Tag: TrumpLies

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.

Week 146 in Trump

Posted on November 18, 2019 in Politics, Trump

And here you have it, folks. This explains why we’re in the situation we’re in. CNN hosted an all-female panel of Pennsylvania voters, and several members of the panel said they’d still vote for Trump “if he shot someone on 5th Avenue.” Because “you’d have to know why he shot him.”

Here’s what happened in politics for the week ending November 10… Sorry, I’m a week behind still!

Missing From Previous Weeks:

  1. The U.S. refused to issue visas to members of an Iranian delegation coming to Washington for the annual meeting of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. Iran’s economic minister canceled his trip in protest.
  2. The USDA’s inspector general opened an investigation into whether the USDA was burying its own scientists’ research on climate change. Farmers and ranchers are feeling the effects of climate change firsthand, and can’t really mitigate it without access to the scientific information.

Shootings This Week:

There were SIX mass shootings in the U.S. this week (defined as killing and/or injuring 4 or more people). Shooters kill 1 person and injure 24 more.

  1. A shooter injures 4 people outside a nightclub in Kansas City, MO.
  2. A shooter kills 1 person and injures 4 more outside a strip club in Memphis, TN.
  3. A shooter injures 4 people filming a rap video in Little Rock, AK. The victims are 12, 12, 13, and 30 years old.
  4. A shooter injures 4 people in Vidalia, GA.
  5. A drive-by shooter injures 4 men in Detroit, MI.
  6. A shooter injures 4 people outside a nightclub in Toledo, OH.

Russia:

  1. Roger Stone’s trial begins. As a reminder, he was indicted on obstruction of justice, five counts of making false statements (including to Congress), and witness tampering.
  2. Stone is in hot water over his relationship with WikiLeaks during the 2016 presidential campaign.
  3. Stone’s indictment says a Trump campaign official was told to contact Stone after Wikileaks released DNC emails. They wanted information from Stone about when the next releases would come out and what other damaging information they had.
  4. Steve Bannon testifies, and says the campaign was willing to try “dirty tricks” in order to win.
  5. Court documents show that Manafort was spreading the Ukraine conspiracy theories months before the elections.

Legal Fallout:

  1. A federal judge upholds a ruling that Trump’s tax returns must be handed over to Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance. This is part of the investigation into the hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal.
  2. After being threatened with fines and jail time, Betsy DeVos announces that the Department of Education will cancel the debt of about 1,500 students who attended schools that went belly-up before they completed their educations.
    • The loans should’ve been forgiven under the “closed school discharge” guidelines.
    • But this one is a mess. The schools in question were purchased by a Christian non-profit group in 2017, when they were already in distress. The non-profit, Dream Center Education Holdings, closed a few schools within months. To top off their problems, the schools lost their accreditation with the Higher Learning Commission, and the whole chain shut down within a year of the purchase.
  1. A New York State judge orders Trump to personally pay $2 million to various nonprofit organizations as part of a settlement involving the Trump Foundation. The foundation held a fundraiser in 2016 ostensibly for veterans’ organizations, but none of those organizations saw any of the $3 million raised. The court finds that the Trump family misused charitable contributions to the foundation for personal, business, and political gain.
  2. According to Trump advisors, around September 25, Trump asked Attorney General William Barr to hold a press conference to say that Trump didn’t break any laws in his call with Zelensky. Barr declined. Both men deny this happened.
  3. Two Twitter employees are accused of helping Saudi Arabia spy on its critics. The Saudis recruited the two to obtain data, including email addresses and IP addresses, of people who criticize the country and its leaders.

Impeachment:

Including all this info just makes this blog 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. Every Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee votes to advance White House legal aide Steve Menashi’s nomination to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.
    • Menashi is inexperienced.
    • His writings show him to oppose women and to support racist ideas. He opposes diversity programs and gay rights and has expressed anti-Muslim sentiments.
    • Menashi worked with Betsy DeVos to roll back rights for victims of sexual assaults on campuses.
    • He also worked with DeVos to help create the plan to use Social Security data to deny debt relief to students cheated out of money by for-profit colleges. A judge found this plan to be illegal.
    • He’s being accused of being part of the Ukraine coverup, having been Trump’s legal adviser for over a year (though I haven’t seen any evidence of this).

Healthcare:

  1. A federal judge overrules Trump’s rule allowing healthcare workers to refuse care based on religious beliefs. The judge says DHHS exceeded its authority, acted arbitrarily and capriciously, and lied about their justification for making the changes.
  2. Global warming is causing an exponential increase in Dengue Fever infections (boo), but scientists announce they‘re finalizing a vaccine (yay) to prevent the disease. In tests, the vaccine is 95% effective in preventing serious illness; 80% effective in preventing it altogether.

International:

  1. Iran announces new violations of the JCPOA (Iran Deal) on the 40th anniversary of the student takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, which started the 444-day-long hostage crisis. Iran is operating 60 IR-6 advanced centrifuges, which produce enriched uranium ten times faster than what the JCPOA allows. Gosh, if only we could’ve had some sort of agreement that would prevent this. Oh, wait…
  2. The BBC reports that one of the U.S.’s demands in their post-Brexit trade negotiations with the UK is that the UK must privatize their National Health System.
  3. Working-class communities in Northern Ireland see an uptick in violence over fears that Brexit will create a hard border between them and Ireland again.
  4. Yemen’s government signs a power-sharing peace agreement with separatists, a move backed by the Saudi crown prince. This civil war is in its fifth year.
  5. The two had banded together previously to fight the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, but then rebels backed by the United Arab Emirates seized the capital city from the government, which is support by Saudi Arabia.
  6. The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen is still obtaining U.S. weapons, despite bipartisan congressional disapproval.
  7. Violent protests continue in the Bolivian capital of La Paz. People across the country have been protesting since the elections four weeks ago, after the results couldn’t be validated because of “serious irregularities.”
    • Protestors kidnap a small-town mayor, cut her hair, douse her in red paint, and march her barefoot through the streets.
    • Bolivian President Evo Morales resigns. Morales, who has served for 14 years, is Bolivia’s first indigenous president.
    • The successors to the presidency all resign as well, so it’s unclear who will take over.
  1. Trump tweets Turkish President Erdogan’s praises and confirms Erdogan will visit the White House this month. It’s just a month since Erdogan attacked the Syrian Kurds who were our allies.
  2. A student dies in Hong Kong from falling from a parking garage during a clash between protestors and police. This is the first death in the 23 weeks of protest there.
    • A pro-Beijing politician is stabbed while out canvassing for votes. He isn’t seriously injured.
    • China warns that they’ll bring in national security forces to quash the protests.
  1. Protests continue in Chile despite all the concessions made by the Chilean government.
  2. Iraq uses security forces to stop anti-government demonstrators. At least 300 people have died so far in the protests. This unrest is, in part, due to resentment of Iran’s influence in Iraq.
  3. A drug cartel ambushes a group of Mormons living in Mexico, killing nine U.S. citizens.

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

  1. (Missed from last week) At a White House Halloween party, children were encouraged to help “Build the wall!” Teaching intolerance at a young age.
  2. And speaking of walls, Germany commemorates the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, which divided East and West Germany. They say history repeats itself…

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. The Trump administration quietly launches a pilot program in El Paso aimed at reducing the amount of time immigrants have to organize their cases to be allowed into the country. This allows the U.S. to deport asylum seekers more quickly and without a thorough vetting.
  2. U.S.-backed loans are being used to fund the smugglers who bring Guatemalans here illegally. The loans were intended to boost rural communities’ economies.

Climate:

  1. Ryan Jackson, EPA chief of staff, refuses to tell the EPA’s inspector general how he obtained advance information about a witness’s testimony. The IG is investigating whether Jackson tried to influence an agency scientist ahead of her testimony before Congress.
  2. Trump takes formal steps to remove the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement.
  3. Top economists say we’re beginning to feel the economic effects of climate change, and that those effects are likely to snowball soon.
    • The Federal Reserve held its first climate change conference to discuss it.
    • Per capita global GDP could fall by 7% by 2100, but if all countries stick to the Paris accord, that could be minimized to 1%.
    • Extreme weather, but specifically extreme heat, affects productivity.
  1. Over 11,000 scientists sign on to a declaration saying we’re facing a climate emergency. The authors express frustration over our lack of action over the past four decades, during which the science has been showing that we can do something.
  2. Italy makes classes in climate change compulsory in schools.
  3. Global sea-level rise is unstoppable, at least to 2050. It threatens 40 million people. That number rises to 200 million by 2100 if we do nothing.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Goldman Sachs reports that they think tariffs on Chinese goods have likely peaked. They’re basing this on the possible first-phase trade/tariff agreement.
    • Economists still don’t think China will implement any real structural change, but they think we can avoid further escalation
    • Economists posit that Trump won’t push for China to address systemic trade issues that will affect U.S. businesses in the long term because he wants this settled before the 2020 elections.
  1. Manufacturing in China has expanded for three straight months, while U.S. manufacturing has contracted each of those months. October had the largest U.S. manufacturing deficit with China in at least eight years (which is how long they’ve been using this particular survey).
  2. China announces that the U.S. and China have both agreed to cancel certain tariffs on one another’s goods. The news triggered a stock market rally with new record highs in the U.S.
  3. Trump won’t impose new tariffs on European cars this week as he had previously promised (he’s said that imports of European cars somehow pose a national security threat).
  4. Farm income is expected to hit its highest level since 2014, but 40% of that income comes from the taxpayer bailout, disaster assistance, insurance, and the farm bill.

Elections:

  1. Trump campaigns in Kentucky for unpopular Governor Matt Bevin (why does Kentucky keep electing officials they hate?). In a very close race, Democrat Andy Beshear later beats Bevin by fewer than 6,000 votes.
    • Trump makes the rally about him: “If you lose, they’re going to say, ‘Trump suffered the greatest defeat in the history of the world.’ You can’t let that happen to ME!”
    • Bevin calls for a re-canvassing of the ballots.
    • Some Republican State Representatives seem to indicate it might fall to them to decide the winner based on an old rule regarding election irregularities. Bevin has already made accusations of irregularities, so that could be where this is headed. Bevin hasn’t cited any evidence, though.
  1. In other state elections this week, Democrats took over both the Senate and the House of Delegates in Virginia, giving them a trifecta in the state.
  2. In Mississippi, Republican Lt. Governor Tate Reeves defeated Democratic Attorney General Jim Hood to take the governor’s seat.
  3. Facebook and Google are under pressure to limit political ads, or at least to not publish lies. Twitter has already banned political ads.

Miscellaneous:

  1. In Nikki Haley’s new book, she claims that former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly tried to get her to subvert Trump with them. According to Haley, both men said they weren’t being insubordinate; they were trying to save the country.
  2. The DOJ is trying to intimidate and expose the author who anonymously penned the upcoming book “The Warning.” Anonymous wrote an infamous op-ed in the New York Times claiming to be a White House official and describing the chaotic atmosphere of Trump’s White House.
    • Excerpts of the book are leaking out, and I’m trying to decide whether to repeat them here. It seems to me that if you’re unwilling to put your name on something, then I have no way of determining how credible your book is.
  1. Trump far outpaces his three most recent predecessors in staff turnover at this point in his presidency.
  2. AT&T agrees to a $60 million settlement with its unlimited data customers for misleading them about slowing down their speeds. This is called throttling. And this would be illegal if we still had net neutrality rules.
  3. An ABC news anchor is caught on a hot mic saying that NBC executives quashed a bombshell sex-trafficking story about Jeffrey Epstein.

Polls:

  1. 64% of Americans say their finances are no better under Trump. 35% say they’re doing better.
  2. A Fox News poll shows that more voters want Trump impeached (53%) than oppose impeachment (41%).

Week 146 in Trump – Impeachment News

Posted on November 18, 2019 in Impeachment, Trump

Sorry I’m so far behind in getting these recaps out! Suddenly, there’s twice as much political news write about and twice as much drama. I’m almost caught up though.

In the interest of keeping track of events, here’s another helpful timeline of events surrounding Ukraine, this one starting with January of this year.

And here’s what happened on the impeachment front for the week ending November 10…

General Happenings:

  1. High-level Ukraine officials warned Zelensky to avoid the appearance of taking sides in U.S. politics, but still debated whether it was in Ukraine’s best interest to comply with Trump’s demands. This is documented in a series of WhatsApp threads.
    • Zelensky knew how important that military aid was. So in the end, he scheduled an interview on CNN with Fareed Zakaria for September 13 to make Trump’s requested announcement about the investigations.
    • However, word about the whistleblower report began leaking and Trump released the military aid under public pressure on September 11.
    • Since the point was now moot, Zelensky canceled the interview.
    • If not for the whistleblower, the extortion of investigations for military aid would’ve worked and we would never have heard a thing about it. We would’ve been left with the impression that Ukraine thought Joe Biden did something corrupt, though.
    • This is the textbook definition of getting caught in the middle of committing a crime, which is still a crime, in case you were wondering.
  1. House Democrats list these areas of focus for impeachment:
    • Whether Trump asked a foreign leader to open investigations to benefit himself, personally or politically
    • Whether he used the power of the Office of the President to pressure Ukraine
    • Whether the Trump administration tried to hide information from Congress about Trump’s actions.
  1. Two U.S. Senators told Zelensky that only Trump could release the aid.
  2. Four White House officials defy their subpoenas to testify before the impeachment panel: White House Counsel John Eisenberg, Robert Blair (a senior adviser Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney), Office of Management and Budget official Brian McCormack, and White House lawyer Michael Ellis.
    • Eisenberg says he didn’t have enough time to prepare (over the weekend) and Trump told him not to cooperate.
    • Eisenberg is also the guy who decided to move the call summary to the classified N.I.C.E. server. After the call, he also told Alexander Vindman not to discuss the call with anyone outside the White House.
    • Others who fail to appear include Energy Secretary Rick Perry, acting director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought, and State Department counselor T. Ulrich Brechbuhl.
  1. Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) says open hearings will begin next week.
  2. GOP leaders claim that Democrats are releasing the transcripts selectively. All the major transcripts are released in full this week.
  3. Charles Kupperman’s lawsuit asking a judge to decide whether executive privilege takes priority over a congressional subpoena isn’t set to be heard until the second week of December. This will delay some testimonies, including John Bolton’s.
    • But then, House Democrats withdraw their subpoena for Kupperman’s testimony and ask the judge to dismiss Kupperman’s lawsuit over it. They say it’s to avoid delays in the impeachment hearings. Don McGahn’s case is similar and should wrap up sooner, setting an earlier precedent.
  1. Without even having heard or read all the evidence (if he’s read any at all), Mitch McConnell says the Senate would acquit Trump if the impeachment hearing were held today. He also points out that a delayed trial will keep the Senators who are running for president off the campaign trail.
    • If it comes to it, the Senate will likely model the trial after Clinton’s.
    • Senator Lindsey Graham refuses to read any of the transcripts, saying he’s ”written the whole [impeachment] process off” as “a bunch of B.S.” I say that’s just lazy.
  1. Earl Matthews, a senior NSC advisor who attended key Ukraine meetings and traveled to Ukraine with John Bolton, resigns. He hasn’t been tapped for testimony in the impeachment probe that we know of.
  2. Trump says he doesn’t know much about Yovanovitch, but he says Zelensky isn’t a fan of hers either.
  3. A note here on what Zelensky might or might not think. It’s very apparent from the transcript of the phone call that Zelensky knows what he needs to say. And that included supporting what Trump thinks is true and not ever negating what Trump says. So it’s hard to know just what Zelensky thought of Yovanovitch.
  4. The GOP has provided evolving excuses for people refusing to testify:
    • First, they argued that since there wasn’t a House vote, the proceedings weren’t official, so people didn’t have to testify.
    • After the House voted on impeachment hearings, the GOP argued that senior officials have absolute immunity.
    • But when lower-level staffers were subpoenaed, the GOP argued that they must have their own agency’s lawyers present (which is a violation of House rules, which are the same rules the Benghazi hearings were held under).
  1. Trump concurs with Republican leaders that written answers from the whistleblower aren’t sufficient and that they must testify in person. If you remember, Trump refused to answer questions in person to Robert Mueller and instead submitted his answers in writing.
  2. The impeachment panel requests an interview with Mick Mulvaney, but we know he won’t show.
  3. The whistleblower’s lawyer sends a cease and desist letter to the White House to get Trump to stop trying to out the identity of the whistleblower. He says Trump’s rhetoric is putting the whistleblower and their family in physical danger.
  4. House Republicans intend to subpoena the whistleblower, but it’s not likely Democrats will allow it over concerns for the whistleblower’s safety.
  5. Trump asks Attorney General William Barr to publicly say that Trump didn’t do anything wrong and absolve him of any guilt. Barr declines.
  6. One of the whistleblower’s lawyers does seem to be a never Trumper. Mark Zaid’s tweets from 2016 and early 2017 resurface where he says that a coup against Trump has started and that impeachment will follow. He also tweeted, “we will get rid of Trump.”
    • Zaid also wrote an article in 2018, though, defending Trump from charges that his actions were treasonous.
    • This isn’t relevant. As far as we know, neither the whistleblower nor any of the witnesses who have since come forward have previous relationships with Zaid that we know of.
  1. CIA Director Gina Haspel has so far refused to guarantee that she’ll protect the whistleblower (who, from most accounts, works in her agency).
  2. The transcripts released this week show that during the time Republican House Members were complaining that they couldn’t get into the impeachment depositions, very few of them were attending the depositions they were allowed to attend. They went so far as to storm the SCIF to protest that they couldn’t be there, but they weren’t taking advantage of their ability to attend.
  3. Bolton’s lawyer says that Bolton is aware of many relevant meetings and conversations related to withholding aid from Ukraine and that House investigators don’t know about those conversations yet.
  4. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) opens an investigation into whether withholding military aid to Ukraine violates appropriation laws. It’s possible that the administration’s failure to notify Congress was a violation of the legal notification requirements.
  5. Republicans temporarily switch in Ohio Representative Jim Jordan to the House Intelligence Committee so he can participate in the impeachment hearings.

Republican’s Witness List:

Here’s the list of people House Republicans want to testify at the impeachment hearings. Democrats are reviewing the list, but have said they’ll likely not allow Hunter Biden or the whistleblower to testify (for the whistleblower’s protection). One of the rules for witnesses is that they must be able to speak to the three areas of impeachment outlined in the previous section.

  • Hunter Biden, former board member of Burisma Holdings
  • Devon Archer, former board member of Burisma Holdings
  • Alexandra Chalupa, former Democratic National Committee staffer
  • David Hale, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs
  • Tim Morrison, former senior director for European and Russian affairs on the National Security Council
  • Nellie Ohr, former contractor for opposition research firm Fusion GPS
  • Kurt Volker, former U.S. envoy to Ukraine
  • The anonymous whistleblower
  • “All individuals” the whistleblower relied on to draft the complaint

More Trouble for Parnas, Fruman, and Giuliani:

  1. Lev Parnas is playing ball and wants to cooperate with the impeachment inquiry.
  2. Parnas says he delivered a message to the newly elected Zelensky back in May that Zelensky had to announce investigations into the Bidens or Mike Pence wouldn’t come to his inauguration and the U.S. would freeze aid. This contradicts the accounts from both Trump and Ukrainian officials, though no one disputes Parnas met with Zelensky’s officials.
  3. Parnas and Fruman pushed former Ukraine President Poroshenko to make the same announcement back in February about investigations into Burisma, the Bidens, and the 2016 election. This would be in exchange for a state visit.

David Hale Deposition:

  1. David Hale, undersecretary of state for political affairs, is the only witness to appear by Wednesday out of the several subpoenaed. We have yet to see any of his testimony, but he’s expected to say that Pompeo hesitated to support Marie Yovanovitch because he was worried it would delay military aid to Ukraine further.
  2. Hale tried to distance himself from this whole thing by removing himself from email threads concerning Yovanovitch.

Jennifer Williams Deposition:

  1. Jennifer Williams is a national security aide to Mike Pence; she’s an advisor to the vice president on Europe and Russia.
  2. Williams is the third person who listened in on the call between Trump and Zelensky to testify.
  3. Williams testifies despite the White House trying to prevent it.
  4. There isn’t much information on her testimony, but we can assume it’ll be released as part of the open House hearings.

Transcripts Released:

  1. The House releases redacted transcripts of the testimony from eight witnesses who testified in closed-door hearings.
    • Caveat: I haven’t read every page — there are thousands to go through. I also tried not to include any information I’ve reported previously, which came from their opening statements; but this was a lot of information to sift through.
    • One thing that’s hard to ascertain is what the Republican strategy is in their lines of questioning, which often seem meandering or irrelevant. They do complain a lot about the process.

Marie Yovanovitch:

  1. Yovanovitch thought Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman wanted her removed from her post because they were seeking to do business in Ukraine.
  2. Representative Mark Meadows (R-NC) opened a line of questioning that seemed to be aimed at highlighting her Ukrainian background, including questioning her about where her nickname, Masha. Except Yovanovitch is Russia, not Ukrainian, and Masha is a Russian nickname.
  3. Yovanovitch felt threatened after reading Trump’s transcript, where he told Zelensky that she is “going to go through some things.”
  4. The smear campaign against her included Donald Trump Jr., who tweeted about her in March.
  5. She documented her concerns to the Undersecretary for Political Affairs. When she asked why there was no followup, she was told, “there was caution about any kind of a statement because it could be undermined… by the president.”
  6. She was told that Mike Pompeo or someone in State would reach out to Sean Hannity to find out where the smears against her were coming from.
  7. Sondland told her she needed to tweet support for the president in order to save her job.
  8. Her testimony indicates that the State Department isn’t serving at the pleasure of the president; they’re serving in fear of the president.
  9. Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan told her she hadn’t done anything wrong after she was recalled from Ukraine.

Kurt Volker:

  1. Volker vouched for Joe Biden’s integrity and said he didn’t find it credible that Biden would be influenced in his duties as Vice President by anything like money or benefits for his son, Hunter.
  2. He said that Giuliani and Trump were pushing debunked theories that were just not credible.
  3. He said he didn’t think Giuliani was interested in possible money laundering or criminal activity by Burisma; Giuliani was interested in the Bidens.
  4. Volker pushed Giuliani to stop believing former Prosecutor General Yuri Lutsenko.
  5. Volker says the quid pro quo was never communicated to him.

Gordon Sondland:

  1. Sondland verified there was a quid pro quo and that there’s no other credible explanation. But he doesn’t connect it to Trump.
  2. He said that he told a top Ukrainian official that “resumption of U.S. aid would likely not occur until Ukraine provided the public anti-corruption statement that we had been discussing for many weeks.”
  3. He suggested that the kind of quid pro quo being discussed here is definitely bad and probably illegal.
  4. He claimed he didn’t know Burisma was related to the Bidens at all. Giuliani had been linking the two together since mid-May, so either he wasn’t speaking with Giuliani (which we know he was) or he’s misstating the facts here.
  5. But this week, Sondland revises his previous testimony to the House impeachment panel. He says now that he’s been reminded, he does remember that he knew U.S. military aid to Ukraine was contingent upon a public pledge to open the investigations Trump wanted and that, yes, there was a quid pro quo linking the aid and the investigations.
    • Sondland says he told Ukraine official Andriy Yermak that Ukraine would not likely receive the needed aid until the investigations were publicly announced.
    • Sondland also talks about a September 1 meeting with Zelensky and Mike Pence, where Zelensky expressed his concern over the suspension of military aid.

William Taylor:

  1. Bill Taylor says it was his “clear understanding” that Trump’s withholding of Ukraine aid was conditioned on the Ukrainian president announcing investigations into Trump’s rivals, including Joe Biden.
  2. Gordon Sondland told him that Trump was “adamant” that Zelensky publicly announce the investigations into the Bidens and the 2016 U.S. election meddling.
  3. BTW, Taylor is a Vietnam War vet, and he has served in every administration since 1985.
  4. Taylor was skeptical of accepting the job offered by Pompeo because he was worried that Giuliani would undermine relations between our countries.
  5. He first heard about the conditions on military aid to Ukraine from National Security Council official Tim Morrison.
  6. His understanding is that Giuliani started the whole idea of getting Zelensky to say out loud that he was investigating Burisma and the 2016 elections.
  7. Defense, State, CIA, and NSC officials wanted to meet with Trump, but they were too busy looking into the possibility of buying Greenland at Trump’s behest.
  8. Taylor said that it was the “unanimous opinion of every level of inter-agency discussion” that the military aid be released to Ukraine, and high-level officials worked to convince Trump of that.

Mike McKinley:

  1. McKinley says he asked Mike Pompeo three times to put out a statement in defense of Marie Yovanovitch. Pompeo claims he never heard McKinley say anything about it.
  2. McKinley says Yovanovitch did excellent work in Ukraine.
  3. He confirms that he left, in part, because of the State Department’s failure to support its ambassadors and because of the apparent use of overseas ambassadors to advance domestic political objectives.
  4. McKinley spoke with Mike Pompeo about this after Trump’s call with Zelensky, but Pompeo never gave any indication that he was listening in that call.

Alexander Vindman:

  1. Again, Vindman said that Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney orchestrated the plan to restrict aid to Ukraine on the condition that Zelensky publicly announce investigations into the Bidens.
  2. He learned this from Gordon Sondland, who explicitly used the word “Bidens.”
  3. This expert on Ukraine said he didn’t know of any factual basis for the assertions about Yovanovitch. He also didn’t know of any factual basis for the theories about Ukraine interfering in the 2016 elections.
  4. One of the assertions against Yovanovitch is that she’s an associate of George Soros. The horror.
  5. There are some key words missing from the transcript released by the White House.
  6. He said there is no doubt that Trump was pushing a foreign government to investigate his political rivals.

Fiona Hill:

  1. The transcripts show that Matt Gaetz once again crashed the secure room where impeachment depositions were being held. When Adam Schiff noticed the face that didn’t belong in the room, he asked Gaetz to leave. At that point, Jim Jordan jumped in to defend Gaetz. After much back and forth, Schiff paused the hearing, The transcript picks up two hours later to show the parliamentarian supporting Schiff’s request that Gaetz leave.
  2. Hill suggests that Sondland isn’t telling the truth about Oval Office conversations.
  3. Hill said the accusations against Yovanovitch were a mishmash of conspiracy theories.
  4. Hill said that John Bolton thought Mick Mulvaney and Gordon Sondland were making an improper arrangement to put together a meeting at the White House because it was predicated upon Ukraine meeting the demands for investigations.
  5. Hill said there was a good chance that Russia actually did have “kompromat” on Trump. She didn’t comment on the type of compromising material but did say that most information gathered by the Kremlin is factual. She said kompromat was likely being gathered on multiple people, including Hillary Clinton.

George Kent:

  1. Kent criticized Giuliani, saying that he was engaged in a smear campaign of lies and slander against Marie Yovanovitch and that Giuliani’s assertions about Yovanovitch were without basis and untrue.
  2. He said that the people spreading these falsehoods about Yovanovitch clearly had questionable motives.
  3. At a meeting, Kurt Volker asked a Ukrainian official, Andriy Yermak, about an investigation Zelensky had opened into former Ukraine president Petro Poroshenko that Volker didn’t think was appropriate. Yermak responded with, “What? You mean the type of investigations you’re pushing for us to do on Biden and Clinton?”
  4. In that same meeting, Volker made a suggestion about starting the investigations in that same meeting with Yermak, to which Bill Taylor responded, “don’t do that.”
  5. Kent said that what Trump wanted was for Zelensky to say out loud and in public “investigations, Bidens, and Clinton.”
  6. Kent said that former Prosecutor General Shokin, who Biden helped remove, was impeding reform and had repeatedly undermined U.S. efforts and assistance there. He also said that he brought up the appearance of the conflict of interest with Hunter Biden joining the Board of Burisma.
  7. Kent decided to memorialize these meetings because he felt that something possibly illegal was going on.
  8. Kent characterized what Trump did as undermining the rule of law.
  9. He said that Mick Mulvaney placed the hold on the military aid.

Week 145 in Trump

Posted on November 15, 2019 in Politics, Trump

Super-redacted Mueller interview notes, released this week.

