Most Americans don't think Trump is in the clear yet on Russia, new poll finds
By Carrie Dann (Carrie Dann is a political editor for NBC News. )

WASHINGTON — Even as the White House claims vindication from the summary of special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings in the Russia probe, the American public does not see a clear verdict about whether President Donald Trump has been cleared of wrongdoing.

According to a new NBC News/ Wall Street Journal poll, 29 percent of Americans say they believe Trump has been cleared of wrongdoing, based on what they have heard about Mueller’s findings, while 40 percent say they do not believe he has been cleared.


But a third of Americans — 31 percent — say they’re not sure if Trump has been cleared. That includes nearly half of independents (45 percent) and about a quarter of both Democrats (27 percent) and Republicans (25 percent.)

Respondents were asked about their views of the special counsel’s work on March 25-27, beginning the day after Attorney General William Barr released his summary of Mueller’s report that stated the probe “did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election.”

Barr also reported that Mueller declined to make a determination on whether Trump obstructed justice. The attorney general informed Congress Friday that more of Mueller's report will be released by mid-April.


"The public is still in a wait-and-see view of this investigation and what it means for Trump,” said Jeff Horwitt of the Democratic firm Hart Research, which conducted the poll along with Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies.

Much of that ambiguity may be because less than half of the public says they have been deeply engaged with reporting about Barr’s summary of Mueller’s findings.

While a large majority of Americans — 78 percent — say they have heard about Mueller submitting his final report, only 39 percent say they have heard “a lot” about the story. That’s a smaller share of the population than those who said they had heard a lot about other significant stories in Trump’s political history, including his decision to fire James Comey (56 percent) or the release of the Access Hollywood videotape (66 percent).

“However substantial this event was in the Washington, D.C., community and maybe our political culture, it was not an event that captured the American public,” said McInturff.

The narrative about the Mueller probe has also not significantly affected the president’s approval rating, which stands at 43 percent. Fifty-three percent of Americans disapprove of his job performance.

In February, Trump’s approval rating stood at 46 percent, but this month’s shift is within the poll’s margin of error.

Since last month, fewer Americans now say that the Mueller probe has given them more doubts about Trump’s presidency. In the NBC/WSJ February poll, 48 percent of Americans said the investigation gave them more doubts, while 47 percent disagreed. Now, 36 percent said they have more doubts about Trump as a result of the probe, compared with 57 percent who disagree.

But nearly all of that shift came among Democrats. In February, 82 percent of Democrats expressed more doubts as a result of the investigation, compared with just 61 percent now. But the same period of time saw no increase in Trump’s overall approval rating among Democrats.
WARNING SIGNS FOR TRUMP FOR 2020 — AND SOME DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES, TOO

While the poll did not find a significant shift in the president’s approval rating, it showed some continued weak spots as he prepares to run for re-election.

Overall, half of registered voters say they are “very uncomfortable” with his candidacy while an additional 9 percent say they have “some reservations.”

Among those saying they’re “very uncomfortable” are at least half of several traditional swing voter groups, such as independents (50 percent saying they are “very uncomfortable”), suburban women (56 percent) and moderates (57 percent).


In contrast, just 26 percent of voters overall say they’re “enthusiastic” about Trump’s 2020 bid, with another 14 percent saying they are “comfortable.”

But some Democratic candidates also face significant discomfort from the voting public, too.

Republicans on House Intel Committee call on Chairman Adam Schiff to resign

I membri repubblicani del Comitato Intelligence della Camera hanno chiesto le dimissioni del presidente, Adam Schiff, che sta istruendo una serie di indagini contro Donald Trump e i suoi familiari.
La risposta di questo parlamentare democratico e' stata durissima, a conferma del pessimo stato dei rapporti tra i due schieramenti politici.
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Video of Schiff's speech began going viral on Twitter shortly after he delivered it Thursday morning. 

"My colleagues may think it’s OK that the Russians offered ‘dirt’ on a Democratic candidate for president as part of what was described as the Russian government’s effort to help the Trump campaign. You might think that’s OK," Schiff told Republican lawmakers Thursday morning. "My colleagues might think it’s OK that when that was offered to the son of the president, who had a pivotal role in the campaign, that the president’s son did not call the FBI, he did not adamantly refuse that foreign help. No, instead that son said that he would ‘love’ the help of the Russians."

"You might think it’s OK that he took that meeting. You might think it’s OK that Paul Manafort, the campaign chair, someone with great experience at running campaigns, took that meeting. You might think it’s OK that the president’s son-in-law also took that meeting. You might think it’s OK that they concealed it from the public.

"You might think it’s OK that their only disappointment from that meeting was that the dirt they received on Hillary Clinton wasn’t better. You might think it’s OK that when it was discovered, a year later, they then lied about that meeting and said that it was about adoptions. You might think that it’s OK that it was reported that the president helped dictate that lie. You might think that’s OK. I don’t.

