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While most eyes on AL, Trump added signing statement to defense bill undercutting Russia provisions
From the Daily Beast:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-objects-to-defense-laws-anti-russia-provisions
President Donald Trump Tuesday night signaled his reluctance to enforce congressionally-passed restrictions on Russia.
In signing the massive annual military spending bill, known formally as the National Defense Authorization Act, Trump objected to several measures Congress passed to toughen U.S. policy toward Russia, which U.S. intelligence has assessed interfered in the 2016 election to benefit him.
Several provisions of the bill, Trump wrote in his signing statement — effectively a presidential caveat to new laws – could “potentially dictate the position of the United States in external military and foreign affairs and, in certain instances, direct the conduct of international diplomacy.”
It’s the latest installment in a pattern in which Trump carves out an exception to his typical bellicosity for Russia, even as he describes a federal investigation aimed at uncovering his campaign’s ties to the Kremlin as a politicized fraud.
Among those provisions Trump cited as potentially violative of his authority is section 1239, which directs Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the military to “develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to counter threats by the Russian Federation.”
Subsection A of the requirement, to which Trump also specifically objected, directs the strategy to attribute and defend against “hybrid warfare operations short of traditional armed conflict against the United States and its allies and partners.” In particular, such a strategy should “identify and defend against” Russia’s “use of misinformation, disinformation and propaganda in social and traditional media” – something The Daily Beast, as well as the congressional Russia inquiries, have extensively documented.
-snip-
Those weren’t the only Russia-related measures in the NDAA Trump called out as faulty.
Section 1231 extends a recent restriction, first enacted after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, against military-to-military cooperation with Russian forces. That was a measure the U.S. military, in January, feared then-national security adviser Mike Flynn wanted the generals to violate in Syria, as The Daily Beast reported in June.
Section 1232 prevents the Pentagon from spending money to do anything “that recognizes the sovereignty of the Russian Federation over Crimea,” absent an explicit justification bearing Mattis’ personal imprimatur.
Section 1069 requires the security agencies to strengthen vetting processes for foreign investments “that could potentially impair the national security of the United States.” Specifically, Congress wants to bolster processes assessing, among other things, “the counterintelligence risks posed by purchases or leases of Federal land.”
-snip-
In signing the massive annual military spending bill, known formally as the National Defense Authorization Act, Trump objected to several measures Congress passed to toughen U.S. policy toward Russia, which U.S. intelligence has assessed interfered in the 2016 election to benefit him.
Several provisions of the bill, Trump wrote in his signing statement — effectively a presidential caveat to new laws – could “potentially dictate the position of the United States in external military and foreign affairs and, in certain instances, direct the conduct of international diplomacy.”
It’s the latest installment in a pattern in which Trump carves out an exception to his typical bellicosity for Russia, even as he describes a federal investigation aimed at uncovering his campaign’s ties to the Kremlin as a politicized fraud.
Among those provisions Trump cited as potentially violative of his authority is section 1239, which directs Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the military to “develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to counter threats by the Russian Federation.”
Subsection A of the requirement, to which Trump also specifically objected, directs the strategy to attribute and defend against “hybrid warfare operations short of traditional armed conflict against the United States and its allies and partners.” In particular, such a strategy should “identify and defend against” Russia’s “use of misinformation, disinformation and propaganda in social and traditional media” – something The Daily Beast, as well as the congressional Russia inquiries, have extensively documented.
-snip-
Those weren’t the only Russia-related measures in the NDAA Trump called out as faulty.
Section 1231 extends a recent restriction, first enacted after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, against military-to-military cooperation with Russian forces. That was a measure the U.S. military, in January, feared then-national security adviser Mike Flynn wanted the generals to violate in Syria, as The Daily Beast reported in June.
Section 1232 prevents the Pentagon from spending money to do anything “that recognizes the sovereignty of the Russian Federation over Crimea,” absent an explicit justification bearing Mattis’ personal imprimatur.
Section 1069 requires the security agencies to strengthen vetting processes for foreign investments “that could potentially impair the national security of the United States.” Specifically, Congress wants to bolster processes assessing, among other things, “the counterintelligence risks posed by purchases or leases of Federal land.”
-snip-
I'd missed this article yesterday. Found it this morning thanks to a retweet by John Schindler
https://twitter.com/20committee
who wanted his followers to read this tweet from someone who brought up a very important point not addressed in the article:
Link to tweet
Important: Assuming Trump doesn’t have grasp of the details, who in the WH, to be exact, put together the signing statement for him and under whose direction? Trump’s specific rejection of anti-Russian & anti-Chinese measures are signals of the rot #TrumpRussia
cc:@20committee
cc:@20committee
22 replies
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