Let's be clear up front: Donald Trump doesn't care one iota about the Constitution.
What we've seen in this short period of time is an unprecedented grab of power in almost every area of law:
Despite the Constitution and federal statute requiring birthright citizenship - people born on American soil are American citizens even if their parents are not - the Trump Administration issued an executive order declaring that it will end on February 19. The order has been met with multiple legal challenges, leading a federal judge to temporarily block it. U.S. District Judge John Coughenour, who was appointed by Ronald Reagan, wrote in his decision that the order "blatantly unconstitutional."
Despite Congress putting a firm date on the start of the ban on TikTok, Trump said he was giving the company 75 additional days to comply, a power that finds no basis in the statute. Despite the Constitution and federal statute prohibiting the president from firing people in offices such as the Inspector General office, Trump has fired people in those roles. Despite federal courts having previously declared that a ban on trans people in the military is unconstitutional sex discrimination, Trump reinstated that policy.
In the early 2010s, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. went through a contentious divorce with his second wife, Mary Richardson Kennedy. It was ugly. Richardson had found a diary RFK Jr. kept that chronicled multiple extramarital affairs he had engaged in—possibly numbering in the dozens—and she was enraged and tormented by his infidelity. She was drinking and racked up two DUIs. The two fought for years over the custody of their four children. The battle ended on May 16, 2012, with her suicide at their home in Bedford, New York.
During that stretch, RFK Jr., who has been nominated by President Donald Trump to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, secretly recorded telephone and in-person conversations he had with Richardson, and in at least one instance he may have violated state law in doing so.
Mother Jones has obtained a cache of these audio recordings that include more than 60 conversations that occurred in 2011 and early 2012. In many of the recordings, Richardson was distraught over the end of her marriage to Kennedy. Sometimes she bitterly lashed out at him, cursing and yelling; occasionally she asked for reconciliation. Knowing he was recording, Kennedy was decidedly more circumspect than was she. He often pressed her to complete the divorce and blamed her behavior for their breakup and his affairs. In none of the recordings did Kennedy inform Richardson that she was being recorded or ask for her consent to be recorded.
In one angry conversation on June 4, 2011, Kennedy, who had married Richardson in 1994 after his first divorce, said to her, “I want to be in a monogamous relationship. I don’t want to be in a polygamous relationship. I think that’s wrong.” Richardson then asked, “But then why have you done it for 10 years?” Kennedy replied, “I did it because I was being abused at home.” (Mother Jones is not publishing the recordings because they contain allegations we have not confirmed and information about third parties that raises privacy concerns.)
Kennedy did not respond to multiple requests for comment regarding the recordings.
Most of the recordings were apparently made while both Kennedy and Richardson were in New York state, which is a one-party consent state when it comes to recording a conversation. That means under New York state law only one person in the conversation needs to be aware of the recording for it to be a legal act.
But in one instance, Kennedy recorded a phone conversation with Richardson when he was apparently in California, which is a two-party consent state. Under California law, a person needs the agreement of all parties to a conversation to record a private call. Violating this law is punishable by a fine up to $2,500 and a prison sentence of up to one year.
This call occurred on June 14, 2011. That week, Kennedy was in Los Angeles for the premiere of The Last Mountain, a documentary on mountaintop removal mining based partly on a 2005 book by Kennedy. During that eight-minute-long call, the two argued, as Kennedy pleaded with her to sign a custody agreement, and Richardson aired her grievances about him and asked him to avoid having their 16-year-old son, Conor, publicly photographed with actor Cheryl Hines, Kennedy’s girlfriend whom he later married. On the audio file of this call, Kennedy did not inform Richardson the conversation was being recorded.
Murray: “There are political realities, we all get that—but there is also right and wrong, fact and fiction. And there’s also people staying healthy, or people dying pointlessly from diseases we can prevent because they thought Congress took its job vetting our health care secretary seriously.”
Murray, a longtime congressional leader on health care who has led hearings on addressing vaccine hesitancy, has been a leading vocal opponent of RFK Jr.’s nomination—speaking out on the Senate floor, holding events, raising the alarm after meeting with him
*** VIDEO of Senator Murray’s FULL questioning with RFK Jr. HERE***
Washington, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member and former Chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, questioned RFK Jr. at the Senate HELP Committee hearing on his nomination for Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS)—pressing him forcefully on whether he stands by false statements he made about the HPV vaccine and asking about credible accusations of sexual harassment and assault against him.
RFK Jr. has long been one of the anti-vaccine movement’s loudest, proudest champions—peddling dangerous, debunked views and funding anti-vaccine causes—and there is much he could do as HHS Secretary to cause chaos and real harm to families, from firing top scientists and researchers, to ripping away the approval or insurance coverage of all kinds of vaccines and medicines, to ending our focus on infectious disease research, as he has threatened to do.
