Tag: whistleblower

Week 140 in Trump

Posted on October 2, 2019 in Impeachment, Legislation, Trump

Just read the damn transcript and claim already! They're short.

If you’re wondering whether your Members of Congress are really informed about what’s going on, you should know that many of them haven’t read the Mueller report yet. They haven’t even read the summaries. They also, obviously haven’t even bothered to read Trump’s 5-page excerpt from his conversation with the Ukraine president (as evidenced by Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s interview on 60 Minutes where he didn’t even know that Trump said, “I would like you to do us a favor though.” It’s not even that far down in the conversation. Don’t let your elected officials be that lazy. Make them take this seriously whether you want Trump exonerated or impeached. Call them and write to them and ask them to be informed and do their jobs.

Here’s what happened in politics for the week ending September 29…

Shootings This Week:

I’m putting this section on hold this week. There’s too much else to sort out with the whistleblower complaint.

Legal Fallout:

  1. Research by the Senate Finance Committee’s Democratic staff finds that the NRA facilitated political access for Russians Maria Butina and Alexander Torshin to a greater extent than previously thought. New York and DC attorneys general are also investigating this.
  2. Trump meets with NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre to talk about how the NRA can support Trump financially. LaPierre is working to steer Trump away from universal background check legislation.
  3. A federal judge reverses Bijan Kian’s guilty verdict. Kian was Michael Flynn’s lobbying associate working on Turkish issues and was convicted of acting as a foreign agent and conspiring to hide it.
  4. The Southern District of New York drops their case against Tony Podesta and Vin Weber in connection with lobbying for Ukraine without registering as foreign agents.
  5. A judge says Trump must testify in a case from 2015 over a fight between his security guards and protestors. Protestors say Trump’s security guards assaulted them during a protest in the Bronx where they were protesting Trump’s derogatory comments about immigrants.
  6. And just a reminder, Trump now has two whistleblower complaints against him. The Ukraine one I’ll go into below, but there’s also a complaint that Trump tried to influence the IRS audit of his personal tax returns.
  7. The Manhattan District Attorney agrees to wait to enforce his subpoena to obtain eight years of Trump’s tax returns until after a judge rules on whether to dismiss Trump’s request to block the subpoena.
  8. Trump says he brought up the issue of Hunter Biden to his intermediary on the trade talks with China. He alleges that Hunter got China to put $1.5 billion into an investment fund. The dollar amount is vastly exaggerated—it was in the millions.
  9. The Trump administration intensifies their investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails, snaring about 130 officials who shared emails with her. The administration is reviewing each email, and in some cases retroactively marking them as classified. The 130 officials received letters saying there are potential security violations from them sharing those emails several years ago. Some of these officials have already retired or moved on to other jobs.

Impeachment/Ukraine:

  1. The background of this story is pretty complex, so I won’t get into it all here. Here are some resources:
  1. In mid-August, the whistleblower made his complaint to Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson. When Atkinson realized that whistleblower protocol wasn’t being followed, he alerted the House and Senate Intelligence Committees.
  2. That same day, three House committees opened investigations into whether Trump and Rudy Giuliani acted improperly in pushing Ukraine to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden and CrowdStrike.
  3. The Chairs of the House Intelligence, Oversight, and Foreign Affairs committees send a letter to the White House counsel demanding the White House give them documents about Trump’s conversations with Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky.
  4. The Senate unanimously passes a non-binding resolution demanding that Trump release the whistleblower complaint about pressuring Ukraine. No GOP Senators object to the resolution.
  5. After months of slow-walking an official impeachment inquiry, Speaker Nancy Pelosi announces the start of official impeachment inquiries, provoked by the whistleblower complaint. It’s what I like to call an impeachment buffet.
    • She directs the heads of six House committees to proceed with their own inquiries, each focused on a different issue.
    • Democrats debate whether the scope of the impeachment inquiry should focus on the whistleblower complaint about Trump’s dealing with Ukraine or if they should include other potential crimes, like those brought up in the Mueller report, financial transactions, FEC violations, emoluments clause violations, and so on.
  1. Trump and Pelosi have a phone conversation where Trump asks if they can “work something out” about the whistleblower complaint.
  2. Senate Republicans say they’ll quash any articles of impeachment passed by the House, but McConnell has said the Senate will have to hold a trial. As a refresher:
    • The House holds hearings and votes on articles of impeachment.
    • If they pass articles of impeachment, the Senate then holds a trial.
    • If found guilty, Trump would be removed from office (this has never happened, and I can’t imagine it happening here).
    • Otherwise, Trump goes on record has having been impeached by the House but can stay in office.
  1. At least a week before the call, Trump told his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to hold back almost $400 million in military aid for Ukraine. The Office of Management and Budget (which is run by the same Mick Mulvaney) then relayed that info to the State Department and the Pentagon.
    • Legislators realized by mid-August that the OMB had taken over the decision-making process for the funds from the Defense and State Departments.
    • Administration officials were told to give Congress no explanation other than that the funding was delayed because of interagency processes.
  1. Trump released the money only after the whistleblower complaint became known, but administration officials say there’s no link. Congress also pressured the administration to release the funds.
  2. In early September, Ukrainian officials voiced concern about whether aid was cut off because the Ukraine government wasn’t investigating the Bidens.
  3. First Trump says he withheld the money over corruption concerns, but the next day he says it’s because NATO countries aren’t contributing enough money.
    • A letter from the Pentagon disputes the first point.
    • As for the second point, the EU has provided more aid to Ukraine than the U.S.
    • Trump’s defenders say he had to evaluate whether the newly elected Zelensky is pro-Russia or pro-United States and whether he is corrupt.
  1. Trump says that the money was eventually released, so that’s evidence he didn’t do anything wrong.
  2. Trump releases a partial transcript of his call with Ukraine President Zelensky. It corroborates much of the whistleblower complaint. It shows he did ask Zelensky to investigate the Bidens and to investigate CrowdStrike, the company that handled the review of the hacked DNC server. Here’s some background on CrowdStrike and the whole Ukraine conspiracy theory.
  3. Trump thinks the excerpt exonerates him; you can decide for yourself. Here’s the complete excerpt. Below are the highlights I pulled out:
    • Zelensky is either on the Trump train or he knows how to fluff Trump up (I think the latter).
    • They talk about Ukraine obtaining military weapons and then Trump says, “I would like you to do us a favor though…”
    • That favor is for the Ukraine government to investigate CrowdStrike and the DNC server (which, by the way, isn’t missing and isn’t sitting in some basement in Ukraine).
    • Several times, Trump mentions having Zelensky get in touch with Attorney General Barr (five times) and Rudy Giuliani (four times) to work on this.
    • Trump criticizes Mueller’s investigation (this is the day after Mueller testified to Congress).
    • Zelensky says that one of his aides spoke with Giuliani recently. He guarantees open and candid investigations. At this point, it seems he’s only referring to the server.
    • Trump appears to call Ukraine General Prosecutor Shokin a very good prosecutor who got shut down.
      Background: Shokin was voted out of office by the Ukraine Parliament for failing to prosecute corruption cases, which is what Biden was working on. Shokin‘s failure to act included the Burisma investigation, where Hunter Biden worked.
    • Then Trump makes the ask for Zelensky to open an investigation into the Bidens. He says Biden bragged about stopping the prosecution in that case. Just to set the record straight, Biden didn’t stop any prosecution of the Burisma case nor did he say he did. The Bidens were never being prosecuted. (This whole bit is super convoluted. I refer you back to the timeline.)
    • Zelensky assures Trump that the next prosecutor will be 100% Zelensky’s person. The former prosecutor, Yuriy Lutsenko, stepped down in the middle of all this. Now there’s a new prosecutor.
    • Zelensky agrees to investigate Burisma and Biden, and brings up how bad the U.S. Ambassador is.
  1. On the same day Trump releases the rough notes of his conversation with Zelensky, certain members of Congress get access to the whistleblower complaint in a SCIF, which means it contains classified information.
  2. They later release an unclassified version of the complaint to the public without the underlying classified evidence. Here are a few points, but you can read it yourself (it’s concise and well-written).
    • The complaint discusses the phone call, attempts to hide the content of the call, and additional ongoing concerns, like the meetings between Ukraine officials and Giuliani, and between Ukraine officials and our ambassadors.
    • On August 9, Trump told reporters that he thinks Zelensky will make a deal with Putin. (UPDATE: It was just announced publicly that this is happening.)
    • The White House used a super-secure computer system (a codeword-level system) to store details about Trump’s conversation with Ukraine President Zelensky. This is a very unusual use for this computer system, designed for highly classified national security information and not for politically sensitive information. This was at the direction of National Security Council attorneys, so it was serious.
    • Most interesting is the section on all the events leading up to the call, I recommend you all read it.
  1. This isn’t the only time the White House used the codeword-level system to hide conversations with foreign leaders. The White House also took extraordinary efforts to conceal conversations Trump had with Putin and Saudi’s Mohammad bin Salman.
    • The Russian government warns Trump not to release transcripts of any of his calls with Putin.
    • In 2018, the White House asked DoD officials to return transcripts of calls over worries their contents would be disclosed.
    • The White House also cut the number of aides allowed to listen in on secure lines and the number of officials who could review memos about the contents of calls.
  1. The White House accidentally sends out their talking points defending Trump to a number of House Democrats. And then they asked the Democrats to send them back. Here’s a summary of the talking points, along with my take on them.
  2. Republicans defend Trump by pointing out that three Democratic lawmakers sent Ukraine a letter threatening Ukraine if they don’t keep up their investigations into Manafort (those investigations were in conjunction with the current U.S. cases against Manafort). IMO, the letter is more of an inquiry, and not threatening at all. You can read it here.
  3. Trump says Congress should ask about Vice-President Mike Pence’s conversations with Zelensky.
    • Pence advises Trump not to release any of the contents of Trump’s call with Zelensky.
  1. DNI Joseph Maguire testifies before Congress. Some key takeaways:
    • This is unprecedented. All of it.
    • He was concerned about executive privilege in handling the complaint. Once Trump released the transcript, though, executive privilege was gone. Of note, executive privilege doesn’t cover criminal acts.
    • He thinks the whistleblower did the right thing and is acting in good faith, and that he should be able to testify before Congress.
    • He questions whether it is the purview of Congress to investigate this.
    • He doesn’t think he’s the best guy for this job.
  1. The whistleblower tentatively agrees to meet with Members of Congress as long as the whistleblower’s lawyer has the required security clearances.
    • If you’re curious about his credibility, the whistleblower identified several people who can corroborate his report, and the inspector general did his own followup investigation before finding the claim credible and urgent.
  1. A former advisor to Zelensky says that discussing the Biden case was a prerequisite to having a conversation between the two presidents.
  2. It turns out that while former Ukraine prosecutor Shokin wasn’t aggressively investigating Burisma, he was using the threat of investigation to extort the company’s owner and his friends.
  3. Ukrainian officials say that Lutsenko, who at the time was the Ukraine general prosecutor, was trying to give Giuliani the information he wanted earlier this year as a way to get into Trump’s good graces and possibly extricate himself from Ukraine. Lutsenko has since contradicted himself and said the Bidens didn’t violate any Ukrainian laws.
  4. Lutsenko says that the violations being investigated at Burisma occurred two years before Hunter Biden came on board.
  5. Lutsenko closed the investigation into Burisma in 2017, but begin looking at the company again early this year after he started meeting with Giuliani. His office disputes that he ever re-opened an investigation into the company, though.
  6. Lutsenko says he told Giuliani to open his own investigation with the FBI or CIA, but not to drag Ukraine into our politics. He also told him to bring his own court case if he had any evidence.
  7. Lutsenko told Giuliani that former U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch gave him a list of people not to prosecute.
    • Never one to let the chance at a good conspiracy slip by, Giuliani says the list was part of a liberal anti-trump conspiracy (is there any other kind?) that was bankrolled by George Soros (who else?).
    • The US State Department dismisses the list as an “outright fabrication.”
    • Nonetheless, the administration removed Yovanovitch from Ukraine in May.
  1. The number of Democrats in the House who support impeachment has grown to 224, from about 135 before the whistleblower complaint was made public.
  2. Over 300 former national security and foreign policy officials sign on to a statement voicing concern over the phone call with Ukraine and calling for impeachment inquiries to get to the facts. They say Trump’s actions constitute a profound national security risk.
  3. Three House committees issue subpoenas for documents from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and also instruct him to make these department employees available for deposition: former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, former Ambassador Kurt Volker, George Kent, T. Ulrich Brechbuhl, and Ambassador Gordon Sondland.
    • Volker is said to have arranged for Giuliani to meet with Ukrainian officials.
    • Volker resigns the day after the contents of the whistleblower complaint is published (which is also the day after Giuliani goes on the talkshow circuit showing everyone the texts he exchanged with Volker).
    • The whistleblower complaint alleges that the day after Trump’s phone call with Zelensky, Volker and Sondland met with Ukrainian officials to help them navigate Trump’s demands. Whatever that means. Volker will testify next week.
  1. In light of the impeachment announcement, the House Intelligence Committee will work through the two-week recess at the beginning of October.
  2. Trump defenders claim that the Intelligence Community changed the rules requiring whistleblower’s to have firsthand information just so this whistleblower could make a claim. Those rules were never in the code to begin with and the form hasn’t changed.
  3. Fox News reports that DC husband and wife lawyers Joe DiGenova and Victoria Toensing worked with Giuliani to get dirt on Biden from Ukrainian officials. They all three worked “off the books” and only Trump knew what they were doing. All three lawyers deny this.
  4. Trump and the GOP really push the narrative that Biden intervened in Ukraine to get the prosecutor to stop investigating his son. That’s really not what happened, but there was definitely the appearance of a conflict of interest. Here’s the straight scoop, with links to their sources.
  5. The whistleblower is now under federal protection out of fear for his safety.
  6. In 2018, Trump told the world he takes Putin at his word when he says Russia didn’t meddle in our 2016 elections. This week, we learn that in 2017, Trump did acknowledge that Russia meddled in our elections and that he told Russian officials that he didn’t care.
  7. Trump’s efforts with Ukraine seem to have three parts: 1) discredit his political opponent Biden, and 2) clear Russia of meddling in the 2016 election so we can drop sanctions, and 3) push Ukraine toward a peace agreement with Russia, again so we can drop sanctions.