"You might think it’s OK that the campaign chairman of a presidential campaign would offer information about that campaign to a Russian oligarch in exchange for money or debt forgiveness. You might think that’s OK, I don’t," said Schiff.

"You might think it’s OK that that campaign chairman offered polling data to someone linked to Russian intelligence. I don’t think that’s OK," Schiff said. , referring to court documents that said Manafort met with Konstantin Kilimnik, who is thought to be connected to Russian intelligence and gave him 2016 campaign polling data. 

"You might think it’s OK that the president himself called on Russia to hack his opponent’s emails, if they were listening. You might think it’s OK that later that day the Russians attempted to hack a server affiliated with that campaign. I don’t think that’s OK."

"You might think it’s OK that the president's son-in-law attempted to establish a secret back channel of communication with the Russians through a Russian diplomatic facility. I don’t think that’s OK," Schiff said, referring to . 

"You might think it’s OK that an associate of the president made direct contact with the GRU [Russian military intelligence], through Guccifer 2.0 and WikiLeaks, that is considered a hostile intelligence agency."

Schiff is referring to Roger Stone, a longtime Trump associate who is said to have communicated with Guccifer, a hacker of Democratic National Committee data, as well as Wikileaks.

"You might think it’s OK that a senior campaign official was instructed to reach that associate and find out what that hostile intelligence agency had to say in terms of dirt on his opponent. 

“You might think it’s OK that the national security adviser designate secretly conferred with the Russian ambassador, undermining U.S. sanctions, and you might think it’s OK that he lied about it to the FBI,” Schiff said, referring to Michael Flynn. “You might say that’s all OK, that’s what you need to do to win. But I don’t think it’s OK.”

"Now I have always said that the question of whether this amounts to proof of conspiracy was another matter. Whether the special counsel could prove beyond a reasonable doubt the proof of that crime would be up to the special counsel, and I would accept his decision, and I do," Schiff said. "But I do not think that conduct, criminal or not, is OK. And the day we do, think that's OK, is the day we look back and say that is the day that America lost its way." 

Brexit: una tragicommedia provocata dall’assenza di leadership

Senza leadership – Così a Londra si consuma il naufragio di un Paese

Articolo di Romano Prodi su Il Messaggero 

Il processo di uscita della Gran Bretagna dall’Unione Europea prosegue con colpi di scena così imprevisti che si è ormai trasformato in una tragicommedia. Cominciato nel giugno 2016 sta durando all’infinito non solo per una sua oggettiva complicazione ma soprattutto perché la trattativa, già di per se stessa difficile, è stata resa quasi impossibile dalle divisioni interne della politica britannica. Divisioni che hanno attraversato entrambi i partiti. Sia nel campo dei conservatori che in quello dei laburisti si è combattuto non solo fra i sostenitori della permanenza e coloro che vogliono uscire dall’Unione: i fautori della Brexit sono infatti ferocemente divisi fra coloro che premono per un’uscita “dura”, cioè senza condizioni, e coloro che si schierano per un’uscita “morbida”, cioè frutto di un’intesa fra le parti.

Si era anche arrivati ad un faticoso accordo fra il governo della Signora May e i negoziatori europei, ma esso è stato respinto per ben due volte, con larghissima maggioranza, dal Parlamento britannico. Nei giorni scorsi si è addirittura evitata una terza votazione solo perché il Presidente del Parlamento, basandosi su una legge risalente al 1604, si è opposto ad un ulteriore voto, dato che il testo presentato era troppo simile a quello bocciato in precedenza. Poiché il 29 marzo, data in cui dovrebbe essere presa la decisione definitiva, si stava troppo avvicinando, la Premier britannica ha chiesto un rinvio al 30 giugno, data che ha messo tutti in imbarazzo in quanto successiva alle elezioni europee. Giovedì scorso si è quindi svolto l’ennesimo vertice europeo, in un’atmosfera ormai stanca per un dibattito che si protrae da oltre mille giorni in attesa dell’ennesimo voto del Parlamento di Londra in calendario per la prossima settimana.

Nelle sei ore di discussione del Consiglio Europeo sono emerse diverse posizioni. Dalla linea più dura di Francia e Belgio ad una posizione opposta di Polonia e Portogallo, paesi molto legati da un rapporto stretto con il Regno Unito. La Germania, in posizione intermedia, ha fatto prevalere la sua mediazione, in favore della quale sembra essersi saggiamente schierata anche l’Italia.

