Attention to the Unseen

Natasha Bertrand writes: The frenzy over the reportedly imminent release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s final report—a rumor shot down within days by the Justice Department—had barely subsided when House Democrats announced that they’d snagged the witness of the year to testify in public: President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen. His appearance on Wednesday before the House Oversight Committee was a day-long spectacle that didn’t disappoint—Cohen testified that Trump had foreknowledge of WikiLeaks’ plans to release embarrassing Democratic…

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The Washington Post reports: House investigators are demanding that the White House turn over documents related to the security clearances of top officials by Monday, an escalation of a fight between congressional Democrats and the Trump administration that could lead to subpoenas in the coming days. The move follows the revelation that President Trump interceded to give his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, a top-secret security clearance despite concerns from intelligence and White House officials about Kushner’s contacts with foreign individuals and…

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Amy Hawthorne and Andrew Miller write: Consumed by domestic politics, exhausted by the Middle East, and complacent about the stability of Arab allies, Washington has stopped paying close attention to Egypt. But something alarming is happening in the most populous Arab country and a key U.S. security partner: President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is moving Egypt closer toward totalitarianism than strongman Hosni Mubarak ever did and, in the process, laying the groundwork for more instability in a region that has already…

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The New York Times reports: President Trump ordered his chief of staff to grant his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, a top-secret security clearance last year, overruling concerns flagged by intelligence officials and the White House’s top lawyer, four people briefed on the matter said. Mr. Trump’s decision in May so troubled senior administration officials that at least one, the White House chief of staff at the time, John F. Kelly, wrote a contemporaneous internal memo about how he…

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Jeffrey Lewis writes: As President Trump flew to Hanoi this week, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders had a surprise announcement: Trump and Kim would meet earlier than expected, at a dinner on the first evening. The late announcement led skeptics to describe the dinner as an attempt to overshadow Michael Cohen’s embarrassing testimony about his work for Trump. But the last-minute dinner raised unexpected challenges. The two sides apparently struggled over the menu, with the White House pressing for…

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David Frum writes: Michael Cohen’s testimony to the House Oversight Committee was uncontradicted. The former personal attorney of the president of the United States today accused him of a litany of crimes, improprieties, immoralities, and betrayals of national security. And not one Republican member of the committee breathed one word in defense of the leader of their party. Those Republicans have learned the hard way never to trust President Donald Trump’s denials. Read: Eight striking moments from Michael Cohen’s testimony…

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Jeffrey Lewis writes: The summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi this week is a sideshow to the titanic struggle underway for the Trump administration’s North Korea policy. On one side appears to be U.S. envoy Stephen Biegun and, perhaps, the president himself. They are willing to toss aside decades of U.S. policy to engage with North Korea along the lines of the so-called Sunshine Policy, the approach embraced by progressive South…

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