Courts/Justice:

  1. A Michigan judge strikes down a law that would’ve made it harder for voters to get initiatives on the ballot. This was one of the laws passed by last year’s lame-duck legislature to restrict the new Democratic governor’s ability to enact his agenda.
  2. The day before Nancy Pelosi announces impeachment inquiries into Trump, Rep. Ayanna Pressley files articles of impeachment against Brett Kavanaugh.

Healthcare:

  1. As an example of how we have a “do nothing” Congress who just wants to impeach him, Trump says that Democrats haven’t taken any action to lower drug prices. But just last week he praised the bill they passed and sent to the Senate that would… yes, lower drug prices.
  2. At the UN, Trump’s administration says abortion isn’t an international right, and they push to eliminate terms like sexual and reproductive health from UN documents. Only 19 nations agree, including those bastions of women’s rights, Saudi Arabia and Russia.
  3. Employer health insurance plans have become more expensive over the past decade and they provide less coverage.
  4. The suicide rate in the military hit its highest level in five years.
  5. The FDA delayed regulating vaping products for years, and only started to regulate them in 2016; still, they pushed back critical deadlines until 2022.

International:

  1. In the middle of all the whistleblower kerfuffle, Trump meets with Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky at the UN and they hold a joint press conference.
    • Trump talks about having the best employment we’ve ever had and the best economy we’ve ever had.
    • He also resurrects his accusations that NATO countries don’t spend enough money to help Ukraine.
    • Zelensky says there was no pressure during the whistleblower phone call, and also says he doesn’t want to get in the middle of U.S. elections.
    • Trump closes with, “Unfortunately she [Nancy Pelosi] is no longer Speaker of the House.
  1. Trump complains that the press isn’t covering all the great things he did at the UN summit because they’re too busy covering the whistleblower complaint. Here are just a few things they covered:
    • In Trump’s UN speech, he promotes nationalism and criticizes globalists, socialists, and several countries.
    • On the plus side, he says his administration is working to end the criminalization of homosexuality abroad and to empower women.
    • Trump holds a session on ending religious persecution and protecting religious sites and relics.
    • Trump planned to skip the UN Climate Summit, but he makes a brief appearance.
  1. Without a clear winner in Israel’s second elections this year, President Reuven Rivlin gives Netanyahu first dibs at trying to form a government. If Netanyahu can’t form a government, the mandate goes back to the president. Or there could be yet more elections.
  2. Netanyahu and opponent Benny Gantz plan to meet next week to see if they can agree on a unity government. Those talks will be the same day that Netanyahu’s pre-indictment hearing begins.
  3. Parliament resumes in the UK after the Supreme Court rules that Boris Johnson’s suspension of the Parliament was unlawful. Johnson was trying to prevent them from blocking a no-deal Brexit.
  4. Johnson’s opposition in Parliament wants to hold a vote of no confidence in order to replace Johnson with an interim administrator.
  5. Oh, and Johnson is now embroiled in a romantic scandal. He had an affair with an American businesswomen who received money from an agency that Johnson controlled as Mayor of London.
  6. Hong Kong is in its 17th straight week of pro-democracy protests. In an unauthorized march, thousands of protestors clash with police, and the entryways to subway stations are closed. Protestors set one entryway on fire, police arrest more than 100 people, and more than 25 protestors are injured. This was a violent weekend, with police firing water canons, tear gas, and rubber bullets, and with protestors throwing gas bombs, starting fires, and breaking windows. China’s 70th anniversary of Communist Party rule (which the protestors are fighting against) is coming up,
  7. Protestors block streets in Lebanon over the country’s economic crisis. They accuse the ruling class of stealing from the people.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. If you don’t think the House should impeach because you want them passing laws and working for the American people instead, take a look at this. It’s what the House has been doing outside of investigating Trump. Impeachment isn’t taking up all their time.