Il compromesso consiste nel pazientare (questa è la parola giusta per descrivere l’atmosfera prevalente nel Consiglio europeo) fino al 22 maggio, cioè fino alla vigilia delle elezioni europee. Questo, naturalmente, nel caso in cui il Parlamento britannico approvi l’accordo. In caso contrario il termine sarebbe evidentemente anticipato al 12 aprile, ultimo limite per un’eventuale partecipazione britannica alle elezioni europee. Entro questa data si dovrebbe perciò di nuovo riunire il consiglio Europeo per prendere la decisione definitiva. Si tratta di una conclusione equilibrata: detta le regole per un eventuale recesso ordinato ma, nello stesso tempo, scarica giustamente sul Regno Unito la responsabilità di una rottura senza accordo. Un esito che nessun paese europeo vuole ma che sarebbe inevitabile nel caso in cui il Parlamento britannico ribadisse il suo voto negativo e venisse confermata la decisione di Londra di non partecipare alle elezioni europee.

Nel frattempo i danni che già si fanno sentire nell’economia britannica e le incertezze di questa trattativa senza fine hanno spinto gli avversari della Brexit a indire un appello in favore della permanenza nell’Unione, appello che ha già raccolto oltre tre milioni e mezzo di adesioni. A questo si è aggiunta ieri un’imponente manifestazione popolare che ha richiesto a gran voce la ripetizione del referendum.

Una tesi che raccoglie un consenso sempre maggiore ma che sembra difficile da mettere in atto anche perché recentemente respinta a grandissima maggioranza dal parlamento di Westminster. Penso quindi che queste manifestazioni di volontà popolare non arriveranno a nessun risultato, come credo non abbia alcuna sostanziale influenza la ben nota posizione dell’amministrazione Trump, sempre favorevole ad una rottura dell’Unione.

Questa decisione di così grande importanza rimane quindi affidata all’estremo tentativo della signora May di salvare il suo posto di primo ministro e ai complicati e meschini giochi delle correnti di entrambi i due maggiori partiti politici per meglio posizionarsi in vista delle future elezioni. Se tutto questo fosse accaduto in Italia chissà che cosa si sarebbe detto. Essendo questo caos avvenuto in Gran Bretagna ci limitiamo ad osservare che, quando manca una leadership, nemmeno molti secoli di democrazia sembrano in grado di sottomettere gli interessi di parte agli obiettivi generali del Paese.

No Collusion, No ‘Exoneration’

By The Editorial Board (The New York Times)

The editorial board represents the opinions of the board, its editor and the publisher. It is separate from the newsroom and the Op-Ed section.

• March 24, 2019

On its face, the letter that Attorney General William Barr sent to Congress on Sunday afternoon, summarizing the key findings of the special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, is good news, not just for President Trump.

According to Mr. Barr’s four-page summary, Mr. Mueller and his team were unable to establish that anyone connected to the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government when it interfered to help Mr. Trump in the 2016 presidential campaign.

This should provide some relief to all Americans who have harbored fears that a presidential candidate was conspiring with Vladimir Putin to subvert American democracy. Mr. Mueller — who never once responded to the shameless stream of insults Mr. Trump has hurled at him over the last two years — is as careful and thorough an investigator as there is. His investigation lasted almost two years, issued more than 2,800 subpoenas and roughly 500 search warrants and heard from a similar number of witnesses. If he couldn’t find any links, it’s doubtful anyone could.

What this outcome is not, however, is a “Complete and Total EXONERATION,” as Mr. Trump unsurprisingly spun it. Mr. Mueller explicitly declined to exonerate the president on the matter of obstruction of justice — a crime that constituted one of the articles of impeachment for both Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. After examining Mr. Trump’s actions and weighing “difficult issues” of law and fact, Mr. Mueller punted. “While this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him,” the report states.

Mr. Barr wasn’t as cautious. Less than 48 hours after receiving Mr. Mueller’s report, the attorney general briskly decided that Mr. Trump had not obstructed justice. Why not? Because there was no underlying crime to obstruct, Mr. Barr said, and anyway, most of Mr. Trump’s behavior took place in full public view, had no connection to any legal proceeding, and wasn’t “done with corrupt intent.” How did Mr. Barr make these determinations so quickly? On what evidence in the report did he base it?

Recall that Mr. Barr got his current job only after Mr. Trump shoved out his predecessor, Jeff Sessions, for not showing him enough personal loyalty and shutting down the Russia investigation at the start. Among the reasons Mr. Barr may have appealed to the president was an unsolicited memo he sent last year to the Justice Department, taking the position that Mr. Mueller should not be allowed to question Mr. Trump about obstructing justice, and that the president could not be guilty of obstruction unless there were an underlying crime to obstruct.


In other words, Mr. Barr did exactly as Mr. Trump hoped he would. But there’s a reason obstructing justice is a crime on its own. The justice system doesn’t work when people lie to authorities, no matter why they do so.

Mr. Barr’s curious views on obstruction are just one reason that Mr. Mueller’s full report must be made available, immediately, to both Congress and the American people.

Also, while Mr. Mueller may not have found sufficient evidence of a criminal conspiracy, let’s not lose sight of what we already know, both from his investigation and from news reports over the past two years.

