What's Up in Politics

Keeping up with the latest happenings in US Politics

Week 151 in Trump – Impeachment News

Posted on December 19, 2019 in Impeachment, Trump

We’re getting down to the wire on impeachment this week, with the final Judiciary Committee hearings and drawing up the articles of impeachment. And by the time I publish this, all the suspense will be over, I’m sure.

Here’s what happened on the impeachment front for the week ending December 15…

General Happenings:

  1. Mike Pence refuses to release information to Adam Schiff about Pence’s call with Zelensky.
  2. A group of moderate Democrats brings up the idea of censure instead of impeachment. They’re mostly in risky districts where their re-election chances could hinge on this vote.
  3. In the middle of the impeachment hearings, a handful of House Democrats attend the White House Congressional Ball.
  4. Representative Jeff Van Drew says he’ll vote against impeachment and then switch parties to the Republican party.
    • Van Drew has a solid Democratic voting record and has only voted with Trump about 9% of the time.
    • He represents a Republican-leaning district where Trump won in 2016.
    • He spoke about this with Trump.
    • Last month, he swore he would remain a Democrat.
    • Six of his aides resign at the news, including his legislative director, communications director, and scheduler.
  1. Zelensky and Putin meet with other world leaders in Paris to discuss a peace agreement. There was no breakthrough in the meeting, which was sponsored by France and Germany.
    • They agree to a prisoner exchange and a cease-fire.
    • They don’t agree on a timeline for local elections nor on control of the borders.
  1. A coalition of veterans and national security groups call on Congress to “put country over politics” and support impeachment.
  2. In case you’re wondering whether impeachment will get a fair hearing in the Senate, Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham put that to rest this week.
    • In a Fox News interview with Sean Hannity, Mitch McConnell says:
      • “Everything I do during this, I’m coordinating with the White House counsel. There will be no difference between the president’s position and our position as to how to handle this.”
      • “We’ll be working through this process … in total coordination with the White House counsel’s office and the people representing the president in the well of the Senate.”
      • “I’m going to take my cues from the president’s lawyers.”
      • “I’m going to coordinate with the president’s lawyers.”
      • “There’s no chance the president will be removed from office.”
    • Lindsey Graham says:
      • “I think what’s best for the country is to get this thing over with. I have clearly made up my mind. I’m not trying to hide the fact that I have disdain for the accusations in the process. So I don’t need any witnesses. … I am ready to vote on the underlying articles. I don’t really need to hear a lot of witnesses.”
      • “I have made up my mind. I’m not trying to pretend to be a fair juror here.”
  1. Representative Val Demings calls on Mitch McConnell to recuse himself because a member of a jury cannot also serve as the defense attorney.
  2. McConnell and Graham want the trial over quickly and quietly, but Trump wants a spectacle.
  3. Chuck Schumer sends a letter to Mitch McConnell listing the witnesses they want to call for an impeachment trial in the Senate. His witness list includes administration officials that Trump previously prevented from testifying. McConnell rejects the request.
  4. Because of the delay in disbursing the military aid, Trump and Congress had to pass an extension; otherwise, the deadline would’ve passed and the funds would no longer be available. Around $20 million still hasn’t been disbursed.
  5. The Office of Management and Budget is now claiming that they withheld aid to study whether the spending complied with U.S. policy. They extended the hold on aid eight times in August and September.
  6. Trump goes on a Twitter tear mostly over impeachment, putting out 80 tweets in three hours, and then adding 20 more tweets for good measure. This is after he tweeted 105 times the previous Sunday.
  7. As the result of a FOIA request, the Trump administration releases heavily redacted communications from the Department of Defense and Office of Management and Budget that discuss the withholding of aid to Ukraine. Unfortunately, they’re so redacted there’s not much info to glean. The Center for Public Integrity is asking the judge to enforce greater transparency.

House Judiciary Committee Hearing:

The House Judiciary Committee holds a second hearing, this time to let the legal counsel from the majority and minority in the House Intelligence Committee present their cases.

  1. Barry Berke, counsel for the majority on the House Judiciary Committee, lays out how we got to impeachment:
    • The president abused his power by pressuring Zelensky to investigate a political opponent.
    • He then abused his power by ramping up that pressure and conditioning a wanted White House meeting and needed military aid.
    • He put his own political prospects over our national security.
    • This is supported by documents, actions, and sworn testimony, and is uncontradicted by contemporaneous records.
    • These are the uncontested facts he’s talking about:

      • Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, pushed Ukraine to open an investigation into Trump’s political rival, Joe Biden.
      • Trump told his Ukraine advisors to talk to Rudy.
      • Trump’s Ukraine advisors told Ukraine officials there would be no White House meeting unless they announced investigations into Biden.
      • Trump then ordered that the military aid approved by Congress be withheld against the wishes of every government agency involved.
      • On the July 25th call, Trump told Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden and to investigate Ukraine interference in the 2016 election. Both would help Trump politically.
      • Trump released the military aid after two things: 1) Ukraine passed anti-corruption legislation, and 2) he learned about the whistleblower’s complaint.
  1. Republicans’ counsel counters with these points:
    • Democrats can’t get over that Trump is the president and they just disagree with Trump’s policies. They’re just afraid he’ll be re-elected.
    • Trump’s conduct doesn’t meet the level of high crimes and misdemeanors.
    • 63 million people voted for Trump, so we can’t impeach him.
    • Democrats have just been searching for a reason to impeach, and they’ve introduced several articles of impeachment. (They neglect to say that Democrats also voted against those articles.)
    • Democrats requested and subpoenaed Trump’s financial information.
    • The process has been too rushed.
    • Democrats should’ve allowed White House staff to testify with White House counsel present.
    • He talks about how the White House cooperated once with one investigation earlier this year as proof that they’re cooperative. (The White House has instructed zero cooperation with the impeachment inquiry.)
    • Zelensky has said there was no pressure, as have other Ukrainian officials. And they didn’t know that aid was withheld until it was published in the media.
    • Trump is skeptical of Ukraine and always has been. He also doesn’t think Europe is doing enough to help Ukraine.
    • The voters can decide in the next elections. (This is the most disingenuous argument to me. Voters don’t judge the president on legalities; that’s the job of Congress. It’s why we have impeachment in the constitution.)
  1. I don’t see anything here that supports the Republican case except Ukraine officials not knowing about the aid being suspended. But that is contradicted by multiple witnesses who were fielding earlier calls from those officials. Even Zelensky now says that withholding aid was wrong.
  2. This is how seriously the Republicans’ lawyer is taking this:
    • He says the chief allegation that the impeachment query has been trying to assess over the past several days is this — whether Trump abused the power of his office through quid pro quo, extortion, or “whatever”. Whatever. He brushed it off as “whatever.”
  1. Republicans put up posters in the hearing that attack and mock Democrats. The posters are strategically placed to be caught on television cameras.

Article of Impeachment:

After a marathon debate and an overnight postponement, the House Judiciary Committee approves two articles of impeachment in a 100% party-line vote. They do not include any obstructive acts related to the Mueller investigation. Democrats felt that they were too complicated to include at this time. Here‘s the substance of the articles (read the full text here):

Abuse of Power:

  1. Trump solicited a foreign government to interfere in the 2020 elections to his advantage and compromised our national security in so doing.
  2. He pressured Ukraine to do this by conditioning official U.S. government acts of significant value to Ukraine on investigations into Joe Biden and a discredited Russian theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 elections.
  3. Trump conditioned military aid and a head of state meeting on getting those investigations.
  4. Even though the aid was eventually released, Trump has continued to pressure Ukraine for the investigations.
  5. He will continue this pattern of corruption.

Obstruction of Congress:

  1. Trump directed ultimate defiance of House subpoenas, a right accorded to the House by their “sole Power of Impeachment.”
  2. He ordered the White House to defy a lawful subpoena of documents.
  3. He ordered the State Department, Office of Management and Budget, Department of Energy, and Department of Defense to also defy their subpoenas.
  4. He ordered John Michael “Mick” Mulvaney, Robert B. Blair, John A. Eisenberg, Michael Ellis, Preston Wells Griffith, Russell T. Vought, Michael Duffey, Brian McCormack, and T. Ulrich Brechbuhl not to comply with the inquiry.
  5. The purpose of the obstruction was to cover up his own repeated misconduct.

More Trouble for Parnas, Fruman, and Giuliani… And Now Nunes:

  1. Prosecutors ask a judge to revoke Lev Parnas’ bail. They discovered that Parnas had received an unreported $1 million payment from a Ukrainian oligarch suspected to be Dmytro Firtash.
  2. As Giuliani taxis down the runway on his return from Kyiv (where he met with former Ukraine prosecutors in an effort to clear Trump of the impeachment charges), Trump calls him to ask “What did you get?”
    • Giuliani replies, “More than you can imagine.”
    • Trump says Giuliani wants to testify in the impeachment inquiry about what he’s learned. Oh lordy, I hope they let him.
  1. Bill Barr tells Trump that Giuliani is a liability and a problem for the administration.

Week 150 in Trump

Posted on December 12, 2019 in Politics, Trump

I'm thinking you just shouldn't mess with her. Just don't do it.

You just can’t make up all the things that get uncovered by investigations surrounding this administration. This week, the guy who was trying to facilitate back-channel meetings between Trump transition staff and foreign officials was also behind a scheme to funnel money from the UAE into Democratic campaigns and PACs in 2016, including millions to Hillary Clinton’s campaign and PACs. And then when Hillary didn’t win, he and his cohorts started funneling money to Trump. This guy is an equal opportunity grifter. I can’t wait to see how this story develops.

Here’s what happened in politics for the week ending December 8…

Shootings This Week:

There were FOUR mass shootings in the U.S. this week (defined as killing and/or injuring 4 or more people). Shooters kill 9 people and injure 17 more. Unfortunately, one is being investigated as an international terrorist attack.

  1. A shooter kills 2 people and injures 2 people in Montgomery AL, in what seems to be a drug-related shooting.
  2. A shooter kills 2 people and injures 3 more in a home in DeSoto, TX.
  3. A shooter kills 1 person and injures 4 outside a bar in New Orleans.
  4. A Saudi national who was here for flight training kills 3 people on a Pensacola, Fl, base and injures 8 more. He was in the U.S. as part of a training program that included aviation and English training, and he’d been here since August 2017. He was killed during the shooting. Trump speaks with the King of Saudi Arabia, who expresses his condolences. The program that brings Saudi soldiers here for training is facing heavy scrutiny.

Russia:

  1. Lisa Page, the FBI agent whose text messages with Peter Strzok were released as part of the investigation into the Russia investigation, opens up about what it’s been like to stay silent while Trump bullies her over and over again.
  1. Even before the DOJ’s inspector general releases his findings on the FISA warrants for surveilling Carter Page, Attorney General Bill Barr says he disagrees with the findings. The report is expected to state that the FBI was justified in opening the investigation, but that FBI personnel made some missteps.
    • IMO, Barr has kind of backed himself into a corner here by going all-in on conspiracy theories being spread by the administration. If he accepts his IG’s findings, he’s basically saying that everything he’s been saying and pushing for during his time as attorney general is wrong.
    • I’m sure we’ll get a repeat of Barr’s disinformation about the Mueller report when the report is released.
    • One thing the report is expected to show is that Josef Mifsud, the Maltese professor who told George Papadopoulos that Russians had dirt on Hillary, is not a U.S. intelligence asset who was planted as part of a sting operation. U.S. Attorney John Durham, who’s running a second investigation for Barr, says his findings so far back that up.
  1. The DOJ releases additional documents from the Mueller investigation as part of a FOIA request. Here are a few things we learn in this week’s release:
    • Rob Rosenstein and Jeff Sessions considered replacing James Comey during the transition. Rosenstein thought Comey’s public comments about the investigation into Hillary’s emails violated DOJ rules.
    • However, Rosenstein was “angry, ashamed, horrified, and embarrassed” by how Comey’s firing went down. He also knew the White House was lying about it.
    • Pence was the one who pushed Trump to fire Michael Flynn for lying to him.
    • Rudy Giuliani turned down the Attorney General position because he wanted to be Secretary of State instead.
    • Jay Sekulow, White House lawyer, told Michael Cohen not to testify about certain details of the Trump Tower meeting set up by Donald Trump Jr. with Russians who said they had dirt on Hillary.
    • Paul Manafort tried to convince Rick Gates not to cooperate with the investigation, saying that Trump was supported Gates. Remember that after being convicted on several counts, Manafort agreed to cooperate, but then lied to Mueller and fed information about the investigation to the White House.
    • John Kelly backs up Don McGahn’s testimony that Trump asked him to fire Mueller. Much of this is redacted, so I don’t know if this is part of an ongoing case.
  1. Last summer, Russia state TV ran a special report titled “Ukrainian Interference.” Just in case you’re wondering where that particular conspiracy theory came from. What does Putin have to say about all this?

“Thank God nobody is accusing us any more of interfering in U.S. elections… Now they’re accusing Ukraine. Well, let them sort this out among themselves.”

  1. The World Anti-Doping Agency once again bans Russia from competing in the Olympics. Clean Russian athletes can still compete as unaffiliated athletes.

Legal Fallout:

  1. Representative Duncan Hunter (R-CA) pleads guilty to conspiracy to use campaign funds for personal use. Hunter has maintained his innocence for a year and a half, and he continued his run for Congress even after he was indicted on 60 counts.
    • If you don’t know what he was indicted on, the court filing is worth the read. Charges include using campaign funds to fly their pet bunny in an airplane seat, falsely claiming donations to veterans organizations, using campaign funds for family vacations (to Italy, Hawaii, Las Vegas, and others), concealing their campaign fund spending, spending campaign funds to date his mistresses, and so much more.
    • He says he’s just taking a plea deal for his family, though he didn’t hesitate to throw his wife under the bus when the indictments dropped.
    • He resigns from Congress, date TBD. The House Ethics Committee instructs him to stop voting in the House. What took so long? He’s been under 60 indictments all year.
    • Hunter appealed his case in July even though his trial hadn’t even begun.
  1. A federal appeals court again rules that Congress can see Trump’s banking records as part of their investigations into potential foreign influence and other misconduct. Trump asks the Supreme Court to block the subpoena.
  2. George Nader is in the news again (he was a figure in the Mueller investigation). He was part of a scheme with Ahmad Khawaja and others to funnel foreign money into mostly democratic campaigns and organizations during the 2016 elections.
    • They hid the source of $3.5 million in campaign donations (the money came from the United Arab Emirates).
    • But lest you think these guys aren’t mercenaries, they also cultivated Trump campaign contacts and funneled money to Trump and his political organizations. After the election, they made a major pivot from donating to Democratic causes to donating to Republican causes.
    • The indictment implies that Khawaja hosted a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton, but doesn’t say that outright. Khawaja also hosted a reception for an elected official in 2018. There’s also no evidence that the recipients of the funds, Republican or Democrat, were aware of the source.
    • Nader is already in federal custody for other charges. That guy’s bad news.
    • Khawaja has previously been charged with helping other websites launder money. He’s also bad news.
  1. Trump is making money off his campaign by renting office space to re-election committees. $1.7 million so far.

Impeachment:

Including all this info just makes this too long, so I moved it out into its own post. You can skip right over to it if that’s your focus.

Courts/Justice:

  1. For the first time in over ten years, the Supreme Court hears arguments on a gun rights case. Gun owners are fighting New York’s strict rules for having a handgun at home. However, this is moot because New York already loosened up the rules.
  2. Republicans confirm yet another judge who’s rated as ‘not qualified’ to a permanent seat on a federal court.

Healthcare:

  1. State lawmakers from both sides of the aisle got assistance from lobbyists in writing op-eds opposing Medicare for All.
    • I get that we need issues experts to help craft our policies and our laws, but it’s out-of-control, with a handful of groups crafting so much of what goes on at the state level. You can tell by the cookie-cutter legislation that gets passed.
  1. With a new Democratic majority in the state House and Senate, Virginia begins to remove the work requirements for Medicaid.