Trump just can’t go anywhere anymore. On top of getting booed at the World Series last week, this week he gets booed at the Ultimate Fighting Championship at Madison Square Garden. You’d think the UFC crowd would be a little more Trump-friendly. But then Trump, a life-long New Yorker, just changed his residence to Florida because New York officials are mean to him. Or so he says.

Here’s what happened in politics for the week ending November 3…

Shootings This Week:

  1. There were ELEVEN mass shootings in the U.S. this week (defined as killing and/or injuring 4 or more people). Shooters kill 16 people and injure 39 more. Here are the most deadly:
    • A shooter (or shooters) kills 3 people and injures 9 at a Halloween party in a park in Long Beach, CA.
    • A shooter kills 4 family members in a home in West Philadelphia, PA. The shooter is the oldest son of the woman he killed.
    • A shooter kills 5 people and injures 3 more in Orinda, CA, on Halloween. The shooting could be related to another quadruple murder that happened in 2015.

Russia:

  1. A judge rules in favor of a FOIA request for the release of Robert Mueller’s witness interview notes. The DOJ must continue to release the notes, and will do so monthly to CNN and Buzzfeed, the agencies that filed the FOIA request. Here are a few things we learn from the notes:
    • Caveat: I didn’t read the handwritten notes very closely because they’re pretty hard to decipher.
    • Trump and Trump campaign officials repeatedly discussed how they could get access to the hacked DNC emails that they knew were stolen.
    • According to Rick Gates, the campaign was “very happy” that a foreign government helped to release the hacked DNC emails. After the emails were hacked, Trump told Gates that more leaks were coming.
    • Michael Flynn offered to use his intelligence sources to get the emails.
    • Along with Trump, these guys also expressed interest in getting the emails: Michael Flynn, Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, Corey Lewandowski, Jeff Sessions, Sam Clovis, Donald Trump Jr., and someone whose name is redacted.
    • Sean Hannity was an integral part of the campaign.
    • The RNC worked to amplify the WikiLeaks releases of the stolen documents, and appeared to be aware of the timing of those releases.
    • The conspiracy theory that Ukraine hacked the DNC and not Russia (like all our intelligence agencies found) appears to have originated with Konstantin Kilimnik. Paul Manafort was pushing that conspiracy theory back in 2016. Michael Flynn was also adamant that Russia wasn’t behind the DNC hack. All this mucking around in conspiracy theories is how Trump ended up in this impeachment process—he repeated uncorroborated rumors from a pro-Russian agent instead of trusting our own intelligence.
    • Steve Bannon was pushing the Uranium One conspiracy theory and was convinced that’s what Hillary’s “missing” 33,000 emails were about.
    • Trump wants an Attorney General who will protect him. He finally got that in William Barr, that’s for sure.
    • Erik Prince advised the campaign on the East and Mideast. He also questioned Russia’s involvement in the 2016 elections.
    • The notes are highly redacted. In fact, they’re so redacted that it’s hard to get much that’s new from them. Since much of this document relates to Rick Gates’ testimony, I would assume much of the redacted information relates to Roger Stone’s upcoming court case.
  1. The Trump administration appeals a ruling requiring that the DOJ give the House Judiciary Committee material related to Mueller’s report.
    • A federal appeals court places a temporary hold on that material until it can be determined whether to block the release during the entire appeals process.

Legal Fallout:

  1. Bob Menendez calls for an investigation into whether Mike Pompeo’s trips to Kansas involve campaign activities and are thus a violation of the Hatch Act, which limits such activities for federal employees.
  2. Trump uses his large network of donors to raise funds for GOP Senators facing tough races. Normally not a big deal, unless you’re facing a possible impeachment trial in the Senate. Richard Painter, a former ethics lawyer for the White House, says that this looks like “felony bribery.” All of the Senators in question signed on to a resolution condemning the impeachment inquiry.

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 Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan’s confirmation hearing to become Ambassador to Russia, he agrees that it’s not appropriate for the president to use his office to solicit investigations into his domestic political opponents. “I don’t think that would be in accord with our values.”
    • However, he also expresses a lack of curiosity or care about the current policies on Ukraine.
    • He also generally agrees with the threat from Russia in the realms of cybersecurity and their expansion in the Mideast.
  1. The American Bar Association rated Trump’s judicial nominee Lawrence VanDyke not qualified. In a particularly harsh assessment, their report says he’s “arrogant, lazy, an ideologue, and lacking in knowledge of the day-to-day practice.” He breaks down over it during the hearing.

Healthcare:

  1. A judge temporarily blocks Alabama’s latest restrictions on abortion, which would’ve made it a felony for a doctor to perform an abortion in almost all circumstances. The law was designed to push the limits of Roe v. Wade in order to get it pushed to the Supreme Court. It’s notable that Alabama has tried to pass several abortion restrictions this year, but courts have blocked them all.
  2. Missouri’s Health Director was keeping tabs on the menstrual cycles of women who were patients at a Planned Parenthood. He claimed to be tracking failed abortions (he thought there were four of them).
  3. Missouri requires pelvic exams before medication abortions, so Planned Parenthood doesn’t offer medication abortions.
  4. The Senate rejects a resolution that would’ve overturned a Trump administration rule that allows states to ignore parts of the ACA. Trump’s rule makes it easier for states to prioritize “junk” insurance policies that don’t meet ACA requirements.

International:

  1. Russia replaces the U.S. flag at a Syrian military base with the Russian flag.
  2. Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney didn’t know about the raid on Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi until after it was underway. The chief of staff is generally front and center to any major presidential actions.
  3. Protests in Chile continue despite President Sebastián Piñera reversing the subway fare increase that started the whole thing. He also reversed an increase in electricity charges, raised minimum wages and pension benefits, raised taxes on the rich, and made changes to his cabinet. Chile is normally a stable country.
    • Because of the protests, Chile’s President Piñera cancels the upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in November and the UN Climate Summit in December. Trump had hoped to sign his phase 1 trade agreement with China at APEC.
  1. Protests also continue in Hong Kong, where protestors are asking for U.S. help. They think the U.S. can save Hong Kong from losing their democratic rights.
  2. Governments in Iraq and Lebanon agree to resign as a result of the protests in those countries. In Lebanon, they’re protesting corruption and a stagnant economy.
  3. Trump withholds $105 million in security aid for Lebanon two days after the country’s prime minister resigns. This could be completely legit, but because we can’t trust Trump with foreign relations anymore, it comes off as suspect. The State Department says that the White House budget office and National Security Council made the decision, but doesn’t give a reason for it. Congress, the Pentagon, and the State Department oppose the move. Gosh, this all sounds so familiar…
  4. Catalonian protestors start up again in Spain, calling for Catalan independence.
  5. Remember the Turkish cleric that Michael Flynn was trying to help Erdogan extradite to Turkey? Well, this week we learned that Trump looked into cutting funding for the schools he runs.
  6. British Parliament gives Boris Johnson the December election he asked for.

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

  1. Using commercially available reciprocating saws, smugglers in Mexico have sawed through new sections of Trump’s border wall, leaving openings big enough for people to pass through (and obviously big enough for drugs to pass through). Reciprocating saws can be bought for as little as $100. According to engineers, it’s the new design of the fences that make it so easy to breach.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. A federal judge changes his previous ruling and reopens part of Nicholas Sandmann’s lawsuit against The Washington Post for misrepresenting the situation over his confrontation with a Native American protestor. Sandmann was wearing a “Make American Great Again” cap at the time of the confrontation. I have a feeling that this case might initiate some changes to video journalism.
  2. The Trump administration announces they’ll no longer enforce an Obama-era rule that required child welfare providers who accept federal funds to not discriminate against people based on religion.
    • Obama’s rule prevented faith-based organizations in the foster system from discriminating against prospective adopters because of closely held religious beliefs.
    • Trump’s ruling reduces the pool of accepting parents who will be allowed to foster through certain organizations.
  1. Trump appoints the current undersecretary of strategy and policy at DHS to be the new acting head of DHS… to replace his previous acting head of DHS.
  2. Attorney General William Barr limits the options immigrants have to fight deportation by getting rid of existing paths to legal immigration for people with minor or old criminal convictions.
  3. October will end with no refugees admitted to the U.S. for the month. Trump placed a moratorium on refugees and delayed it twice, canceling around 500 flights at taxpayer expense.

Climate:

  1. The government of the U.K. halts fracking in England.
  2. The Keystone Pipeline spills over 380,000 gallons of sludgy tar sands oil in a wetland area in North Dakota. The pipeline transports a mixture of clay, water, bitumen (a think oil), and a combination of chemicals that help it flow. The chemicals disperse fairly quickly, but unlike regular oil, the tar sands oil sinks. The wetlands will likely be unable to be completely restored.
  3. Jane Fonda is arrested for the fourth consecutive week for protesting inaction on climate change.
  4. Taking a page from their U.S. counterparts, 15 young Canadians file a lawsuit against their government for not taking acting against climate change.
  5. The Ocean Cleanup project starts cleaning plastic out of rivers to stop it from draining into the ocean in the first place.
  6. The International Energy Agency publishes the results of a study that they say shows that offshore wind turbines could power every home and every business on the planet.
  7. Murray Energy files for bankruptcy, becoming the eighth coal mining company to file for it in the past year.
  8. General Motors, Fiat Chrysler, and Toyota side with the Trump administration in the battle for California to retain its waiver over federal fuel emission standards. Other automakers, including Ford, Honda, Volkswagen, and BMW, have already reached a deal with California.
  9. The EPA announces they’ll weaken limits on coal-power plant releases of heavy metals like arsenic, lead, and mercury.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan, is considering moving his company’s Manhattan headquarters to U.S. cities with cheaper costs and better tax benefits. Just another victim of the 2017 tax reform.
    • Dimon does say the reason is partly to protect the company from a looming economic downturn, and JPMorgan is just one of several companies rolling back spending over fears of a global recession (though economists don’t see this in our near future).
    • More companies are also stocking up on their cash reserves instead of making risky bets.
  1. While expressing optimism in general about the economy, high net worth individuals and business owners also have more of their assets in cash than is typically recommended. Globally, investors have 27% of their holdings in cash.
    • This could help cushion the effects of a recession for them, should it happen.
  1. The Federal Reserve cuts interest rates by a quarter point for the third straight quarter, so they’re still protecting the economy from risks created by the trade wars, a slowing housing market, and sluggish manufacturing numbers. Feds suggest that this is likely the last reduction for a while.
  2. Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping had planned to sign their Phase 1 agreement at the APEC Summit in Chile this month. With Chile canceling APEC, they have to look at a different venue.
  3. The stock market pops on the 3-month extension for Brexit, a possible first-phase agreement in the U.S.-China trade war, and the Fed’s interest rate cut.
  4. The U.S. economy added 128,000 jobs in October and unemployment ticked up just a bit to 3.6%. The jobs numbers beat expectations, but they were set pretty low.
  5. Senator Chuck Grassley says he’s worried Trump will shut down the government again, this time over the impeachment process.
  6. Trump threatens to end federal aid to California in no less than twelve tweets in one day. Maybe California should stop sending funds to the federal government?
  7. The UAW comes to an agreement with GM and Ford, ending the six-week-long workers’ strike. Both sides agree to a 4-year labor plan.
  8. The Senate passes four spending bills to keep up operations at the departments of Agriculture, Transportation, and Interior. The majority of funding, which runs out on November 21, is being held up in a fight over the border wall.
  9. The White House considers another set of tax cuts to be announced during the 2020 presidential campaign. It’s designed to help Republicans run on a message of a strong economy.

Elections:

  1. Freshman Congresswoman Katie Hill (D-CA) resigns over rumors of an affair with a congressional staffer (which is against the rules of Congress and which she denies), an affair with a campaign staffer (which she confirms but which isn’t against the rules), and the publication of intimate and nude photos.
    • Her reason for not fighting this is that she was warned there are 700 pictures that would be released bit by bit to keep it in the news.
    • Also, her political competitors made posters out of some of the pictures and posted them around Hill’s parent’s town.
    • One of the leakers worked for the campaign of the Republican incumbent that Hill beat in 2018. That incumbent, Steve Knight, is running for her seat now.
    • George Papadopoulos, the guy who started the whole Russia investigation, also files to run. Somehow I don’t think he’ll get the RNC’s backing.
  1. A court hands North Carolina Republicans another gerrymandering defeat, ruling that the current congressional districts cannot be used for the 2020 elections. Likely, they’ll need to redraw the districts to be less discriminatory. I have literally lost count of the number of times these districts have been ruled unconstitutional. A previous ruling on gerrymandering in the state said the lines targeted African Americans with surgical precision.
  2. Twitter announces they’ll stop accepting any political ads across their platform.
  3. The top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee says he won’t run for reelection next year. Greg Walden is the 22nd House Republican to retire, resign, or run for another office.
  4. Upon the impeachment vote, the National Republican Congressional Committee sends boxes to the offices of vulnerable Democrats in purple/red districts. Apparently, they didn’t think through government security procedures and got called in for questioning.
    • Democrats tell them that when they get done with being questioned, let us put those boxes to good use by using them for our canned food drive for Thanksgiving.
  1. Georgia plans to purge around 315,000 voters from the voter rolls before the 2020 elections if they don’t return their cancellation notices. This is about 4% of registered voters.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Trump changes his legal residence from New York to Florida. People say it’s because of his tax reform and reduction of SALT deductions, but property taxes will still be the same no matter where he lives.
  2. After Joe Biden criticizes Trump for appointing Ivanka and Jared Kushner to White House positions, Kushner says that most of his job has been cleaning up Biden’s messes.
  3. Trump adds his personal pastor to the administration in an official capacity. Paula White is a televangelist who will oversee outreach and advise the Faith and Opportunity Initiative. The initiative is designed to give religious groups a bigger voice in government. I wonder if it includes Muslim voices? Buddhist? Bahai?
  4. Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook won’t police political speech, even if it’s blatantly false.
  5. Thousands of protestors gather at Trump Tower in Chicago during a fundraiser for Trump and Pence.