We know that the Russian government interfered repeatedly in the 2016 presidential election, by hacking into computer servers of the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign. We know that it did this with the goals of dividing Americans and helping Donald Trump win the presidency. We know that when top members of the Trump campaign learned about this interference, they didn’t just fail to report it to the F.B.I. They welcomed it. They encouraged it. They made jokes about it. On the same day that Mr. Trump publicly urged the Russians to hack into Hillary Clinton’s emails, they began to do just that. And we know that when questioned by federal authorities, many of Mr. Trump’s top associates lied, sometimes repeatedly, about their communications with Russians. None of this is in dispute.

That Mr. Mueller couldn’t find sufficient evidence that Mr. Trump or anyone involved in his campaign had coordinated directly with the Russians may be explained by the fact that they didn’t need to. They were already getting that help.

We also know that what began as a counterintelligence investigation quickly turned into a criminal investigation, in large part because Mr. Trump surrounded himself with criminals. To date, his campaign chairman, Paul Manafort; his deputy campaign chairman, Rick Gates; his national security adviser, Michael Flynn; his campaign foreign policy adviser, George Papadopoulos; and his personal lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, have all pleaded guilty or been convicted of federal crimes. In January, Mr. Mueller charged Roger Stone, Mr. Trump’s longtime aide, with multiple counts of witness tampering, obstructing justice, and making false statements.

Imagine if we’d learned all of this just Sunday, in one fell swoop, rather than in a trickle of indictments and prosecutions over the last 18 months.

Americans are, of course, continuing to learn more unsettling truths from the dozen or so other investigations that are continuing, such as the one in New York that has already landed Mr. Cohen a three-year prison sentence for campaign-finance violations that prosecutors said Mr. Trump was also involved in, from the White House.

One might expect Mr. Trump to feel happiness at Sunday’s news, but for him, that emotion seems to transform into a desire for vengeance. It’s no surprise that he and his allies are once again floating the idea of prosecuting Mrs. Clinton. Remember her? She was the candidate who, during a presidential debate all the way back in 2016, said: “It’s pretty clear you won’t admit that the Russians have engaged in cyberattacks against the United States of America, that you encouraged espionage against our people, that you are willing to spout the Putin line, sign up for his wish list, break up NATO, do whatever he wants to do and that you continue to get help from him because he has a very clear favorite in this race.”

Mr. Putin did have a clear favorite. He interfered on his behalf, and his favorite was elected president. Trump campaign officials knew about this and were more than happy for the help. Then they lied about receiving that help. This isn’t so complicated. And while Mr. Mueller may not be able to do anything about it, Congress, and the American people, certainly can.

"Tanto tuonò che piovve" ovvero il rapporto Mueller

On obstruction , Mueller report "does not conclude Trump committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him".

"Tanto tuonò che piovve".

Nei giorni scorsi abbiamo sorpreso molti dei nostri lettori affermando che il tanto strombazzato rapporto del consigliere speciale Robert Mueller sarebbe stato una bolla di sapone e non avrebbe portato ad alcuna conseguenza penale nei confronti dell'attuale presidente degli Stati Uniti.

Questa affermazione non era determinata dal fatto che il vostro redattore è dotato di una palla di cristallo grazie alla quale fa precisazioni sul futuro prossimo.

La nostra affermazione, in netto contrasto con la maggior parte delle televisioni via cavo anti Trump, si basava su alcuni fatti di senso comune, confermati del resto in queste ore dalla sintesi del rapporto Mueller fatta dal ministro di giustizia.

Cominciamo dal consigliere speciale Mueller, persona di grande capacità professionale e rettitudine morale. Ma sulla quale è stata impunturata una icona mitologica che stride con la realtà.

Il consigliere speciale, pur essendo uomo di grande rettitudine morale, è un repubblicano storico e come tale deve essersi trovato in grossa difficoltà nel giudicare i primi due anni della gestione Trump alla luce delle accuse di connivenza e collusione con il sistema cibernetico di Putin per squinternare le elezioni presidenziali americane.

Si aggiunga che il consigliere speciale dipende in linea diretta dal vice ministro di Grazia e giustizia, Rosenstein, che lo ha nominato, anch'egli repubblicano.

I due sono sotto la cappella del nuovo Attorney General William Barr, anch'egli di nomina presidenziale.

A scanso di equivoci è bene precisare che non riteniamo Robert Mueller persona affetta da miopia partitica, anche se il sottofondo delle proprie convinzioni politiche deve pur avere giocato un ruolo nei quasi due anni di indagini costati circa 25 milioni di dollari.

L'affermazione secondo cui il presidente Donald Trump non ha commesso un crimine stride in termini di elementare razionalità.

Solo per citarne alcuni sono in galera il capo della campagna elettorale di Donald Trump, Manafort, il suo avvocato personale e factotum Cohen, il generale Flynn ex capo della sicurezza nazionale.