International:

  1. A bipartisan group of Senators asks Trump to sanction Turkey before the upcoming NATO meetings. After Turkey purchased Russian technologies that could be used to gather intelligence on our F-35 stealth fighter jets, we removed Turkey from our F-35 program.
  2. Trump has a closed-door meeting with Turkish President Erdogan at the NATO leaders meeting.
  3. Wow. I guess all you need to do to get Trump to defend your interests is to argue against your own interests. In a sit-down before the NATO leaders meeting, French President Emmanuel Macron gets Trump to defend NATO by criticizing it. It was a pretty amazing thing.
    • Trump is likely still smarting from Macron’s earlier statement about NATO suffering brain death because of American leadership.
  1. And speaking of the NATO meetings, it’s not an awesome couple of days for Trump:
    • A group of foreign leaders — Emmanuel Macron, Justin Trudeau, Boris Johnson, Princess Anne, and Mark Rutte — get caught on video at a reception kvetching about Trump and making a little fun of him.
    • Trudeau was defending himself being late for something, and said it was because Trump turned a 10-minute press conference into a 40-minute one (he did that with three press conferences that day).
    • Upon learning of this, Trump calls Trudeau two-faced, cancels a press conference, and leaves the summit early. Then Trump gets caught on audio saying, “That was funny when I said that guy was two-faced.”
  1. Iranian President Rouhani calls for the release of innocent, unarmed protestors who were detained during the recent protests.
  2. North Korea says that our earlier negotiations were just a “foolish trick,” and we should expect a Christmas present from them, likely in the form of a missile test.
  3. After North Korea launches a “successful test of great significance,” Trump warns that Kim Jong Un risks losing everything if they resume hostilities.
  4. A gun battle between Mexican law enforcement and cartel members near the southern border leaves 21 people dead. Most of the dead were cartel members.
  5. At the request of the White House, Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) blocks an effort to pass a resolution recognizing the Armenian genocide.
    • He’s the third Republican tasked by the White House to block the resolution, so it’s been blocked three times. They all use the same reason… it’s not the right time.
    • Two years ago, Cramer expressed his appreciation to Dean Cain (former Superman) for raising awareness of the Armenian genocide. He was also the sponsor of a similar resolution when he was in the House.
  1. China warns the U.S. against passing legislation criticizing their treatment of Uighur Muslims, especially during a trade war.
  2. Even though he’s under indictment, Benjamin Netanyahu is gearing up for his next campaign for Prime Minister of Israel. He recently met with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to discuss Iran, the Israeli annexation of the Jordan Valley in the West Bank, and a U.S.-Israel defense treaty.
  3. Trump considers sending an additional 14,000 troops to the Mideast to counter Iran. He’s already sent 14,000 troops to the Mideast since May.
  4. Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators turn out to march in Hong Kong for Human Rights Day. The march is mostly peaceful, but peppered with some vandalism.
  5. Worker protests continue in France, while anti-government protests continue in Chile. I can’t even stay on top of all the global protests anymore. Even Haitians are protesting systemic corruption in their country.
  6. Youth activists fill the street of Madrid as part of a global climate protest during the UN’s COP25 climate change conference.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. The Senate passes a bill to permanently fund historically black colleges and universities and other minority-serving institutions. The House has already passed it, so it’ll go to Trump for a signature.

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

  1. Trump pressured the Army Corps of Engineers to award a contract to a North Dakota company, Fisher Sand and Gravel, whose owner is a frequent Fox News guest. Officials argued against it because the bid did not meet the standards. Fisher got the contract.
    • Fisher was also hired by Build the Wall, the private organization that fundraised to help Trump build his wall.
    • Fisher has a record of environmental and tax violations.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Trump is the first president since before Reagan who works to decrease the number of refugees we accept rather than expand our very successful programs for resettling refugees. Trump wants to reverse our progress, but the sentiment is different at a local level:
    • After Trump gave states the ability to decline to accept refugees, the Republican governor of Utah wrote to Trump asking for more. He said people in Utah “love giving them a new home and a new life.” He also says refugees become productive and responsible members of their communities.
    • On the flip side, Burleigh County, North Dakota is considering a vote on whether to become the first county in the U.S. to refuse resettled refugees.
  1. Attorney General Bill Barr has given some wacky speeches lately. This week he says that if some communities don’t start showing law enforcement a little respect, maybe they won’t get any police protection.
  2. George Zimmerman sues the family of Trayvon Martin for defamation. Huh? Zimmerman killed Trayvon as he was walking home one night, and got off on Florida’s Stand Your Ground law (thank you ALEC). Zimmerman’s suing for more than $100 million. Oh, and his lawyer thinks Obama is a secret Muslim who was born in Kenya. Hoo boy.
  3. Officials at the southern border confiscate migrant children’s medications, including life-saving ones like asthma inhalers.
  4. Video of a boy who died in ICE custody last May shows that he was in pain and distress for hours before dying from the flu. The video also shows that agents lied about some of the facts involved, including who found the body and whether they checked on him.
  5. Outside lawyers find that Medicare chief Seema Veerma‘s allegations of sexual discrimination in DHHS are unsubstantiated. They also uncovered a super contentious work relationship between her and her boss, DHHS Secretary Alex Azar.
  6. In a speech to the Israeli American Council, Trump lets his antisemite flag fly:

“You’re not nice people at all, but you have to vote for me. You have no choice. You’re not going to vote for Pocahontas, I can tell you that. You’re not going to vote for the wealth tax!”

  1. DHS is considering taking pictures of everyone who enters and leaves the country as part of a facial recognition program. This includes U.S. citizens.

Climate:

  1. Trump skips the 2019 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Madrid, but Nancy Pelosi brings a delegation in his place. Fourteen Democrats accompany her, but none of the Republican lawmakers they invited agreed to come.
  2. In a complaint about water conservation bathroom fixtures, Trump says this:

“You turn on the faucet and you don’t get any water. They take a shower and water comes dripping out. Just dripping out, very quietly dripping out. People are flushing toilets 10 times, 15 times, as opposed to once.”

  1. And he says this:

“There may be some areas where we’ll go the other route — desert areas — but for the most part you have many states where they have so much water — it comes down, it’s called rain. They don’t know what to do with it.”

  1. He says the EPA is looking into this. I’m sorry, but if you have to flush 15 times, either you’re broken or your toilet is.
  2. Months after receiving a huge backlash for proposing to authorize the use of “cyanide bombs” to poison coyotes, foxes, and feral dogs, the EPA announces that they’re going forward with their proposal.
  3. Spain’s biggest gas and oil company makes a promise to become a net-zero carbon emitter by 2050.

Budget/Economy:

  1. AK Steel agrees to be purchased by a mining company in a deal worth around $1 billion. That’s less than half what AK Steel’s value was before the trade wars began.
  2. The Dow Jones drops three days in a row after Trump warns that the trade deal with China might not happen until after the elections next year. He says that tariffs will remain until the deal is done.
  3. Trump announces tariffs on metals from Brazil and Argentina, and threatens harsher tariffs on French goods. The reason is, unsurprisingly, that he doesn’t think they’re being fair to us (everything’s so unfair!).
    • The unexpected announcement goes against their 2018 agreement, where Brazil and Argentina would accept quotas on their shipments instead of having tariffs imposed.
  1. Manufacturing jobs have not only stalled, but are moving into the negative, after receiving a big boost when Trump was elected. The trade war with China undid much of that progress.
    • Typically trade policies pinch either farmers or manufacturing, but current policies are hitting both sectors.
    • The effects of the trade wars are just starting to be seen, so companies are bracing for harder times.
  1. Nancy Pelosi is pushing to modify Trump’s updated NAFTA agreement by removing certain legal protections for online content because it prevents Congress from making future changes. Pelosi questions whether that should be in our trade pacts or enshrined in U.S. law. The House is finalizing their changes to Trump’s updated NAFTA agreement (USMCA), and expects a vote next week.
  2. Job growth in November was 266,000, getting a little boost from the end of the GM worker strike. The unemployment rate and the numbers of unemployed were little changed.
  3. The number of people applying for unemployment benefits decreased to its lowest level in seven months—close to a 50-year low. It’s partly attributable to Thanksgiving.
  4. The Trump administration formalizes a new rule for work requirements for SNAP recipients, which could cause up to 700,000 people to lose food assistance.

Elections:

  1. After Mike Bloomberg enters the Democratic presidential primary race, his media outlet, Bloomberg News, announces they won’t do any investigative journalism into any of the Democratic primary candidates. Trump’s 2020 campaign then announces that they won’t give Bloomberg News press credentials to cover Trump’s campaign events.
  2. I’m sure you noticed that I haven’t been reporting on any Democratic presidential campaign activities. I’m waiting for things to shake out a bit and hopefully narrow down, and then I’ll dive in.
  3. The House votes to restore those parts of the Voting Rights Act that were struck down by the Supreme Court. The court’s argument was that we’re in a post-racial society so we don’t need those kinds of rules anymore. The vote was along party lines, and it likely won’t pass the Senate.
  4. North Carolina judges rule that the latest version of electoral maps will be used in the 2020 elections. The judges also say there’s not enough time between now and the primaries to determine whether they’re still gerrymandered, so that’s weird.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Trump makes an unannounced visit to Dover Air Force Base to receive the remains of two slain soldiers who were killed in Afghanistan.
  2. Trump further strains relations with the Pentagon when he brings two of the soldiers he pardoned onto the stage with him at a fundraiser. These guys were convicted of war crimes. Military leaders fear the pardons undermine the rules of military conduct.

Week 150 in Trump – Impeachment News

Posted on December 12, 2019 in Impeachment, Trump

Doug Collins, acting like a grown up and taking the hearings seriously.

This week, both the Democrats and Republicans on the impeachment committees release their reports on the hearings for their handoff to the Judiciary Committee. I know it’s a lot to read, but if you didn’t watch the hearings, you should at least read both executive summaries and conclusions. And if you don’t have time for that, read through the tables of contents. You’ll get the gist, if not the full story.

Here’s what happened on the impeachment front for the week ending December 8…

General Happenings:

  1. In an interview, Ukraine President Zelensky says he’s learned not to trust anyone at all, and he’s lowered his expectations with both Russia in terms of the peace talks and the U.S. in terms of support.
    • He says Ukraine doesn’t stand a chance against Russia without the support of the U.S.
    • Trump is continually indicating to other countries that Ukraine is corrupt, which makes Zelensky concerned about future support.
    • He says he and Trump never discussed the hold on military aid, but he does question the fairness of it.
    • Kurt Volker was trying to get the U.S. to play a larger role in the peace process.
    • Zelensky doesn’t want Ukraine to be seen as just a pawn in the global game. They won’t be used as a bargaining chip.
  1. House Democrats consider adding the items of obstruction listed in Mueller’s report to their articles of impeachment.
  2. In a tweet, Trump praises Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) for defending Trump on Meet the Press by pushing the debunked theories about Ukrainian officials meddling in the 2016 elections to help Clinton.
    • Kennedy brings up a court ruling in Ukraine that said releasing the black ledger constituted interference, but neglects to mention that the ruling has since been overturned.
    • He also says he got some of his information from the Financial Times, but no one at FT can figure out what he’s talking about.
    • Kennedy says he missed the Senate intelligence briefing where officials warned Senators that this was all Russian propaganda and that Russia has been engaged in a years-long campaign to frame Ukraine as being responsible for election meddling in 2016. With intelligence agencies warning that Russia will step up their efforts in 2020, we are screwed if an entire party believes Russian propaganda.
  1. Nancy Pelosi calls for the House to draw up articles of impeachment.
    • During the Judiciary Committee hearing, House Democrats indicate three areas of impeachment: abuse of power and bribery, obstruction of Congress, and obstruction of justice. This indicates they might be including Robert Mueller’s findings of obstruction into the impeachment articles.
  1. Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Richard Burr (R-NC) says that Ukraine meets the standard for election meddling that people first held Russia to. By that, he means that Russia preferred Trump, and Ukraine preferred Clinton.
    • That’s muddying the waters a bit because he doesn’t compare what Russia actually did to what Ukraine actually did (probably because they aren’t comparable).
    • Burr refuses to directly answer whether what Ukraine did could be considered meddling.
    • Also, most foreign leaders had a preference for one over the other. Were they all meddling?
  1. The White House disputes some of the calls recorded in the call logs and listed in the impeachment report, but those came directly from the provider, so it’s not clear what they’re disputing.
  2. Nancy Pelosi dresses down a reporter who asks if she hates Trump. The essence of it all is that no, she doesn’t. She has policy disagreements with him, but impeachment is a separate thing about the constitution and violations of the oath of office.
    • Trump then describes her response has her having a nervous fit.
    • Kevin McCarthy backtracks three times when asked about whether he thinks Pelosi hates Trump, as he often claims.
  1. Trump frequently used an unsecured cell phone to have discussions with Giuliani and others involved in the Ukraine affair.
  2. 500 legal experts sign on to a letter saying Trump committed impeachment offenses. They write: “Put simply, if a President cheats in his effort at re-election, trusting the democratic process to serve as a check through that election is no remedy at all. That is what impeachment is for.”

Democrat Majority Report:

The Democrats’ report tries to lay out the evidence for their assertions that Trump abused the power of his office by orchestrating a pressure campaign to get Ukraine President Zelensky to open investigations into a potential 2020 election rival and into theories that Ukraine meddled in our 2016 elections. In return, Trump would give Zelensky a White House meeting, and he later withheld military aid on those conditions as well.

Here are some highlights. Again, if you’ve been watching the hearings, there won’t be much that’s new here.

  1. The report says Trump “placed his own personal and political interests” ahead of U.S. national interests, “subverted U.S. foreign policy toward Ukraine and undermined our national security in favor of two politically motivated investigations that would help his presidential re-election campaign.”
  2. Trump tried to hide his actions from Congress and the public by blocking subpoenas for documents and witnesses. He also tried to intimidate witnesses, some while they were actually testifying.
  3. The report alleges that:
    • Trump forced out U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.
    • He put four people in charge of Ukraine affairs: Rudy Giuliani, Rick Perry, Kurt Volker, and Gordon Sondland.
    • He froze military aid to Ukraine against the advice of state and foreign officials and over their objections. Democrats say the release was conditioned on an announcement of the investigations.
    • A White House meeting between Trump and Ukraine was conditioned on a public announcement of the investigations, which Democrats say constitutes using the power of the office to pressure a foreign government to interfere in our elections for his own benefit.
  1. Democrats say the call was improper. After Zelensky brought up military aid, Trump responded by asking for a favor. Here are the relevant passages:

Zelensky: I would also like to thank you for your great support in the area of defense. We are ready to continue to cooperate for the next steps specifically we are almost ready to buy more Javelins from the United States for defense purposes.

Trump: I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike …” (This is about his notion that there’s a physical DNC server somewhere in Ukraine.)

And then later, Trump adds: “The other thing, there’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it… It sounds horrible to me.”

  1. The call is only a part of the pressure campaign, which was actually months long and started with the previous Ukraine president.
  2. The scheme undermined our own national security, as well as Ukraine’s.
  3. The Vice President, Secretary of State, Secretary of Energy, Acting Chief of Staff, and others all knew about the campaign. This jibes with Gordon Sondland’s testimony.
  4. Along with all the other testimony, Mick Mulvaney, Acting Chief of Staff and head of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), admitted on television that military aid was tied to the public announcement of investigations into the Bidens and said we should all just get over it.
  5. The testimony was very consistent across all witnesses and showed very little discrepancy. It also corroborated the whistleblower complaint for the most part.
  6. The investigation is still ongoing because of the White House’s and State Department’s lack of response to subpoenas.
  7. The report gives reasons for not waiting for the 2020 elections to decide this issue.
    • If this is all true, the president of the United States solicited foreign interference in the 2020 elections, so how can we be assured of a free and fair election?
    • Future presidents have to know they can’t get away with this kind of abuse of power.
    • Trump saw first hand the damage foreign interference did to the country in 2016, yet he continues to invite it. Even as this investigation was getting underway, Trump invited China to open investigations that would interfere in our 2020 elections. So it’s not like he’s learned from any of this.
  1. The report includes new call-log evidence showing calls Giuliani had with the White House, Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, Devin Nunes, Sean Hannity, and Lev Parnas. The calls with administration officials happened while Giuliani was smearing Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch.
  2. Call logs also show phone calls between Devin Nunes and Lev Parnas, which might explain why Nunes has been pushing Ukraine conspiracy theories so hard during the hearings.
  3. Pete Sessions, who was a Representative for Texas at the time, sent Mike Pompeo a letter claiming that Yovanovitch was disparaging Trump. This was reported by John Solomon, and Trump, Donald Trump Jr, and Rudy Giuliani amplified the message on social media.
  4. Call logs show that journalist John Solomon was also in contact with Lev Parnas.
  5. There’s a lack of call logs supporting the phone call Gordon Sondland testified to where he says Trump told him there was no quid pro quo (but then went on to ask for the announcement of the investigations). That doesn’t mean the call didn’t happen, but now it’s in question.

Republican Minority Report:

Republicans try to get out ahead of the majority report on impeachment hearings and issue their own report the day before. Here are some highlights. It’s mostly what they’ve been saying all along, including debunked conspiracy theories and ignored evidence. IMO, these just get in the way of their arguments that actually do have merit. I’m not correcting the debunked claims in their report; I’m just letting you know what they said.

  1. The Democrats are just trying to undo the will of 63 million Americans and overturn an election. They’ve already introduced four articles of impeachment since Trump was elected.
  2. None of the witnesses “testified to having evidence of bribery, extortion, or any high crime or misdemeanor.”
  3. The evidence doesn’t support the allegations of obstruction of justice from the White House.
  4. The “do us a favor though…” part of the call doesn’t indicate a quid pro quo.
  5. Trump thinks Ukraine is corrupt.
  6. They dismiss the pressure for investigations by saying the call summary only mentions the Bidens in passing. Here’s the passage:

“The other thing, There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it… It sounds horrible to me.”