Polls:

  1. 55% of Americans think what Trump did regarding Ukraine is out of line, but only 49% say he should be impeached and removed from office.
  2. 78% of Fox News watchers agree that the impeachment inquiry is like a lynching. 66% of voters overall think the White House should comply with House subpoenas.
  3. 54% of Americans think Trump has made us less respected globally; 28% say he’s made us more respected.

Week 145 in Trump – Impeachment News

Posted on November 15, 2019 in Impeachment, Trump

From The Economist, “Testimony from Alexander Vindman, a decorated veteran, is hard to trash as partisan sniping.” And yet Republicans find a way to do just that. The smears against Vindman are shameful, accusing a decorated war veteran (and actual Ukraine expert, not the fake one) of being unable to be loyal to the U.S. because he’s Ukrainian. BTW, he came here when he was 3. When your only defense is to question the loyalty of the witness, you don’t have a good defense.

After the testimony we’ve heard so far, it seems that while hardly anybody actually approved of withholding aid from Ukraine, much less withholding it until they “did us a favor though,” nobody wanted to say anything about it. Nobody wanted to rock the boat and tell Trump it was wrong, and they all thought they could manipulate a way to get the aid released without the quid pro quo (or with it, if they had to). They all had the same goal, which was different from Trump’s, but were afraid to say it to his face.

Here’s what happened on the impeachment front for the week ending November 3…

General Happenings:

  1. Can’t keep all the moving pieces in the Ukraine investigation straight? Here’s a helpful and thorough timeline of Ukraine events, starting with the Russia invasion in 2014.
    • And here’s a little more history. Ukraine’s former President Petro Poroshenko tried in January 2017 to meet with Trump, hiring a lobbying firm, BGR Group, to make that happen. On June 7, 2017, Giuliani visited Kyiv and met with Poroshenko and Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko (Viktor Shokin’s successor). Just after that meeting, the investigation into the “black ledger” was shelved. That ledger listed allegedly illicit payments to Manafort. In May of 2018, Ukraine halted cooperation with Mueller’s investigation to “avoid irritating the top American officials.”
  1. Not only are U.S. intelligence officials alarmed by Trump’s actions involving Ukraine and counter-investigations, but U.K. intelligence officials are also expressing alarm by Trump’s requests for assistance with Barr’s investigations into the origins of the Russia investigation. They say “it is like nothing we have come across before, they are basically asking, in quite robust terms, for help in doing a hatchet job on their own intelligence services.”
  2. National Security Council officials knew as early as May that Rudy Giuliani and Gordon Sondland had Ukraine officials rattled by their pressure campaign to open specific investigations in order to obtain military aid from the U.S.
    • Giuliani was pushing the incoming Ukrainian administration to change the leadership of Naftogaz, a state-owned energy company.
    • Giuliani’s associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman also helped with the pressure campaign, both on Naftogaz and finding dirt on Hunter Biden. Parnas and Fruman were trying to sell natural gas to Naftogaz.
    • At this point, Joe Biden had only been in the presidential primary race for about three weeks.
    • Sondland advised then-new President Zelensky on who to place in influential posts in his administration.
    • Meanwhile, other ambassadors advised Zelensky on how not to get dragged into our domestic politics.
    • <rant>So our National SECURITY Council knew about this for almost five months and did nothing? The only reason this is coming out is because of one lone whistleblower? This is not only a disgrace; it’s alarming that we can’t count on these folks to watch out for our safety.</rant>
  1. House committees want to depose John Bolton, but it isn’t likely he’ll appear without a judge’s approval to override Trump’s claim of executive privilege.
  2. Matt Gaetz files an ethics complaint against Adam Schiff for what he says are two violations of House rules:
    • Schiff’s recap of Trump’s conversation with Zelensky wasn’t read word for word.
    • Schiff won’t allow Members of Congress who aren’t on the Intelligence, Foreign Affairs, or Oversight Committees to attend the private depositions.
  1. Attorneys for the whistleblower have been receiving death threats.
  2. The State Department agrees to release documents relevant to Trump’s dealings with Ukraine. The release is the result of a lawsuit brought shortly after Trump dismissed U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.
  3. In a case about whether former White House Counsel Don McGahn can be compelled to testify in the impeachment hearings, the judge is incredulous at the argument made by DOJ lawyers. They say former presidential aids can never be compelled to testify by Congress. For that matter, former presidents themselves can’t be compelled to testify. The judge calls it a peculiar argument that threatens the Constitution’s system of checks and balances.
    • At the same time, another federal judge is hearing a case brought by Charles Kupperman, a former top deputy to John Bolton. Kupperman defies his congressional subpoena to appear. Instead, he awaits guidance from the judge about whether he should listen to the executive branch, which invoked constitutional immunity in his case, or if he should heed Congress’s subpoena. Constitutional immunity is essentially a higher level of executive privilege.
  1. Now that impeachment proceedings are official, Trump says he’d rather go into the details of the situation than the process of impeachment. In other words, he doesn’t want Republicans out there attacking House Democrats’ process anymore. They aren’t listening to him.
  2. In fact, Trump tells a half dozen Senate Republicans to start saying that the summary of the phone call released by the White House exonerates Trump.
  3. The whistleblower whose complaint started this whole thing agrees to answer written questions from House Republicans under oath. This comes after Trump urges news organizations to out the identity of the whistleblower. The agreement is conditioned on the questions not being designed to determine the whistleblower’s identity.
    • House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy suggests that written answers aren’t enough.
    • And this is rich. Trump, who refused to be interviewed by Robert Mueller and instead turned in written “answers,” also says written answers aren’t enough.
  1. The White House is debating whether to release a transcript of a call between Vice President Mike Pence and Zelensky.
  2. Derek Harvey, a top aide to Representative Devin Nunes (R-CA), has been releasing information about the whistleblower to conservative journalists and politicians.

Impeachment Vote:

  1. At the beginning of the week, Speaker Nancy Pelosi announces the House will hold a vote on the impeachment process. Just what Republicans wanted, right? Public hearings? Wrong. They all vote against it, but it still passes.
  2. To reiterate, after weeks of complaining about how the hearings were being held in private and against the rules, Republicans in the House all vote against holding public hearings.
  3. Also, after weeks of saying the inquiry was invalid because the House hadn’t voted on it, Republicans refuse to validate it. (Democrats argue that the House vote isn’t necessary to validate the impeachment inquiries, and a court recently agreed.)
  4. The resolution:
    • Establishes procedures for hearings.
    • Opens up hearings to the public (but depositions are still private).
    • Defines how transcripts of the existing depositions will be handled (they’ll be released publicly).
    • Gives Representative Adam Schiff broad authority to call witnesses for testimony, which will be public. Republicans can call their own witnesses, too; but Democrats can vote them down (I’m not sure what the precedent for that is).
    • Allows Trump’s attorneys to participate in Judiciary Committee hearings.
    • Directs House committees to continue their ongoing investigations into Trump.
    • Provides a record of whether each Representative supports this inquiry. This puts Republicans in a bind. They’ve been complaining about the secrecy of the hearings, but if they approve this resolution, it’ll look like they approve of impeachment. On the other hand, if they reject it, they’ll look hypocritical for complaining about private hearings. After it passes, though, I don’t see anyone making a big deal about this.
  1. The committees on the impeachment panel will release a report and the transcripts of all the depositions held so far.
  2. The hope is that an “official” impeachment process will break through the obstruction from the White House.
  3. Pelosi says they’re taking the step to eliminate any doubt as to whether federal employees need to comply with subpoenas and requests to appear.
  4. Adam Schiff says they won’t ask federal courts to compel testimony from witnesses who refuse to cooperate or who are ordered not to cooperate by the White House.
  5. Both sides whipped up votes earlier this week, with Republicans saying that a solid party vote would show that this is a partisan crusade. I’m not sure how the same couldn’t be said of what they’re doing.
  6. Democrats say the rules are similar to those used to impeach Clinton and Nixon. Republicans say the rules are skewed against Trump.
    • The rules allow for very similar protections for the office of president as with Nixon. The presidential protections are much greater than they were for President Clinton.

More Trouble for Parnas, Fruman, and Giuliani:

  1. In response to a question about why Giuliani and Trump were so eager to get rid of Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, she says: “Individuals who have been named in the press as contacts of Mr. Giuliani may well have believed that their personal financial ambitions were stymied by our anti-corruption policy in Ukraine.”
    • Could be she was referring to Giuliani’s pals Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas, who were working on a gas deal with Ukraine gas company Naftogaz. Yovanovitch, on the other hand, was working to help Ukraine’s anti-corruption office,
  1. Igor Fruman is trying to get his house arrest and electronic GPS monitoring removed, saying the restrictions are onerous. Just a reminder, Fruman was arrested at the airport, about to board a one-way flight to Europe. His lawyer is prepared to argue he’s not a flight risk.

Alexander Vindman Deposition:

  1. Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, the senior expert on Ukraine at the National Security Council, appears before the impeachment panel in defiance of a White House order not to cooperate. He says:
    • He listened in on the phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky, so his is firsthand information.
    • Crucial words and phrases were omitted from the transcript of the call, including:
      • Trump claiming that there were tapes of Joe Biden discussing Ukraine corruption.
      • Zelensky explicitly mentioning Business Holdings, where Hunter Biden served on the board.
    • He was so appalled by Trump’s demands that Zelensky investigate the Bidens that he reported it to a National Security Council lawyer. Not just once, but twice.
    • Vindman was worried that if Zelensky complied, he’d risk losing bipartisan support for Ukraine.
    • At a July 10 meeting with Ukrainian officials, Gordon Sondland “started to speak about Ukraine delivering specific investigations in order to secure the meeting with the president.” Bolton cut the meeting short (this is corroborated by previous testimony).
    • When Sondland later “emphasized the importance that Ukraine deliver the investigations into the 2016 election, the Bidens, and Burisma,” Vindman told him that it was inappropriate, had nothing to do with national security, and that the NSC wasn’t going to get involved in something like that.
  1. Vindman was born in what is now Ukraine. He’s a decorated veteran with a purple heart. Still, commentators on Fox News suggest he’s a Ukrainian spy. Trump calls him a “Never Trumper.” Liz Cheney finally steps up and blasts those who question his patriotism and dedication to country. Mitt Romney and Roy Blunt defend Vindman as well.
    • Cheney says we need to show that we’re better than that. I couldn’t agree more.
  1. Of note, people who are accustomed to reading call transcripts have questioned the use of ellipses in the readout and have also questioned the lack of [inaudible] notations. These all led people to believe words were omitted.
  2. White House lawyer John Eisenberg is the guy who placed the summary of the call in the top-secret server after Vindman went to Eisenberg with his concerns. To be clear, the White House lawyer’s first reaction upon hearing that Trump did something wrong was to try to hide it so deep no one would find it.
    • Fun fact: That top-secret server is called N.I.C.E. (N.S.C. Intelligence Collaboration Environment).
  1. National security officials say this is a new thing, to store presidential conversations on the N.I.C.E. system; and this isn’t the first time they’ve done it for Trump.
  2. Vindman and Fiona Hill had already gone to Eisenberg after a meeting where Sondland pushed Ukrainian officials to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden.
  3. Vindman’s identical twin is also on the National Security Council as an ethics lawyer. He might be called in as a witness.
  4. Vindman’s testimony contradicts Gordon Sondland’s testimony. Sondland said no one raised any concerns about Trump’s actions. It also contradicts Rick Perry’s denials that he heard anything about the Bidens in relation to Ukraine.
  5. Remember that Trump didn’t know who the NSC’s Ukraine expert was (it was Vindman), and was instead getting his info on Ukraine from one of Devine Nunes’s former staffers (Kashyap Patel) who misrepresented himself to Trump as the Ukraine expert. Vindman was told not to attend a meeting because that would just confuse Trump. Patel has no Ukraine experience or expertise.

Tim Morrison Deposition:

  1. The Top Russia official on the National Security Council, Tim Morrison, resigns the day before his testimony is to begin. He’ll be replaced by Andrew Peek, currently a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Mideast.
    • Kurt Volker and Mike McKinley also resigned before giving their testimonies.
  1. Morrison was appointed to the NSC in 2018, but just took over Fiona Hill’s position this past July.
  2. Morrison is another official who alerted NSC lawyers about pressure from the Trump administration on Ukraine officials to open an investigation into Burisma Holdings.
  3. Like Bolton, Morrison is (by all accounts) a Republican hawk who sticks to the rules.
  4. Here are a few highlights of his testimony:
    • Morrison confirms parts of Bill Taylor’s testimony from the previous week, and says that the substance of conversations recalled by Taylor was accurate.
    • He says he was told explicitly that hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Ukraine were conditioned upon whether the Ukraine government agreed to investigate the 2016 election and the Bidens, corroborating previous testimony.
    • He believes Trump’s actions were legal but problematic.
    • According to his recollection, the summary of the call released by the White House is correct.
    • He asked the NSC legal advisor to review the summary of the call.
    • He was concerned about the call becoming public because it could affect Ukraine’s perception of our relationship with them.
    • He warned Taylor about Trump’s attempts to block aid to Ukraine and to stop Zelensky from visiting the White House.
    • His recollection of a meeting differed from Taylor’s in that he thought Sondland told a Ukrainian official that aid was contingent upon the new Ukrainian prosecutor general committing to opening the investigations instead of Zelensky doing it.
    • However, he does verify that Gordon Sondland told a Ukrainian official that the military aid to Ukraine would be released if Ukraine opened an investigation into Burisma Holdings, where Biden Hunter served on the board. This again negates Sondland’s testimony.

Christopher Anderson Deposition:

  1. Long-time Foreign Service Officer Christopher Anderson gives his deposition to the impeachment panel. Anderson has worked in Ukraine for five years, but has spent nearly 15 years working near there. He says:
    • Trump had agreed to a meeting with Zelensky in May and wrote Zelensky a letter to that effect. But the letter didn’t mention a date.
    • John Bolton warned him that Giuliani would be an obstacle to the State Department’s mission in Ukraine, and that could be an obstacle to White House engagement with Ukraine.
    • The State Department had an optimistic view of Ukraine and the new government headed by Zelensky. That wasn’t mirrored by Trump, who was getting his information from Giuliani.
    • The State Department’s efforts to demonstrate support for Ukraine were batted down by the White House.