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

  1. For the second time, the Senate approves a resolution to block Trump’s emergency declaration to fund his border wall. The House follows suit, but Trump can still veto it and is likely to do so.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. Trump cuts the U.S. refugee program by nearly half. He had already dropped it from 110,000 per year under Obama to 30,000 per year in 2019. In 2020, we’ll only allow 18,000 refugees in.
    • The U.S. takes in less than 1 refugee for everyone 1,000 residents each year. France, Canada, and Israel take in 4 to 5 times what we do per capita. Even Ecuador and Venezuela take in more per capita than we do (around 7 times more). Iran takes in 12 times as many refugees per capita.
  1. A district court judge says she’ll block Trump’s changes to the rules for how long we can detain immigrant children.
  2. Insomniac Events (a music festival company) changes their tents into shelters for around 5,000 Bahamans displaced by Hurricane Dorian.
  3. It’s been four years since Germany took in 1 million + immigrants, mostly from Syria. After initial opposition, these immigrants are integrating and helping to revitalize rural areas.
  4. In 1968, Olympic sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos were expelled for raising their fists on the winners podium in protest of racial injustice. Now they’re being inducted into the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee’s Hall of Fame. Just another example of how prevailing attitudes change and aren’t always on the right side of history. Hmmm…
  5. Trump calls six non-white Members of Congress “savages.” Two are Jewish, one is Puerto Rican, two are African American, and one is Palestinian.

Climate:

  1. Three Norwegian legislators nominate 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg for the Nobel Peace Prize. While at the same time, Trump makes fun of her in a tweet.
    • Actually, since her speech, Greta has taken a shit-ton of online abuse from adults for her climate activism. What inspires people to be such assholes?
  1. Even Russia formally joins the Paris climate agreement.
  2. Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro says the Amazon rainforest isn’t on fire; it’s brimming with riches that he wants to develop.
  3. A new report based on 7,000 studies says that climate change has heated the oceans and changed the ecosystem so dramatically that seafood supplies are threatened. The warmer ocean waters also fuel cyclones and flooding along coastal areas.
  4. At a meeting of fossil fuel executives, an industry lawyer says it’s time for energy companies to accept their role in fueling climate change. For decades, major oil companies have downplayed the effects of climate change, despite documents showing that their own studies supported the science as far back as the mid-80s.
    • Ironically, Trump’s deregulation efforts are part of what brought the industry to their “Come to Jesus” moment, because while larger companies will keep in place safety and environmental protections, smaller companies might take shortcuts. And that could be bad for the industry as a whole.
  1. Summer’s only been gone a week, but winter’s chomping at the bit. Parts of the West get hit with up to three feet of snow, with record low temps and strong winds. Montana Governor Steve Bullock declares a winter storm emergency.

Budget/Economy:

  1. The oldest travel company in the world, Thomas Cook, collapses, leaving hundreds of thousands of travelers stranded on their vacations. The British government refused to intervene to save the company, but they do say they’ll assist travelers. The collapse puts 21,000 jobs at risk.
  2. Just when the market looks optimistic, Trump addresses the UN and accuses China of not keeping its promises to us and engaging in predatory business practices. Stocks have their worst day of the month.
  3. And then, stocks fall further as more Democrats express support for impeaching Trump. But it ends the week pretty even. There’s no real precedent for how markets react to impeachment proceedings.
  4. The housing market slows a bit, with mortgage applications falling 10.1% and prices remaining steady.
  5. Income inequality is now at its highest level in over 50 years. Inequality is still highest in wealthy coastal states, but states in the middle saw the greatest growth in inequality in 2018 (the latest year for which we have numbers).
  6. The IMF names Kristalina Georgieva to be their managing director. Why is this news? Because, of all things, she’s an economist. Right now, Fed Chair Jerome Power, incoming ECB President Christine Lagarde, and World Bank President David Malpass are all lawyers with no solid backgrounds in economics. Having a lawyer in these positions makes them more agile, but also means they lack the understanding behind economic moves.
  7. The New York Fed continues to provide cash infusions to the repo market, but things continue to worsen. The problem is the decreasing level of liquidity, meaning banks don’t have fast access to cash.
  8. It’s been a while since we’ve heard about a teachers’ strike, but Chicago teachers vote to strike, possibly sometime in October.
  9. The UK economy shrank for the first time in seven years, with the GDP falling by 0.2%. The problem is largely uncertainty over Brexit.

