Attention to the Unseen

David A. Graham writes: Irony is thriving in the Trump administration. Consider this: The president spent months, and was ultimately impeached for, badgering the Ukrainian government to announce a probe into the natural-gas company Burisma. Yet all it took was the release of some text messages by Lev Parnas, an accused criminal with a checkered past, for Ukraine to quickly announce it is investigating alleged illegal surveillance of former U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch. The supposed surveillance, which is described in…

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Politico reports: The White House budget office violated the law when it froze U.S. military aid to Ukraine, the Government Accountability Office concluded in a new report. President Donald Trump ordered the hold on the critical security assistance in July, a slew of senior White House officials testified to House impeachment investigators late last year. It was a move that coincided with an effort by the president and his allies to pressure Ukraine to investigate Trump’s Democratic rivals. “Faithful execution…

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Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) and now-former Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev (R) in Sochi, Russia, Dec. 7, 2019. Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images By Regina Smyth, Indiana University Editor’s note: Russia’s prime minister, Dmitry A. Medvedev, and cabinet resigned on Jan. 15. Russian politics are often not what they seem, especially to those in the West. We asked Regina Smyth, a Russia scholar at Indiana University, to help readers understand what’s going on. 1. What just happened? Russian President Vladimir Putin, who…

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The New York Times reports: Russia’s political order, largely unchanged since the early 1990s, was thrown into feverish uncertainty on Wednesday after President Vladimir V. Putin proposed sweeping constitutional changes that could extend his hold on power indefinitely. Adding to widespread bewilderment, Mr. Putin’s loyal protégé promptly resigned as prime minister, along with the rest of the government. Mr. Putin described his proposals, announced in his annual state of the nation address, as an effort to enhance democracy. But his…

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NBC News reports: Lev Parnas, the indicted associate of Rudy Giuliani who has been implicated in an alleged attempt to pressure the Ukrainian government to dig up dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, says, “President Trump knew exactly what was going on.” “He was aware of all my movements. I wouldn’t do anything without the consent of Rudy Giuliani, or the president. I have no intent, I have no reason to speak to any of these…

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Ezra Klein writes: Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s most viral debate moments feature blistering rebuttals to challengers who dare emphasize presidential constraint or political limits. “I don’t understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running for president of the United States just to talk about what we really can’t do and shouldn’t fight for,” she snapped at former Rep. John Delaney in the July debate. “I don’t get it.” But the next Democratic president will be limited by Senate Republicans,…

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The New York Times reports: With President Trump facing an impeachment trial over his efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son Hunter Biden, Russian military hackers have been boring into the Ukrainian gas company at the center of the affair, according to security experts. The hacking attempts against Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company on whose board Hunter Biden served, began in early November, as talk of the Bidens, Ukraine and impeachment…

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The Washington Post reports: As an American imprisoned in Egypt, Mustafa Kassem thought his government would rescue him from what he saw as his unjust incarceration. The 54-year-old auto parts dealer viewed his blue U.S. passport as a bulletproof vest that made him untouchable, especially in the hands of a government that receives billions in American aid, his relatives have said. By the time he died Monday of apparent heart failure, after more than six years in jail with negligent…

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