Catherine Croft Deposition:

  1. Catherine Croft worked on Ukraine issues at both the White House and State Department, eventually taking Christopher Anderson’s position when he left this summer. She testifies before the impeachment panel in defiance of the White House and the State Department, and she says:
    • Just like Christopher Anderson said, Trump and the State Department have differing views on Ukraine.
    • Trump constantly calls Ukraine corrupt.
    • Washington lobbyist (and former Republican Member of Congress) Robert Livingston called Croft several times to tell her Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch should be fired. Livingston told her that Yovanovitch was an “Obama holdover” and was associated with George Soros. Oh. The. Horror. Also, what do you suppose his interest in this is?
    • Bolton was concerned about our stance on Ukraine.

Week 144 in Trump

Posted on October 29, 2019 in Politics, Trump

My fellow Americans. We have just broken into the SCIF that we already had access to...wait, what? We could already come in here? Put those cell phones down!

It was a no good, very bad week for Trump on the impeachment front. The big news should’ve been that we killed the leader of ISIS. But Republican Representatives storm the SCIF where the depositions are taking place to protest that they aren’t allowed in the room. Except that about half of the people protesting actually are allowed in the room. And then William Taylor provides the most damning and wide-reaching testimony so far. And then to top his week off, he gets booed at a Nationals World Series game. It’s lonely at the top.

Here’s what happened in politics for the week ending October 27…

Missed From Last Week:

  1. Miami Beach passes a resolution declaring a climate emergency, thanks to local youth climate strikes. This is the second bit of good climate news from a state where the phrase “climate change” is still forbidden in official documents.

Shootings This Week:

  1. There were five mass shootings in the U.S. this week (defined as killing or injuring four or more people):
    • A shooter injures four people in Sumter, SC. The shootings are random.
    • A shooter (or possibly multiple shooters) kills one person and injures three more at an apartment complex in Midwest City, OK.
    • In a separate shooting in Oklahoma City, OK, a shooter kills two people and injures two people.
    • A shooter at a crowded college homecoming party for Texas A&M University-Commerce kills two people and injures six more. Additionally, six people suffered injuries trying to get away.
    • A shooter kills one person and injures four more at a party in Lansing, MI.
  1. A court awards the father of a boy killed in the Sandy Hook school $450,000 in a lawsuit against conspiracy theorist James Fetzer, who wrote the book “Nobody Died at Sandy Hook” with co-author Mike Palacek.
    • Palacek settled for an undisclosed sum last month.
    • Despite the loss, Fetzer still claims his book to be true. Are these folks delusional or just assholes? It’s hard to tell.

Russia:

  1. The Turla group is a group of Russian cyber actors who disguise themselves as Iranian spies to orchestrate attacks on countries around the world. They attacked military organizations, government departments, scientific agencies, and universities in 35 countries, including the U.S. and U.K.
  2. Attorney General Andrew Barr kicks his investigations into the origins of the Russia investigation up a notch. He opens a criminal inquiry into how the investigation began.
  3. This gives John Durham, the U.S. prosecutor handling the investigation, subpoena power, the ability to convene a grand jury, and the power to file criminal charges.
    • To be clear, the DoJ has launched a criminal investigation into itself.
    • Durham only needs a reasonable indication that a crime was committed to open the criminal inquiry, which is a lower standard than the probable cause requirement for a typical criminal case.
    • The FISA warrant for surveilling Carter Page is a big part of this investigation, though several judges found the evidence sufficient to continue reissuing the FISA warrant.
    • The DOJ inspector general, Michael Horowitz, is conducting his own investigation into the origins of the Russia investigation. His report should be complete long before Durham concludes his investigation.
  1. Russian agent Maria Butina completes her sentence and is deported back to Russia.

Legal Fallout:

  1. A federal judge holds Education Secretary Betsy DeVos in contempt because she continued to collect student debt for loans for Corinthian College in violation of a previous court order. Corinthian is a defunct for-profit college that was found to be defrauding students. The judge fines the Department of Education $100,000.
  2. Trump’s lawyers take their “you can’t investigate a sitting president” a step too far when a judge gets them to argue that this is the case even if Trump does shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue. The judge asks, “Local authorities… couldn’t do anything about it?” To which Trump’s lawyer replies, “That is correct.”
  3. The National Archives opens an investigation into Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’s use of private email for official business.
  4. Trump once again files an appeal to prevent the release of his financial statements and taxes by Mazars USA, his accounting firm.

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. Just in time for World Polio Day, the World Health Organization (WHO) says another strain of the poliovirus is eradicated worldwide. This leaves one more strain to go and is thanks to a global vaccination effort. Polio was once a leading killer of children.
  2. Since the Trump administration stopped funding medical facilities that refer patients for abortion services, nearly 900 clinics have lost Title X family planning funding. Five states don’t have any Title X clinics.
  3. A judge in Oklahoma temporarily blocks a new law that would require medical practitioners to let their patients who are receiving medical abortions know that the procedure is reversible. Except that it isn’t reversible, so they’re forcing doctors to lie. Oklahoma isn’t the only state that passed this law.
  4. Northern Ireland decriminalizes abortion.
  5. Between December 2017 and June 2019, more than 1 million children were dropped from Medicaid and CHIP (the Children’s Health Insurance Program).

International:

Syria/Kurds:

  1. As the cease-fire brokered by the U.S. in Syria comes to an end, Putin meets with Turkish President Erdogan to discuss how Russia, Turkey, and other Mideast players will divide control of Syria.
    • The two countries will take over northeastern Syria, which was previously held by Kurds.
    • Erdogan opposes Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, but Putin supports Assad.
    • Russia is filling the vacuum we left behind, and Putin is solidifying Russia’s power in the Mideast.
  1. Russia deploys military police in Syria’s northeast border to help Turkey drive out Kurdish fighters. Assad’s military forces will be allowed back to the area for the first time in years.
  2. Trump ends the economic sanctions against Turkey that were just placed on the country a week ago for their attacks on Kurdish Syrians. He declares success in the region and says the cease-fire is permanent (though it was a five-day cease-fire). Foreign policy experts and even Republican lawmakers say it’s a success for Turkey and Russia.
  3. Erdogan says Trump’s recent letter to him departed from “diplomatic and political courtesy.” He won’t forget Trump’s “lack of respect.”
  4. U.S. forces report seeing evidence of war crimes during Turkey’s attacks on Syrian Kurds, though they didn’t see evidence of ethnic cleansing. Turkey allegedly used white phosphorus against civilians in northern Syria. Images surface of civilians, including children, with gruesome burns like those caused by the chemical.
    • The UN, the U.S., and WHO are all looking into whether Turkey actually did air-drop white phosphorus on civilians.
  1. Iraq says U.S. troops who crossed the border into Iraq as they retreated from northern Syria cannot stay there longterm.
  2. Trump says a small number of troops will stay in Syria “to protect the oilfields.”
  3. Trump announces that a U.S. military operation led to the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. According to Trump, Baghdadi used a suicide vest, resulting in his death as well as the death of three of his children.
    • Trump says he went out whimpering and screaming, though Trump’s generals say they didn’t see any evidence of that. Trump also says al-Baghdadi is “dead as a doornail.”
    • Trump says that he didn’t give Democratic House leaders forewarning of the attack because he was afraid they would leak it.
    • He did, however, tell their corresponding Republican Senate leaders.
    • He also notified Russia in advance.
    • Typically, the Gang of Eight gets notified of national security and intelligence operations.
    • Multiple countries claim to have assisted with this raid, mostly through intelligence gathering.
    • Trump knew that we were zeroing in on al-Baghdadi’s location when he decided to withdraw U.S. troops from the region. Trump’s withdrawal of troops from Syria forced us to move this operation up. It also started dismantling the infrastructure that made the raid possible.
    • U.S. officials say Trump gave away classified information during his briefing on al-Baghdadi’s death and that he gave inaccurate information. There’s a reason presidents usually keep their statements on these matters short.
    • State officials say that the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) played a key role in carrying out this mission.
    • As with Osama bin Laden, al-Baghdadi’s remains are buried at sea.
    • U.S. and Kurdish forces kill al-Baghdadi’s righthand man hours later.
  1. Mitch McConnell says he’ll come up with his own resolution to urge Trump to end the troop withdrawal from Syria.

Other International:

  1. Israeli President Rueven Rivlin gives Benny Gantz a shot at forming a governing coalition after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is unable to do so. If Gantz is successful at getting 61 supporters in the Knesset to support him, he’ll become the new prime minister.
    • Netanyahu continues his racist warnings that Arab lawmakers might back Gantz.
  1. Justin Trudeau barely wins re-election in Canada’s elections, illustrating another country with a rural vs. urban split. Politicians there also adopted some of our less savory political ploys in a fairly ugly race.
  2. The European Union agrees to delay Brexit by three months after the British Parliament fails to approve Boris Johnson’s negotiated deal. Johnson calls for a December 12 election, which he thinks will bolster his position.
  3. The Treasury designates Iran as a “jurisdiction of primary money laundering concern” and places additional restrictions on foreign banks where Iranian financial institutions maintain their accounts. At the same time, the Treasury says they’re trying to make it easier to get humanitarian aid into the country.
  4. Iraq’s pro-American President Barham Salih says he’s not sure Iraq can still rely on the U.S. and is open to resetting relations with other countries, including Russia and Iran. He says Trump‘s policies are making it hard to honor our alliance. Salih is Kurdish, so Trump’s abandonment of the Syrian Kurds makes him concerned.
  5. Trump says he’s trying to get us out of wars, but that we might have to get into wars, too.
  6. After millions of Chileans take to the streets to protest inequality, Chile’s President Sebastion Piñera dismisses his entire cabinet in order to form a new government. Over the week, 17 people are killed in marches and 100s more are injured.
    • The unrest started over an increase in metro fares, which is now suspended.
    • Santiago is still under a state of emergency.
  1. Amid an economic crisis, Argentina elects a new, center-left president, Alberto Fernandez. 80.0% of voters turn out (that’s a WAY higher turnout rate than we ever have in the U.S.).
  2. It’s week 21 of the protests in Hong Kong, and they don’t seem to be abating at all. Protestors continue to set fire to shops, throw Molotov cocktails, and vandalize property. Police continue to use tear gas, rubber bullets, and water cannons to disperse the crowds.
    • Now the activists are protesting police brutality during the past four months of demonstrations.
  1. Not wanting to be caught off guard again like they were with Syria, the Pentagon starts coming up with plans for an abrupt withdrawal from Afghanistan just in case Trump impulsively decides to order one there, too.
  2. Trump bans all flights to Cuba except to Havana.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. President Obama, President Clinton, Speaker Pelosi, and Hillary Clinton are among the speakers at Elijah Cummings’ funeral, held at the church he attended in Baltimore, MD. Everyone speaks of Cummings’ kindness and his fight for the oppressed. Trump does not attend.

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

  1. Trump says he’s building a wall in Colorado. Everyone else in the country is wondering what he’s trying to protect Colorado from. Nebraskans? Utahns? Those pesky Wyomingites?

Family Separation:

  1. An ACLU lawsuit finds that Trump’s zero tolerance policy separated 1,556 more migrant families than were previously known. 207 of the children are under five years old, and five are under one year old.
    • This means we have to spend time and resources investigating across the globe to locate parents and find out whether they are reunited yet.
    • We could’ve saved all of this money if the government had either not separated families in the first place or, at the very least, kept track of the families they split up.
    • Trump’s cruelty is costing billions just on reunification alone. So much winning.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Here’s why even undocumented immigrants need legal protection. A lawsuit brought by a Honduran woman living in Connecticut alleges that an ICE agent threatened her with deportation unless she had sex with him.
    • He then raped her several times a week for seven years, even getting her pregnant three times.
    • She aborted all three pregnancies, and the ICE agent paid for one of those abortions.
    • The woman had previously cooperated with law enforcement to help indict three undocumented immigrants who had stabbed her husband.
  1. The U.S. deports a Marine Corps combat veteran to El Salvador without notifying him so he could put everything in order. He hasn’t lived there since he was a toddler.
    • The veteran came back from his last tour in Iraq with a brain injury and PTSD, which landed him in legal trouble.
    • So not only did we not give him the support he needs here, but now he’s in a country where he’ll never get the help he needs.
  1. Northern Ireland legalizes same-sex marriage.
  2. Tanzania’s Supreme Court of Appeal upholds a law banning child marriage. Before you judge, remember several areas of the U.S. still allow child marriage.
  3. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services modifies how they determine whether to waive filing fees for immigrants who can’t afford the fees. They previously considered certain benefits, like Medicaid and SNAP, as income when considering their poverty level.
  4. Trump has to fill the now-open Secretary of Homeland Security position, but his top-two picks aren’t eligible under federal law. That’s because he hasn’t had any confirmed appointments in so long, and both his picks are already in an acting (and unconfirmed) capacity.
  5. Kris Kobach enters a diversion agreement over complaints about his conduct during federal court proceedings over the past few years. The court cases were about his signature legislation making it harder for Kansas residents to register to vote.
    • He was disciplined and fined throughout the hearings, and was even ordered to take online classes in civil court proceedings (he is a lawyer).
    • The terms of the diversion agreement are undisclosed.

Climate:

  1. New data show that air pollution in the U.S., measured as fine particulate air pollution, started increasing in 2016 after years of national decline.
    • Likely contributors are thought to be increases in driving and burning more natural gas. Wildfires are also to blame in certain areas.
    • The greatest increases are in the West and Midwest, with the Northeast and Southeast slightly decreasing.

Budget/Economy:

  1. A. Wayne Johnson, a senior official in the Education Department appointed by Betsy DeVos, resigns and calls the student loan system broken. He calls for billions of dollars of debt forgiveness. Johnson says the majority of student debt will never be repaid in the current system.
  2. Trump’s tax reform of 2017 included a 1.4% tax on schools with more than $500,000 in endowments per student. This affects some of our most well-known private schools, like Harvard, MIT, Yale, and Princeton, and will cost them millions to tens of millions in annual taxes.
    • It’s interesting that big business and the wealthy got a huge tax break, but that private universities got dinged with a surtax.
  1. According to James Mattis’s new book, Trump ordered him to screw Amazon in a Pentagon contract. That contract was awarded to Microsoft this week, much to the confusion of anyone who knows anything about cloud computing.