  1. Trump extended an invitation to Zelensky for a White House meeting three times.
  2. Trump and Zelensky met at the UN General Assembly, so they did have the requested meeting.
  3. Ukrainian officials didn’t know anything about the hold in military aid until the media published a story about it in August.
  4. There was nothing improper about the call. National Security Council leadership didn’t see the call as improper.
  5. Trump just wanted the rest of Europe to help shoulder the burden.
  6. Ukrainian officials were pro-Hillary and anti-Trump in the 2016 elections.
  7. The op-ed written by the Ukraine Ambassador to the U.S. in response to Trump saying Putin wouldn’t go into Ukraine was an attack against Trump.
  8. Trump only released aid after Zelensky proved his anti-corruption chops. Zelensky didn’t even announce investigations.
  9. We should take Ukrainian officials at their word when they say there was no pressure, that they were feeling good.
  10. Also, even if Trump pressured him, it wouldn’t be improper.
  11. Trump gave Ukraine javelin missiles—way better than the night goggles and blankets Obama gave them.
  12. The Democrat’s accusations are based on speculation.
  13. According to this report, Republicans have no regard for our long-serving diplomatic and foreign officials, calling them “unelected bureaucrats.”
  14. There was nothing illicit about having a shadow policy with Ukraine run by Volker, Perry, Sondland, and Giuliani.
  15. There’s nothing wrong with asking for an investigation into the Bidens.
  16. They accuse Democrats of not being transparent, of deception, and of selective leaking.
  17. The private hearings weren’t fair, the public hearings weren’t fair, and it wasn’t fair that Trump couldn’t defend himself.
  18. A DNC operative worked with Ukrainian officials to dig up dirt on Trump in the 2016 elections.

House Judiciary Committee Hearing:

  1. Four constitutional scholars testify before the House Judiciary Committee—three called by the Democratic majority (Noah Feldman, Michael Gerhardt, and Pamela Karlan), and one by the Republican minority (Jonathon Turley). The purpose here is not to question the facts of the case; the purpose is to learn about the constitutional law surrounding impeachment and how the facts learned so far fit into that framework.
  2. Trump and his lawyers were invited to participate, but they decline, accusing Nadler of purposely scheduling the hearing while Trump is at the NATO leaders meeting. I doubt they expected Trump to appear, but his lawyers could have shown up.
  3. The three called by Democrats say that by pressuring Ukraine for political gain, Trump clearly committed impeachable offenses.
  4. Feldman spells out that the impeachable offenses include withholding military aid and a White House meeting (which still hasn’t happened, by the way) as leverage for political favors, as well as soliciting foreign assistance (which Trump did on the phone call). Specifically, Trump “corruptly” solicited “Zelensky to announce investigations of his political rivals in order to gain personal advantage, including in the 2020 presidential election.”
  5. Gerhardt says Trump committed several impeachable acts and that his actions were worse than Richard Nixon in Watergate. He also warns that Trump will continue this behavior if left unchecked.
  6. Karlan says that strong-arming a foreign leader in that way is not politics as usual by any historical standards.
  7. Turley says that the process shouldn’t be rushed and that more evidence is needed, but doesn’t dispute that asking a foreign government to interfere in our elections is impeachable.
    • He compares this to Clinton’s impeachment hearings, which lasted 72 days. This one’s lasted that long as well.
    • He puts forth the size of the documentation against Clinton during his impeachment. Remember that Clinton had been investigated for more than five years before his impeachment.
    • If the White House were to comply with all subpoenas, the evidence in this case would also be more sizable.
  1. Turley does agree that if the quid pro quo can be proven, then it is indeed impeachable. He never says there’s no impeachable offense here.
  2. Turley was also a constitutional scholar witness for Bill Clinton’s impeachment hearings.
  3. Karlan takes Representative Doug Collins (R-GA) to task for accusing the scholars of failing to have knowledge of any of the facts. She responds that she read the transcript of every single fact witness, because that’s what lawyers do.
  4. Karlan also catches flack for saying, “The Constitution says there can be no titles of nobility. While the president can name his son Barron, he can’t make him a baron.” She later apologizes for the remark.
  5. Feldman argues that the essential definition of high crimes and misdemeanors is abuse of office. He also says that it’s OK to ask a foreign power for something for the benefit of the United States, but not for your own personal or political benefit.
  6. Gerhardt warns that if left unchecked, Trump will continue his pattern of soliciting foreign interference (off the top of my head, he’s asked Russia, pressured Ukraine, and said China should do it, too).
  7. Questioners from each party focus on the witness that their party called up. That’s too bad, because we would’ve had a much more robust discussion had they mixed it up.
  8. Several Republican lawmakers accuse the three scholars called by Republicans of having an anti-Trump bias (as they do with every expert that doesn’t agree with them). Tom McClintock even asks them to raise their hands if they voted for Trump. We all have a right to a private ballot, and when no one raises their hand, one of the lawyers reminds McClintock that this shouldn’t be misconstrued as an answer.
  9. The scholars had an interesting discussion on what constitutes bribery, some arguing the definition should be narrow and some arguing that for impeachment purposes the definition is broader than other federal statutes. Karlan argues that the framers of the constitution would consider what Trump did to be bribery, but Turley argues that Trump did not commit federal crimes (a Republican staff lawyer helpfully suggests his actions could be misdemeanors).
  10. Lest you think the hearings weren’t filled with partisan fighting, it started within the first hour, with Republicans interrupting the proceedings with motions designed to delay the proceedings (we were told the day before that this would happen). They also called on Adam Schiff, who is not a relevant witness in this particular hearing, to testify.
  11. Throughout the hearing, Representative Doug Collins (R-GA) squeezes a stress ball. I don’t think it was working…

More Trouble for Parnas, Fruman, and Giuliani… And Now Nunes:

  1. Nunes, the top Republican on the impeachment committee, appears in the majority report. Nunes has been having multiple conversations with Giuliani this whole time.
  2. Prosecutors say the House Judiciary Committee is likely to issue a superseding indictment against Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, and charges could be added or changed soon.
  3. Ever unaware of optics, Giuliani travels to Kyiv and Budapest to meet with former Ukrainian prosecutors about a documentary series that he thinks will exonerate Trump in the impeachment case.
    • All three of the prosecutors he met with have faced allegations of corruption.
    • It was Giuliani’s initial interactions with this cast of characters that set the wheels in motion for impeachment.
    • The documentary will be aired on OAN, so he’s just preaching to the choir.

Week 149 in Trump

Posted on December 4, 2019 in Politics, Trump

Google searches for "narwhal" spiked after a Brit fought off a terrorist attack with a nearby narwhal tusk.

Here’s how conspiracy theories start. Fox News airs a segment saying that liberals have launched a war on Thanksgiving and they want to change the name. So Trump, of course, brings it up in a campaign rally shortly after he watches the segment, and he makes a really big deal about it. The next day, on Fox & Friends, they ponder over where on earth Trump could’ve come up with the idea that there’s a war on Thanksgiving. Maybe, they say, it’s because there was a rumor that Obama wanted to change it back in 2015 or so? So not only did the Fox network manage to distance itself from being the source of the rumor, but then they manage to tie it to Obama! And now, a good chunk of Trump’s base thinks that there’s a war on Thanksgiving. Yikes.

Here’s what happened in politics for the week ending December 1…

Shootings This Week:

There were NINE mass shootings in the U.S. this week (defined as killing and/or injuring 4 or more people). Shooters kill 8 people and injure 41 more.

  1. In Brownsville, FL, two shooters kill 2 people and injure 2 more in a drive-by shooting.
  2. In the Bronx, a shooter fires into a crowd in the middle of the day and injures 5 people (including 2 children).
  3. In Amarillo, TX, a shooter injures 7 people at the Hogg Penn nightclub.
  4. In Hensley, AR, a shooter injures 5 people, leading to a 7-hour standoff.
  5. In New Orleans, LA, a shooter injures 10 people near the French Quarter after the Bayou Classic football game.
  6. Hours later, again in New Orleans, a shooter kills 2 people and injures 2 more in the 7th Ward.
  7. In Aurora, IL, a shooter kills 1 person and injures 5 more. The young man who died survived a previous gunshot wound when he was just 3 years old.
  8. In Cotton Valley, LA, a shooter kills 2 people and injures 3 more at The Vibe nightclub.
  9. In Kalamazoo, MI, a shooter holds a family hostage and then kills 1 and injures 3. The injured were all police officers responding at the scene, so I’m not sure if that qualifies as a mass shooting?

Russia:

  1. A federal court rules that top presidential advisers cannot ignore congressional subpoenas. This is for Don McGahn’s case where he was subpoenaed to appear before the House, but Trump claimed executive privilege. The court rules that he must testify and that “no one is above the law.” This could affect White House officials who’ve so far refused to cooperate with the impeachment hearings, but it’s also likely to get appealed.
    • The DOJ then asks a federal court to temporarily suspend the ruling through the appeals process.
  1. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy releases an ad praising Trump. The ad includes stock Russian footage. McCarthy is infamous for saying that there are two people he knows get paid by the Russians—Trump and former Representative Dana Rohrabacher (D-CA). (And since Lev Parnas‘s indictment, we know McCarthy also got paid by the Russians.)
  2. Ohio Secretary of State Frank laRose announces that Ohio elections systems were the target of a cyberattack earlier this month. The attack was tracked back to a Russian-owned firm, and seemed to be looking for soft targets.

Legal Fallout:

  1. The Supreme Court grants an emergency stay on a lower court ruling that said Trump’s accounting firm had to share the financial records requested by Congress. This signals that they will hear the case, and could delay the release, if any, of Trump’s tax returns until mid-January.
  2. As part of the New York District Attorney’s investigation into the hush money payments to Trump’s mistresses, David Pecker, head of America Media Inc., has been meeting with prosecutors. Michael Cohen is also cooperating with the investigation.
  3. Documents regarding Trump Tower in New York show that Trump inflated numbers to make the property look better to lenders, and deflated numbers to make it look worse for tax purposes.
  4. People who work for Representative Duncan Hunter (R-CA) testify that his wife was in charge of the finances, and that Duncan was unaware of any misspending of campaign funds. It’s notable that Hunter won re-election in 2018 despite being indicted on 60 counts.

Impeachment:

Including all this info just makes this too long, so I moved it out into its own post. You can skip right over to it if that’s your focus.

Courts/Justice:

  1. Legal cases around Trump’s finances and his disputes with Congress appear to be headed to the Supreme Court, which will clearly test the court’s neutrality. This court wants to appear nonpartisan.
    • The court will hear arguments on December 13 to determine whether to add Trump’s request to block the release of his financial documents to their docket.
    • The court already placed a temporary hold on a court ruling that the House Oversight and Reform Committee has the authority to see Trump’s financial documents.
    • The case over whether Don McGahn can testify to Congress is also likely to make it to the Supreme Court.

Healthcare:

  1. Pennsylvania legislators are pushing a poorly-written bill that would force healthcare providers to arrange for burials or cremations of fetal remains. You’d think this would only apply to abortions, but the way it’s written, it also includes fertilized eggs that fail to attach to the uterus and are flushed from the system. Which is about 50% of fertilized eggs. I’m not sure how they’ll enforce that one. Looks like they’re trying to top Ohio for having the least scientific understanding of the birds and the bees.
  2. Purdue Pharma asks a Canadian court to put a temporary hold on all court cases against them in Canada while they settle all the cases against them in the U.S. A U.S. bankruptcy judge already granted them a temporary reprieve from cases in the U.S.
  3. Trump is working to reverse some of Obama’s regulations on nursing homes. The regulations were put in place to safeguard elderly and dementia patients from abuse and from being over-medicated. The administration says that reversing the rules will save nursing homes around $600 million per year, but the new rules don’t require them to put that money toward improving care.
  4. The overall life expectancy in the U.S. has declined for three consecutive years. Death rates for young and middle-aged adults have been rising for a decade from causes like suicide, drug overdoses, liver disease, and more.
    • The highest jump in death rates from 2010 to 2017 was for people age 25 to 34. Their death rate increased by 29%.
    • Along with the causes listed above, obesity is another big cause. Obesity in childhood brings a plethora of health problems as we get older. 40% of Americans are obese. 71.6% are overweight. 20% of American kids are obese.

International:

  1. Trump surprises troops in Afghanistan with a Thanksgiving visit. He also announces that he’s resumed peace talks with the Taliban.
  2. The Trump administration takes steps to substantially reduce U.S. contributions to NATO. Trumps wants to reduce our share to 15% from 22%. Compare that to Germany, which pays 14.8% despite having a much smaller economy than the U.S. Trump will meet with NATO leaders at the summit at the beginning of December.
  3. A terrorist attack in London leaves two people dead and several others injured. The attacker uses a knife, and is shot by police. Two bystanders fight the attacker using a fire extinguisher and a nearby narwhal tusk.
  4. Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi announces he’ll tender his resignation the day after 40 Iraqi protestors are killed in an attack against the Iranian consulate there. Mahdi was reportedly handpicked by Iran for his position, and the protestors are fighting against Iran’s influences in Iraq’s government.
  5. The Iranian government continues their brutal crackdown on protestors. At least 180 people have been killed after protests rose up against a dramatic increase in gas and oil prices. Some estimate the death toll is as high as 450. At least 2,000 people are wounded and 7,000 detained. This is the worst unrest there since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. The government partially restores internet access, and information is finally coming out of the country about what’s going on.
  6. Trump signs a bill that authorizes sanctions against Chinese and Hong Kong officials responsible for human rights violations during the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. He also signs a bill banning the sales of tear gas and rubber bullets to the Hong Kong police.
  7. Fresh protests break out in Hong Kong after pro-democracy candidates swept local elections. People marched in front of the U.S. consulate there to show gratitude for the U.S. passing the bills supporting their rights.
  8. In France, protests break out on Black Friday against Amazon. Activists protest the consumerism represented by Amazon and its cost to the environment.
  9. Trump says he’ll designate Mexican drug cartels as terrorists.
  10. The White House releases $105 million in military aid to Lebanon, which had been held up over a dispute between members of the National Security Council. Some thought the aid would help Iran-backed members of government. Protests in Lebanon, started over tax reform, have been ongoing since mid-October.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Trump signs a bipartisan bill making animal cruelty a federal felony. The bill bans intentional crushing, burning, drowning, suffocating, impalement or other serious harm to animals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. The law also bans animal cruelty videos and pictures.

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

  1. Homeland Security endorses We Build The Wall, the group founded by veteran Brian Kolfage to privately build a wall at the southern border. Kolfage is on a mission to save Texas from “illegals.” He says the butterfly “freaks” at the National Butterfly Center are standing in his way, and even accuses them of being part of an international butterfly smuggling ring.
    • Trump signed legislation earlier this year to exempt the refuge from any border wall plans.
  1. Trump puts Jared Kushner in charge of building the border wall. Kushner, in turn, is trying to expedite the process of confiscating private property to get it done.

Family Separation:

  1. The Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general releases a report that finds the DHS didn’t have the technology or necessary systems in place to allow them to track the children they separated from their parents at the southern border.
    • Immigration officials knew they couldn’t track them and yet still went forward with their plans to separate more than 26,000 children.
    • They knew this as early as November 2017.
    • The report also calls the “zero tolerance” policy that led to the separation ineffective. Thousands of detainees were still released into the U.S.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. A review of government websites and archives shows that in the years under Trump, they’ve removed anti-discrimination information along with data and resources for the LGBTQ community.
    • The changes are scattershot over about 57% of agencies, showing a lack of coherent policy.
    • Crucial information for LGBTQ and HIV-positive people was removed from pages for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, and the Department of Health and Human Services.
    • The changes don’t reflect actual policy, which Trump has had trouble changing.
  1. Trump signs an executive order creating a White House task force to address the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women (MMIW). This comes right as Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) introduces the Republican version of the Violence Against Women Act, which would roll back the 2013 provisions that made it easier for Native law enforcement officers to bring non-Native abusers to justice. Ernst’s version would give those non-Native abusers a way out.
    • Native American women face the highest rate of violence of any other group in the U.S., and 97% of that violence is at the hands of a non-Native person.
  1. Alaska state officials have been denying same-sex couple certain marriage benefits even though their ban on same-sex marriage was overturned in 2014.
  2. Over the past few months, the DHS has arrested 90 additional students who signed up for the fake university they set up in Detroit. That brings the total arrested to about 250, mostly immigrants from India. The students arrived legally with student visas, but because the university was a fake one created by federal agents, they lost their immigration status.
    • This is just another example of ICE’s egregious tactics being used under all administrations. This sting operation started in 2016, preying upon people who thought they were taking legitimate steps to be in the U.S.
  1. This one got past me earlier this year: In 2016, parents of female students at a charter school had to sue to allow their girls to wear pants. The school had a dress code of skirts for girls. IN FREAKING 2016!
    • This spring, the parents won their suit, and now the girls can wear pants or shorts, and they can run around the playground just as freely as the boys without being hindered by obsolete dress codes.
    • The final ruling on the case this week finds that the dress code violates Equal Protection, and permanently blocks the school from establishing or enforcing a similar provision.
    • PS: I thought this was settled decades ago.
  1. Private prison company GEO Group could face financial issues after all of the known banks providing loans to the company agree to divest and end ties with GEO. Some of those banks have also committed to not funding the private prison industry altogether, with most cutting ties with CoreCivic as well
  2. Trump orders national parks to deploy some of their park rangers to the southern border to patrol for illegal border crossings. This is a way of getting around congressional funding for his efforts there. But this leaves park visitors without the resources they rely on and puts them at more risk. National parks are already underfunded and short-staffed.
  3. The House Oversight and Reform Committee brings a lawsuit against Attorney General William Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to enforce the subpoenas they filed earlier to get information about the decision to add a citizenship question to the census.