Murray began her questioning at today’s hearing by reiterating that HHS has broad and critical responsibilities to protect and preserve health care and social services, from advancing women’s health, to improving child care, to bolstering biomedical research—all priorities of hers—but she would use her limited time for questioning to ask about vaccines. Also noting the tragic plane crash last night in DC, Murray called it “a painful reminder that we need competent people running our federal agencies to respond when a crisis strikes.”
“I think we can agree that cancer is particularly a nefarious chronic disease. And the American Cancer Society reported earlier this month that women under 50 are experiencing a dramatic increase in incidence of the disease. Fortunately, there is clear data showing that the HPV vaccine has saved lives and cut cervical cancer rates dramatically. You have called the HPV vaccine ‘dangerous and defective’ and said it ‘actually increases the risk of cervical cancer.’ Do you stand by those statements? Yes or no?”
Kennedy filibustered, refusing to answer directly—Murray pressed him to answer the question, then continued, “You said that: ‘no loving parents would allow their daughter to receive this vaccine.’ If confirmed as HHS Secretary, would you recommend that parents get their children vaccinated against HPV? Yes or no?”
“I’ll just remind everybody—parents look to our health leaders for advice on these decisions; you would be a health leader,” Murray said, asking unanimous consent to enter Mr. Kennedy’s numerous statements disparaging the HPV vaccine and others into the record.
Murray continued by asking Mr. Kennedy about accusations of sexual harassment and assault by Eliza Cooney, who was hired as a part-time babysitter by his family. “When you were confronted about this accusation, you said you were ‘not a church boy’ and that you ‘have so many skeletons in my closet,’ Murray said. “You then texted Miss Cooney an apology and indicated you had no memory of what she described. Mr. Kennedy, I’m asking you to respond to those accusations seriously in front of this committee. Did you make sexual advances towards Miss Cooney without her consent?”
Kennedy denied the allegations, calling them “debunked,” despite credible reporting to the contrary, when pressed on why he apologized, Kennedy claimed he texted Cooney an apology for a separate reason—in contrast to the published texts. Mr. Kennedy then told the full committee that he had never made any unwanted sexual advances towards any individual without their consent.
“My time is almost up, but having read a lot and listened a lot, I just want to remind all my colleagues that by voting to confirm Mr. Kennedy, we would be telling our constituents he is worth listening to,” Murray said. “That alone will get people killed—before he even lifts a finger. Because he does not even need the levers of power to influence people, as we saw in Samoa—all he needs is a megaphone.
“To affirm his views by voting to confirm him as our highest health official—we should not mince words about what that will mean. When babies die from whooping cough because parents weren’t sure if the vaccine was safe, we will have to look them in the eye. When measles sweeps through schools, hospitals, nursing wards—will this be worth it?”
“There are political realities, we all get that—but there is also right and wrong, fact and fiction. And there’s also people staying healthy, or people dying pointlessly from diseases we can prevent because they thought Congress took its job vetting our health care secretary seriously,” Murray concluded.
When President-elect Donald J. Trump first announced his intention to select Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of HHS, Murray immediately and forcefully condemned the move—and she has consistently spoken out and laid out for her colleagues the case against his nomination since, including in a lengthy Senate floor speech earlier this month—VIDEO HERE. Murray met with RFK Jr. on January 15th and released a statement afterward reiterating her opposition to his nomination and urging her colleagues, “to be honest with themselves about the stakes of putting one of the anti-vaccine movement’s loudest, proudest champions in charge of HHS and join me in opposing RFK Jr.’s nomination.” In December, Murray held a roundtable discussion at UW Medicine on the importance of scientific research and vaccines—especially for children—and spoke about how having RFK Jr. lead HHS would threaten Americans’ health and safety.
As a longtime appropriator and former Chair of the Senate HELP Committee, Murray has long fought to boost biomedical research, strengthen public health infrastructure, and make health care more affordable and accessible. Over her years as a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, she has secured billions of dollars in increases for biomedical research at the National Institutes of Health, and during her time as Chair of the HELP Committee she established the new ARPA-H research agency as part of her PREVENT Pandemics Act to advance some of the most cutting-edge research in the field. As Chair of the HELP Committee, Murray was also instrumental in crafting the American Rescue Plan Act, including its landmark investments in public health and health care. Senator Murray was also the lead Democratic negotiator of the bipartisan 21st Century Cures Act, which delivered a major federal investment to boost NIH research, among many other investments. Murray is also the lead sponsor of the Public Health Infrastructure Saves Lives Act (PHISLA), legislation to establish $4.5 billion in dedicated, annual funding for a grant program to build up and maintain the nation’s public health system across the board.