Tra le imputazioni sottoposte al vaglio delle giurie, anche gli affari più o meno loschi condotti con rappresentanti di vertice del sistema russo.

Proviamo a fare una similitudine: se sono proprietario di un cane di stazza consistente che morde un vicino di casa, sono tenuto come responsabile oggettivo a risolvere ogni questione legale.

Trasferendo il concetto al massimo livello della gerarchia istituzionale americana, sembra molto improprio che il candidato alle presidenziali 2016, Donald Trump, non fosse informato delle attività svolte in suo nome dai manutengoli dei quali si circondava.

Resta ora da vedere quale potrà essere il prossimo passo del tribunale di New York che ha massima indipendenza e autorità, presso il quale sono accese decine di indagini su Donald Trump, i suoi familiari, i componenti la sua coorte.

La frase ripresa dal rapporto Mueller secondo cui :"It also does not exonerate him" ed inserita obtorto collo al termine delle quattro pagine di riassunto fatto dal ministro di giustizia, deve essere considerata come una spada di Damocle puntata contro il collo del presidente degli Stati Uniti.

(Oscar)
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Oppure, parafrasando Shakespeare......"tanto rumor per nulla"
Giancarlo Belluso

Boeing Plans Fixes to 737 MAX

Andy Pasztor, Andrew Tangel (The Wall Street Journal)

© Ted S. Warren/Associated Press

U.S. air-safety regulators have tentatively approved sweeping software and pilot-training changes for Boeing Co.’s grounded 737 MAX jets, aimed at fixing problems with a suspect flight-control system, according to internal government documents and people familiar with the details.

The extensive revisions, these industry and government officials said, will make the automated stall-prevention feature, called MCAS, less aggressive and more controllable by pilots.

They also said the enhanced training, relying on self-guided interactive instruction on laptops, highlights information about when the system engages and how pilots can shut it off.

The changes amount to a reversal from major design and engineering principles Boeing relied on when it developed the stall-prevention system, which is suspected of causing the fatal dive that killed 189 people on board a Lion Air 737 MAX in Indonesia last October. A team of international crash investigators also is looking into whether a similar problem led to the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines plane less than five months later.

The Federal Aviation Administration has said it was working with Boeing to develop and install a revised MCAS system based on lessons learned from the Lion Air tragedy, but the extent of the changes goes beyond what some industry officials expected. An FAA spokesman declined to comment on specifics of the pending changes.

Accident investigators have said the Lion Air plane got erroneous information from one sensor that caused the stall-prevention system to misfire, repeatedly pushing the nose of the plane and ending at the maximum downward angle even though the pilots were resisting. Authorities have said they see clear similarities between that accident and the Ethiopian crash on March 10.

The modifications, officials said, create a gentler stall-prevention feature, redesigned so it won’t overpower other cockpit commands or misfire based on faulty readings from a single sensor. It is devised to automatically push the nose down only once—for no longer than 10 seconds—if the aircraft is in danger of stalling and losing lift.

The changes have been tentatively approved by FAA officials, the people familiar with the details said, subject to final ground-simulator checks and flight tests. They could be rolled out to airlines’ 737 MAX jets in the next few weeks.

A Boeing official said the new MAX software could still go through revisions, and the timing of formal approval from the FAA and foreign regulators remains fluid.

Even after the changes are fully implemented in the U.S., air-safety regulators in Canada and the EU are poised to conduct their own evaluation of the new software as well as how the FAA initially certified the plane to carry passengers. Those reviews could take months, according to safety experts.

Among other changes, the revised software would rely on two “angle of attack” sensors, rather than one, to measure the upward or downward angle of the wings and nose in flight. If two sensors send data differing by five degrees or more, MCAS wouldn’t activate at all, according to the officials briefed on the tentative changes.

The cockpit crew on the Lion Air flight struggled against MCAS—using manual nose-up commands some two dozen times—before losing control and plunging into the Java Sea at more than 500 miles an hour. The interim accident report revealed a constant 20-degree difference between signals from the sensor on the captain’s side and those from the co-pilot’s-side sensor.

On Saturday, Boeing said it has been “working diligently and in close cooperation with the FAA on the software update,” adding that the company is “taking a comprehensive and careful approach to design, develop and test the software that will ultimately lead to certification” by regulators.

During the investigations of the two crashes, Boeing and the FAA have faced criticism from pilot groups, airlines, politicians and airlines for alleged lapses in the original MCAS design—and for failing to adequately inform aviators.

About a dozen pilots from U.S. and international carriers are getting previews this weekend of the changes in the works, as well as related manuals and training, according to the Boeing official. "We want their feedback,” this official said. “It’s a dialogue.”