Climate:

  1. Exxon Mobile knew as long ago as 1982 that atmospheric CO2 is a major cause of global warming. At that time, they even predicted accurately that atmospheric CO2 would reach 415 parts per million, causing the global temperature to rise about 0.9 degrees Celsius by 2019. CO2 levels reach 415 ppm in May, and the temperature rise crossed 0.9 degrees Celsius this year as well.
  2. Climate scientists warn that we might be reaching a tipping point on climate change, meaning that some impacts of global warming will become unstoppable. They also warn of a cascade of tipping points. Some of these potentially irreversible events include:
    • Ice melting in the east and west Antarctic ice sheets, the Greenland ice sheet, and Arctic sea ice
    • Thawing of the permafrost
    • Loss of rainforests
    • Death of coral reefs
    • Changes in the flow of the gulf stream
  1. A new UN report on climate change says temperatures could rise by as much as 3.9 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. We’ve already warmed by nearly 1 degree, and the process will speed up because of the cascade of tipping points above.
  2. During the Yale Bowl, hundreds of Yale and Harvard students and alumni storm the field to demand the schools divest from fossil fuels, private prisons, and Puerto Rican debt. The protest delays the start of the second half of the game.

Budget/Economy:

  1. An analysis of bailout payments made to farmers finds that 10% of recipients received 50% of the money. The payments, of course, went mostly to larger and more wealthy farms.

Elections:

  1. Texas Republicans accidentally email Democrats their blueprint for winning in 2020 and their plans for dealing with Trump’s polarizing nature. This gave away their negative ad strategy for 12 target districts and their timeline for rolling out websites that will bash their Democratic opponents.
    • PSA: Reading about their tactics (some of which I’m sure Democrats employ as well) makes me sad about how low the parties stoop to win, and even sadder by how the American public plays right into their hands, not just by letting it happen but by making those ploys succeed.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Rick Perry says that Trump was chosen by God to lead this country. To be fair, Perry also thinks Obama was ordained by God for the presidency. Seriously people. Take responsibility for your vote. That’s how presidencies are decided.
  2. Even before the departure of Richard Spencer from the DOD, high-ranking Pentagon officials felt Trump had a disregard for the chain of command in the military, and feared that the administration would continue to side with Fox News pundits over experienced military professionals on issues of national security.
  3. The RNC denies they made a bulk purchase of Donald Trump Jr.’s new book, Triggered, but FEC records show they spent nearly $100,000 to purchase copies of the book a week before it was released.
    • Other conservative groups also made bulk purchases to help his book debut at #1 on the New York Times best seller list. At least nine conservative groups are helping with the sales of his book.
    • And just to keep it classy, Trump Jr. created a website, Trigger A Lib, where you can purchase copies of the books to send to people like Adam Schiff, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, and so on.

Week 149 in Trump – Impeachment News

Posted on December 4, 2019 in Impeachment, Trump

There's a new guy in the hot seat...

Thankfully the fact-finding portion of the impeachment hearings is over. What a lot of information that was to process! If you’re still confused about when everything happened regarding Ukraine (and who could blame you), here’s a great timeline that you can filter to just look at key events, details, or the whole shebang. So you can look at a simple overview or get into all the muddy details.

Here’s what happened on the impeachment front for the week ending December 1…

General Happenings:

  1. After two weeks of testimony, at least one quid pro quo is clear: Trump invited Ukraine President Zelensky to the White House for a meeting at a date TBD, and then Trump’s aides repeatedly told Ukraine officials that the meeting would happen if they announced investigations into the Bidens and the 2016 elections.
    • The second quid pro quo is muddier. It’s not clear when Ukraine knew that military aid was being held up, and even State Department officials seem confused by it.
    • But if it was on the up and up, why did the White House review turn up hundreds of emails and documents seeking to justify and rationalize withholding the aid during the month after the White House became aware of the whistleblower complaint? Withholding foreign aid approved by Congress is a big deal, and should’ve had some rationale before the fact.
  1. Documents show that the hold on military aid to Ukraine was placed at the beginning of July, and agencies were notified on July 18.
  2. Here’s a bit of timeline gleaned from the White House review of Trump’s decision to withhold military aid from Ukraine:
    • Soon after the whistleblower made the complaint on August 12, the White House Counsel’s office learned of it.
    • Just days after that, Mick Mulvaney asks OMB for a legal rationale for withholding aid and also asks how long they can delay the aid.
    • They continued to struggle to come up with a legal rationale for withholding aid for weeks.
    • So six weeks after the aid was withheld, they still didn’t have a justification for it. Remember, the DOD had months ago approved the aid, saying that Ukraine had taken adequate steps to reduce corruption.
    • Whatever they did come up with, they didn’t share with top officials.
  1. A federal judge orders the Department of Defense and the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to release records regarding the freeze in military aid to Ukraine. This is the result of a FOIA request. We should see them starting next week. The judge says:
    • “Only an informed electorate can develop its opinions and persuasively petition its elected officials to act in ways which further the aims of those opinions.”
  1. Mike Pence seems to be the only U.S. official to tell Zelensky the aid was being conditioned on rooting out corruption. Other officials either didn’t know what to tell him or told him that aid was conditioned on the announcement of the investigations.
  2. White House lawyers informed Trump about the whistleblower complaint in late August. It was September 7 or 9 that he and Sondland allegedly had a phone call where Trump said there was no quid pro quo (so Trump was aware of the quid pro quo accusation by then). House committees opened their investigations on September 9. Trump released the aid on September 11.
  3. The Republican-led Senate intelligence committee has already released two reports from their nearly three-year-long investigation detailing Russia’s efforts to infiltrate our elections and to use disinformation to sow discord. As part of this investigation, the committee chair says that the committee also examined campaign coordination with foreign interference—by either the Trump or Clinton campaign. Their findings on this aspect of the investigation are still being written up but should help clarify any actions by Ukraine in the 2016 elections.
  4. While Giuliani was in Spain on his not-so-secret Ukraine mission, he stayed at the estate of Venezuelan energy executive Alejandro Betancourt López. López hired Giuliani to help him out with a DOJ investigation over money laundering and bribery. Giuliani later represented López before DOJ lawyers.
  5. In an interview with Bill O’Reilly, Trump:
    • Denies that he sent Giuliani to Ukraine (contradicting himself, Giuliani, and about a dozen government officials)
    • Repeats the Fox-News-spawned theory that Democrats don’t want to call it “Thanksgiving” anymore
    • Says he has a 96% approval rating with Republicans (it’s high, but it’s not that high)
  1. Trump’s denial about Giuliani leads some legal minds to wonder if Trump just accidentally waived his attorney-client privilege with Giuliani.
  2. Three women say they reported allegations of sexual misconduct by Ambassador Gordon Sondland from a decade or more ago. They say they experienced workplace retaliations after making their reports. Sondland, of course, denies the allegations.
  3. The impeachment hearings haven’t seemed to budge many public opinions on whether Trump committed an impeachable offense. In fairness, people who aren’t engaged in politics aren’t paying attention for the most part, and people don’t want to sort through the misinformation to get to the information.
  4. The White House sends a letter to the House Judiciary Committee saying that, now that they have the chance to appear to defend themselves in the impeachment hearings, they won’t participate in the committee’s first inquiry. In fairness, Trump is scheduled to be at a NATO summit that day, but his lawyers could certainly appear in his place.
    • Here’s my takeaway from the letter his lawyers sent: “It’s not fair! It’s not fair!”
    • Also, were Trump or his lawyers to appear, it would lend credence to the proceedings, which they don’t want to do.

Transcripts Released:

The House releases two additional transcripts from closed-door depositions. Same caveat as previous weeks: I haven’t read every word of every page because there is just too much. I do verify what I’m reading about the transcripts, and have at least skimmed most of them.

Mark Sandy:

Mark Sandy, a career OMB official, provided his deposition just over a week ago, and now the House releases his transcript. Sandy is the only OMB official to agree to testify so far. Here are some highlights:

  1. It wasn’t until months after the hold on military aid was put in place that the White House told Sandy’s office that it was over concerns about the contributions being made by other countries. By this time, the White House already knew about the whistleblower complaint.
  2. OMB officials resigned over the holdup on aid. Or, more likely, the holdup was just the straw that broke the camel’s back.
  3. The reason for the hold was an open question at OMB throughout July and August.
  4. He was responsible for signing off on the holdup in aid. He expressed his concerns about the legality of the hold at the time, but then a political appointee at the OMB, Michael Duffey, took over.
  5. Sandy said he was made aware of Trump’s interest in Ukraine in June, when Trump wanted more info about the aid package after he saw a news report on Ukraine.
  6. Sandy and other OMB staffers sent Duffey a memo in early August recommending the release of Ukraine funds because it was a national security issue.
  7. Just a reminder that Mulvaney gave three reasons for the holdup because apparently, they couldn’t settle on just one: “I was involved with the process by which the money was held up temporarily, OK? Three issues for that: the corruption of the country, whether or not other countries were participating in the support of the Ukraine and whether or not they were cooperating in an ongoing investigation with our Department of Justice.”

Philip Reeker:

Philip Reeker is a State Department official whose testimony provides insight into State Department efforts to defend U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch from the unfounded smears coming from Giuliani, Parnas, Fruman, and certain Ukraine officials.

  1. On March 21, he issued a “stern demarche” to Ukraine’s embassy in Washington saying it “was unacceptable, to have Government of Ukraine figures maligning our Ambassador in this way.” A demarche is a diplomatic message of concern.
  2. One of the Ukraine officials he was referencing was Yuriy Lutsenko, who once alleged that Yovanovitch had given him a “do not prosecute” list, which he later recanted.
  3. Reeker dismissed the notion that some U.S. officials didn’t know Burisma meant the Bidens (I think he’s looking at you, Volker and Morrison), because Giuliani was talking about it and the press was writing about it all the time.
  4. Wow. When he talked to the Undersecretary of State David Hale about defending Yovanovitch, Hale said that Yovanovitch should “reaffirm her loyalty as an ambassador” to Trump and the Constitution. He said this of a 33-year veteran of the U.S. Foreign Service who, by all accounts, has served admirably and taken on several hardship posts.
  5. Fox News hosts, specifically Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity, helped spread the unfounded allegations against Yovanovitch.

More Trouble for Parnas, Fruman, and Giuliani… And Now Nunes:

  1. Lev Parnas says that he, Giuliani, reporter John Solomon, and Devin Nunes (or sometimes Derek Harvey, one of Nunes’ aides) met at the Trump Hotel in Washington multiple times a week.
    • Solomon is known for his reporting on Ukraine, specifically repeating the conspiracy theories about them meddling in our elections, the black ledger, and the smears against former ambassador Marie Yovanovitch.
    • Attorneys Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing sometimes came to the meetings. They’re frequent guests on Fox News.
    • One of Solomon’s sources in Ukraine was the former general prosecutor Lutsenko, but Lutsenko has since recanted the things he said about former ambassador Yovanovitch and the Bidens.
    • Solomon confirmed that he attended the meetings, but said that he was only there as a journalist.
    • Nunes based a lot of his investigation on Solomon’s writings. Now, Solomon no longer works for The Hill, and The Hill is reviewing his work. They published him under “Opinion” though, so they aren’t obligated to make sure his work is factual.
    • State Department official George Kent testified that Solomon’s work is largely non-truths and non-sequiturs, if not fully made up.
  1. Two of Nunes’ staffers at the House Intelligence Committee had planned a trip to Ukraine to find more information, but they later canceled the trip and did a web conference instead after they found out they’d have to report their trip to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff.
  2. Parnas alleges that Nunes met with “corrupt” Ukraine officials, including meeting with former prosecutor general Viktor Shokin in Vienna last year. Shokin is the guy that Biden worked to oust.
    • Nunes decries the story as false, though he doesn’t outright deny that he did it. He threatens to sue both CNN and the Daily Beast for reporting on it. (He’s a big suer of media outlets, but not a successful one.)
    • Shokin also denies the meeting.
    • If any of this is true, it’s easy to see why Nunes doesn’t want to move forward on impeachment.
  1. The U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan issues subpoenas for information on Giuliani’s consulting firm. The charges listed in the subpoenas include money laundering, obstruction of justice, and campaign finance violations.
  2. Giuliani says he has no business in Ukraine, but it turns out he was negotiating personal business with Ukraine’s (now former) prosecutor general Lutsenko at the same time he was asking Lutsenko to open investigations into the Bidens. A draft retainer shows that Giuliani was going to charge Lutsenko a $200,000 retainer fee.

How Are Republicans Defending This?

Here are a bunch of justifications Republicans have floated for Trump’s actions regarding Ukraine. They’ve evolved as more information has come out, and GOP politicians have floated multiple contradictory excuses simultaneously. Here they are, so you can keep them straight.

    1. It’s all hearsay
    2. The whistleblower has a political bias
    3. The complaint is inaccurate
    4. The deep state is behind it
    5. There’s no due process
    6. The process is secret
    7. Trump didn’t mean it
    8. Ukraine didn’t agree to anything
    9. Ukraine said there was no quid pro quo
    10. Ukraine didn’t know about the aid being withheld
    11. Ukraine ultimately got the aid
    12. Ukraine is out to get Trump
    13. There was no quid pro quo
    14. There was a quid pro quo, but it wasn’t corrupt
    15. Trump wasn’t aware of what Giuliani was doing
    16. There are always contingencies in these transactions
    17. Trump was just expressing his opinion
    18. The call with Zelensky was appropriate
    19. The call was inappropriate but not impeachable
    20. Trump is incapable of a quid pro quo (that was Lindsey Graham, who also said Trump was too incompetent to collude with Russia)
    21. Democrats just want to impeach
    22. Trump never conditioned the aid
    23. It’s the media’s fault
    24. Impeachment is a coup (thank you, Minority Leader McCarthy)

Week 148 in Trump

Posted on November 29, 2019 in Politics, Trump

Even these hosts couldn't figure out what Trump was talking about for 53 minutes...

Trump calls in to Fox & Friends and talks to them for 53 minutes straight, with no commercial breaks. Trump expresses so many lies on the show that even Fox & Friends hosts push back on some of what he says. He accuses witness David Holmes of lying (though Sondland corroborated Holmes’ story), he repeats his theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 elections (debunked by our intelligence community and State Department), and he says the whistleblower complaint was wrong (though Trump himself and the transcript he released corroborated most of the complaint). He accuses the Obama administration of spying on his campaign in 2016, though the IG report that’s about to come out reportedly disputes that. When Trump says he knows who the whistleblower is—and implies that the F&F hosts do, too—they try to steer him away from the topic.

Here’s what happened in politics for the week ending November 24…

Shootings This Week:

  1. There were NINE mass shootings in the U.S. this week (defined as killing and/or injuring 4 or more people). Short version: shooters kill 5 people and injure 39 more.