In 2019, Senator Murray co-led a bipartisan hearing in the HELP Committee on vaccine hesitancy and spoke about the importance of addressing vaccine skepticism and getting people the facts they need to keep their families and communities safe and healthy. Ahead of the hearing, as multiple states were facing measles outbreaks in under-vaccinated areas, Murray sent a bipartisan letter with former HELP Committee Chair Lamar Alexander (R-TN) pressing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director and HHS Assistant Secretary for Health on their efforts to promote vaccination and vaccine confidence.
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Gabbard is one of handful of US politicians that has condemned the treatment of Snowden. In 2013, the former government contractor exposed the illegal surveillance operations of the NSA, CIA and other US spy agencies which target millions in the US and around the world. For over a decade, Snowden has remained exiled in Russia after the US government revoked his passport.
Ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee Mark Warner (Virginia), speaking for the intelligence apparatus, said, “I have serious doubts about your judgment... You consistently praised the actions of Edward Snowden. Someone who I believe jeopardized the security of our nation and then, to flaunt that, fled to Russia.
“You’ve called Edward Snowden, and I’ll quote here, ‘A brave whistleblower’.”
Warner claimed that Snowden “wasn’t a whistleblower and in this case, I’m a lot closer to the chairman’s words, where he said Snowden is quote, ‘an egotistical serial liar and traitor’ who quote, ‘deserves to rot in jail for the rest of his life.’”
Warner asked Gabbard if she still thought Snowden was “brave.” Gabbard did not directly answer the question, stating instead that Snowden, “broke the law” and that she did not agree with how he acted, or everything he released to journalists but that, “the fact is, he also, even as he broke the law, released information that exposed egregious, illegal, and unconstitutional programs that are happening within our government that led to serious reforms that Congress undertook.”
Warner repeatedly asked Gabbard to denounce Snowden or recant her previous characterization of him as “brave.” Gabbard declined but promised to “protect our nation’s secrets” and “prevent another Snowden-like leak.”
This was not enough for Warner who replied, “I don’t think you are the answer. I agree with Tom Cotton, he’s a traitor.”
Today, during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing to consider the nomination of Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard to be the next Director of National Intelligence, Arizona Senator Mark Kelly questioned Gabbard on her decision-making and her record of disputing U.S. intelligence assessments.
During the hearing, Kelly pressed Gabbard on instances where she expressed public skepticism about Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons in Syria. He questioned why she disputed U.S. assessments on two attacks for which public, declassified analysis had been provided, while embracing, without corroboration, the views of a discredited professor and a chemistry student—neither with expertise in chemical weapons. Gabbard admitted in the hearing she was unaware at the time that the student had a record of defending the Assad regime, and that she was unaware until today that the professor had appeared on Russian state media.
“When we began this, you described a thoughtful approach to analyzing intelligence and reaching conclusions—this is what we expect of our professionals, said Kelly. “[…] But what I have seen makes it clear that at the same time you were skeptical of our intelligence community’s assessments, you would not apply the same skepticism to information that came from sympathizers of Russia and Assad. And I think that’s something that we should all be concerned about.”
Click here to download a video of Kelly’s exchange. Click here to watch the full hearing.
See the transcript below:
Sen. Kelly: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Colonel Gabbard, I want to first say thank you for your service to this country—in Congress and in the Army. Thank you for meeting with me a couple weeks ago and thank you for being here today.
You’re nominated to lead and coordinate across the intelligence community’s numerous sources of collection and analytic capabilities. In a few sentences, can you describe how you make assessments and how you’re going to sift through all this intelligence and make careful and thoughtful conclusions?
Ms. Gabbard: Yes, Senator, there are great professionals who work within the intelligence community. I will build a strong team around me as they present the intelligence reporting to provide to the President through the President ‘s daily brief, and to respond to issues and concerns that this body has. I will welcome dissenting voices to be able to make sure that this information and intelligence is thoroughly vetted prior to presenting it, and make sure that the truth is reported whether that truth is convenient or not.
Sen. Kelly. Thank you, Colonel Gabbard, and I appreciate that. The President and others are going to rely on that.
I want to discuss such an assessment made by the IC. For years, the U.S. analyzed evidence of numerous chemical weapons attacks in Syria. Eventually we were able to assess that Bashar al-Assad was responsible for a number of these attacks that slaughtered his own civilians. Do you accept the conclusion broadly, that Assad used chemical weapons against Syrians?
Ms. Gabbard: Yes, and I’m on the record for years of agreeing with that broad assessment.
