This week, we learn that Republican leadership doesn’t care whether Trump is guilty of any misconduct, as Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham openly admit as much. Mitch McConnell tells us more than we should know about how the sausage is made:

• He made up that whole thing about letting voters decide just so he could block Merrick Garland’s nomination to the Supreme Court in 2016. He also says he wouldn’t do the same to Trump should an opening on the Supreme Court come up next year.
• He brags about blocking Obama’s nominees for lower courts.
• He’s aligning and coordinating the Senate impeachment trial with White House lawyers.
• He doesn’t care about the separation of powers.

Here’s what else happened in politics for the week ending December 15…

Missing From Last Week:

1. Dozens of graves in a Jewish cemetery near Strasbourg, France, were vandalized with swastikas and antisemitic graffiti. This is the latest in a series of antisemitic vandalism.

Shootings This Week:

1. There were FOUR mass shootings in the U.S. this week (defined as killing and/or injuring 4 or more people). Shooters kill 8 people and injure 14 more.

• • Two shooters open fire on a Kosher market. Six people are dead, including a police officer and the two shooters, and 3 people are injured. They’re still trying to figure out if this was a hate crime.
  • A shooter kills 1 person and injures 3 others in Saint Louis.
  • A shooter injures 4 teenagers in Ivanhoe, CA.
  • A drive-by shooter in Columbus, GA, kills 1 person and injures 4 others.

Russia:

1. Amid the impeachment hearings and the release of the inspector general’s report (and just a few hours after the articles of impeachment are announced), Trump meets behind closed doors with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

• • Trump says he warned Lavrov against any Russian meddling in our elections, but Lavrov says they didn’t even discuss elections. There’s one way Trump could avoid these conflicts of account, and that’s by maintaining transcripts of these meetings.
  • Ironically, this is Lavrov’s second White House meeting with Trump, while Ukraine President Zelensky has yet to get just one White House meeting.

2. A federal judge rejects Trump’s request to throw out a lawsuit that could require Mike Pompeo to turn over the records of a Trump meeting with Putin. The suit says Pompeo violated the Federal Records Act by allowing Trump to confiscate State Department notes about the meeting. Pompeo failed to preserve those notes.

Inspector General’s Report:

1. Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz releases his report on his investigation into the investigation of Russia’s meddling in our elections. Here are a few findings from the report:

• • The FBI’s opening of the investigation into campaign associates was not influenced by ”political bias or improper motivation.” Horowitz finds multiple instances of FBI agents both supporting and opposing Trump, but says neither preference caused investigators to bring those views into their work.
  • While Horowitz finds the FBI acted properly in opening the investigation, he also found issues with the FISA process in general and thinks the guidelines need to be revisited.
  • There were significant inaccuracies in the warrant for the surveillance of Carter Page. There were also omissions that undercut the probable cause for a warrant.
  • The Steele Dossier didn’t play a role in the FBI opening the investigation, but it did play a role in FBI lawyers deciding to support the surveillance request. It didn’t play a major role in the FISA warrant approval.
  • A low-level FBI lawyer altered the substance of an email thread relevant to the Carter Page FISA warrant. He added the words “not a source” making it look like the author of the forwarded thread had written that, but it was information the lawyer had received after receiving the thread. This is being investigated as a possible crime by Attorney General William Barr‘s criminal investigation into the opening of the Russia investigation.
  • Language was changed in the FISA report that dropped a description of Christopher Steele as a “well-placed intelligence source.”
  • And speaking of Steele, he was friends with Ivanka Trump, though it seems like more of a working relationship. Before starting his research, he was “favorably disposed” toward the Trump family.
  • The FBI didn’t try to get warrants for Manafort, Flynn, or Papadopoulos. Ironic, since those three all pleaded guilty and Page was never even charged.
  • There were no FBI plants in the Trump campaign.
  • Manafort and Page were already targets of investigations by the time the Russia investigation started; Manafort for money laundering and Page for counterintelligence reasons.
  • When the FBI briefed the Trump and Clinton campaigns on Russian interference in August of 2016, they placed an agent in the meeting with Trump’s campaign to assess Michael Flynn’s responses. This undermines the trust around intelligence briefings.

2. Horowitz testifies about his report before Congress. A few highlights:

• • He says his report doesn’t vindicate anybody—not Trump, not Comey, not McCabe. Nobody.
  • Lindsey Graham says some people at the FBI took the law into their own hands, despite the report stating the contrary. But he also says that it’s clear that Russia, not Ukraine, meddled in our elections.
  • Horowitz couldn’t find any evidence that Obama asked agencies to investigate Trump, nor that Obama had Trump’s phones tapped.
  • He reaffirms that the Steele dossier didn’t impact the decision to open the investigation.
  • They’re still looking into the leaks from the FBI’s New York field office, which was alleged to have leaked information to Rudy Giuliani about the Clinton email investigation.

