The Russia watch Nothing to fear but FEAR itself; U.S. outgunned in fight against Russia’s disinformation; dissecting the Trump-Russia Dossier, and more

We have nothing to fear but FEAR itself (Norman L. Eisen and Ryan Goodman, Just Security)
Like seemingly every reader in America, we eagerly awaited Bob Woodward‘s new book Fear. We had a special, additional interest. As frequent commentators on the investigation of special counsel Robert Mueller, we were looking forward to additional information that would help us and the public understand the criminal and counterintelligence probe of President Trump and his associates.
But after reading and analyzing the book, we are disappointed to conclude that on this point it obscures rather than illuminates. The problem is that Woodward apparently fell for the false and self-serving narratives of those cooperating with him, while ignoring or minimizing a raft of independent evidence to the contrary, and failing to account for other constraints on his ability to get this part of his narrative right. As a result, his book should not be relied upon by those seeking to understand Mueller’s work.

Quick notes on the Rosenstein revelations (Jack Goldsmith, Lawfare)
The Times story will feed the Trumpian narrative about a “Deep State.” At the same time, and looking at it from something like the opposite perspective, it’s another piece of evidence—on top of large-scale senior-level insubordination, the anonymous Times op-ed writer, and many episodes in Woodward’s new book—that senior Trump officials are significantly disenchanted with the president’s basic competence and have undertaken very unusual steps to deal with it. Some will worry about a Deep State; others will worry about the stability of our government; yet others will worry about both.

The Rosenstein revelations are akin to the text messages between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. They demonstrate bad judgment expressed in what the participants mistakenly thought was a private setting, but that became public and had a devastating impact on the perceived legitimacy of the government’s law enforcement efforts. This has happened a lot recently, and it is related to the point I wrote about last year: the institutions that oppose the norm-defying president have often “defied their own norms, and harmed themselves and the nation in the process.”