When The New York Times reported Thursday that two White House officials had shown House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) the classified reports he cited when publicly alleging that President Trump's transition team communications had been incidentally collected during foreign surveillance, Bloomberg columnist Eli Lake took special note. Earlier in the week, Lake said, Nunes had "told me that his source for that information was an intelligence official, not a White House staffer. It turns out, he misled me."
Nunes was reportedly fed the classified intelligence by two Trump political appointees: National Security Council senior intelligence director Ezra Cohen-Watnick, whom Trump stopped National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster from firing, and White House national security lawyer Michael Ellis, who used to work for Nunes in the House. This revelation "is a body blow for Nunes, who presented his findings last week as if they were surprising to the White House," Lake writes. "It strains credulity to think that Trump would need Nunes to tell him about intelligence reports discovered by people who work in the White House."
But the real "tragedy" here, Lake says, is that "incidental collection" of U.S. citizens' communications is a real concern and has been since Edward Snowden's leaked NSA documents were revealed. Congress shouldn't vote to reauthorize the surveillance laws in the fall, he argues, but "sadly, the merits of this case are undermined by how the White House and Nunes have made it."
Barton Gellman, a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter who helped reveal the Snowden leaks, disagrees with Lake about the real story. "This is far more than a story of intelligence manipulation for political gain," he writes at The Century Foundation. Cohen-Watnick and Ellis almost certainly showed Nunes classified information he wasn't even supposed to see, suggesting all three "engaged in precisely the behavior that the president describes as the true national security threat posed by the Russia debate." And from all available evidence, they — not intelligence agencies — requested that the names in the top secret intelligence be "unmasked," he said.
The biggest, most serious question, Gellman says, is this: "Why would a White House lawyer and the top White House intelligence adviser be requesting copies of these surveillance reports in the first place? Why would they go on to ask that the names be unmasked? ... Were the president's men using the surveillance assets of the U.S. government to track the FBI investigation from the outside?" You can read Gellman's full argument at The Century Foundation. Peter Weber
Kate McKinnon reprised her role as Dr. Anthony Fauci, the United States' top infectious disease expert, in the latest Saturday Night Live cold open. McKinnon's Fauci attempted to answer people's questions about the specifics underlying the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's updated guidelines, which now say that people vaccinated against COVID-19 can mostly toss aside their masks, outdoors and indoors. "A lot of people had questions," McKinnon's Fauci said. "Such as: What does that mean? What the hell are you talking about? Is this a trap?"
So, the fictional Fauci asked a group of doctors from the CDC "who minored in theater" to demonstrate a few different scenarios in which mask-wearing protocols may be unclear, such as picking up kids from school, large outdoor gatherings, or air travel. Things didn't go to according to plan, however, and McKinnon's Fauci grew increasingly confused by the message the so-called "CDC Players" were trying to convey in their often-inappropriate, off-the-rails skits. Watch the full sketch below. Tim O'Donnell
The Biden administration still firmly believes the United States is not headed toward a "sustained pick-up" in inflation. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is closely monitoring the situation and hasn't found any surprising data that's cause for panic. But, with prices likely to continue to rise in the near future, it might become more difficult for the White House to convince Americans that that's the case, Bloomberg reports.
"We still have a weird six months ahead," Josh Bivens, the director of research at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, told Bloomberg. "It will be a real challenge for the administration and the [Federal Reserve} to stay firm on their stance."
Indeed, there's reportedly some concern within the administration about political fallout, even if inflation is ultimately temporary, as Biden's economics team believes. One of the most consequential risks is how a potential "inflationary psychology" — in other words, anxious consumers — will affect support for Biden's major spending proposals, which could total around $4 trillion, an unnamed "ally" of the president told Bloomberg. Read more about how the Biden administration is responding to inflation fears at Bloomberg. Tim O'Donnell
There was already a bipartisan effort in Congress to craft legislation that would require certain companies, particularly those that operate critical infrastructure, to report cyberattacks, and the recent ransomware strike against the Colonial Pipeline has increased the urgency to get things done, Politico reports.
"You couldn't have a better reason" for adding a mandate than the attacks on Colonial and SolarWinds, which took place last year, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) told Politico. He's working alongside Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who said requiring companies like Colonial to alert the government of an attack is just "the tip of the iceberg of what we need to do."
Private companies have bristled at the idea of voluntarily sharing their data with the government for fear of leaks, Politico notes, but as the risk of cyberattacks increases, a mandate could become harder and harder to avoid. Until something is in place, the U.S. government will remain "completely blind to what is happening," Brandon Wales, the acting director of the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, told reporters earlier this week, per Politico. "That just weakens our overall cyber posture across our entire country."
Warner said the legislation would provide a "public-private forum, with appropriate immunity and confidentiality." Read more at Politico. Tim O'Donnell