Russia:

  1. Paul Erickson, the former boyfriend of Russian agent Maria Butina, pleads guilty to money laundering and wire fraud.
  2. The day after White House advisor Fiona Hill testifies that the conspiracy theory that Ukraine meddled in our 2016 elections is a “fictional narrative” that helps Russia, Trump promotes said theory on Fox & Friends. Trump says Ukraine did it to frame the Russians. All our intelligence agencies, as well as Trump’s own advisors, agree that Russia meddled in our elections and Ukraine did not. Even Republican Representatives in the impeachment hearings this week say that they know Russia interfered with our elections, and their own investigation bore that out.
  3. Also, their CrowdStrike theory is way off the mark. Here’s what Trump said:
    • “They gave the server to CrowdStrike, which is a company owned by a very wealthy Ukrainian… I still want to see that server. The FBI has never gotten that server. That’s a big part of this whole thing.”
  1. Here’s the truth (it’s easy to look it up): 

    • CrowdStrike was founded by two Americans and a Russian-born U.S. citizen. One American and the Russian-born U.S. citizen now own it.
    • The Kremlin-backed conspiracy theories about Ukraine have worked out to Russia’s advantage—they deflect the blame away from Russia.
    • By making this a partisan issue in the U.S., Russia has put U.S. support for Ukraine into question.
  1. U.S. intelligence just briefed Senators and their aides on Russia’s efforts to reframe the narrative by blaming Ukraine for meddling in the elections. This is a smoke screen to shift the attention away from Russia. This has been going on for years.
  2. Despite this, Republicans in the impeachment hearings continue to push this conspiracy theory. They do, however, change their tune about it after Fiona Hill testifies to the intelligence committee.
  3. Russia’s strategy is to throw so much confusion into the mix that people don’t know what to believe. They want people to think it’s impossible to figure out who’s behind the misconduct.
  4. According to intelligence officials, Russia used Oleg Deripaska to help spread the misinformation. You might remember him as the guy Mitch McConnell just did a big deal with to bring jobs to Kentucky.
  5. A draft version of the DOJ inspector general’s report on the FISA warrant to surveil Trump campaign adviser Carter Page shows the IG didn’t find the anti-Trump bias he was looking for at the FBI. Here are some highlights:
    • There were errors and omissions in some of the documents.
    • A low-level employee altered an email to get a renewal of the warrant by adding factual information to the bottom of a thread. The IG didn’t feel that the changes impacted the validity of the application.
    • The FBI had enough evidence to open the Russia investigation.
    • Joseph Mifsud (who told George Papadopoulos he had dirt on Hillary) was not an FBI informant.
    • None of the evidence used to get the FISA warrant came from the CIA or, more importantly, from the Steele dossier.

Legal Fallout:

  1. The Supreme Court puts a lower court ruling on hold that would’ve allowed the House to obtain Trump’s financial records. Until they rule on the case, Trump’s accounting firm doesn’t have to release the records.
  2. Trump says he’ll release his “financial statement” (whatever that means) before the 2020 elections.
  3. We all know there’s been a longstanding practice of appointing big political donors to ambassador posts, but I’m not sure it’s usually this straightforward. As billionaire Doug Manchester was waiting Senate confirmation for his post in the Bahamas, the RNC asked him to donate half a million dollars. Manchester forwarded the message to two Senate staffers indicating he’d be willing to donate more once confirmed.
    • Manchester later withdrew his nomination.
  1. The two jail guards who were supposed to check on Jeffrey Epstein the night he committed suicide are charged with falsifying records and conspiring to defraud the U.S.
    • That night they were both browsing the web and spent about two hours sleeping. They were both working overtime shifts.
    • Security cameras show they never checked on Epstein.
  1. American Oversight obtains emails under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) that show that Nikki Haley used an unsecured system to send classified information because she forgot her password. I only mention this because of the hypocrisy. I doubt anyone got their hands on the info who shouldn’t have.

Impeachment:

Including all this info just makes this too long, so I moved it out into its own post. You can skip right over to it if that’s your focus.

Healthcare:

  1. Two Republican legislators in Ohio introduce a bill that would completely ban all abortions in the state. This is the same state where someone introduced a bill that suggested doctors can re-implant ectopic pregnancies into the uterus (they can’t).
  2. Trump delays the ban on flavored e-cigarettes after meeting with advisors and lobbyists. They’re concerned about the political fallout among voters (instead of the health of voters).
  3. Meanwhile, nine states are stepping up to ban vaping.

International:

  1. Israel’s attorney general indicts Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in all three cases against him. The charges are for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust. The AG initiates the process of stripping Netanyahu’s parliamentary immunity.
    • Following the recent divided elections, neither Netanyahu nor his opponent Benny Gantz were able to form a government coalition.
    • Netanyahu refuses to step down as Prime Minister. He calls it a coup. Where’ve I heard that before?
  1. Flooding and mudslides in Kenya kill 34 people. The region was experiencing a severe drought and is now experiencing heavy rains with flooding.
  2. Mike Pence makes a surprise visit to American troops in Iraq ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday.
  3. Mike Pompeo announces that the U.S. believes that the Israeli settlements in the West Bank are legal according to international law. For decades, the international consensus has been that the settlements are illegal. The Fourth Geneva Convention states it clearly:
    • “The occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”
  1. French President Emmanuel Macron questions whether the EU should abandon the U.S. and create their own military alliance.
  2. Trump has asked both Japan and South Korea to pay more for the U.S. troops we maintain there. Meanwhile, South Korea and China agree to a security alliance, and the U.S. breaks off talks with South Korea over the demands for more money.
  3. Britain’s Conservative Party accepted a £200,000 donation from the wife of one of Putin’s former finance ministers.
  4. Boris Johnson blocks a report from the Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee about potential Russian interference in Britain’s elections. Remember England has elections coming up again.
  5. The Pentagon’s inspector general releases their quarterly report, which concludes that Trump’s order to withdraw U.S. troops from northern Syria, which allowed Turkey to attack the Kurds there, also allowed ISIS to strengthen its position there.
  6. Trump says he stands with the Hong Kong protestors for democracy but he also stands with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Meanwhile, both the House and Senate overwhelmingly (that means in a bipartisan way) pass a bill that would strip Hong Kong of its preferential trade status if China removes the freedoms guaranteed to Hong Kong residents.
  7. Hong Kong voters turn out in record numbers to deal a defeat to pro-Beijing politicians in the district council elections. Pro-democracy candidates tripled their previous seats, taking nearly 90%.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. Trump signs a bill that will continue funding autism programs to the tune of $1.8 billion over the next five years. The Autism Collaboration, Accountability, Research, Education and Support Act (CARES) will focus on helping people on the spectrum who age out of support programs and will prioritize rural and underserved areas.
  2. The House Judiciary Committee moves forward a bill that would legalize marijuana at the federal level.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Have you ever seen the AIDS quilt? It’s quite something to experience in person. It’s full of grief and sadness and lives cut short. And now the quilt’s paper archive is headed to the Library of Congress and the quilt itself will go back to San Francisco, where it started.
  2. A judge blocks the Trump administration’s efforts to start up federal executions again, saying that the lethal injection procedure they want to use isn’t authorized by federal law. The DOJ plans to appeal the ruling.
  3. A Manhattan judge denies Trump’s effort to dismiss the defamation case brought by Summer Zervos, opening the possibility that Trump might have to be deposed.
  4. The American Medical Association formally opposes conversion therapy for members of the LGBTQ community. The group also urges the federal government to ban the procedure.
  5. Representative Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) becomes the first female chair of the House Oversight Committee when she’s elected to the role previously held by Elijah Cummings.
  6. We learn that after Lindsey Graham rebuked Turkish President Erdogan at the White House, White House staff asked him to go to the Senate and block the bill recognizing the Armenian genocide, which Graham then did. Graham says he went along just because it was poor timing to pass the bill while Erdogan was in the states.

Climate:

  1. California Governor Gavin Newsom will ban all purchases by state agencies of new vehicles from the companies that backed Trump in the emissions dispute. General Motors, Toyota, Fiat Chrysler, and more will be affected by the ban, which will go into effect in January 2020.
  2. Newsom also imposed new regulations on fracking, increasing audits for compliance with state law and prohibiting drilling activity near homes, schools, hospitals, and parks.
  3. Two of the country’s largest coal plants began the process of shutting down this month. Regulations aren’t what forced the closures; economic pressures did.
  4. Australia’s record-breaking drought and fires have killed over 1,000 koalas, putting them at risk of extinction.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Hong Kong’s unemployment rate ticked up a bit, from 2.9% to 3.1%, partly attributable to a loss in tourism dollars because of the protests. Hong Kong is also in a recession.
  2. The Trump administration is looking at ways to cut taxes again. This time, it’s a proposed 15% tax rate for the middle class, which would give Trump a strong message for the 2020 elections.
  3. Amazon didn’t pay any taxes on $11,200,000,000 in profit from 2018.
  4. A new study finds that more than two million Americans live without running water or indoor plumbing. They don’t even have wastewater treatment.
  5. Trump signs a spending bill to keep the government funded through December 20.

Elections:

  1. A federal judge strikes down a Florida law that says candidates from the party that most recently won the governor’s race were listed first on ballots. The judge says this listing gave that party a 5% advantage.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Rumors abound that Mike Pompeo is planning to resign to pursue a Senate seat back in Kansas.
  2. White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham says that outgoing Obama officials left nasty notes for their successors in the Trump administrations. Obama officials deny this and describe the notes of encouragement they left. Various White House staff have also mentioned the kind notes that Obama officials left for them. I tend to believe the latter since no one has mentioned this in three years.
  3. A senior Trump official resigns after it was discovered that she lied multiple times on her resume, including creating a fake Time magazine cover with her face on it, lying about what she was doing on foreign trips, falsely claiming a degree, claiming she addressed the Republican and Democratic National Conventions, and more.
  4. Navy Secretary Richard Spencer threatens to resign if Trump actually does pardon and reinstate a Navy Seal convicted of war crimes. Also, it turns out that Trump announced that he would do that on Twitter, not in an official notification. So Spencer says that nothing changes until he gets an official notification.
    • Pentagon Chief Mike Esper asks for the Navy Secretary’s resignation. Apparently Trump gave Esper a direct order to drop disciplinary action against a Navy Seal convicted of war crimes. Navy Secretary Richard Spence tried to negotiate a deal whereby the White House wouldn’t interfere in Naval justice if the Navy allowed Gallagher to keep his trident pin. Trump appeared to back down for a minute, but then we learn that Spencer was basically fired.
    • Spencer at one point said he was proceeding with disciplinary action because he didn’t believe that Trump’s tweets constituted a formal order.
    • Trump’s interference in this matter has raised concerns with the Defense Secretary, the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair, and members of the military.

Polls:

  1. 52.4% of Americans approve of starting the impeachment process. 42.3% disapprove. That gap is narrower when the question asked is whether to impeach and remove.

Week 148 in Trump – Impeachment News

Posted on November 28, 2019 in Impeachment, Trump

It’s a huge week for testimony in the impeachment hearings, but Fiona Hill was the coup de gras. Here’s an excerpt from her incredibly forthright testimony:


“Based on questions and statements I have heard, some of you on this committee appear to believe that Russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country and that perhaps, somehow, for some reason, Ukraine did. This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves.”

Also, this is the week where I’ve become officially pissed off because I have to create a huge factcheck on stupid conspiracy theories that our elected officials have decided is their hill to die on.

Here’s what happened on the impeachment front for the week ending November 24…

General Happenings:

  1. American Oversight publishes State Department documents obtained through a FOIA request showing that Rudy Giuliani was corresponding with Mike Pompeo one month prior to Marie Yovanovitch being recalled from her post in Ukraine.
    • This backs up David Hale’s testimony and Gordon Sondland’s.
    • The documents tie Pompeo to efforts by Giuliani and Trump to get Ukraine officials to open investigations into the Bidens and 2016 elections and to smear Pompeo’s own employee, Marie Yovanovitch.
    • American Oversight says that this is just the first in a series of releases of documentation covered by the FOIA request.
    • The documents also include letters from former U.S. ambassadors to Ukraine and members of Congress expressing concern over the smear against Yovanovitch.
    • Meanwhile, Pompeo continues to refuse to hand over the material requested by the House.
  1. The White House Counsel’s Office turns up hundreds of documents and emails showing how extensive the effort was to come up with a justification after the fact for the delay in aid to Ukraine. The emails show that Trump made the decision without an assessment of the legality or the reasons for withholding aid.
  2. Devin Nunes really tries to turn John Bolton’s words back on the Democrats, calling the impeachment hearings a “drug deal” they’re trying to “cook up.” If you’ll remember, Bolton said he didn’t want to be part of any drug deal Mulvaney and Giuliani were cooking up in Ukraine.
  3. Indicted Giuliani associate Lev Parnas says that he helped arrange meetings between Nunes and former Ukraine officials in 2018 and that Nunes met with former general prosecutor Shokin.
    • Nunes’ travel timeline matches up with what Parnas says.
    • Nunes aide Derek Harvey was also involved in the meetings.
    • Nunes denies the allegations and threatens to sue the media outlets that reported on it.
    • Nunes has threatened to sue news outlets previously but always drops the suits.
  1. Parnas also turns over audio and video documentation to the House Intelligence COmmittee regarding Trump and Giuliani, but the contents hasn’t been made public yet.
  2. Lt. Col. Vindman requests a security assessment from the Army, which is now prepared to move him to a secure location if needed.
  3. Vindman’s lawyer sends Fox News a letter asking that they retract a story where they alleged that Vindman committed espionage. Fox has consistently questioned Vindman’s loyalty.
  4. U.S. officials at the embassy in Kyiv were made aware of the pressure Ukrainian officials felt they were under from the Trump administration in May, specifically the pressure to investigation Biden. This contradicts Zelensky, who said there was no pressure. Of course, he said that in front of Trump, so there’s that.
  5. Trump blames Mike Pompeo for hiring officials who would testify against him.
  6. The FBI asked to interview the whistleblower last month. They’re negotiating the request.
  7. House Republicans make fun of Adam Schiff using the word “bribery” now instead of “quid pro quo.” Just a little grammar lesson: bribery and extortion are both forms of quid pro quo. Also, constitutional bribery has a broader definition than the federal bribery statute.
  8. In an interview on Fox News, former special prosecutor Ken Starr says there was a quid pro quo between Trump’s administration and Zelensky’s government. He says this is bribery. He also indicates that it might not be impeachable.
  9. Nunes, the top Republican on the intelligence committee, says the testimony of the witnesses was “typically based on second-hand, third-hand, and even fourth-hand rumors and innuendo.” Except for the ones who were actually on the call, I guess. Or who were part of the diplomatic efforts with Ukraine, whether the regular or irregular channel.
  10. Nunes says the witnesses (State Department and White House officials) are “remarkably uninformed” about the conspiracy theory that it was Ukraine and not Russia who meddled in our 2016 elections. He thinks that’s why Giuliani had good reason to go investigate it. Here’s more info.
  11. The Trump administration discusses removing some of the witnesses in the impeachment hearings from their White House positions before their term is up. Advisers warn this could be construed as retaliation.
  12. One of Trump’s complaints about Ambassador Yovanovitch is that she refused to hang his picture at the embassy when he was elected. In reality, the embassy hung the pictures of Trump, Pence, and Secretary of State Tillerson as soon as the pictures arrived in Ukraine.
  13. Ukrainian officials are doing their best to stay out of the impeachment issue at this point.
  14. There’s bipartisan support in the Senate for a full trial should the House vote to impeach Trump.
  15. Giuliani says he has files on the Bidens that will be released if anything happens to him. So gangster. He’s previously said the same about Trump. Giuliani accuses the Biden family of monetizing Biden’s office for four decades.
  16. The House impeachment committee is looking into whether Kurt Volker, at the direction of Trump, pressured Zelensky to drop an investigation into former Urkaine President Poroshenko.

Alexander Vindman and Jennifer Williams Testimony:

  1. Vindman and Williams testify together. They are the first to testify who were actually listening in on the phone call between Trump and Zelensky. Vindman is a Lt. Col. in the Army and is the director of European Affairs at the NSC. Williams is a special adviser to Mike Pence on European and Russian affairs.
  2. Williams says she thought Trump’s phone call with Zelensky was unusual because of the focus on domestic policy. Other Mike Pence aides (not under oath) step up to defend the call. Trump calls her a Never Trumper after her testimony (he does that to a lot of witnesses).
  3. After Vindman’s testimony, The White House Twitter account posts that Tim Morrison, Vindman’s boss, had concerns about Vindman’s judgment. Fiona Hill clears that up in her testimony quite well (documented in her section below).
  4. Vindman defends himself by reading from his performance review authored by Hill. It gives him high praise.
  5. Republicans question Vindman’s loyalty to the U.S. (he’s a decorated Lt. Col.). Giving into xenophobia, they ask whether a Ukraine official who offered Vindman a job spoke in Ukrainian when he offered it.
  6. Republicans make fun of Vindman for wearing full Army dress uniform. Military members are supposed to do so when fulfilling official roles.
  7. Vindman reported the call to the NSC’s top lawyer because he was so concerned about it. He was shocked to hear Trump say that he thought Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in our elections.
  8. Both Vindman and Williams say not a single national security official supported withholding aid to Ukraine. Both also say that withholding aid was damaging our relationship with Ukraine.
  9. Both say they were not aware of any evidence that Biden committed any misconduct around Ukraine.
  10. Both say that they wouldn’t describe themselves as “Never Trumpers.”
  11. Republicans on the House committee continue to push questions that could out the identity of the whistleblower, but Vindman refuses to answer those questions.
  12. Williams says Zelensky told Mike Pence that holding up the aid would give Russia the impression that U.S. support for Ukraine is wavering.
  13. Williams says that Mike Pence had a phone call with Zelensky on September, 18, which she listened in on but can’t talk about because she was told it was classified.