Elections:

  1. The Republican Speaker of the Texas House announces he’ll step down after his term is up. Earlier this summer he was caught on tape disparaging fellow Republicans and Democrats alike and making plans to target them in coming elections.
  2. Students across the country are becoming more and more politically active, leading several states to put up roadblocks to college-age voters. Roadblocks include outlawing pop-up voting booths, preventing students from outside of the district from voting (even if they currently live in the district for school), creating laws about parking spaces that schools can’t accommodate, creating hard-to-implement voter ID rules, and more.
    • New Hampshire has set up enormous hurdles for out-of-state students to vote. The words of the state’s Republican House speaker explains it all. He calls them “kids voting liberal, voting their feelings, with no life experience.”
  1. Once again, Republican Senators block a vote on three election security bills passed by the House. This time, Marsha Blackburn steps up to block it.
  2. Trump says he’ll veto a bill that would require federal election campaigns to report any offers from foreign governments or agents for campaign assistance.
  3. The FEC only has three sitting members, not enough for a quorum, heading into the 2020 elections. Trump could still appoint members, but it doesn’t look promising.

Miscellaneous:

  1. White House computer security Chief Dimitrios Vistakis resigns, calling White House policies absurd and claiming that officials put Trump‘s comfort over actual computer security. Here’s a quote from his resignation letter:

“Unfortunately given all of the changes I’ve seen in the past three months, I foresee the White House is posturing itself to be electronically compromised once again. Allowing for a large portion of institutional knowledge to concurrently walk right out the front door seems contrary to the best of interests of the mission and organization as a whole.”

  1. Trump holds a meeting of his Cabinet where he lectures reporters with a series of falsehoods.
    • He says Obama tried to call Kim Jong Un 11 times, but Kim didn’t respect him enough to take the call.
    • Trump says he made a deal between Turkey and the Syrian Kurds that people have been trying to make for years. I guess, if you call giving Turkey what they want and letting them attack the Kurds a deal. I’m pretty sure no one else was trying to make that deal.
    • He takes credit for a drug buyback program that was implemented in 2010.
    • He claims most of the people testifying in the impeachment hearings were put in their positions by past administrations. Seven of the nine were appointed by his own administration.
    • He suggests that Rep. Adam Schiff was the whistleblower’s informant. I’m not sure how Schiff would’ve even known about a call between Trump and the Ukraine president.
    • He claims Obama getting a book deal was like running a business while he was in office. Obama got the deal after he left office.
  1. Trump cancels his subscription to The New York Times, and the White House urges all federal agencies to cancel subscriptions to the Washington Post and The New York Times. You know, from what I hear from people who’ve visited The Hill, Republican lawmakers have Fox News on 24/7. So this seems meaningless; they’re already getting their news from one source.
    • Ironically, while having a political discussion on Facebook this week, I was told to get my news from more sources than just ABC, CBS, NBC, AP, NYT, WaPo, Reuters, and CNN (for the record, I don’t watch CNN). I guess she was saying I should get my news from Fox News (I do read Fox News daily).
    • All this is to say that if you support Trump’s request here, you might need to expand your news bubble.
  1. An inspector general report into Trump’s VA Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection finds the office to have significant deficiencies. Instead of protecting whistleblowers, they stifled claims and retaliated against employees.
  2. The Trump Organization is looking into selling its lease on the Trump International Hotel in DC.
  3. Trump is surprised to be overwhelmingly booed when he attends the fifth game of the world series. Not surprising when you consider his public outings are largely to places he owns and crowds he controls.

Week 144 in Trump – Impeachment News

Posted on October 29, 2019 in Impeachment, Trump

Storming the SCIF. Matt Gaetz is such a bonehead that he doesn't even realize he's already allowed in these hearings.

Testimony in the impeachment hearings this week shows how bizarre and far-reaching the operations are to pressure Ukraine and to prove that it was Ukraine, and not Russia, that meddled in our 2016 elections. From Greg Sargent at The Washington Post:

“Two senior U.S. officials seriously discussed a plan in which the attorney general of the United States would publicly coordinate with a foreign government to help Trump absolve Russia of culpability for an attack on our political system, by helping to repudiate our intelligence services’ conclusion about that culpability.”

Here’s what happened on the impeachment front for the week ending October 27…

General Happenings:

  1. House Republicans force a floor vote to rebuke Rep. Adam Schiff, Chair of the House Intelligence Committee and leader of the impeachment panel. The resolution is tabled along party lines. Basically, the rebuke accuses Schiff of being a liar.
  2. Trump compares impeachment to a lynching. Oyvay… where do I even start with that one?
  3. White House budget documents show that Trump repeatedly tried to cut aid to programs that fight corruption abroad, including in Ukraine.
  4. The impeachment panel continues to issue subpoenas to the Office of Management and Budget, though they know no one will cooperate.
  5. In the middle of Giuliani’s pressure campaign on Ukraine officials, both Putin and Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban were pushing Trump to adopt a hostile stance against Ukraine.
    • Trump met with Orban last May against the advice of National Security Advisor John Bolton.
    • Bolton and Fiona Hill both tried to prevent the meeting, but Mick Mulvaney orchestrated it anyway.
    • Orban, like Russia, is looking to grab a corner of Ukraine.
    • This information, which came up in House testimony last week, implicates both Russia and Hungary with foreign interference. Is it OK for a sitting president to be influenced by known dictators and autocrats?
  1. The New York City Bar Association says Attorney General William Barr needs to recuse himself from any Ukraine-related issues, and if he can’t do that, he should resign.
  2. In a FOIA case, a federal judge says he’ll order the State Department to start releasing their Ukraine records in 30 days.
  3. One line of defense used by the Trump team is that there couldn’t have been any quid pro quo since Ukrainian officials didn’t know their aid was blocked.
    • However, documented communications show that they knew by the first week of August (further corroborating the whistleblower’s report). They were told to reach out to Mick Mulvaney, and that it wasn’t just a bureaucratic snag.
    • Still, they weren’t told explicitly that the aid was contingent upon them publicly opening Trump’s requested investigations until September 1.
  1. By the end of the week, we learn that Zelensky met with advisors on May 7 to talk about energy issues. Instead, they spent three hours talking about how to handle requests from Trump and Giuliani to open investigations into the 2016 elections and Burisma/Biden.
    • This means Zelensky was feeling the pressure months before his phone conversation with Trump.
  1. In August, the White House delayed a Ukraine trade decision, leading to speculation that the quid pro quo was about more than just withholding aid and that it also extended into other government programs.
  2. A federal judge orders the DOJ to release some of Mueller’s grand jury materials to the House Judiciary Committee for the impeachment inquiry. They have until Wednesday to comply.
    • The same federal judge says that the House doesn’t have to hold a vote in order to formalize the impeachment inquiry.
    • In his ruling, the judge says that impeachment factored into Mueller’s report and that Congress is the appropriate entity to take over where Mueller left off.
  1. Lindsey Graham says he has 50 co-sponsors for a resolution condemning the House impeachment inquiry.
  2. John Bolton’s lawyers are in talks with the House committees handling the impeachment depositions about whether Bolton himself will testify.
  3. Last week I mentioned a story about Turkey’s state-run Halkbank helping Iran evade sanctions. One of their officials was convicted in the case. Bloomberg reports that Trump told Turkish President Erdogan last spring that Steve Mnuchin and Attorney General William Barr would take care of the Halkbank issue.
  4. Italy’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte acknowledges that Barr has met twice with Italian intelligence. Conte says his intelligence services have told Barr that they had nothing to do with the events leading up to the 2016 elections, stymying Barr’s efforts to investigate Trump’s conspiracy theories around Ukraine. Italian officials say that this request from the Trump administration has complicated our relationship with Italy.
    • Australian officials refuse to take part in the investigation as well, despite requests from both Barr and Trump.
  1. According to Fiona Hill’s testimony last week, Kashyap Patel, a National Security Council aide tasked with counterterrorism issues, started sending Trump information about Ukraine that could influence U.S. policy in Ukraine.
    • Trump refers to Patel as one of his top experts in Ukraine policy, though Patel lacks experience there.
    • Patel became a hero to Trump and his allies when he was a House staffer and wrote memos aiming to discredit our intelligence communities’ findings in the Russia investigations. And go figure, Patel worked for Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) at the time.
    • This brings to light that Trump ignores the tradition of prepared policy briefings, which are approved by several agencies to verify their content. Instead, Trump obtains unverified information from both inside and outside the administration. To be clear, he’s basing policy and risking lives on unverified information.

More Trouble for Parnas, Fruman, and Giuliani:

  1. Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman both plead not guilty to charges of campaign finance law violations.
  2. David Correia and Andrey Kukushkin, who were arrested in the same case, also plead not guilty.
  3. A lawyer for Parnas says that some of the evidence collected in their case might be protected by attorney-client privilege or executive privilege. Wait, what? I thought Trump said he didn’t know them.
    • This could almost make sense, though, since Giuliani was working both for Trump and for businesses run by Parnas and Fruman. But Giuliani, Parnas, and Fruman never worked for the government.
    • Giuliani has said that Parnas and Fruman helped him with the work Giuliani was doing in Ukraine on Trump’s behalf.
  1. Giuliani accidentally butt-dials a reporter and leaves a three-minute voicemail of a conversation he’s having with someone in the room. He talks about needing cash and about overseas dealings, specifically in Bahrain.
  2. This is the second time Giuliani has done this to the same reporter.
    • The first time, on September 28, Giuliani can be heard railing against the Bidens and complaining about how Democratsn are attacking him.
    • He repeats his unfounded allegations about the Bidens and Burisma.
    • He talks about how Hunter Biden used Joe’s position in government to earn $1.5 billion from Chinese investors (which he didn’t). 
He accuses John Kerry’s son of working with Biden at the same foreign businesses (which he didn’t).
  1. After saying last week that he doesn’t need a lawyer, Giuliani is looking for a defense attorney.

Bill Taylor Deposition:

  1. Bill Taylor testifies before the impeachment panel. Taylor is the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, he’s the one who spelled out the quid pro quo in the text messages (I’m guessing to make sure it was on record), and he’s ignoring a State Department order not to comply. He says:
    • Trump conditioned the release of military aid for Ukraine on their willingness to investigation Burisma (where Hunter Biden worked) and Ukraine interference in the 2016 election. It was also predicated on Zelensky making a public statement that they were opening investigations into those things.
    • He was concerned that there were two US. policy channels with Ukraine—one formal and public channel, and one informal backchannel run by Giuliani, Kurt Volker, Gordon Sondland, and Rick Perry. (Volker, Sondland, and Perry called themselves the three amigos… so funny/not funny.)
    • Sondland told him that both military assistance to Ukraine and a White House visit between the two presidents were contingent upon Ukraine publicly announcing investigations into Burisma and alleged interference in the 2016 elections. Trump wanted to box Zelensky in.
    • John Bolton was alarmed by what was going on in Ukraine and tried to prevent the bypassing of official policies and procedures. Bolton called the whole thing a drug deal. Bolton also opposed the phone call between Trump and Zelensky, concerned that it would be a disaster.
    • Sondland didn’t include the standard group in the phone call because he wanted to make sure no one was monitoring or transcribing it.
    • The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) said that the president directed the OMB not to release any funds for Ukraine.
  1. A series of security meetings up to the Cabinet level showed nearly unanimous support for releasing the funds.
  2. Just a quick reminder, Congress approved those funds with no conditions in a bipartisan vote. The funds are to be used to counter Russian aggression.
  3. Following Taylor’s testimony, some Democrats on the panel suggest Gordon Sondland might want to return to correct his statements. Sondland told the panel that he didn’t understand that when Trump talked about “Burisma,” that was code for “Biden.”
  4. The White House refuses to release Taylor’s detailed records to Congress.

Laura Cooper Deposition:

  1. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Laura Cooper’s testimony unexpectedly becomes the highlight of the week when Republican Members of Congress storm the castle in protest of private depositions. They stream into the SCIF with their cell phones in hand, taking photos and tweeting. All against security regulations regarding SCIFs.
    • When Schiff notifies them that they’re compromising the SCIF with their phones, one Republican Intelligence Committee member starts collecting everyone’s phones. He wasn’t the only one on the Intelligence Committee, and they all should’ve known better.
    • They’re lucky they didn’t all get arrested. They asked to be arrested, but Democrats declined to push it.
    • The room will need to be sanitized to make sure House Republicans didn’t bring in any security breaches with them.
    • The dumbest part of this is that they were protesting nothing. Half the members who were there to protest are already allowed into the impeachment depositions because they serve on the committees. They’re allowed to participate.
      • 47 Republicans on three committees (Intelligence, Foreign Affairs, and Oversight) are allowed into the depositions, along with the 57 Democrats from those committees.
    • They do all this as the Pentagon official overseeing Ukraine policy, Laura Cooper, is about to testify. They delay her testimony by five hours.
    • Steve Scalise says that when they entered the SCIF, Adam Schiff left with the witness (Cooper). Other accounts say Schiff left to consult with the Sergeant at Arms. Either way, Cooper was waiting in a private room when all this went down.
    • At first, even Lindsey Graham criticizes the move, but then he backpedals.
    • It turns out that Trump knew about and approved of the plan to storm the SCIF beforehand.
  1. After Cooper is finally allowed to testify, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) says there were no groundbreaking revelations in her testimony and that some things she said conflict with Bill Taylor’s testimony.
    • It seems she mostly gave a technical testimony on how aid is supposed to occur, though, and it’s not clear (to the public anyway) what the conflicts are if any.
    • Other reports are that her testimony showed that the administration deviated from the normal process with their handling of Ukraine aid.

Philip Reeker Deposition:

  1. Acting Assistant Secretary of State Philip Reeker testifies before the impeachment panel. He says:
    • He didn’t know about the Trump administration’s efforts to push Zelensky to publicly announce investigations into Biden and the 2016 elections until the whistleblower complaint was published.
    • When Reeker took his position in March, it was obvious to him that Kurt Volker and Gordon Sondland were the leads on Ukraine.
    • It was around the end of July when he learned that aid to Ukraine was being withheld.
    • The DoD wanted the funds for Ukraine released.
    • He had wanted to issue a defense of former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch when he saw the smear campaign against her, but he was overruled at the State Department.