Sen. Kelly: Thank you. Among the attacks, the U.S. assessed Assad was responsible for two that occurred in Douma, in Khan Shaykhun, in Syria. As a member of Congress, and as a presidential candidate, and as recently as this month, in your written responses to this committee, you have cast doubt on the assessment that Assad is culpable. In these two attacks, is that still your position?
Ms. Gabbard: Senator, I raised those questions, given conflicting information and evidence that was presented at that time.
Sen. Kelly: Well, thank you. So, to help inform the public, the Trump administration released declassified intelligence in 2017 and again in 2018, showing how experts analyze multiple types of evidence: satellite imagery, medical experts, witnesses, describing sources and showing the reasoning used to determine Assad ‘s culpability in using these chemical weapons, including in Douma and Khan Shaykhun in these attacks. The ones that you question. I have two documents I want to submit for the record, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Were you aware of the declassified assessments, the one I reference?
Ms. Gabbard: Yes, I was.
Sen. Kelly: And as a member of the House Armed Services Committee in the Foreign Affairs Committee, did you take time to review these?
Ms. Gabbard: Yes.
Sen. Kelly: OK, thank you. And can you explain to me then why you doubted the intelligence community’s conclusions in these two cases? Douma, and Khan Shaykhun, but not the others. Please be specific.
Ms. Gabbard: These two cases were being looked at to be used as a pretext for a major military movement and my fear was a repeat of the deployment of another half a million soldiers like we saw in Iraq towards what was the Obama administration’s goal, which was regime change in Syria. The question specifically that I raised around these two came about because there were two reasons. One, that assessment was made with high confidence and low information. The information that they had come from those on the ground in an Al-Qaeda controlled area and therefore were Al-Qaeda linked sources, and there was conflicting information that came from the UN’s office on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Inspectors, as well as an MIT professor, Ted Postol, who looked at these extensively.
Sen. Kelly: So, I want to talk about him for a second. So, did you look into his credentials? Yes or no?
Ms. Gabbard: Yes.
Sen. Kelly: And were you aware of his appearances on Russia Today, which is used by the Russians to disseminate government-approved messages?
Ms. Gabbard: No.
Sen. Kelly: Were you aware Postol relied on a chemistry student with a record of defending the Assad regime?
Ms. Gabbard: At that time, I was not. I have been made aware since.
Sen. Kelly: Do you consider this person or these two individuals now, do you consider them a better source for the chemistry of sarin gas in the US intelligence community?
Ms. Gabbard: I assess that at the time, the information, I don’t know the second person you’re referring to, but MIT professor Ted Postol and the inspectors of the OPCW provided some credible questions that deserved examination.
Sen. Kelly: Thank you. Did you attempt to weigh Postol’s claims against the significant evidence and assessments already conducted by the IC?
Ms. Gabbard: Yes, I did.
Sen. Kelly: OK, thank you. So, here’s my concern here, Colonel. When we began this, you described a thoughtful approach to analyzing intelligence and reaching conclusions. This is what we expect from our professionals.
But we just kind of walked through how you came to question Assad ‘s use of chemical weapons in these two cases with a different approach, and I don’t reject seeking out differing viewpoints, we need to do that. But you started from a place of doubting the conclusions of the US intelligence community and then you sought out information that confirmed your viewpoint.
That led you to embrace the opinions of two individuals that I think we disagree on this, you think they had expertise, I do not, and others do not. But these individuals were sympathetic to Russia and the Assad regime. It also led you to minimize or discount the overwhelmingly information that contradicted your viewpoint, including the expert assessments of our own intelligence community. And they don’t get it right a hundred percent of the time, I get that, but what I have seen makes it clear that at the same time that you were skeptical of our intelligence community ‘s assessments, you would not apply the same skepticism to information that came from sympathizers of Russia and Assad.
And I think that’s something that we should all be concerned about.
Thank you.
Coons said Bondi cited the American people and the Constitution.
The second question he took issue with was Patel's response to questions about how he would respond if Trump asked him to do something illegal, unethical, or unconstitutional.
Coons took issue with Patel's answer: "If directed to do — I would never break the law."
"You
have to be willing to refuse an order and resign," Coons said,
recalling that he asked the same question of Christopher Wray and his
two previous predecessors.
"He just wouldn't..." Coons said, trailing off. "It gives me real pause because he's not — Bill Barr answered easily. Pam Bondi answered easily. Merrick Garland answered easily. I do that with every nominee."
But one reprehensible figure — OPM’s new general counsel, Andrew Kloster, who in 2023 described himself as a “raging misogynist” in a since-deleted tweet — is starting to garner some attention as well.
On Tuesday, the Project on Government Oversight published a report on Kloster, sounding the alarm on the potential dangers he poses as he offers legal guidance to the federal government.
As the nonpartisan watchdog’s Nick Schwellenbach reports:
But wait, there’s more:
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