The group engaging in this weekend’s preview of the changes includes pilots from U.S. MAX operators: Southwest Airlines Co., American Airlines Group Inc. and United Continental Holdings Inc., a person familiar with the matter said. On Wednesday, this person added, a larger group of more than 100 pilots from a broad cross section of MAX operators are due at Boeing’s 737 factory in Renton, Wash., for a similar session.

Investigators in the Lion Air crash said faulty data transmitted from a single sensor caused the MCAS system to assume the plane was in danger of stalling. The warnings began during takeoff and continued for much of the roughly 11-minute flight, apparently confusing the pilots and creating a cascade of related warning signals.

Under the new design, warning devices will alert crews if there is a problem with sensors before takeoff or in flight, people familiar with the redesign said. They said automated commands to move a flight-control surface on the tail, called a horizontal stabilizer, can be counteracted by pilot commands.

The changes will be standard on all 737 MAX aircraft, for which Boeing has roughly 5,000 orders.

A draft FAA document spelling out the training revisions shows pilots now will be specifically informed about “MCAS activation thresholds,” “flight crew alerts” and how to turn off the system by flipping a single switch. Such details weren’t highlighted in earlier manuals or training materials circulated by Boeing.

FAA officials have determined the handing qualities of 737 MAX jets will be close enough to earlier 737 models that pilots won’t need additional training in ground-based simulators, which is expensive for airlines and disruptive to their schedules.

Write to Andy Pasztor at andy.pasztor@wsj.com and Andrew Tangel at Andrew.Tangel@wsj.com

ANALYSIS: Get ready for Trump to spin the Mueller report

ort
By Jonathan Allen

WASHINGTON — Like any master showman, President Donald Trump surely knows the goods can't stay hidden from the audience forever.

The Mueller Report will come out.

There's pressure from Trump's presidential rivals and from Congress— the House recently voted unanimously for its release. The president himself has said he favors putting it out. And there's a long history of government documents, from the Pentagon Papers to the Iran/Contra report and the Starr report, making their way into the public domain through authorized release, congressional dump and just plain old leaking.

Like Trump himself said, that might be exactly what he wants.

If he's exonerated, he'll be the first to shout "NO COLLUSION!" from the Twitter mountaintops and from campaign rallies in the valleys of the Midwest.

"Without an indictment against him, Trump is going to hammer home the waste of time, taxpayer money and resources to prove that he was right all along and that he did nothing wrong," said Ron Bonjean, a veteran Republican strategist who helped shepherd Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch through the Senate confirmation process.

Trump may do that even if the report casts brutal aspersions on his activities and those of his family and friends — or if it delivers a mixed bag of reasons that special counsel Robert Mueller declined to prosecute certain individuals in the Trump orbit.

After all, Trump's no stranger to spin.

The bottom line for him, and for GOP voters, is that Mueller didn't file charges against him.

But without seeing the report, it's hard to know at this time whether the decision not to prosecute amounts to a vindication for Trump, said former federal prosecutor Joyce White Vance.

"If Mueller declined to prosecute because there was insufficient evidence, that's hardly exoneration," she said. "And if he didn't indict Trump only because of the (Justice Department) policy against indicting a sitting president, that's as far from a clean bill of health as you can get."

The only way to get answers, she said, is if Attorney General William Barr turns everything over. Even then, she added, "Trump would do well to remember the 'collusion' is not the only crime in the federal code and that there are ongoing investigations, including of his inauguration, his businesses and his foundation, in multiple jurisdictions — he is still 'Individual 1' in a (U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York) indictment."

Democrats are just beginning a sprawling set of probes on Capitol Hill, and they are certain to use whatever kernels they can find in the Mueller report and whatever dirt they turn up with subpoenas and oversight hearings to try to convince the electorate that Trump is unfit for a second term.

They may even try to impeach him in the House. But the bar for removing the president from office — already high because it would take 20 Republican senators to flip on Trump — will be much higher absent an independent investigator finding criminal wrongdoing on his part.

It's hard to imagine the report won't be made public — and soon. If not, Trump's re-election campaign would undoubtedly be hamstrung by the kind of unanswered questions that dogged Hillary Clinton about her e-mails in the 2016 campaign.

Though Democrats, including the 2020 presidential candidates, were quick to demand the report's release, there was support for that position on the Republican side of the aisle in Congress, too.

"Attorney General Barr should release the report to the public as soon as possible, while accommodating national security considerations," Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said in a statement released Friday night.

Trump himself said earlier this week: "Let it come out. Let people see it."

If the report clears him — or if he's able to effectively portray it that way — he will no doubt be emboldened in his dealings with his own Justice Department, other federal agencies and Congress, a scenario that portends even more brutal fights between a president who is already unabashed in his attacks against Washington norms, institutions and political players of both parties.

"If you come at the king, you best not miss," Bonjean said. "Trump is going to be unleashed in a way we haven't seen before — with a renewed fury."

Ore 17 del 22 marzo.