Kurt Volker and Tim Morrison Testimony:

  1. Volker and Morrison testify together. These two were called by Republicans on the committee. Volker is a former special envoy to Ukraine, and Morrison is the former senior director for Europe and Ukraine at the NSC.
  2. Both say that the conspiracy theories around Ukraine were getting in the way of foreign policy and detracted from our national security. By conspiracy theories, they specifically point to 2016 election meddling and the Bidens.
  3. Morrison continues to maintain that he didn’t think the call was inherently wrong or illegal, but that it would cause a political storm were it to become public. He’s the guy who went to the NSC lawyer to say the call needed to be kept secret.
  4. Volker maintains that in all the time he spent working on this, he didn’t realize until much later that Burisma was related to the Bidens. Again, a simple Google search would’ve fixed that.
  5. Volker’s testimony confirms that there were two different policies at work in Ukraine. The official policy of the State Department was to get the military aid released and to have the two presidents meet. The unofficial policy was holding up the military aid and the meeting until Zelensky announced the investigations.
  6. Volker and Hill differ in their recollection of a July 10 meeting, after which Bolton instructed Hill to go to the NSC lawyers. Both testify that at the close of the meeting, Sondland brought up the investigations and that’s when Bolton shut it down. While the others went outside for a photo op, Bolton held Hill behind to talk about that “drug deal.”
    • This is a change for Volker from his deposition. He had previously said that Sondland didn’t bring it up.
  1. Earlier, Republicans accuse Vindman of skipping the chain of command and instead going straight to the lawyers. Now, Morrison gets the same treatment. It turns out he didn’t go to his boss, deputy National Security Advisor Charles Kupperman. Instead, he went straight to legal counsel to make sure they were aware of the call and that they locked down the transcript. He was concerned about the political fallout.
  2. Volker insists he isn’t part of some shadow foreign policy, despite his coordination with Gordon Sondland and Rick Perry.
  3. Morrison says that Gordon Sondland was working at Trump’s behest and that Sondland actually did talk to a top Ukrainian official about getting military aid in exchange for political investigations.
  4. Morrison says Trump and Sondland spoke at least a half dozen times, but Trump now says he barely knows Sondland.
  5. Volker says that the allegations against Biden and Yovanovitch are self-serving and are not credible.
  6. He says a change in power in Ukraine means a change in prosecutor, and the outgoing government was afraid of possible prosecution of themselves. He also says that Lutsenko, who was the source of many of these rumors, was trying to make the U.S. see him as an important and influential player so he was telling Giuliani what Giuliani wanted to hear.
  7. Volker and Morrison agree that it would be wrong for a president to withhold aid until a foreign government opens an investigation into a potential political opponent.
  8. Both Volker and Morrison say they weren’t aware of the Biden issue or that Burisma was related to Biden. Volker says a lot of things have come to light that he wasn’t aware of.
  9. Opinion alert: I’m feeling that these guys aren’t being fully honest. I think they knew Trump wanted to investigate the Bidens and that they’re just parsing their words when they say that they didn’t know Burisma meant the Bidens. They’re trying to create a way out, which could possibly be a way out for Trump as well. These are just my thoughts, based on the testimony so far.
  10. Fiona Hill told Morrison it would be safest to steer clear of Sondland, but Morrison wanted to keep an eye on him and know what he was up to.
  11. At one point, Trump told Volker that he thought Ukraine was trying to take him down.
  12. Volker defends Biden as being an honorable man.

Gordon Sondland Testimony:

  1. Gordon Sondland is the Ambassador to the EU. Sondland seems to contradict Morrison’s testimony, saying he didn’t work that closely with the president.
  2. Trump distances himself from Sondland during his testimony, saying “I don’t know him very well.”
  3. Sondland testifies that yes, there was a quid pro quo, at least with regard to the requested White House call and White House meeting.
  4. He says he was acting on orders directly from Trump when he asked Ukraine officials to announce an investigations into Burisma and the Bidens. Sondland also says that it didn’t matter whether Ukraine actually carried out the investigations; Trump just wanted the public announcements.
  5. Sondland says that he, Rick Perry, and other senior officials were following the express direction of Trump to work with Giuliani on the pressure campaign for the investigations.
  6. Sondland testifies that everyone was in the loop—Pence, Pompeo, Mulvaney, and Bolton.
  7. He says that he told Pence that he was concerned that the aid holdup had become linked to the requested investigations. He told Pence this before Pence met with Zelensky on September 1.
  8. He also says he kept Mike Pompeo informed about any developments in regard to the aid and investigations.
  9. Sondland says that Trump said he didn’t want anything from Ukraine, but then Trump went on to tell him he wanted investigations into the Bidens and 2016 election meddling.
  10. He agrees that Trump demanded something of personal value and in exchange, Trump would host a White House meeting in his official capacity (and as Sondland later learned, Trump would then release the military aid). The thing of value Trump demanded was investigations into political rivals from 2016 and now.
  11. Sondland doesn’t recall Trump ever talking to him about military aid.
  12. Funny story about Sondland. He was critical of candidate Trump, but then he bundled together a million dollars to donate to Trump’s inaugural fund—one of many wealthy donors eager to get back into Trump’s good graces after he was elected. Sondland kept pushing for the ambassador post for a year until they finally gave in.

Laura Cooper and David Hale Testimony:

  1. Cooper and Hale testify together in front of the House Intelligence Committee. They provide largely technical and procedural information.
  2. Cooper is a Russia and Ukraine expert at DoD. She says she thought military aid to Ukraine was crucial. She didn’t understand why it was held up, because Congress had authorized the money and a DoD review found that Ukraine was eligible.
  3. Cooper says Ukraine officials reached out to her staff on July 25 (the same day as the call with Zelensky) to find out what was going on with the military aid. She says Ukraine likely knew aid was being held up a few days prior.
  4. This contradicts previous witnesses, who said Ukraine officials found out about the aid being withheld from a Politico article in August.
  5. Hale is the undersecretary of state for political affairs. He thinks Yovanovitch was doing excellent work and should’ve been allowed to fulfill her term.
  6. Hale thinks that it’s unusual and wrong to place a hold on approved aid to use it as leverage against a foreign country to get them to investigate a political rival.
  7. Hale confirms that the Office of Management and Budget said Trump ordered the hold on the aid.

Fiona Hill and David Holmes Testimony:

  1. Hill and Holmes’ testify before the House Intelligence Committee together. Hill is the former NSC senior director for Europe and Russia, and Holmes is an official at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine.
  2. This was, to me at least, riveting testimony. Not only does Fiona Hill go out of her way to dismiss the conspiracy theories about Ukraine meddling in our elections as a “fictional narrative,” but she later defends Trump against the harsh criticism he received before his presidency even began.
  3. Hill chides members of congress for spreading conspiracy theories and giving Putin fodder to use against us in 2020. Several Republican Members of Congress, in turn, acknowledge that all GOP members in the room believe that the Russian interference happened. But then they continue to bring up the debunked Ukraine theories.
  4. Hill testifies that a former staffer to Devin Nunes, Kash Patel, became White House staff and gave Trump information about Ukraine. He gave Trump so much information that Trump didn’t even know that his actual NSC Ukraine expert was Alexander Vindman and not Patel. This lends credence to Vindman’s testimony that he was told not to attend a Ukraine meeting because it would confuse Trump.
  5. Hill says that Russia’s goal is to delegitimize the president, and they would’ve tried to cast a cloud over the presidency no matter who was elected.
  6. During Hill’s and Holmes’ testimony, Devin Nunes tries to push the narrative that the Steele dossier was funded by the DNC and Clinton campaign. Neither are experts, but neither knows of the Clinton campaign funding it. Remember that the initial funding that led to the Steele dossier came from Republican primary opponents to Trump.
  7. One interesting piece of Hill’s testimony came when she was questioned about Gordon Sondland saying that they had a disagreement where she became emotional and shaky. She said that yes, she was angry; and sometime when women get angry it’s taken differently than when men get angry. And then she says that in hindsight, now that she sees what was actually going on, she was working on official national security policy, Sondland was working on a domestic political errand from Trump, and those policies had just diverged. She was angry because she thought Sondland wasn’t cooperating with what she understood to be official policy.
  8. When Hill was annoyed with Sondland because they didn’t seem to be coordinating, she said to him “Ambassador Sondland — Gordon — I think this is all going to blow up.” She adds to her testimony, “And here we are.”
  9. Holmes repeated his testimony from his deposition about overhearing the telephone conversation between Sondland and Trump at a public lunch (I covered this last week). During Holmes’ testimony, Trump tweets that his own hearing is great and that there’s no way you can hear or understand a conversation if it isn’t on speakerphone.
  10. Holmes also says that he concluded in August that the reason the military aid was being held up was for some kind of agreement on investigations. He also says that Ukraine officials likely would’ve drawn the same conclusion.
  11. Devin Nunes is surprised when he questions Holmes on whether the “black ledger” is credible and Holmes replies that yes, it is. The black ledger is the book that showed potentially illicit payments to Paul Manafort from Ukraine officials, which also led to Manafort resigning from Trump’s campaign. Holmes says he thinks that the purpose of publishing the ledger was to expose corruption in Ukraine, not to expose Manafort.
    • I have another opinion here. Nunes’ shocked expression tells me that either he’s a fabulous actor or he really does believe the conspiracies he’s peddling. I’m not sure which is worse.
  1. One reason Trump has given for not supplying Ukraine with the needed aid is that the EU wasn’t sharing the burden. But the review that gave that impression came out AFTER the aid to Ukraine was suspended. On top of that, since 2014 the U.S. has provided just over $3 billion to Ukraine, in loan guarantees that get paid back. In that same time period, the EU has provided $12 billion.
  2. Hill defends Vindman, saying she’s not sure where Morrison got the idea that Vindman wasn’t reliable. Hill has the utmost respect for Vindman and his work but thought his military bent might make him unprepared for political positions up the ladder.
  3. Hill says that Ukraine’s actions around the 2016 elections are simply not comparable to what Russia did and that the actions of Ukraine officials were similar to officials in other countries who assumed Clinton would win.
  4. Holmes says that the Ukraine issue isn’t over just because Trump released the aid. Ukrainian officials still feel the need to take steps to ingratiate themselves with Trump. They still haven’t gotten their White House meeting, and Trump hasn’t gotten his investigations.
  5. It’s key that Russia understands U.S. support for Ukraine is not wavering.
  6. Holmes and Hill agreed that Burisma is basically code-word for Biden.

Mark Sandy Deposition:

  1. Mark Sandy is the first official from the Office of Management and Budget to be deposed.
  2. Devin Nunes says that we’ll never see Mark Sandy’s deposition, which was given behind closed doors. Schiff says that the transcript is being reviewed and that we’ll get the transcript later.
  3. Nunes also implies that Sandy is the top official at OMB. He is not. He’s the associate director for national security programs. The top OMB officials have refused to testify.
  4. Sandy was told to sign the first in a series of apportionment letters freezing Ukraine aid. Other witnesses have testified that this letter was dated July 25, the same day as the call to Zelensky.
  5. Later, Sandy’s boss, Michael Duffey, told him he wanted to learn more about the process and then Duffey himself signed the subsequent letters.
  6. Sandy testified that he’d never seen a senior political OMB official take control of a portfolio like that.
  7. His transcript isn’t released by the end of the week but is expected to be released by Thanksgiving.

Week 148 in Trump – Ukraine Conspiracies

Posted on November 28, 2019 in Impeachment, Trump

Here’s a brief fact check on all those conspiracy theories being floated to take the focus off of:

  1. Russia’s interference in our elections.
  2. Trump’s extortion of Ukraine.
  3. Damning witness testimony.

What About All Those Conspiracy Theories?

  1. Throughout the proceedings, Republican questioners have repeatedly tried to shift the focus of the investigations to their theories that Ukraine meddled in the elections (calling the idea that Russia meddled in the election the “Russia hoax”). Specifically, Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Representative Devin Nunes (R-CA) have been the biggest proponents of these theories.
    • During Vindman’s and William’s testimony, Nunes tries to make the Bidens the focus instead of Trump. He asserts without evidence that Biden interfered in Ukraine’s domestic affairs to benefit his son, Hunter.
    • During Volker and Morrison’s testimony, Jim Jordan pushes the narrative that Ukraine was engaged in election meddling in 2016. He cites tweets against Trump and Ukraine officials speaking against Trump.
      • He also says that because of Volker and Morrison, Zelensky was able to get reform passed through the parliament that allows politicians to be charged with a crime. This is important because oligarchs liked to become politicians so they couldn’t be indicted. (But I don’t know how much Volker or Morrison had to do with passing the law.)
    • Republican questioners also keep bringing up Alexandra Chalupa.
    • And finally, there’s the conspiracy theory about the DNC server being held somewhere in Ukraine so the FBI can’t get to it.
  1. Trump’s own staff, including his first head of Homeland Security Thomas Bossert, repeatedly warned him that the Ukraine conspiracy was completely debunked.

Did Ukraine Meddle in Our Elections?

No more so than any other foreign country who feared a Trump presidency. Compare what Ukraine is accused of doing with what our intelligence agencies say we know Russia did: 

    • Putin ordered Russia’s interference, and it involved both Russia’s intelligence agencies and their military.
    • Russia focused on spreading a pro-Trump message and spreading unflattering stories about Clinton.
    • Russia also executed repeated cyberattacks on our election system.
    • There is no clear evidence connecting the Clinton campaign to a foreign government, nor of them seeking illegally obtained information from one. These very things were outlined, however, in Mueller’s report between the Trump campaign and Russia.
    • I shouldn’t have to remind anybody that eight people under investigation by Mueller either pleaded guilty or were convicted.
  1. So here’s what is being used as proof of Ukraine meddling: The black ledger; an op-ed and flurry of social media posts criticizing Trump’s comments during an August 1, 2016, interview with George Stephanopoulos; Alexandra Chalupa’s research; and CrowdStrike.
  2. The Politico story that seems to have started or at least fueled this theory says that Putin personally directed Russia’s effort, and it was a focused effort involving military and foreign intelligence services. The Ukraine effort, if there was one, was scattershot. Former President Poroshenko maintains there was no effort to meddle in our elections. Ukraine did fear a Trump presidency, though, because he was more friendly to Russia than to Ukraine.
  3. The op-ed and social media posts from Ukraine officials that Republicans are citing as evidence of a concerted effort against Trump were in response to an interview candidate Trump did with George Stephanopoulos. During the interview, Trump said that Putin is “not going into Ukraine, just so you understand. He’s not going to go to Ukraine.” In reality, Putin seized Crimea from Ukraine two years prior in 2014, and they’ve been fighting ever since.
    • Trump went on to say the whole area is a mess under Obama, and that the people of Crimea might be happier under Russian rule. Trump only made it worse when he tried to clarify his statements. The reaction from Ukraine officials is understandable. And no wonder they were scared of a Trump presidency.
  1. Several of the social media posts reportedly came from US-born Ukrainians. The only social media posts I can find evidence of have been deleted, and were from a retired Ukrainian diplomat and from Ukraine‘s Minister of Internal Affairs.
    • They called Trump a clown and a danger, and one harshly criticized Trump for saying Putin hadn’t attacked Ukraine. They also criticized Paul Manafort.
  1. At the Republican National Convention in July, they changed their platform to remove references to arming Ukraine against Russia, so Ukraine again had reason to be concerned about a Trump presidency.
  2. The Politico article and its author say that nothing done by the Ukrainians comes even close to what Russia did.
  3. The Hill and Politico both reported that a spokesperson for Russia’s Foreign Ministry started the narrative that Ukraine meddled in our elections. Marie Zakharova said that Ukraine “seriously complicated” Trump’s election campaign when they “planted” information about Paul Manafort (the black ledger conspiracy theory). If you remember, Manafort is in prison, convicted of multiple charges and having pleaded guilty to multiple others.
  4. An anti-corruption politician and investigative reporter, Sergei Leshchenko, found the black ledger. He also lost his job when Giuliani complained about him.

Who is Alexandra Chalupa?

  1. Alexandra Chalupa worked for the Clinton administration and then was a consultant for the DNC. She was still consulting for the DNC, along with other clients, in 2016.
  2. Chalupa is the daughter of Ukrainian immigrants, and is an American citizen.
  3. In 2014, she was doing pro bono work for another client regarding the Ukrainian crisis when Manafort’s work for a former pro-Russian Ukrainian president caught her attention.
  4. Chalupa was suspicious of a Russia connection with Trump campaign, so she began researching it. She occasionally shared her findings with the Clinton campaign and the DNC, but was not working for either. She was doing this as a private citizen.
  5. While Chalupa shared her information with the DNC, the DNC didn’t include any of the information she shared in their dossiers. They also didn’t publicize any of it. She stopped consulting for the DNC after the party convention in July.
  6. She spoke with Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.S., who shared her concerns but didn’t think Trump would win anyway. But then Trump hired Manafort, and all of the sudden Chalupa was in high demand for the information she had found.
  7. Within a few weeks of her meeting with the ambassador, the administrators of her private email account started warning her about attempts by “state-sponsored actors” to break into her email account.
    • WikiLeaks eventually hacked into and released some of her emails.
  1. Her family cars were broken into and ransacked, and someone tried to break into her home. She felt these were intimidation tactics, and she later started receiving death threats.

