Susan Rice Wearily Replies Yet Again to Republican Party Interrogators

Pete Souza/The White House/ZUMAPRESS

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A couple of weeks ago, Senators Chuck Grassley and Lindsey Graham took yet another shot at Susan Rice, one of the Republican Party’s favorite punching bags. They got hold of a memo that Rice wrote during her final days in the White House, recounting a meeting with FBI director James Comey related to the Trump-Russia investigation. Rice’s letter was a summary of the meeting, in which she quoted President Obama telling Comey to continue doing everything “by the book.”

How suspicious! Grassley and Graham thought it “odd” that Rice would document the meeting, and suggested that Comey hadn’t proceeded “by the book.” Hmmm. Suspicious. They were also suspicious of Obama’s comment that he wasn’t providing Comey with any instructions from a “law enforcement perspective.” What about other perspectives? Hmmm. And what about the Steele dossier? And why the question to Comey about whether there was any reason not to fully share information about Russia with the incoming Trump team? Hmmm. Hmmm.

Today Rice answered. She didn’t quite call G&G grandstanding boneheads, but the tone of the letter is pretty acerbic:

How about that? Apparently President Obama was reluctant to share information with Michael Flynn in light of “concerning communications” held “before and after the election.” I wonder why G&G didn’t think of that?

As for why Rice memorialized the conversation, I’d say that’s pretty obvious. It’s because she knew full well that the Republican Party is full of people like Grassley and Graham. She may know that better than almost anybody, in fact.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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