Il Consigliere speciale Robert Mueller consegna il rapporto sulle presunte connivenze dei russi nella campagna presidenziale del 2016 allo Attorney General (ministro della Giustizia) che si impegna in una lettera alla House di far loro arrivare entro la settimana una sintesi del rapporto.

Boeing, allarme extra sui 737 Max. Ma la Cina ora frena sulle commesse

• –dal nostro corrispondente Riccardo Barlaam
  (Il Sole-24 Ore)

NEW YORK - Un segnale d’allarme aggiuntivo. Per avvisare i piloti in fase di decollo se il sistema elettronico anti-stallo ha qualche anomalia. Sarebbe questa, oltre a una revisione di tutto il software nel giro del prossimo mese, con nuovi training per tutti i piloti, la risposta che Boeing starebbe valutando assieme alla Federal Aviation Administration, per migliorare la sicurezza dei suoi velivoli a medio raggio 737 Max 8 e 737 Max 9, costretti a terra dopo il divieto al volo emesso dalle agenzie regolatrici dell’aviazione civile in tutto il mondo.

Un bando successivo ai disastri aerei di due 737 Max 8s che si sono verificati a distanza di pochi mesi: l’incidente del volo 302 Ethiopian Airlines il 10 marzo, ad Addis Abeba (157 morti), e quello del volo 610 Lion Air il 29 ottobre 2018, a J

Un bando successivo ai disastri aerei di due 737 Max 8s che si sono verificati a distanza di pochi mesi: l’incidente del volo 302 Ethiopian Airlines il 10 marzo, ad Addis Abeba (157 morti), e quello del volo 610 Lion Air il 29 ottobre 2018, a Jakarta, in Indonesia (189 morti), entrambi avvenuti durante le fasi del decollo.

Sicurezza come optional Un errore dei sensori che misurano l’angolo di incidenza (denominato Aoa) dell’aereo in tempo reale nel sistema anti stallo Mcas (che sta per Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System), il controllo elettronico dell’assetto del nuovo aereo che ha un motore più grande e potente e che consuma meno, ma spostato in avanti rispetto ai modelli precedenti. Secondo un rapporto preliminare il sistema di controllo elettronico Mcas si sospetta sarebbe dietro al repentino cambio di direzione del naso del volo Lion Air durante il decollo, nel primo schianto in Indonesia. E i primi rilievi sul volo Ethiopian Airlines suggeriscono che un problema simile nel sistema di sensoristica e software Mcas potrebbe essere avvenuto nel secondo incidente. Il gruppo di Seattle avrebbe deciso di aggiungere un segnale di allarme ulteriore nelle cabine di pilotaggio degli aerei 737 Max accanto a quelli già esistenti. La luce avvisa i piloti se i due sensori Aoa che misurano l’angolo di attacco dell’aereo danno indicazioni diverse. L’allarme aggiuntivo era già prevista tra gli allestimenti degli aerei ma come optional. Andava pagato a parte. Nella prima versione del listino del 737 Max il costo variava dagli 800mila ai 2 milioni di dollari a seconda dell’allestimento. Molti optional sono legati a comodità delle sedute, spazio dei bagni e così via. Ma non mancano quelli sulla sicurezza. Ad esempio l’impianto anti incendio del 737 Max di base non copre la parte dei bagagli. L’autorità americana Faa l’ha autorizzato. Ma l’omologa agenzia giapponese ha dato il via libera all’acquisto dei nuovi aerei Boeing da parte delle compagnie giapponesi solo con l’impianto anti-incendio nella versione “rinforzata”. Lo stesso discorso per la spia d’allarme aggiuntiva sull’assetto durante il decollo. Non tutte le compagnie aeree, nell’era dei voli low cost, hanno deciso di richiederla. Non c’era nei due 737 caduti, mentre è stato richiesto come allestimento standard da gran parte delle compagnie americane che lo hanno comprato e non hanno (quasi) mai avuto problemi: in realtà ci sono stati cinque casi di segnalazioni alla Faa da ottobre di incidenti sventati per i problemi con il controllo elettronico, per fortuna risolti una volta che il pilota ha disinserito il sistema. Ora con molta probabilità il segnale di allarme aggiuntivo diventerà di serie sui 737 Max, secondo una fonte vicina al dossier riportata dai media americani. Verrà montato su tutti gli aerei. Il portavoce di Boeing non ha rilasciato dichiarazioni. Ma Randy Tinseth, vice president del marketing degli aerei Boeing in un incontro a Londra con gli investitori ha detto di avere molta fiducia nel processo di revisione che Boeing ha attivato sui 737 Max. «Conosco la disciplina e il rigore con cui vengono portati avanti la progettazione e la produzione dei nostri aerei»

Kellyanne, George and Donald.

Petula Dvorak

Columnist

(The Washington Post)

This devil’s triangle of a married couple and a president has taken one of Washington’s standard story lines — the madcap misadventures of a mixed marriage — and twisted it into something unrecognizable, cringey and on display for an audience of millions.