Miscellaneous:

  1. At least 22 people are dead and 700 are injured after a 5.6-magnitude earthquake hits northern Pakistan.
  2. The former Chair of the North Carolina GOP, Robin Hayes, plans to plead guilty to lying to the FBI in a bribery case involving a major political donor. Hayes is also a former Member of Congress.
  3. New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger reveals that in 2017, a U.S. official sent The New York Times an urgent warning that Egypt wanted to arrest the paper’s Cairo reporter, Declan Walsh. The official also said that the Trump administration had tried to keep the warning secret and let the arrest occur.

Polls:

  1. Support for impeaching Trump jumped 13 percentage points among Democrats and 12 points among voters since the whistleblower claim came out.
  2. A majority of Americans approve of moving ahead with impeachment inquiries.
  3. In a Monmouth University Poll, 6 of 10 Republicans don’t think Trump mentioned Biden to Ukraine president Zelensky. Here’s a quote directly from the 5-page excerpt Trump released:
    “There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it… It sounds horrible to me.”
    Moral of the story? READ THE DAMN SOURCE MATERIAL.

GOP Talking Points About Ukraine

Posted on October 2, 2019 in Impeachment, Trump

Official Republican Talking Points Defending Trump

The White House accidentally sends House Democrats the talking points that GOP members are supposed to use to defend Trump‘s actions regarding Ukraine. Here they are:

  1. They claim the excerpt shows there’s no quid pro quo.
    In reality, quid pro quo doesn’t have to be explicit, and it’s implied in the transcript.
  2. They claim that it’s a myth that Trump made some kind of promise to Zelensky.
    I don’t know of this myth, but maybe they misconstrued quid pro quo?
  3. They claim it’s a myth that Trump urged Zelensky to work with Giuliani eight times.
    I don’t know where the “eight times” came from, but Trump does mention Giuliani four times and Attorney General Barr five times in just the excerpt Trump released.
  4. They claim it’s entirely appropriate to ask a foreign leader to investigate Ukraine meddling in the 2016 election.
    Even if it’s based on a conspiracy theory? Nonetheless, it’s not OK to withhold aid over whether that country will do your bidding.
  5. They say Trump didn’t mention Giuliani until after Zelensky did.
    Zelensky mentioned a previous contact with Giuliani after Trump suggested he talk to Attorney General Barr.
  6. And of course they say that Biden bragged about derailing an investigation.
    Biden never bragged about that. He bragged about helping to oust a corrupt prosecutor. I’m not defending Biden on the conflict of interest here, but you can decide for yourself if that was OK.
  7. They say the real scandal is the leaks, and that the “Deep State,” the media, and Democrats are hurting our national security.
    Just because information about a crime is leaked, that doesn’t make it any less of a crime.
  8. They also say the complaint was handled by the book.
    This could be mostly true. The DNI consulted the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel to find out if the scope fell under the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act. The DOJ’s OLC says it didn’t, but then the head of the DOJ is also implicated in all this.

How The Whistleblower Complaint Came About

Posted on October 2, 2019 in Impeachment, Trump

Was the Whistleblower Complaint Handled Correctly?

The stories about how the whistleblower’s complaint was handled have been dicey. Here’s a simple breakdown of what went down. For a more detailed discussion, I recommend a quick listen to “The Daily” podcast episode on it.

  1. A few days after Trump’s conversation with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, a CIA agent learns about it from concerned people in the White House. The agent reports it to the top CIA lawyers.
  2. The CIA lawyer, as per protocol, reaches out to her counterpart in the White House to let them know about it.
  3. The White House lawyer starts investigating, and interviews people in the White House who are aware of or heard the conversation. Some of these people are the same ones who told the CIA agent what went on.
  4. The White House lawyers also bring the concern to top lawyers at the DOJ, who bring it to their boss, who happens to be Attorney General William Barr.
    UPDATE: We now know Barr has also been working on getting foreign governments to help Trump in exonerating Russia and implicating Biden.
  5. The people at the White House who White House lawyers interviewed tell the CIA agent about it. They’re concerned that White House lawyers and not CIA lawyers are investigating.
  6. This concerns the CIA agent because it’s like the fox guarding the henhouse; so he decides to go the whistleblower route and files a complaint with the intelligence community’s inspector general.
  7. The Inspector general does his research and corroborates the whistleblower’s story. He finds the complaint credible and urgent. As per protocol, he forwards the information to the DNI (Director of National Intelligence), who is only there in an acting capacity and has been on the job for all of a hot minute.
  8. The DNI is unclear about how to handle this because it involves the president, so he takes it to the DOJ, who (as we now know) has already gotten a heads up from the White House lawyers. The DOJ lawyers quash the complaint, saying it isn’t covered by intelligence community whistleblower protections,
  9. And that’s how it ended up not going to Congress within the required timeframe.
  10. The IG becomes concerned when he doesn’t hear anything, so he alerts Congress about the complaint.
  11. The House Intelligence Committee, which is supposed to receive whistleblower information, is unable to obtain it, so the chair of the committee goes public.
  12. The chair continues to have a hard time obtaining the document until public backlash forces the DOJ to turn it over.

Week 139 in Trump

Posted on September 25, 2019 in Politics, Trump

Leila Navidi, leila.navidi@startribune.com

Corey Lewandowski makes a spectacle of his hearing; details about the whistleblower complaint come out, and yes, it’s about Trump; huge Youth Climate Strikes span the globe; Boris Johnson might have illegally suspended Parliament; Israel holds new elections (yet again); costs stall Trump’s border wall; DHS reinstates medically protected status; Trump waives more tariffs; and will we go to war with Iran? It was a big week, and it’s already totally eclipsed by the news from the following week.

