Guantanamo Bay and documents revealing torture and civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan .
The bulk-release tactics of the transparency platform would later attract widespread criticism for exposing the identities of U.S. government informants and collaborators and putting them in danger .
A month after the Trump administration ’ s first indictment , prosecutors added 17 criminal counts under the Espionage Act , which involved Assange soliciting the classified @ @ @ @ @ @ @ three counts of having “ communicated … documents ” by publishing them on the internet .
“ This is the first time the government , to my knowledge , has charged anyone with the pure communication of information under the Espionage Act , and that is very concerning , ” said Kathleen Ruane , senior legislative counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union .
“ That ’ s pure communication of information .
That ’ s reporting.
” Khanna told The Intercept that the new bill wouldn ’ t stop the prosecution of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a government computer system , but would make it impossible for the government to use the Espionage Act to charge anyone solely for publishing classified information .
But while the bill creates protections for publishers , it doesn ’ t address a key complaint of press freedom and civil liberties advocates : that over the past decade , the Espionage Act has served as the government ’ s weapon of choice to punish unauthorized press leaks .
Instead , the bill expands carve-outs that allow security clearance holders to more freely communicate as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ general , and other government regulatory bodies that oversee technology and privacy .
The Espionage Act includes language suggesting that classified information can only be sent to Congress “ by lawful demand ” of a congressional committee ; the new measure would allow clearance holders to provide information to any member of Congress without a specific request or demand .
“ Americans who learn about waste , fraud , and abuse , even if it ’ s classified , ought to be able to go to any member of Congress with that information @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just think that ’ s the proper way to proceed.
” Throughout the 20th century , it was extremely rare for the government to bring criminal cases against those accused of sharing government secrets with journalists .
That changed under the George W. Bush and Obama administrations .
Obama ’ s Justice Department famously brought more Espionage Act cases against whistleblowers than all previous administrations combined .
Donald Trump has continued the practice , using the Espionage Act to prosecute government employees and contractors for allegedly sharing information about Russian hacking into U.S. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the U.S. drone program , and other sensitive topics .
Khanna told The Intercept that revealing classified information should still be a crime for those with clearances , but that prosecutors and judges should have discretion to weigh the consequences of the leak against the motives of the source .
“ I don ’ t think we can have a situation where people who have security clearances can simply leak information in violation of their oath and their responsibility , ” Khanna said .
“ That could put lives in danger in many @ @ @ @ @ @ @ director at the Knight Institute at Columbia University , told The Intercept that the bill was a “ crucial effort ” to ensure national security journalists are protected while doing their jobs .
“ These protections for journalists are vital , ” Abdo said in an email .
“ It is also vital that Congress enact additional protections for national-security whistleblowers , who risk personal and professional sanction to expose government malfeasance and corruption .
”

Almost a year after the Trump administration unsealed an indictment against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, two progressive members of Congress are trying to prevent a World War I-era secrecy law from being used to investigate and prosecute journalists for publishing classified information.
The legislation to amend the 1917 Espionage Act was introduced by Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden in the Senate and California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna in the House of Representatives. Wyden and Khanna told The Intercept they crafted the legislation to preserve the government’s need for secrecy while strengthening protections for members of the press and expanding legal channels for government whistleblowers.
“When I think about espionage, I’m thinking about somebody like Aldrich Ames,” Wyden said in an interview, referring to the CIA officer who passed secrets to the KGB before his arrest in 1994. “What my bill does is refocus the Espionage Act to the core issue, which is ensuring that the more than four million government employees and contractors with a security clearance don’t violate their oaths by divulging government secrets.”
The Espionage Act makes it a crime to for anyone to share secrets “relating to the national defense” with people who are not authorized to hear them. The statute makes no exception for members of the press who obtain and report classified information, but there is broad agreement among legal scholars that prosecuting a journalist for unearthing and publishing government secrets would violate the First Amendment.