On Wednesday morning, President Trump tweeted this about the husband of one of his most trusted — and effective — aides:

“George Conway, often referred to as Mr. Kellyanne Conway by those who know him, is VERY jealous of his wife’s success & angry that I, with her help, didn’t give him the job he so desperately wanted. I barely know him but just take a look, a stone cold LOSER & husband from hell!”

What fresh insanity is this? It’s not even a story about politics in the bedroom. It’s not even the saucy love triangle of the District’s beloved bald eagles, Liberty and Justice with their third wheel, Aaron Burrd. It’s a marital mess, and the president of the United States just put himself in the middle of it. And the weirdest thing of all about the Conways: They’re both conservatives who started out on the same page about Trump and then diverged in fairly dramatic fashion.

This is how it used to go in the nation’s capital, when it came to complicated marriages:

“Oh. She’s in a mixed marriage, isn’t she?” a parent said to me at school drop-off years ago, after the mom in question raced past us, on her way to work at a well-known publication, across the street from her Republican-appointee husband’s office. “They must have great sex.”

A mixed marriage is one of those D.C. cultural curiosities, normally a red-and-blue pairing, a Capulet and a Montague, a fiery, bipartisan union that means every Sunday brunch is their own, private, “Meet the Press” panel, and it’s passion, not politics, that keeps them together.

Americans aren’t that into these kinds of mixed marriages; just look around your own peer group to verify that.

Numbers tell us this, too. In 2016, voter records in 30 states showed that at least 70 percent of American households headed by registered voters are a political match, according to research by Eitan Hersh, an associate professor of political science at Tufts University and Catalist chief scientist Yair Ghitza.

The rest of the households are mixed marriages, but most of them are an independent hitched to a D or an R. The rare Republican/Democrat union is less than 10 percent, according to those numbers.

The ultimate mixed Washington marriage used to be the Mary Matalin/James Carville show, which stood as the pairing of political opposites, a lesson for all of America that we can disagree on politics, but back at home, we’re all human, in love and arguing over the toilet seat and loading the dishwasher.

They wrote books, had a movie made about them. They’re still married!

But this latest D.C. marriage show — the triangle of the Conways and Trump — is dark dysfunction, not lovable sitcom. A twisted reality show that’s appalling to watch.

The Conways are both Republicans, both big players in Washington. He went after President Bill Clinton as one of Paula Jones’s lawyers. She founded her own polling firm and became a sensation as one of the conservative female stars of the pundit circuit, along with Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham and Barbara Olson.

The Conways backed Trump together until Trump’s travel ban in 2017, something that George Conway did not support. And that’s when he began publicly critiquing his wife and Washington looked on in awe — with a little bit of respect — that they seemed to be handling it so well.

They’ve got four kids. Of course they’re keeping it civil, people thought, though we hungered for insight into how.

Last summer, Kellyanne Conway gave us a little when she told The Washington Post’s Ben Terris that “I feel there’s a part of [George Conway] that thinks I chose Donald Trump over him. Which is ridiculous. One is my work, and one is my marriage.”

And that seemed to be that.

But then it got extremely personal over the weekend, when George Conway posted the medical definitions of narcissistic personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder from the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” on Twitter, as Trump was unleashing a flock of inflammatory tweets.

Trump responded with the “loser” tweet and then, Kellyanne Conway did it. She chose Trump over her husband.

On Thursday morning, she declared that she wasn’t going to follow her husband’s advice and resign.

“What message would that send to the feminists everywhere who pretend they’re independent thinkers and men don’t make decisions for them?” Conway said during a morning television appearance on Fox Business Network. “They can talk it, and I can walk it. I can live it.”

She said she appreciated the way Trump was defending her: “[The president] is protective of me, that’s what people really should take from this. I’m not being asked to choose between my marriage and my job, Donald Trump has never made me feel that way.”

This kind of can-this-marriage-survive spectacle isn’t entirely new to Washington. We can reach back to the Nixon administration — as we do so often these days — to find the battle between a vocal spouse and a surly president.

Martha Mitchell, wife of Nixon reelection campaign director and former attorney general John Mitchell, was already known as the “Mouth of the South” when Nixon put a hired security detail and ex-FBI agent on her.

Mitchell was in her bedroom while the couple was on a campaign trip to California when she learned who was arrested in the Watergate break-in and immediately got on the phone with Helen Thomas, from United Press International.

The security detail, Stephen King, “rushed into her bedroom, threw her back across the bed, and ripped the telephone out of the wall,” reporter Winzola McLendon wrote in her biography of Mitchell, according to a Newsweek story about King. “The conversation ended abruptly when it appeared someone took away the phone from her hand,” Thomas reported. “She was heard to say, ‘You just get away.’ ”

Which might be sound advice for George Conway.