Here what happened in politics for the week ending September 22…

Shootings This Week:

  1. Here are this week’s mass shootings (defined as killing or injuring four or more people):
    • A shooter kills two adults and injures two teenagers in Cheyenne, WY. It was apparently a drug deal gone wrong.
    • A shooter in Wilmington, CA, walks up to a group of people and kills two of them and injures two others.
    • A drive-by shooter kills three people and injures one more in Chicago.
    • A shooter kills one person and injures five others in Washington, DC.
    • A shooter kills one person and injures five others in New Orleans.
    • A shooter in a nightclub in Lancaster, SC, kills two people and injures eight others.
    • Four people are found dead from gunshot wounds in an abandoned house in Cleveland, OH.
    • A shooting between two cars in New Orleans leaves four people injured.
    • A nightclub shooting in Kansas City, MO, leaves five people injured.
    • Two people are dead and two are injured in Gary, IN, after someone shoots at a car and the driver swerves into a tree.
    • A shooter kills one teenage boy and injures three others as they’re walking down a street in Chicago.
  1. Almost 230,000 people have experienced a school shooting since the Columbine shootings.
  2. Colt announces that they’ll suspend production of the AR-15 for civilian use. They say it’s because they’ve reached market capacity, not that they don’t think civilians should have the weapons.
    • Colt’s competitors sell similar guns for less than what Colt charges for theirs.

Russia:

  1. Corey Lewandowski “testifies” to the House Judiciary Committee. He says the White House told him not to provide any answers that can’t already be found in the Mueller report, and as such he is combative.
    • Lewandowski does confirm that everything in the report about Trump asking him to fire Jeff Sessions is accurate.
    • Lewandowski says the investigation is an attempt to “take down a duly elected President of the United States.” But then he says he never questioned the validity of the Mueller report.
    • Lewandowski appears to be using the hearing to make a splash in New Hampshire, where he plans a Senate run.
  1. The hearing is chaotic until the staff counsel starts asking the questions (as opposed to Members of Congress). Counsel gets Lewandowski to admit:
    • He lied to the American people multiple times on TV. Lewandowski says he doesn’t have to tell the media, and by extension the American people, the truth.
    • He took the Fifth and asked for immunity before meeting with Mueller’s team. Lewandowski has also said publicly that you only take the Fifth when you’ve done something wrong.
    • Before Trump asked him to fire Sessions, he brought up the possibility of giving Lewandowski a job in the White House.
    • He wanted to meet in private with Sessions so there would be no record.
  1. Trump tweets his appreciation of Lewandowski’s performance.
  2. Committee Chair Jerry Nadler is considering holding Lewandowski in contempt.
  3. There’s an explosion in Russia at the State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology, which is one of two locations in the world where live smallpox viruses are stored. Russia says there’s no threat from the virus, just like they said there was no radiation released from the explosion of their nuclear-propelled missile.

Legal Fallout:

  1. The Manhattan district attorney subpoenas eight years of tax returns from Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars USA. This is related to the Stormy Daniels case. Mazars says they’ll comply.
    • I feel like I just keep writing the same stories over and over again, but yet again, Trump sues his accounting firm to stop them from complying with the subpoena.
    • In attempting to block the subpoena, Trump’s lawyers argue that a sitting president can’t be subject to the criminal process, suggesting that Trump can’t be investigated or tried.
  1. Senator Chris Coons says he told the FBI last year about the allegations of more bad behavior by Brett Kavanaugh while in school, but the FBI doesn’t appear to have followed up on it.
  2. In addition to the Air Force sometimes housing their crew at Trump’s Turnberry golf resort in Scotland, Turnberry gifts high-ranking officials with special pins on their visits, and some of the visits last for up to five days. Sometimes the crew gets stranded due to bad weather, and some complain that their per diem is barely enough to get by at the expensive resort.
    • In the past two years, Air Force spending at Trump’s Turnberry golf course has nearly tripled from the previous two years.
  1. It’s still in question whether the DOJ will prosecute former acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe for allegedly lying about a media leak, but his lawyers say Trump’s attacks on McCabe have made a fair prosecution impossible.
  2. A federal court of appeals reinstates the lawsuit filed by Seth Rich’s parents against Fox News. Rich was a DNC staffer who was murdered in a botched robbery, and Fox repeatedly pushed the conspiracy theory that he was murdered because he was behind the leak of DNC documents in 2016.
  3. Last week we learned about a whistleblower report that wasn’t turned over to Congress as required. Per the Wall Street Journal, the complaint revolves around the Ukraine. During a phone call in July, Trump repeatedly pressured Ukraine’s new president to investigate Joe Biden’s son, and asked him several times to work with Rudy Giuliani on this. Giuliani met with top Ukrainian officials in June and August about it.
    • Trump doesn’t deny asking Ukraine’s president about Joe Biden and says he didn’t do anything wrong. He also says someone should look into Biden’s efforts force out Ukraine’s prosecutor general as it relates to Biden’s son, Hunter, being on the board of Burisma Holdings, which at one point was under investigation by Ukraine’s prosecutor.
    • A Ukrainian prosecutor has already found there was no evidence of wrongdoing by Biden or by his son.
    • Background: This has been fully investigated in Ukraine, and neither Joe Biden nor his son Hunter were found to have done anything wrong. The investigation into Burisma Holdings didn’t involve Hunter and was over a deal that occurred before Hunter joined the board. Around that time, Biden threatened to withhold aid from Ukraine in order to battle the corruption of the government (which, in a strange way of coming full circle, Paul Manafort helped into power). Joe Biden’s actions to remove Ukraine prosecutor Viktor Shokin were coordinated with our allies, and the recommendation to do so came from our embassy in Kiev. In fact, the IMF had threatened to withhold money for the same reason a month earlier.
    • Trump says the complaint was filed by a partisan whistleblower. Does that mean he knows the identity of the whistleblower? He says he doesn’t, which means he’s just making that partisan bit up.
    • Trump says it doesn’t matter what he discussed with foreign leaders.
    • Three House committees are already investigating Rudy Giuliani over this matter, and committee chairs and Nancy Pelosi threaten additional legal actions if the whistleblower complaint isn’t turned over as mandated by law.
    • Rudy Giuliani goes on the press circuit to try to get ahead of the Ukraine story. He says he didn’t ask Ukrainian officials to investigate Joe Biden, but literally less than 30 seconds later he says that of course he did.
    • The news of the whistleblower story causes growing support in the Democratic House caucus for impeachment.
    • Both Representative Adam Schiff and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi say that impeachment might be the only way forward now. This is notable because both have been reticent to fully commit to impeachment.