So What About the Bidens?

  1. Hunter Biden took a position on the board of Ukrainian company Burisma during a time when his father, Joe Biden, was working on getting the Ukraine government to get rid of their corrupt prosecutor general.
  2. Ukraine officials say there’s no evidence either Joe or his son Hunter did anything wrong, and that they wouldn’t even know what they should be investigating should they open an investigation.
  3. Joe Biden did his work with Ukraine out in the open, in accordance with U.S. foreign policy, and with both presidential and bipartisan congressional approval.
  4. At worst, having Hunter on Burisma’s board was ethically questionable. Legal experts say that it wasn’t illegal, though.
  5. Many of our foreign allies backed Joe Biden’s push to have Ukraine’s prosecutor removed. It also made it more likely that Burisma would be investigated, not less likely.
  6. Hunter joined the board after the corrupt owner was forced out of his government office in 2014, along with the pro-Russian president.
  7. On the board of Burisma, Hunter “provided advice on legal issues, corporate finance, and strategy during a five-year term on the board.”
  8. Board meetings were held two times a year, and there were multiple calls, constant dialog, and sharing of advice throughout the year.
  9. Three people say Hunter never visited Ukraine.
  10. People interviewed say Hunter’s presence on the board didn’t protect the company from multiple investigations. During his time there, several investigations were opened into the owner (over tax violations, money-laundering, and licenses given to Burisma during the period when Zlochevsky, the owner, was a government minister).
  11. Burisma started bringing in high-profile directors to its board, and that included both Biden and his associate Devon Archer. The company’s reason for the additions to the board was to strengthen corporate governance. Burisma was also looking to expand, and Hunter helped with that.
  12. Here are Biden’s bona fides: he’s a trained lawyer, he had served on a previous board in the U.S., and he created an investment company with two people who graduated from Yale with him.

Does Ukraine Have The DNC Server?

No, no they don’t. This brings us to CrowdStrike.

  1. Apparently, Trump believes that CrowdStrike was the vehicle used by Ukraine to infiltrate the U.S. elections. Trump’s theory goes that CrowdStrike’s owner is Ukrainian so they’re hiding the DNC server in Ukraine. In reality, one is American and one was born in RUSSIA (and is now a U.S. citizen).
  2. Also, according to the conspiracy, Ukraine has “the server” that the “FBI can’t find” and that the DNC is trying to hide from the FBI.
    • In reality, there is no physical server. I’m beating this one like the dead horse it is. EVERYTHING is stored in the cloud. If anyone has a physical server, it’s the company providing cloud services, whoever that might be.
    • The FBI examined the image of the server. CrowdStrike examined the image of the server. That’s how it works in these modern times.

Week 147 in Trump

Posted on November 21, 2019 in Politics, Trump

EIGHT LITTLE WITCHES...

It’s week one of the impeachment hearings, but still (believe it or not) life goes on around us. People are protesting all across the globe; North Korea stalls on denuclearization; Roger Stone is guilty on all counts; Barr gives a wildly inaccurate historical account of the founding of the U.S. (what are these guys smoking?); Stephen Miller’s racist emails leak; and Trump takes an unexpected trip to Walter Reed.

Here’s what happened in politics for the week ending November 17…

Shootings This Week:

  1. There were FIVE mass shootings in the U.S. this week (defined as killing and/or injuring 4 or more people). Shooters kill 12 people and injure 18 more.
    • A shooter injures 4 people in Belle Glade, FL.
    • A shooter kills 2 students, as well as himself, and injures 3 more at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, CA.
    • In an apparent murder/suicide, a father in San Diego, CA, kills 4 of his kids and his wife, and injures 1 of their kids.
    • A shooter in a vehicle injures 4 people in a home in Cleveland, OH.
    • Two shooters open fire at a football-watching party at a private home. They kill 4 people and injures 6 more in Fresno, CA.
  1. The Supreme Court lets a court case move forward against Remington Arms, which manufactured the guns used in the Sandy Hook shooting. The lawsuit asserts that a weapon as dangerous as the Bushmaster shouldn’t be sold to the public.

Russia:

  1. During the impeachment hearings, Christopher Anderson testifies that the White House once canceled a Navy operation in the Black Sea because Trump complained that it was hostile to Russia. Trump based his complaint on a CNN story (fake news!) and called John Bolton at home to complain about it.
  2. A jury finds Roger Stone guilty on all seven counts, including obstruction, making false statements, and witness tampering.
    • He could face up to 50 years in prison, and he’ll be sentenced in February. He is, however, still under his media gag. How do all these white guys get so much time out of jail after they’re found guilty?
    • The lies were about WikiLeaks, the existence of emails and texts, and conversations with Trump campaign officials.
    • During the trial, we learned that Stone was in direct and frequent contact with campaign staff and with Trump himself. Rick Gates testified that Stone was talking about the stolen emails at least by April of 2016, before the DNC even announced they’d been hacked.
    • Stone and Trump discussed future WikiLeaks email dumps in July of 2016.
    • The campaign eagerly anticipated the release of the hacked emails during the 2016 elections.
  1. This is the last indictment brought by Robert Mueller. Here’s who else was convicted or pleaded guilty as a result of Mueller’s investigation:
    • Paul Manafort, former Trump campaign chair
    • Rick Gates, former deputy Trump campaign chair
    • Michael Flynn, former Trump national security adviser (and how is he not in jail yet?)
    • Michael Cohen, former Trump lawyer
    • George Papadopoulos, former Trump campaign adviser
    • Alex van der Zwaan, associate of Manafort and Gates
    • Richard Pinedo, AFAIK not associated with Trump (he sold fraudulent bank accounts to Russians)
    • Sam Patten, Republican lobbyist
  1. Testimony and evidence from Stone’s trial bring into question Trump’s written answers to Mueller’s questions. The House is looking into whether Trump lied to Mueller in those responses, specifically about whether Trump knew about his campaign’s efforts to learn about DNC email dumps from WikiLeaks.
  2. Trump, Attorney General William Barr, and White House counsel Pat Cipollone meet in the Oval Office, and discuss DOJ inspector general Michael Horowitz’s investigation into the origins of the Russia investigation.
    • Horowitz is focused on the FISA warrant applications to surveil Trump campaign advisor Carter Page.
    • Interviewees are making final adjustments to the report, which should be released soon.
    • One person interviewed says it’s likely the report will find missteps, but no major misconduct.

Legal Fallout:

  1. At least eight former officials from the White House, the Trump transition team, and the Trump campaign worked as outside contractors for the DHHS.
    • They were tasked with cleaning up Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma’s image, and billed nearly $800,000 over four months.
    • Typically this work is done by federal employees in the communications department.
  1. The DC Circuit Court of Appeals says Congress can obtain eight years of Trump’s tax records, letting an earlier ruling stand. However, they also put the ruling on hold for seven days to allow Trump’s attorneys to petition the Supreme Court, which they do.
  2. In a separate case, a [Trump-appointed] judge rules that Trump can’t sue New York state officials in a DC court to stop the state from releasing Trump’s financial records to Congress. His lawyers argue they CAN sue in DC because New York officials are “co-conspirators” with Democrats in DC.
  3. The prison guards who failed to make scheduled checks on Jeffrey Epstein on the night of his death and falsified records to cover it up refuse a plea deal.
    • The presence of a plea deal indicates that the DOJ might bring criminal charges in connection with Epstein’s death, which was ruled a suicide.
  1. New York federal prosecutors are investigating Rudy Giuliani for campaign finance violations and for failing to register as a foreign agent.
  2. Even though the Trump Organization says they’re no longer soliciting foreign business and that having Trump in office is costing them $9 million, the Trump International Hotel is projected to have revenues of $67.7 million next year (a 65% increase from 2018). The hotel’s sales pitch to investors is that they can “capitalize on government related business.”

Impeachment:

Including all this info just makes this too long, so I moved it out into its own post. You can skip right over to it if that’s your focus.

Courts/Justice:

  1. In a speech in front of the Federalist Society, attorney general William Barr argues that the rebellion that formed the United States was not against King George III but was instead against the British Parliament.
    • This goes against nearly every historian on record, but it led to his argument that the power of the executive branch has dwindled and congressional power has increased instead. I urge you all to take a look at executive actions and laws passed over the past 20 years and see if that‘s actually true. Also, when Obama was president, the Republican party line was “executive overreach!”
    • Barr also blames “The Resistance” for endeavoring to cripple a “duly elected government” and trying to sabotage Trump.
    • George W. Bush’s ethics lawyer calls it a “lunatic authoritarian speech.”
  1. The Senate shifts the balance of the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals by confirming controversial nominee Steven Menashi. I outlined his recent past in last week’s post. (Note: I’m not advocating for a liberal bent to the court; I think the judges should form a balance.)

Healthcare:

  1. Trump overrides protests from scientists and physicians, and pushes forward a rule to significantly limit the scientific and medical research the government can use in crafting their public health policies.
    • The rule would force researchers to release their raw data, including confidential medical information (which I’m guessing violates HIPPA rules, but that’s just my guess).
    • This will also affect environmental policies, which often relies on studies that use personal health information to determine where pollutants are an issue.

International:

  1. Hong Kong police try to take back control of a university campus being occupied by protestors. Protestors fight back with Molotov cocktails and bows and arrows, and they start the entrance on fire to keep police out. Police used rubber bullets, water cannons, tear gas, and armored vehicles.
    • Two men in Hong Kong are in critical condition after police shoot one of them point-blank and protestors set the other man on fire. The shooting triggered further violence from protestors.
    • Chinese soldiers came out to help clear Hong Kong’s streets of the debris and blockades left by protestors. This is the first time they’ve made an appearance around the protests.
  1. Hundreds of thousands of Czechs protest in Prague against their billionaire prime minister, Andrej Babi. Despite this being the largest anti-government protest since 1989, there isn’t much hope Babi will step down.
  2. Bolivia’s former president Evo Morales takes asylum in Mexico. He says he was forced out in a coup after weeks of protest.
    • There’s currently no one to take his place because the line of succession mostly resigned as well.
    • But then a Senator, Añez Chavez, takes the bull by the horns and declares herself the leader. The highest court backs her.
  1. Lawmakers in Chili will replace their constitution as a result of month-long protests.
  2. Iran shuts down the internet in retaliation against protests of the increase in fuel prices. Iranians in other countries are having a hard time reaching their family and friends in the country.
  3. There are anti-government protests across the globe. Here are a few places: Algeria, Bolivia, Britain, Catalonia, Chile, Ecuador, France, Guinea, Haiti, Honduras, Hong Kong, Iraq, Iran, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, and Pakistan.
  4. After Joe Biden refers to Kim Jong Un as a “murderous dictator,” Kim calls Biden a “rabid dog” who deserves to be beaten to death.
  5. Trump praises Turkish President Erdogan during Erdogan’s visit to the White House. Erdogan, just last month, tricked Trump into abandoning our Kurdish allies near Turkey’s southern border.
    • Hours after meeting with Erdogan, Lindsey Graham blocks a Senate resolution to formally recognize the Armenian genocide by the Ottoman Empire (Turkey). Graham says the bill was an attempt to rewrite or sugarcoat history.
    • Erdogan criticizes the resolutions, which were previously passed in the House.
    • Ahead of the White House meeting, Erdogan threatened to purchase Russian military equipment (Turkey is a NATO country).
  1. Trump asks Japan to quadruple payments for U.S. troops stationed there.
  2. The U.S. is trying to get North Korea to come back to the table for denuclearization talks, which have been stalled since February. North Korea has given the U.S. until the end of the year to change its “hostile” stance.
  3. Britain’s Prince Andrew steps down from his royal duties over blowback from his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein and accusations of statutory rape.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The Australian men’s and women’s soccer leagues reach a deal to close their pay gap. Come on, America!
  2. A UN report that showed the U.S. detains the largest number of children of all countries is retracted after one of the data points is shown to be outdated. The author stands by the findings though, and the DHHS does say the U.S. did hold more than 69,000 migrant children in custody in 2019. This is an ongoing issue; it’s not new with Trump.
  3. Internal documents show that the multiple types of barriers Trump put up against immigrants at our southern border were a major cause of the crisis at the border and the crush of detainees.
    • Government officials knew the policies would strain immigrant shelters—especially child shelters—but wanted to send a message to Central American migrants.
    • The policies stranded thousands of unaccompanied children at the border.
  1. ICE is trying to circumvent California’s new law banning private prisons, and is actively soliciting developers for new facilities.
  2. A former Breitbart writer, who has since left the white supremacist movement, leaks emails send by Trump advisor Stephen Miller.
    • Miller promoted white nationalist sites, backed immigration policies Hitler praised, raised conspiracy theories about immigration, and pushed other theories popular with white nationalists.
    • This is the guy who’s in charge of our immigration policies, and he’s used these alt-right ideas to design those policies.
  1. Trump once suggested that we should classify migrants who come here illegally as enemy combatants and that we should send them to Guantanamo.

Elections:

  1. After talking about contesting the results of the Kentucky governor’s election, incumbent Matt Bevins (R) concedes to Andy Beshear (D). Bevins was highly unpopular, having reversed many of the useful policies implemented by his predecessor (most notably in the area of healthcare). Every other Republican on the statewide ticket won.
  2. Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards wins re-election, despite having approved some policies deeply unpopular with Democrats.
  3. Representative Peter King (R-NY) joins the long list of Republicans who will not seek re-election in 2020. He’s been in Congress since 1993.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Trump makes an unscheduled visit to Walter Reed Military Medical Center, which he later says is for the first phase of his annual exam. He was there for more than two hours.
  2. Trump issues full pardons to two soldiers and reverses disciplinary action for a third, all against Pentagon advice. The soldiers are accused of war crimes. They are:
    • Army Major Mathew Golsteyn, who was facing a murder trial next year.
    • Former Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher (Navy SEAL), recently acquitted of murder but convicted of posing with a corpse. Trump reinstated him as a SEAL, reversing a Navy decision.
    • Former Army 1st Lt. Clint Lorance, convicted of second-degree murder.

Polls:

  1. 70% of Americans think that Trump asking Zelensky to investigate Biden was wrong.
  2. But still, only 51% think he should also be impeached and removed from office.

Week 147 in Trump – Impeachment News

Posted on November 20, 2019 in Impeachment, Trump

November 13th marks the first day of public impeachment hearings. Too many of us aren’t taking this seriously for the somber and momentous time this is. It’s never a good day when a president is being impeached, and it’s never a good day when the president has given so many reasons to put impeachment on the table (wittingly or unwittingly). If, like press secretary Stephanie Grisham, you find the hearings boring, you’ve got to just dig in and learn what you can about what led to this. You can make up your own mind, but not if you don’t have the facts.