The Wyden-Khanna bill would narrow the scope of the law to primarily target offenders with current or expired security clearances, as well as any agents of a foreign government to whom they may pass information. Members of the press or the public could be prosecuted if they committed a separate crime in the course of obtaining the information, but not for soliciting information or for “speech activity” like publishing.
Journalists “shouldn’t be prosecuted simply for getting information from a source or transmitting that information,” Khanna said in an interview. Hackers who break the law to get secret information should be prosecuted, he said, but to prosecute those who obtain such information legally would be tantamount to “criminalizing speech.”
The bill also removes the broadest language in the Espionage Act, which allows anyone to be charged for “conspiring” with leakers. Press freedom advocates have long worried that that part of the act could be abused by overzealous prosecutors to criminalize standard journalistic practices such as asking for information.
In April 2019, the government unsealed an indictment against Assange charging him with one count under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. The indictment alleged that as part of his relationship with former U.S. Army Pfc. Chelsea Manning, he had offered to help crack a password on a Defense Department computer system. Around that time, Manning transmitted documents to Assange that WikiLeaks would later publish: case files of men detained at Guantanamo Bay and documents revealing torture and civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bulk-release tactics of the transparency platform would later attract widespread criticism for exposing the identities of U.S. government informants and collaborators and putting them in danger.
A month after the Trump administration’s first indictment, prosecutors added 17 criminal counts under the Espionage Act, which involved Assange soliciting the classified material from Manning. The indictment included three counts of having “communicated … documents” by publishing them on the internet.
“This is the first time the government, to my knowledge, has charged anyone with the pure communication of information under the Espionage Act, and that is very concerning,” said Kathleen Ruane, senior legislative counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union. “That’s pure communication of information. That’s reporting.”
Khanna told The Intercept that the new bill wouldn’t stop the prosecution of Assange for his alleged role in hacking a government computer system, but would make it impossible for the government to use the Espionage Act to charge anyone solely for publishing classified information.
But while the bill creates protections for publishers, it doesn’t address a key complaint of press freedom and civil liberties advocates: that over the past decade, the Espionage Act has served as the government’s weapon of choice to punish unauthorized press leaks.
Instead, the bill expands carve-outs that allow security clearance holders to more freely communicate as whistleblowers with members of Congress, inspectors general, and other government regulatory bodies that oversee technology and privacy. The Espionage Act includes language suggesting that classified information can only be sent to Congress “by lawful demand” of a congressional committee; the new measure would allow clearance holders to provide information to any member of Congress without a specific request or demand.
“Americans who learn about waste, fraud, and abuse, even if it’s classified, ought to be able to go to any member of Congress with that information,” Wyden said. “I just think that’s the proper way to proceed.”
Throughout the 20th century, it was extremely rare for the government to bring criminal cases against those accused of sharing government secrets with journalists. That changed under the George W. Bush and Obama administrations. Obama’s Justice Department famously brought more Espionage Act cases against whistleblowers than all previous administrations combined.
Donald Trump has continued the practice, using the Espionage Act to prosecute government employees and contractors for allegedly sharing information about Russian hacking into U.S. state election infrastructure, leaking information about the U.S. drone program, and other sensitive topics.
Khanna told The Intercept that revealing classified information should still be a crime for those with clearances, but that prosecutors and judges should have discretion to weigh the consequences of the leak against the motives of the source.
“I don’t think we can have a situation where people who have security clearances can simply leak information in violation of their oath and their responsibility,” Khanna said. “That could put lives in danger in many cases.”
Alex Abdo, the litigation director at the Knight Institute at Columbia University, told The Intercept that the bill was a “crucial effort” to ensure national security journalists are protected while doing their jobs.
“These protections for journalists are vital,” Abdo said in an email. “It is also vital that Congress enact additional protections for national-security whistleblowers, who risk personal and professional sanction to expose government malfeasance and corruption.”