Healthcare:

  1. You might remember that a while back, Trump loosened up the laws on temporary healthcare plans that don’t meet the standards of the ACA by expanding their coverage from three months to one year. Well, now those plans have flooded the market, and people are finding out that their healthcare costs aren’t being covered. Just one success in the GOP’s efforts to gut the ACA.
  2. Two bills expanding access to abortions go into effect in Maine after anti-abortion activists fail to get the necessary signatures to fight them. One bill requires insurance plans covering prenatal care to also cover abortion care, and the other overturns a ban on nurse practitioners providing abortion care.
  3. A federal judge denies Missouri’s request to put into effect their ban on abortions after 20 weeks while the case against it moves through the courts. The original law bans abortions after 8 weeks, but includes triggers to ban abortions at 14, 18, and 20 weeks if the 8-week ban is found unconstitutional.
  4. The House passes a bill designed to help lower prescription drug prices by increasing the ability to negotiate prices. Trump praises the bill right after Mitch McConnell says the bill is dead on arrival in the Senate because it’s “socialist.”
  5. Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin, files for bankruptcy.

International:

  1. The Trump administration releases satellite images that appear to implicate Iran in the attacks on Saudi oil plants. The images show 19 strikes at two facilities, which Trump officials say couldn’t be carried out with 10 drones, as claimed by the Yemeni rebels. Iran continues to deny involvement.
    • Officials say that our surveillance satellites caught Iran preparing for the attacks, but are calling the evidence circumstantial.
    • Trump and Rouhani were working on setting up a meeting at the UN summit, but now Iran is ruling that out completely.
    • Mike Pompeo heads over to Saudi Arabia to discuss a response to the attacks. Pompeo says the administration wants a peaceful resolution, but defense officials present a list of potential targets should we decide to retaliate alongside Saudi Arabia.
    • Iran’s foreign minister threatens an all-out war if the U.S. or Saudi Arabia strikes Iran.
    • Trump deploys 500 additional U.S. troops to Saudi Arabia.
    • Trump announces additional sanctions on Iran, which target their national bank.
  1. Two suicide bombings in Afghanistan kill nearly 50 people. One was near the U.S. embassy and NATO compound.
  2. A Scottish court finds that Boris Johnson illegally suspended Parliament last month, pushing the case up to Britain’s Supreme Court.
  3. Does this sound familiar? Close to the Israeli election, Netanyahu and his party accuse minority Arab citizens of voter fraud and they send out racist robocalls warning about high Arab turnout.
    • The Israeli vote is too close to call. Netanyahu’s Likud party trails the centrist Blue and White party by two seats. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin will consult with party leaders and decide whether Netanyahu or Gantz gets a first shot at forming a government. In a first, Arab parties have said they’d be open to forming a government with Blue and White.
    • With his lead, Gantz declares victory, but Netanyahu says they should share power. Gantz rejects the power sharing offer, and says he’ll lead a coalition of parties from across the political spectrum.
  1. Trump names Robert O’Brien to be the new National Security Advisor. O’Brien is the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs (aka a hostage negotiator) who recently made news when Trump sent him to Sweden to monitor the trial of A$AP Rocky.
  2. In the middle of the whistleblower controversy, Trump says he’ll meet with the Ukraine president at next week’s UN summit.

Legislation/Congress:

  1. House Democrats hold hearings on DC statehood.

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

  1. Trump starts to discuss sensors in the fences going up at the border, which is apparently sensitive technology. When he asks the General in charge to describe the technology, the General says, “Sir, there could be some merit in not discussing that.”
  2. At the same visit, Trump says that the world’s best mountain climbers have tested his wall and couldn’t scale it. I think rock climbers would be better testers, but regardless, world-class mountain climbers have no idea what he’s talking about.
  3. The Department of Defense says they won’t go forward with three projects to build border wall in Arizona and California because it’s too expensive. So far 60 miles of fencing have been updated.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

  1. A new study finds that one in 16 women say their first sexual experience was rape, and those women tend to have higher rates of unwanted first pregnancies, abortions, and subsequent physical and mental health problems. 75% were younger than 17 when it happened, and nearly half of those were younger than 14.
  2. After Trump says the DOJ should rescue Brett Kavanaugh, Attorney General William Barr’s past skepticism over rape claims comes to light. Barr has accused Obama of “fanning the false narrative of rape culture” (um, see above study, Mr. Barr). He also endorsed a book that accuses schools of treating people accused of rape unfairly.
  3. Immigration services reverses their new policy of deporting people who are here under medical protected status (the deferred action program) after a huge public outcry and a House hearing about it.
  4. The Pentagon is the group in the Trump administration still fighting against Stephen Miller’s plans to drastically cut the number of refugees allowed in the U.S. The Pentagon argues that bringing in refugees is in our national security interest, and they’re specifically arguing for visas for Iraqis who’ve helped out U.S. troops.
  5. Trump plans to skip the UN summit on climate change next week and instead will chair a session on worldwide religious persecution.
  6. Due to the recent mass shootings, the Department of Homeland Security finally adds White Supremacy to its list of terrorist threats. The DHS was formed as a reaction to the 9/11 attacks, so their focus was on Muslim extremists, rightly or wrongly so. They unbelievably expanded to include minority groups before they included the White Supremacists attacking those groups.
    • This victory rings hollow to me. Six of the victims of the El Paso shooting were family members of DHS employees. So this is another instance of “it’s not a problem until it affects me.”