Here’s what happened on the impeachment front for the week ending November 17…

General Happenings:

  1. On the opening day, Representative Adam Schiff, who is leading the proceedings, says they’re looking primarily into presidential abuse of power. He says he sees several impeachable offenses, including bribery.
  2. Here’s Schiff’s opening statement, so you can get an idea of the tone he’s trying to set.
  3. And here’s Representative Devin Nunes’ opening statement. Nunes is the Republican ranking member.
  4. Following Rick Perry’s efforts in Ukraine to influence their energy policy, two of his political supporters got a potentially lucrative gas and oil exploration deal with Ukraine’s government.
    • Perry gave Ukrainian officials a list of potential energy advisers, which I’m guessing is not unusual since Perry obviously knows several fossil fuel executives as part of his work.
    • However, Perry was also one of the “three amigos” who were working to make a meeting between Trump and President Zelensky happen, so his influence there was strong.
  1. With friends like these who needs enemies? Rudy Giuliani writes an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal arguing that nothing on the July 25th call is an impeachable offense. Giuliani says that the call was mostly about corruption in general, and Trump only spent about “six lines on Joe Biden.”
  2. Republicans are trying to distance Trump from Giuliani, who, as we all know by now, is a hand grenade. According to their 18-page memo, they plan to focus on four reasons the call was OK:
    • The call shows no conditionality. (Except for maybe the “Do us a favor though…” part.)
    • Both Trump and Zelensky say there was no pressure.
    • The Ukrainian government was unaware that aid was being held up at the time of the call. (One deposition puts this assertion into question).
    • Trump met with Zelensky and the aid was released, all without Zelensky opening the investigations. (A White House meeting was conditioned on the investigations, and that never happened. Zelensky was scheduled to announce the investigations two days after the aid was released, so by then it was moot).
  1. Trump considered firing Michael Atkinson, the intelligence community’s inspector general who reported the whistleblower complaint to Congress. Trump thinks Atkinson is disloyal.
  2. Representative Mark Meadows (R-NC), when questioned about the hearings, says, “when we start to look at the facts, everybody has their impression of what the truth is.” So facts aren’t facts.
  3. The White House releases a transcript of a previous phone call between Trump and Zelensky. This call is congratulatory in nature—Zelensky had just won the election.
    • They don’t talk about the Bidens or the 2016 elections.
    • The White House readout of the call in April doesn’t match with the released transcript. The readout stated that during the call, Trump said we’re committed to work with Ukraine “to implement reforms that strengthen democracy, increase prosperity, and root out corruption.” There’s no mention of that in the actual transcript they released.
    • The first call was marked “Unclassified” but the second one is marked “Secret.”
  1. By at least September 7, the State Department determined that the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) didn’t have a legal standing to withhold military aid to Ukraine. On September 9, they told Congress there was no hold on the aid. On September 13, Trump said he was releasing the aid, but Bolton had already approved some of it.
  2. Mick Mulvaney wants to join the lawsuit with other White House officials who are waiting to find out from a judge whether they can testify even though Trump invoked executive privilege.
    • So then John Bolton files a motion to prevent Mulvaney from joining. He argues that Mulvaney is a key player in the events leading up to impeachment (he was cooking up some kind of drug deal, according to Bolton).
    • And then Mulvaney withdraws his request.
  1. Most witnesses so far agree that the actions taken by Trump, Giuliani, Parnas, Fruman, and others were interfering with U.S. policy in Ukraine and setting back our progress in rooting out corruption in Ukraine. They also agree it was to Russia’s advantage.
  2. Lev Parnas, Igor Fruman, and Giuliani met privately with Trump at last year’s White House Hanukkah party. Afterward, Parnas told two people that Trump gave him a secret mission to pressure Ukraine officials to open investigations into Joe and Hunter Biden. At that time, Poroshenko was the president of Ukraine and Yuriy Lutsenko was the prosecutor. Lutsenko was the origin of the smears against Yovanovitch.
    • Parnas and Fruman met with Poroshenko in February to make an offer: if Poroshenko publicly opened the investigations, he’d get an invite to the White House. So this whole not-a-quid-pro-quo thing goes back to the previous administration.
    • When Poroshenko was not re-elected that spring, they had to scrap that plan and scramble to come up with a new one.
  1. Speaker Nancy Pelosi invites Trump to testify in the impeachment inquiry.
  2. Trump accuses Adam Schiff of doctoring the deposition transcripts before releasing them. There’s no evidence of this.

Bill Taylor and George Kent Testimony:

  1. William Taylor and George Kent provide testimony together to the House impeachment panel. Their testimony was pretty well covered in previous weeks, so I’ll try not to rehash that here.
  2. Schiff gives both witnesses time to make long statements summarizing their previous testimony. This will be standard going forward, I think. After the opening statements, it’ll go like this:
    • The lawyers for both sides have 45 minutes to question the witness, which is so much better than the typical grandstanding from Representatives. If you listen to nothing else, listen to the lawyers’ questioning.
    • Then members from each party get 5 minutes to question witnesses.
  1. The Republican’s lawyer, Steve Castor, advances the argument that the alternative channel led by Giuliani could’ve been more outlandish. It’s often hard to follow Castor’s line of questioning.
  2. Taylor reveals that one of his aides overheard a conversation between Trump and Ambassador Sondland. Sondland called Trump on his cell phone from a restaurant, and the aide could hear Trump’s voice clearly coming out of the phone’s speaker. Trump asked about the status of the investigations. The aide asked Sondland how Trump felt about Ukraine; Sondland said Trump cares more about the investigations into Biden.
  3. Kent testifies that Giuliani ran a smear campaign against Marie Yovanovitch by leading efforts to “gin up politically motivated investigations.” Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman were helping him out with these efforts. The three of them were “peddling false information.”
  4. Both witnesses acknowledge that there are national security reasons that Zelensky would say he didn’t feel pressured by Trump. Trump could impose serious consequences on Zelensky.
  5. Kent defends Biden and says there’s no way Joe Biden interfered with government policies to help out Burisma.
  6. The State Department is still withholding Taylor’s and Kent’s notes and records, so they are missing some of their documentary evidence.
  7. Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) questions Taylor’s understanding of quid pro quo and mocks him for being the Democrats “star witness.”
  8. Republicans critique the process, call witness testimony hearsay since they weren’t on the calls and didn’t talk to Trump, and liken Democrats to a cult. They bring up the debunked conspiracy theories about Joe Biden and Ukraine’s involvement in the 2016 elections. They also level a bizarre accusation that Democrats sought nude photos of Trump from the Russians. I don’t know anyone who wants to see that.
    • Note: I’m working on a post addressing all the various Ukraine conspiracy theories being thrown around. So far, they’re super sketchy at best, but I’ll post the information once I have a more complete picture.

Marie Yovanovitch Testimony:

  1. Marie Yovanovitch testifies in an open hearing to the House impeachment panel.
  2. Against the rules laid out for the proceedings, ranking member Devin Nunes cedes his time to Representative Elise Stefanik (R-NY) with the apparent intention of creating the optics of Schiff shutting down a female questioner. Though Stefanik later takes nine minutes to read statements made by Schiff about the whistleblower testifying, she later complains to the press that Schiff shut her down.
    • After her testimony, her democratic opponent for the 2020 elections raises over $1 million in two days.
  1. Republicans obviously don’t think their base can understand the rules of procedure as laid out in the House resolution on impeachment.
  2. Yovanovitch’s testimony is very similar to what we’ve already heard from the deposition.
  3. She expresses confusion about why, if she serves at the pleasure of the president, didn’t he simply remove her from her post. Why did he feel the need to smear her before bringing her home?
  4. Yovanovitch accuses Trump of “kneecapping” her ability to further U.S. interests in Ukraine.
  5. When she got the call to come back, she was finishing up hosting a dinner party honoring a Ukrainian anti-corruption activist who had been attacked with acid and killed.
    • The director general of the Foreign Service, Carol Perez, was the one who called her. She stressed that there was concern for her safety and she needed to return immediately.
  1. Republicans try to make it sound like it’s OK she was recalled because she still has a job, right? And she likes what she’s doing, right? That’s unbelievably patronizing and excuses bad behavior by employers.
  2. Devin Nunes dismisses Yovanovitch’s employment concerns as an “HR” issue.
  3. She’s never heard of an ambassador being recalled based on false information (the prosecutor who made up some of the lies used against Yovanovitch has since retracted them).
  4. Yovanovitch says she felt threatened by Trump’s words—she’s going to “go through some things”—during his call to Zelensky. And then, in the middle of her testimony, Trump tweets this:
    • “Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad. She started off in Somalia, how did that go? Then fast forward to Ukraine, where the new Ukrainian President spoke unfavorably about her in my second phone call with him. It is a U.S. President’s absolute right to appoint ambassadors.”
    • Yovanovitch is a steely ambassador who accepted five hardship posts. It’s comical to think that any of the situations in these countries are her fault. Also, Zelensky merely agreed with Trump after he criticized Yovanovitch.
    • Yovanovitch says this tweet is intimidating.
  1. She was incredulous that the Trump administration bought into the misinformation that Giuliani was peddling.
  2. Yovanovitch testifies that the publication of the black ledger that led to Manafort leaving Trump’s campaign in 2016 was not an action targeted at Manafort or Trump. It was targeted at removing corrupt politicians from Ukraine’s government.
    • This disputes (but does not disprove) the theory that Ukrainians were trying to force Manafort out of Trump’s campaign.

Transcripts Released:

The House releases additional transcripts from closed-door depositions. Same caveat as last week: I haven’t read every word of every page because there is just too much. I do verify what I’m reading about the transcripts, and have at least skimmed most of them.

Jennifer Williams:

  1. The House releases the transcript of Jennifer Williams’ deposition. She’s a top national security aide to Mike Pence, advising him on Russia and Europe.
  2. Williams took notes while listening in on the call with Trump and Zelensky.
  3. She said she found the references in the call between Trump and Zelensky to be more specific to Trump and his personal political agenda, and not so much to U.S. policy objectives in Ukraine.
  4. She also said that the call “shed some light on possible other motivations” for the freeze in military aid.
  5. A month after asking Pence to attend Zelensky’s inauguration, Trump told him not to go. Williams got no explanation for that.
  6. In Williams’ notes, she said Zelensky specifically mentioned Burisma during the call, but that information is missing from the official transcript (corroborating Vindman’s statements about missing words).
  7. Williams vouched for Yovanovitch’s stellar reputation in the Foreign Service.
  8. She had never heard of Crowdstrike before that call.
  9. After Williams’ testimony, Trump calls her a “never Trumper.” Even though she works for Vice President Pence.

Tim Morrison:

  1. The House releases National Security Advisor Tim Morrison’s deposition transcript.
  2. Morrison said he went to National Security Council lawyers with concerns about the transcript of the call. He advised those lawyers to restrict access to the transcript because of the potential political fallout if it were leaked. He was right about that!
  3. He didn’t think anything illegal transpired on the call. He did think that Trump’s behavior exhibited bad foreign policy, which could squander a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to crack down on corruption in Ukraine with the new president Zelensky.

  4. A top diplomat who works closely with Trump (referencing Gordon Sondland) told him that the military aid was conditioned on the investigations that Trump wanted.
  5. In the same conversation where Trump told Sondland that there was no quid pro quo—that he didn’t want anything from Ukraine—Trump also insisted that Zelensky publicly announce investigations into Joe and Hunter Biden.
  6. Fiona Hill had warned him about the “Burisma bucket of issues” when he was transitioning into his job. The bucket includes Burisma, Hunter Biden, the DNC server, and CrowdStrike.
  7. Morrison said he googled “Burisma” and found out in seconds that Hunter Biden was on the board. This makes Volker, Sondland, and others who’ve testified they had no idea that Burisma was related to the Bidens look like fools. Or liars.
  8. Morrison said he didn’t know about the military aid being conditioned on the investigations until a September 1 conversation with Sondland. Morrison said, “Even then I hoped that Ambassador Sondland’s strategy was exclusively his own and would not be considered by the leaders of the administration and Congress, who understood the strategic importance of Ukraine to our national security.” So obviously he thought it improper.
  9. According to Morrison, Sondland had around a half dozen conversations with Trump over the summer, Sondland was acting at Trump’s behest, and Sondland spoke to Ukraine officials about exchanging military aid for political investigations.

Catherine Croft:

  1. The House releases Catherine Croft’s deposition transcript. Croft is an adviser to Kurt Volker. Here are some highlights.
  2. Trump’s view of Ukraine was out of step with White House and State Department officials.
  3. So many people knew about the hold on aid that it was impossible to keep it secret, even from Ukraine officials.
  4. Ukraine officials knew about the holdup in aid long before it was reported.
  5. Ukraine wanted to keep it quiet because it could appear that U.S. support for Ukraine was dwindling. As long as they thought they’d get the aid in the end, they had no reason to want this to get out.
  6. OMB put a separate hold on a transfer of lethal aid in the form of javelin missiles over concerns that “Russia would react negatively.” OMB was the only agency objecting, with the State Department, National Security Council, and other policy agencies supporting the transfer.
  7. Before Taylor accepted his post, they talked about whether the policy toward Ukraine would change. Croft said her frank opinion was that the White House wouldn’t change their policy on Ukraine unless Trump “viewed it— the—that Biden was going to be a credible rival for him in the upcoming election, and that he—that furthering the narrative that Russia was for the Republicans and Ukraine was for the Democrats would be in his interest, and that might push him to change the policy on Ukraine.”
  8. Her thinking was that “in an attempt to counter the narrative about Russian support for the Trump administration in the 2016 election or Russian interference in the 2016 election that—that it would be useful to shift that narrative by shifting it to Ukraine as being in support of the Clintons.”

Christopher Anderson:

  1. The House releases Christopher Anderson, Volker’s assistant.
  2. He says that John Bolton wanted increased senior White House engagement with Ukraine but that he was worried about Giuliani’s influence there.
  3. Anderson’s efforts as a Foreign Service officer to show support for Ukraine were quashed by the White House.
  4. It was Anderson who relayed the story about Trump calling Bolton at home to complain about a Naval operation that he thought was hostile to Russia. The White House had the operation canceled.
  5. Anderson though that Lutsenko was feeding false information to Giuliani to make himself appear useful to the U.S. government so he could keep his job. He was replaced as Ukraine general prosecutor in late summer.
  6. Volker had been in touch with Giuliani, and was concerned about his actions in Ukraine. So it’s not clear to me how Volker didn’t know about the investigation into the Bidens.
  7. Bill Taylor was concerned that Giuliani was going to continue making their job difficult, despite assurances from Mike Pompeo that U.S. policy toward Ukraine wouldn’t change.
  8. Taylor wanted to make sure not to discuss any “individual investigations” in their conversations about Ukraine. It was U.S. policy to push anti-corruption activities; it was not U.S. policy to push individual investigations.
  9. This narrative that the Ukraine government was an enemy of Trump jeopardized our efforts to resolve the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Laura Cooper:

  1. The House releases Laura Cooper’s deposition transcript. Cooper works in the Pentagon as a deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Russia and Ukraine.
  2. Cooper’s testimony was cut short when Republican representatives stormed the SCIF.
  3. The Pentagon got no heads up about the freeze on military aid to Ukraine. When they found out that Mick Mulvaney froze the aid, they scrambled to get the money released.
  4. There were questions over whether the hold was legal, being that it came from the Office of Management and Budget.
  5. Before the press broke the news about the freeze, questions arose from the defense industry, which was waiting for the funds. She even got a call from the Chamber of Commerce.
  6. Conversations with Volker and alarm bells from Taylor led her to believe Ukraine was aware of the freeze far earlier than previously believed.
  7. Volker indicated to her that military aid would not be released without a public statement from Ukraine committing to the investigations Trump wanted. This was in a discussion where it was clear that the path Volker was taking to lift the aid was to get Ukraine to make the public announcement of the investigations. She says, “the only reason they would do that is because there was, you know, something valuable.”
  8. Volker mentioned to her “an effort that he was engaged in to see if there was a statement that the government of Ukraine would make that would somehow disavow any interference in U.S. elections and would commit to the prosecution of any individuals involved in election interference.”
  9. Cooper says that even though she was told by Michael Duffey in OMB that the holdup in aid was over corruption, the anti-corruption review had already been completed, and Pentagon officials had “affirmed that we believed sufficient progress has been made.” Duffey refuses to testify.
  10. Also, the Department of Defense certified that Ukraine met the deadline for anti-corruption benchmarks in May.
    • After the freeze in aid, the Department of Defense did no further work on reviewing anti-corruption measures.
  1. Cooper attended a meeting with senior administration officials where they concluded that there are only two ways for Trump to withhold aid.
    • The president notifies Congress and declares a “rescission” of the funds
    • The Pentagon reprograms the funds (this also needs a congressional notification)
  1. The impending end of the fiscal year was putting the entire funding for aid in jeopardy.
  2. Securing Ukraine will help us push back against Russian aggression in the rest of the world.

David Holmes:

  1. Holmes testified at the end of the week, and his transcript was released by Monday. So I’m including all the info in this week’s recap.
  2. The impeachment panel interviews David Holmes, an aide to Bill Taylor. Holmes is the aide referenced in the above testimony from Taylor about the phone call he overheard between Sondland and Trump.
  3. Holmes says there’s a risk that Russia was monitoring that phone call between an ambassador and the president on a cell phone in a public restaurant in Kyiv. They “generally assume mobile communications in Ukraine are being monitored.”
  4. Trump’s voice was very loud and discernible (so we can assume others in the restaurant heard it as well), and the two discussed the investigations they wanted from Ukraine.
  5. Trump’s voice was so loud, Sondland had to hold his phone away from his ear.
  6. At one point, Trump said, “So he’s going to do the investigation.” Sondland replied, “Oh yeah, he’s going to do it.”
  7. Holmes says that:
    • Sondland told Trump that Zelensky “loves your ass.”
    • Sondland told Trump that Zelensky would do “anything you ask him to.”
    • The day after Trump asked Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden, Sondland told Trump that Ukraine would open the requested investigations.
    • Sondland confirmed that Trump doesn’t give a shit about Ukraine. He cares more about the investigation into Biden.
    • Sondland and Trump also discussed freeing rapper A$AP Rocky.
  1. Holmes reported the call to his supervisor. He also says two other officials (whose names are redacted) were at the lunch.
  2. Holmes reported the conversation to the NSC legal advisor John Eisenberg, the same guy Vindman reported his concerns to and the same guy who decided to place the record of the call on a super secret server. Eisenberg did nothing.
  3. At a foreign policy meeting, Sondland once said, “Damnit, Rudy. Every time Rudy gets involved he goes and f—s everything up.”
  4. Fiona Hill also testified she was concerned about Sondland’s use of his personal cell phone as well as the one issued to him by the government. She felt his communications weren’t secure. He also gave out her own personal cell phone number.