Week 143 in Trump

Posted on October 25, 2019 in Politics, Trump

Representative Elijah Cummings passed away this week after along illiness. He was an icon and he will be missed.

This was a sad week in Congress, with Representative Elijah Cummings passing away. I was hoping the House could put aside the acrimony between the parties for a little while to mourn his passing, but really it just continues to intensify. Even if the House can’t do it, maybe we can all take a little time to remember that some things are more important than politics.

Here’s what happened in politics for the week ending October 20…

Shootings This Week:

  1. How sad is it that it’s a good sign that there were only four mass shootings in the U.S. this week (defined as killing or injuring four or more people)? Condensed version: Shooters kill two people and injure 18.

Russia:

  1. The Justice Department confirms that neither Donald Trump Jr. nor former White House Counsel Don McGahn were even called to testify before Robert Mueller’s grand jury. The federal judge who revealed the information as part of an ongoing case finds it perplexing because both men were significant to the investigation.
    • Lawyers involved in the probe say that Trump Jr. likely said he’d claim the Fifth anyway, and Mueller elected not to grant him immunity to force his testimony.
  1. Russia is already working on influencing the 2020 elections by creating a network of social media accounts designed to look like political groups in swing states. Seriously folks. Don’t fall for this again. If you don’t recognize a group, either learn about it or ignore it.

Legal Fallout:

  1. Oh so quietly, the State Department closes its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server without delivering any criminal charges.
    • They found 38 current or former employees might have violated security procedures with possible instances of classified information being inappropriately transmitted.
    • They also found that these employees did their best to implement security policies.
    • Even though none of these employees were sanctioned, each can appeal and provide explanations for what they did.
    • Much of the information in question was classified after the fact, which makes the job of determining violations that much more difficult.
    • The report concludes that “there was no persuasive evidence of systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information.”
  1. New York State passes a law that allows state prosecutors to bring charges against people who receive presidential pardons for related crimes.
  2. Trump’s lawyers argue once against that he can’t be investigated by any prosecutor because he is president.
  3. Trump’s reluctance to release his taxes goes back to his 2013 presidential bid, where he was ready to release his taxes until an advisor warned him against it.
  4. Deutsche Bank tells a court that they don’t have any of Trump’s personal tax returns.
  5. ProPublica obtains additional financial documents for Trump’s businesses that bolster accusations that the organization reported expenses, profits, and occupancy differently depending on the purpose of the documents. For example, they inflated profit and occupancy on things like loan documents, but deflated them for New York tax purposes. They manipulated expenses in the reverse.
  6. In the middle of accusing the Bidens of benefiting from foreign governments, Trump announces next year’s G-7 Summit will be at his Doral resort in Miami. After leaders on both sides criticize this for being self dealing, Trump reverses that plan. But he blames the media and Democrats.
  7. Remember when it came out two years ago (though it seems like a decade) that the National Enquirer had a vault of stories about Trump that they didn’t publish but held on to just in case? Ronan Farrow says that the Editor in Chief at the time shredded a bunch of that information.

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.

International:

Syria/Kurds:

  1. Trump announces sanctions against Turkey in response to their attacks on Syria. He’ll also end negotiations on a trade deal and double tariffs on Turkish steel imports.
  2. The negative consequences of Trump’s decision to withdraw troops from Syria were immediate. Within a week:
    • Turkey started bombing the Kurds.
    • Tens of thousands of Kurdish families were forced to flee.
    • The Kurds switched sides to work with Assad.
    • Hundreds of ISIS prisoners detained in Kurdish camps escaped.
    • American troops were not only fired at by Turkish forces, they were also trapped by Turkey’s roadblocks.
    • Turkey has control of around 50 U.S. nuclear weapons at an airbase in Turkey. If we remove them, we pretty much end our alliance with Turkey; if we leave them, Turkey could use them. Erdogan recently said it’s unacceptable that Turkey isn’t allowed to have nuclear weapons.
    • Turkey pushed more than 20 miles into Syria, and Russia moved in to fill the void left by our troops.
  1. The move handed a win to four of our adversaries—Russia, Iran, Assad’s government, and ISIS. Both Russia and Iran support the Assad regime.
  2. Erdogan asks for international support in fighting the Kurds.
  3. The House votes 354 to 60 for a resolution opposing Trump’s decision to withdraw troops from Syria.
  4. Trump says he was right to let Turkey attack the Kurdish fighters, because sometimes like two kids you have to let them fight and pull them apart. Tell that to the families mourning their dead children. Tell that to the tens of thousands who’ve been forced to flee their homes.
  5. As U.S. troops pull out of Syria, the Air Force conducts an airstrike on a U.S. munitions bunker to prevent the munitions from falling into the hands of combatants.
  6. Kurdish forces likewise destroyed their facilities and equipment before vacating the area.
  7. The U.S. and Turkey agree to a cease-fire at the Syrian border. The Turkish military is allowed to remain there, basically giving Turkey’s President Erdogan what he wants.
    • Even so, just hours later, there were gunfire and shelling at the border.
    • A condition of the cease-fire is that the U.S. withdraw the threat to impose sanctions on Turkey.
    • The agreement gives Erdogan things he hasn’t been able to get during years of negotiations with the U.S., including the removal of Kurdish forces from the border and a buffer zone at the border of Turkey and Syria.
    • A Turkish official says they were surprised by how easy the negotiations were. “We got everything we wanted,” he said, also indicating that the U.S. just wanted to save face.
    • Trump brags about Mike Pence getting the cease-fire… which we wouldn’t have had to get if Trump wouldn’t have abandoned he Kurds in the first place.
  1. Trump sends a childish letter to Erdogan, warning him against slaughtering the Kurds. He ends with, “Don’t be a tough guy. Don’t be a fool! I will call you later.”
  1. Here’s the kicker. Sources in Turkey say that Erdogan was bluffing—asking for much more than he wanted while expecting to get only a small piece of it. But he got it all, and now he might be in over his head with a 20-mile buffer zone, international condemnation, and potential sanctions.

Other International:

  1. Chinese President Xi Jinping says those seeking to divide China (referring to Hong Kong protestors, I would guess) will be smashed to pieces. Protestors hold U.S.-themed protests after a violent series of weekend rallies.
    • Police again use tear gas and water cannons filled with a blue dye that stings, but also hit innocent bystanders with it. Protestors continue to vandalize businesses and public property.
    • Protestors attend a rally in support of the U.S. Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, which is awaiting congressional approval in the U.S. The act would require the State Department to provide an annual assessment of whether “China has eroded Hong Kong’s civil liberties and rule of law.”
    • The U.S. is looking at legislation that would restrict certain exports, such as the tear gas officers use on protestors in Hong Kong.
  1. U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson secures a withdrawal agreement with the EU, which he now has to sell to Parliament.
    • And then Parliament delays the vote for three months, and requires Parliament to pass legislation implementing Johnson’s plan before the vote to approve. I’m confused about that one.
    • Johnson sends the EU an unsigned letter requesting an extension, but he also sends a second signed letter disapproving of an extension.
    • Brexit is still scheduled for Halloween.
    • Meanwhile, protestors have been marching in London in support of a second Brexit referendum.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. After the House votes to rebuke Trump’s Syria decision, Democratic leadership meets with Trump and some Cabinet members. The meeting is at Trump’s behest, but then he says Democrats wanted the meeting.
    • Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer push Trump to reveal his strategy for Syria. At one point, Trump says that we don’t need to worry about terrorists 7,000 miles away.
    • As things get heated, Trump says to Pelosi, “You’re just a politician. A third-grade politician.”
    • Pelosi asks Trump why he withdrew troops from Syria, which gave Putin a toehold in northern Syria. She ends by asking, “why do all roads lead to Putin?” And then she walks out, and Schumer follows.
    • Both Trump and Pelosi assert the other one had a meltdown, though he looks pretty melty in the picture.
  1. INSERT PHOTO HERE
  2. Rand Paul blocks a vote in the Senate on the House-passed resolution condemning Trump’s abandonment of our Kurdish allies in Syria. Mitch McConnell says he wants the Senate to pass an even stronger resolution than the one passed in the House.

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

  1. For the second time, Trump vetos a bill that passed both houses of Congress that would put an end to his declaration of national emergency to build the wall at the border. He vetoed a similar bill seven months ago. Seven months. Some emergency.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. A British family traveling through Canada accidentally entered the U.S. on an unmarked road a few months ago. ICE detains them for more than a week in “frigid” and “filthy” conditions according to a complaint they filed with DHS. DHS says the family entered the U.S. on purpose.
  2. Two HUD officials say they knowingly delayed hurricane relief funds for Puerto Rico despite missing a legally mandated deadline. Of the 18 states hit by natural disasters whose funding deadline was the same, only Puerto Rico’s was delayed.
    • The officials (and Trump) defend the delay saying there were financial irregularities and corruption in Puerto Rico. In other words, the same old trope that they can’t manage their money.

Climate:

  1. For the first time in 10 years, a Florida Senate committee is scheduled to meet to talk about climate change and its impact on the state. They conclude that they lost a decade where they could’ve prepared for climate change.
    • One Republican attendee says he understands why there haven’t been a lot of conversations around this, but doesn’t mention that for most of Governor Rick Scott’s term, the words “climate change” were banned.
    • Sea level rise has been and continues to be a major issue for Florida, with sunny-day flooding a regular occurrence.
  1. 2019 is the second hottest year on record through September. It will likely end up being the second hottest year right behind 2016.
  2. The Trump administration proposes opening up more than half of Alaska’s Tongass National Forest to logging. This would require a reversal or waiver of Bill Clinton’s roadless rule.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Last week, we heard that the U.S. and China had come to an interim trade agreement, but now China wants to hold more negotiations before they’ll sign on to it.
  2. U.S. and European trade negotiators fail to reach a deal, so the Trump administration imposes new tariffs on $7.5 billion worth of EU products.
  3. The numbers are in, and U.S. manufacturing has shrunk over two consecutive quarters. September’s contraction was the sharpest since the Great Recession.

Elections:

  1. A judge issues an emergency injunction to restore 165,000 Kentucky residents to the active voter rolls. They were placed on the inactive rolls after fewer than two cycles of federal elections. This comes just in time for next month’s elections!
  2. A Florida judge rules that the state cannot force ex-felons to pay all their fines and fees before being able to vote if they are too poor to pay.
    • Last year, Florida residents overwhelmingly passed Amendment 4, giving felons who have served their time automatic voting privileges. The Florida legislature tried to weaken the amendment by passing a law saying they have to pay their fines and fees before they can vote.
  1. A pro-Trump group called American Priority holds an event at Trump’s Doral resort in Miami. At the event, they play a video on a loop of a fake Trump killing journalists and Trump’s political opponents. If you’re wondering why people are wary of Trump supporters, look no further.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Retired four-star admiral Bill McRaven writes an op-ed, the gist of which is that Trump is attacking and destroying our republic from within. Here’s a quote:
    • “We are not the most powerful nation in the world because of our aircraft carriers, our economy, or our seat at the United Nations Security Council. We are the most powerful nation in the world because we try to be the good guys. … But, if we don’t care about our values, if we don’t care about duty and honor, if we don’t help the weak and stand up against oppression and injustice — what will happen to the Kurds, the Iraqis, the Afghans, the Syrians, the Rohingyas, the South Sudanese and the millions of people under the boot of tyranny or left abandoned by their failing states?”
    • He says another four-star general told him last week, “I don’t like the Democrats, but Trump is destroying the Republic!”
    • Here’s the full op-ed.
  1. Trump’s former Secretary of Defense James Mattis jokes that he’s the Meryl Streep of generals after Trump called him the “world’s most overrated general.” As we know, Trump says Meryl Streep is the world’s most overrated actor.
    • Mattis also pokes fun at Trump’s bone spurs and his love for fast food.
    • He also laments the tone of politics today, saying, “We have scorched our opponents with language that precludes compromise and we have brushed aside the possibility that the person with whom we disagree might actually sometimes be right.”
    • He also refers to our Kurdish allies and the U.S. troops working by their sides.
  1. Retired four-star Marine general John Allen says Trump has blood on his hands “for abandoning our Kurdish allies.” He also says that the crisis at the Syrian border was completely foreseeable. Allen is the one who warned there would be blood if Trump were elected.
  2. Retired four-star Army general Joseph Votel says the decision to abandon the Kurds threatens our other partnerships around the globe when we need them the most because our enemies are more sophisticated and determined than ever.
  3. Following yet another sting video by Project Veritas (I thought these guys were in jail?), Trump threatens to sue CNN.
    • CNN says none of the people in the video are CNN journalists, and the guy who took the video and says he’s a CNN insider, Cary Poarch, was actually a freelance satellite truck operator who was contracted by CNN.
    • Some of the people in the video were media coordinators, which is a very junior position. Cary had drinks with them, they didn’t always know they were being filmed, and they thought they were just talking with a work friend. And that could ruin their careers. Super shady.
  1. Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan resigns after just six months on the job. He’s the fourth DHS secretary to serve under Trump. McAleenan complained about the tone, message, and approach of Trump’s immigration policies.
  2. One out of every 14 political appointments made by Trump is a lobbyist. There are four times as many lobbyists working for Trump than worked for Obama.

Week 142 in Trump

Posted on October 23, 2019 in Politics, Trump

How do you burst the bubble of conspiracy theories? How do you unmuddy the waters stirred up by innuendos and lies and fake news? Seriously folks, we all need to be using our powers of rational thinking and logic. There was a time I would’ve said that if something sounds too outrageous to be true, it probably isn’t. But you can’t make up the shit we’re learning about right now. You just can’t.

Here’s what happened in politics for the week ending October 13…

Missing From Last Week:

  1. A federal judge says that lawsuits brought by Native Americans to prevent Trump from shrinking the Bears Ears National Monument have legal standing and can move forward.

