A month ago, I related that, after nominating his Manhattan U.S. attorney, Jay Clayton, to become director of national intelligence in an effort to forge a compromise that would at least temporarily extend the government’s statutory foreign surveillance authority (FISA Section 702), President Trump abruptly scotched his own plan by directing Clayton not to show up to his confirmation hearing -- to the chagrin of Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Tom Cotton, who’d tried to help the White House by accelerating the hearing.
The president was in a fit of pique because (a) Republicans won’t abandon the filibuster -- which would be
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