Climate:

  1. EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler threatens to cut U.S. highway funds to California, saying that our air is too polluted.
    • Why is this ironic? At the same time, Trump formally revokes California’s waiver on federal emission standards. The waiver allows the state to set stricter emissions limits than what the federal government mandates so that we can reduce our air pollution.
    • But whatevs. Ford, Honda, BMW and Volkswagen all say they’ll stick to their agreement with California on stricter emissions standards. Industry leaders say that Trump’s anti-trust lawsuit against them is causing other automakers to think twice about joining them, though.
  1. Tropical Depression Imelda drops over 40 inches of rain on parts of Texas, causing massive flooding and killing three people. This is the same area hit by Hurricane Harvey.
  2. Before the upcoming UN summit on climate change, millions of people march in the Youth Climate Strike in over 150 countries. An estimated 4 million people in thousands of cities participate.
  3. The bird population in the U.S. and Canada has fallen by almost a third since 1970, partly due to our encroachment on their habitats and the growing use of pesticides.
  4. In order to justify cutting aid to Guatemala, the Trump administration had to ignore its own evidence of climate change being a major factor in the current migration from Guatemala. Part of the aid Trump froze was supposed to go to help small farmers mitigate the effects of climate change. From a DHS official:
    • “Everyone knows [White House adviser Stephen] Miller isn’t interested in hearing about climate change,”
  1. Three Mile Island, the site of the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history, finally shuts down for good. Because of the nature of nuclear energy, it will take decades to completely decommission the plant—it should be complete in 2078.

Budget/Economy:

  1. In the first auto workers strike in 12 years, about 46,000 members of the United Auto Workers’ (UAW) at GM walk off the job. At issue is GM’s idling of five plants, wages, healthcare, and permanent positions for temporary employees.
    • There’s also a scandal within the union right now regarding misappropriation of funds. Bad timing there.
  1. All market indicators seem to be weird right now. The inverted bond yield might or might not be predicting a recession. The consumer price index might or might not be predicting inflation. Your guess is as good as anybody’s at this point.
  2. Trump complains that homeless people live in “our best highways, our best streets, our best entrances to buildings.” He says he’s speaking to tenants who “want to leave the country,” whatever that means. He also says homelessness started two years ago, and that he ended it in DC already.
  3. CEO confidence is at its lowest level since before Trump took office, and they’re downgrading their expectations for hiring and growth.
  4. The Fed cuts interest rates by 1/4 point for the second consecutive quarter with three dissenting votes from the board, reflecting 1) concerns about an economic downturn and 2) conflict within the Fed over whether the action is warranted.
  5. For the first time since 2007, the Fed injects money into the short-term money market due to a spiking “repo” rate. The repo rate is the price at which securities like U.S. government bonds can be temporarily swapped for cash. The Fed pumps up the market with $128 billion in cash.
  6. Trump waives tariffs on over 400 items imported from China. He says he’s having a little spat with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
  7. The farm bailout reaches $28 billion, which is more than twice what the automaker bailout cost us after they paid everything back (the auto bailout ended up costing U.S. taxpayers around $12 billion).
  8. Saudi Arabia says their oil output and production will return to normal by the end of the month.
  9. Amid hopes that Britain will avoid a no-deal Brexit, the British pound rises to a 2-month high against the dollar. Which isn’t saying much. In August, the pound was at its lowest rate against the dollar since 1985.
  10. The Trump administration asks the Supreme Court to hear a case that could allow them to fire the head of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, the agency created by Elizabeth Warren to be a watchdog against the kind of corporate malfeasance that played such a big role in the Great Recession.

Elections:

  1. Republicans in four states have cancelled their GOP primary elections, but Michigan Republicans aren’t able to. So instead they change the rules to ensure Trump gets all their delegates.
  2. The Alaska Republican Party cancels its 2020 presidential primary, becoming the fifth state to do so.
  3. Hate those coastal elites? Well, Trump just fundraised about $15 million off of them in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
  4. Finally Mitch McConnell puts his support behind $250 million in funding to harden our election security.

Miscellaneous:

  1. With Trump’s current nominee to head up FEMA being held up for personal issues, Trump will nominate Peter Gaynor to head up FEMA. He’s the current deputy director of FEMA.
  2. Police finally arrest Democratic donor Ed Buck after a third victim nearly dies at his home, which police are calling a drug house. This is a super bizarre story, and I don’t know how he wasn’t arrested sooner.
  3. Darrell Issa’s FBI file is holding up his nomination for director of the U.S. Trade and Development Agency. No word on what specifically is in that file, but Issa’s already looking into running for the House again in California’s 50th district where the current representative, Duncan Hunter, is indicted on 60 felony counts.
  4. Mike Pence brings his motorcade (eight SUVs) to Mackinac Island, MI, a national historic site that typically doesn’t allow non-emergency vehicular traffic. Pence is the first government official to break with the island’s tradition of not allowing cars. His trek from the airport to the Grand Hotel, host of the Republican Party conference, is all of one mile.
  5. Trump’s administration has one of the highest levels of turnover, with change in 78% of the positions. 31% of those have turned over multiple times.

Polls:

  1. A recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds that 69% of registered voters do not like Trump, even if they like his policies. That makes him the most disliked out of his five most recent predecessors.