Shootings This Week:

  1. There are ELEVEN mass shootings in the U.S. this week (defined as killing or injuring four or more people). Condensed version: Shooters kill 20 people and injure 34.
  2. A shooter at a Jewish synagogue in Germany is foiled when he can’t get in through the doors of the synagogue. He pushes on the doors, shoots at the locks, and even tries a small explosive to force the doors open. Still, he kills two people outside the synagogue, but the 51 people inside are unharmed.
  3. Gunmen kill 15 people as they’re worshipping in a mosque in Burkina Faso.

Russia:

  1. The DOJ argues that the grand-jury materials from Robert Mueller’s investigation shouldn’t be given to Congress, arguing that Congress shouldn’t have been able to obtain information from the Watergate grand jury either.
    • The judge’s response to that argument? “Wow. OK….the department is taking extraordinary positions in this case.”
    • She says Trump administration lawyers have given her several extreme arguments in their attempts to prevent the release of information.
  1. The Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee releases its second volume of findings in their investigations into Russian interference in our 2016 elections. This volume focuses on the social media disinformation campaign by the Internet Research Agency (IRA). The much-redacted report finds pretty much the same as all previous investigations:
    • Russia meddled in our elections.
    • The IRA, backed by the Kremlin, set out to harm Hillary’s chances of winning and assist Trump in winning.
    • The IRA’s purpose was to sow discord in the U.S. and they strongly aimed to stoke racial divisions. Russia continues to do this long after the 2016 elections, including exploiting Colin Kaepernick’s decision to kneel for the anthem.
    • The IRA’s activity increased after the 2016 election.
    • Russia’s targeting of the 2016 election is part of a larger, sophisticated, and ongoing disinformation campaign.
    • We need sweeping changes to protect ourselves from foreign interference, and we need them now.
  1. Here’s an excerpt of a communication obtained by the committee detailing an IRA employee’s description of election day:
    • “On November 9, 2016, a sleepless night was ahead of us. And when around 8 a.m. the most important result of our work arrived, we uncorked a tiny bottle of champagne…took one gulp each and looked into each other’s eyes…. We uttered almost in unison: ‘We made America great.’” Welcome to Russia 2.0, comrades. Wake up.
  1. And in the midst of this, Facebook announces they won’t remove debunked political ads from their platform, citing the right to free speech. So if you believe what you read on Facebook, don’t say I didn’t warn you that you’re reading a bunch of lies.
  2. Also in the midst of this, Mitch McConnell still refuses to take up House bills addressing election fraud, voter suppression, and election security.

Legal Fallout:

  1. Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says that Trump once asked him to try to get the DOJ to drop a case against an Iranian-Turkish gold trader.
    • Why on earth would Trump be interested in this case? Maybe because Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wanted the case dismissed.
    • The trader, Reza Zarrab, has since agreed to cooperate with the prosecution in the case, which centered on efforts to help Iran evade sanctions by hiding money transfers in gold sales.
    • A Turkish official from state bank Halkbank was found guilty in the case, and Zarrab also implicated Erdogan.
    • Zarrab was Rudy Giuliani’s client at the time.
    • Can we just take a moment to remember that the reason Michael Flynn is in trouble is from his work for Erdogan?
  1. It’s an up and down week for Trump’s attempts to keep his finances private.
    • At the beginning of the week, a federal judge rules that Trump’s accounting firm must release eight years of his tax returns.
    • Then a federal court grants Trump a temporary stay on releasing those returns to the Manhattan D.A.
    • But by the end of the week, a federal appeals court rules that the accounting firm must release Trump’s financial records to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. I’m not sure what the implications are for the Manhattan D.A.’s case.
    • Even the lone dissenting judge says that impeachment is the only valid way to get the records (though she doesn’t actually say that would work).
    • In case you’re wondering, the judges rejected the argument that sitting presidents can’t be criminally investigated.
  1. A judge rules that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has been violating a court order by continuing to collect student debts for a college that has folded. The judge threatens her with jail time.
  2. Attorney General William Barr meets with Rupert Murdoch. Who knows what they talk about, but two days later, Shepherd Smith announces his last day at Fox News.
  3. Trump Organization refuses to pay the Scottish government’s legal costs in Trump’s failed lawsuit to block a wind farm near his golf course.

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. The Supreme Court Justices decide on what they’ll hear in the next session. Jumping right into the political fray, they’ll hear cases about abortion, guns, LGBTQ rights, separation of church and state, immigration, congressional oversight, and presidential power.

International:

Syria/Kurds:

  1. Trump’s surprise announcement about abandoning our Kurdish allies in Syria alarms the rest of our allies for its sheer impulsiveness.
  2. U.S. troops begin to withdraw from the area.
  3. The Pentagon, the State Department, soldiers on the ground in Syria, and even Republican Members of Congress harshly criticize Trump’s decision, and Trump seems surprised by this.
  4. Trump defends the move, saying it’s time to get out of these endless wars. But he’s just moving those troops to Iraq; he’s not bringing them home. He also defends himself by saying that the Kurds didn’t help us with Normandy, a line he got from a Fox contributor (and since when is that how we measure our allies?).
  5. Trump invites Turkish President Erdogan to the White House.
  6. Turkey says they want to combat Kurdish soldiers in the border area and create a safe zone for Syrian refugees now living in Turkey.
  7. The White House says we’ve defeated the ISIS caliphate, but experts say ISIS is regrouping already. They also say this is the most destabilizing move we could’ve made.
  8. Trump threatens Turkey if they do anything Trump thinks is off-limits. But Turkey immediately mobilizes their forces at the border and begins their assault against the Kurds, launching airstrikes and firing artillery. In other words, they’re bombing the Kurds.
  9. The White House says that Turkey will take over control of over 12,000 suspected ISIS fighters captured and held by Kurdish allies. The U.S. takes custody of two ISIS militants known for beheading their enemies. Some ISIS militants escape after Turkish forces start shelling nearby areas.
  10. Kurdish civilians begin to flee, and some soldiers begin to leave their posts to go home and protect their families. These are people who were forced to flee ISIS fighters just a few years ago. International Rescue Committee estimates 64,000 people have already fled, and that number could end up being more than 300,000.
  11. Turkey strikes at least six towns along the border, killing at least two dozen people and critically injuring 19, mostly civilians and several children.
  12. The fighting escalates on the second day after Trump’s announcement, and Saudi-backed Syrian fighters join in, killing Kurdish captives. A Kurdish politician is also killed. This whole thing has just tossed fuel on Syria’s 8-year-long war.
  13. To be clear, Turkey, a NATO nation, bombed an area where hundreds of U.S. troops were stationed. What could go wrong? Maybe this: A contingent of U.S. Special Forces is caught in Turkish artillery fire, and they withdraw instead of firing back. Because we’re not at war. Right? Are we?
    • The U.S. forces say Turkey targeted them.
  1. Even with this, the order to withdraw all U.S. troops from the area doesn’t come until the end of the week.
  2. A National Security Council member says Trump got rolled and out-negotiated by Erdogan.
  3. The Secretary of Defense and the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff both call their counterparts in Turkey to try to get them to back down.
  4. Even Russia blames the U.S. for the chaos at the Syrian border.
  5. Trump says he’ll move some troops from Syria to Saudi Arabia. Also, the Pentagon says they’re sending 1,800 troops to Saudi Arabia to protect their oil fields from alleged attacks from Iran. One Saudi prince admits they really don’t know where the U.S. stands on Syria.
  6. Trump has two towers in Turkey, one residential and the other offices, in a single complex with a shopping mall and theaters.
  7. The UN calls an emergency meeting of the Security Council to condemn Turkey’s attack on our Kurdish allies. Russia opposed the condemnation, as did the U.S. (despite Trump’s claims that he’d hold Turkey in check).
  8. The bombing of four Syrian hospitals within a 12-hour period in May has been traced back to the Russian Air Force.

Other International:

  1. Trump says he’s thinking about withdrawing from the Open Skies Treaty, which is seen as a cornerstone of global defense. The treaty lets us monitor Russian military deployments and lets them monitor ours. The treaty has 34 signatory countries.
  2. The State Department announces they’ll impose visa restrictions on certain Chinese government officials believed to be responsible for the detention and surveillance of Uighurs and other Muslim minority groups.
  3. Military generals agree on a few things about Trump’s military leadership:
    • He isn’t interested in policy details and disdains expertise and process, and thus he makes ill-informed decisions.
    • He thinks his own gut feelings are genius, and only trusts his own instincts.
    • He’d rather keep perceived enemies confused than stick to a strategy, increasing the risk of a miscalculation.
    • He likes others to agree with him but is himself a contrarian.
    • His ideas of the military are simplistic and outdated.
    • He’s risked unnecessary wars and created major problems for his field commanders in combat operations. They’re saving his hide right now.
  1. A U.S. peace envoy meets with the Taliban for the first time since Trump canceled the Labor Day weekend peace talks with the Taliban and Afghan government.
  2. Violent protests continue in Ecuador until the president comes to an agreement with protestors to end austerity measures. Protestors and officials both help clean up the residual mess.
  3. The Hong Kong protests have been ongoing since March, and protesters just upped their game by using flash mob tactics to avoid arrest. I don’t mean to make light of it; the protests have been violent and destructive at times, and many of the citizens are tired of it.

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

  1. Yet another federal judge rules that Trump’s emergency declaration to fund his border wall is unlawful. The complainants argued that the wall didn’t qualify as an emergency and Trump overstepped his authority.

Family Separation:

  1. Loopholes in our immigration laws let judges grant custody of migrant children to American parents without notifying the deported parents of those children. In some cases, foster families ignore requests from the Department of Homeland Security to return the children. This isn’t new to the Trump administration.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. A white police officer called to investigate a home late at night because the front door was open shoots the black women inside playing video games with her nephew. The woman, Atatiana Jefferson, heard noises outside so she stood up and got her handgun. That’s when the officer shot her through the window, without announcing himself and without warning. He’s charged with murder. He also resigns.
  2. Contradicting all medical science, a Florida judge rejects a Tampa ordinance banning conversion therapy for LGTBQ minors because he says it limits parental rights to make healthcare choices for their kids.
  3. Over 100 activists are arrested at a protest outside the Supreme Court while they heard arguments for three LGBTQ employment cases.
  4. Two towns in Alabama—Montgomery and Talladega—elect their first black mayors.
  5. Three separate courts block Trump’s efforts to keep low-income immigrants out of the country (his “public charge” rule).

Climate:

  1. The climate change activist group Extinction Rebellion holds demonstrations and die-ins across the globe, closing down streets and at times vandalizing public property. The group says the demonstrations will last for two weeks.
  2. Almost 600 former EPA officials call for an investigation into the Trump administration’s treatment of California. They accuse the administration of abusing their authority by retaliating against California officials for not following Trump’s political agenda.
  3. The House Science Committee finds that Commerce Department officials, not NOAA staff, were responsible for issuing the statement rebuking National Weather Service staff in Alabama who contradicted Trump’s warning that Hurricane Dorian would hit Alabama hard.
  4. Typhoon Hagibis is the largest to hit Japan in decades. It causes widespread flooding, leaves at least 35 dead, and injures 166 people.
  5. Arctic ice melt has started a power struggle in the area because it’s opened up access to oil and gas reserves. Every country wants a piece of it.

Budget/Economy:

  1. Employment grew more in Obama’s first 31 months than it did in Trump’s first 31 months (1.5 million more). In fairness, Obama started out with a lot more room to grow than Trump did.
  2. According to Pro Publica, the new limits on state and local taxes and to mortgage interest deductions resulted in a reduction or plateau in home values in some areas. Areas in the Northeast and Chicago saw the biggest drops.
  3. In 2018, for the first time on record, the 400 wealthiest Americans paid the lowest tax rate of all income groups. People who’re making more than $1 million per year paid a lower tax rate than all of us. Is that how anybody really thinks this should work?
  4. The U.S. and China announce an interim trade deal, a truce if you will. China will buy more agricultural products and start to open its economy, and the U.S. won’t implement the planned tariff hikes.
  5. The Treasury Department considers rolling back a rule designed to prevent American companies from moving money offshore in order to avoid taxes.

Elections:

  1. In response to Facebook refusing to remove an ad from the Trump campaign smearing Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren takes out a Facebook ad claiming that Mark Zuckerberg endorsed Trump. She then goes on to explain that it’s a lie, but Facebook wouldn’t take the ad down even knowing it was full of lies.
    • Several media outlets refuse to air Trump’s ad because it’s full of misinformation.

Miscellaneous:

  1. Trump awards former Reagan Attorney General Ed Meese with the Medal of Freedom, one of our highest civilian honors. Meese was directly implicated in three scandals under Reagan, including the Iran-Contra affair.
  2. The Oath Keepers say they’ll protect Trump supporters at his rally in Minneapolis, which draws an enormous protest outside the arena. Several neighboring businesses donate their proceeds for the day to groups like Planned Parenthood.
  3. Trump is mad at the rally, under pressure from impeachment hearings. And it shows. As one person put it, his words “were stunning in ugliness & tone.”
    • He targets Representative Ilhan Omar and Somali refugees in the city with the largest concentration of Somali refugees. He says he’d protect cities like Minneapolis from refugees they don’t want.
    • He as much as says that Somalis bring violent ideologies to our shores. He calls Omar an “America-hating Socialist.”
    • He says the Bidens got rich off Americans, though there’s no evidence of that. Also, with his kids making international deals left and right, he shouldn’t be pointing any fingers.
    • He says Biden “was only a good vice president because he knew how to kiss Barack Obama’s ass.”
    • He calls Speaker Nancy Pelosi “really stupid.”
  1. One of the few voices of truth on Fox News, Shepherd Smith, announces his sudden departure from the network to explore “another chapter.” This comes at a time when tensions between the opinion division (Carlson, Hannity, Perry, Ingraham, etc.) and the news division (Smith, Baier, Wallace, etc.) are at a peak. Do you suppose this is what Barr and Rupert Murdoch met about the other night? If I were Brett Baier or Chris Wallace, I’d be polishing my resume.
  2. Mark Zuckerberg has been having informal meetings with conservative politicians and journalists. He’s discussing free speech and partnerships.

Polls:

  1. A Fox poll indicates a record high level of support for impeachment.
    • 51% want Trump impeached and removed from office.
    • 4% want him impeached by not removed from office.
    • 40% are opposed to impeachment.