3. Here are the errors made by the FBI that are highlighted in the report’s executive summary:

• • They omitted information about Page’s previous CIA interactions in the FISA warrant.
  • They said that Steele’s prior reporting was “corroborated and used in criminal proceedings,” a statement that wasn’t approved by Steele’s handler.
  • They didn’t reveal that Steele said one of his sources has a tendency to boast, nor that the FBI had recently opened an investigation into that source.
  • They said the FBI had found that Steele didn’t leak information to the press based on Steele’s claim he only told the FBI and Fusion GPS about it. Steele also reported the information to the State Department.
  • They didn’t include statements by George Papadopoulos that no one associated with the Trump campaign was collaborating with Russia or WikiLeaks on the DNC email releases.
  • They left out Page’s claims that he had never met or spoken to Paul Manafort. If true, those claims would undercut the theory that Page participated in a conspiracy with Russia for Manafort.
They cherry-picked Page’s statements to make their case, using statements that supported their case and omitting those that didn’t.

  • They left out information about one of Steele’s main sources, whose subsequent comments raised questions about certain allegations in the FISA applications.
  • They omitted statements about Steele made by former professional contacts.
  • They didn’t say that Steele was giving info to the Clinton campaign and others; that Fusion GPS was paying Steele to talk to the media; and that Steele didn’t want Trump elected.
  • They failed to make corrections to information about Steele on subsequent FISA applications.
  • They didn’t include Joseph Mifsud’s denials that he gave Papadopoulos information.
  • They didn’t include information that suggested Page didn’t have a role in the Republican party changing their stance on Ukraine in their party platform.

4. Horowitz finds no misconduct around these errors, found some of them to be serious, and said some could just have been overlooked. Horowitz makes several suggestions for the FBI to improve their processes in order to avoid some of these mistakes.

Response to the Inspector General Report:

1. Trump says the Russia investigation was an attempted overthrow of the government (the investigation began before he was even elected).
2. Trump calls the FBI “scum” at a campaign rally.
3. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who Trump had over for a little White House visit, says that there are no facts to support Russian interference in U.S. elections.

• • At least Pompeo pushes back a little. He says, “We think we’ve shared plenty of facts to show what happened in the 2016 election with our Russian counterparts. We don’t think there’s any mistake about what really transpired there.”

4. Bill Barr interprets the report to say it makes clear that “the FBI launched an intrusive investigation of a U.S. presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps taken. It is also clear that, from its inception, the evidence produced by the investigation was consistently exculpatory.”

• • I’m beginning to wonder if Barr can read.
  • Barr says he still thinks the FBI “may have” operated in bad faith, and says it was improper of the FBI to continue investigating after Trump took office (because POTUS is above the law?).
  • Also, he says the nation was turned on its head for a bogus narrative. Tell that to the eight people associated with the probe who were convicted or found guilty.

5. Attorney General Bill Barr goes on a press tour, giving interviews where he criticizes his own inspector general’s findings and basically says Horowitz is wrong.

• • Barr says the FBI’s investigation had a “very flimsy” basis and there was no evidence of collusion (which Barr knows is not a legal term).
  • He says Horowitz’s analysis was very limited.
  • Barr again asserts that Obama spied on political opponents and that the FBI operated in bad faith.
  • Barr leaves out the fact that the FBI was already aware of Russian efforts to meddle in our elections by the time they opened their investigation, and that they were aware that Russia was trying to cultivate American assets.
  • His harsh criticism of his own department is affecting morale, and officials worry that this will cause our intelligence agencies to be less likely to pursue wrongdoing by our elected officials.

6. U.S. Attorney John Durham, who Barr picked to run a second, criminal investigation into the origins of the Russia investigations, says that even though he advised the inspector general last month, he doesn’t agree with some of the conclusions of the report.

• • When he met with Horowitz last month, Durham said that the tip from the Australian official, which started the Russia investigation, was sufficient to start a preliminary investigation, a narrow distinction.

7. FBI Director Chris Wray says the inspector general didn’t find bias or improper motivation in the opening of the Russia investigation, nor did he find that the FISA request was unwarranted. Wray does say that he’ll begin immediately correcting the issues that Horowitz uncovered with processes and procedures.

• • Wray also says not to listen to Trump’s conspiracy theories on Ukraine, adding that Americans need to be savvier consumers of news.

8. During Horowitz’s hearing, Lindsey Graham says, “It was the Russians, ladies and gentleman, who stole the Democratic National Committee emails, Podesta’s emails, and screwed around with Hillary Clinton. It wasn’t the Ukrainians. it was the Russians.”

Legal Fallout:

1. Following the release of the inspector general’s report, Andrew McCabe says that being accused of treason by the president was revolting and terrifying.
2. The Supreme Court agrees to hear three separate cases over whether Trump needs to release his financial records.
3. Lisa Page, the former FBI lawyer whose private texts with Peter Strzok were publicized as part of the investigation into the Russia investigation, sues the FBI and DOJ for violating the Privacy Act. She was told throughout that none of her private messages would be made public, but then they showed those messages to reporters.

• • Trump attacks Page yet again at a political rally, saying she had to get a restraining order against Strzok (among other things). She says that’s a lie.
  • Page says that the release of those messages, along with Trump’s continued attacks against her, has radically altered her everyday life.

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 Senate confirms yet another judge who was rated “not qualified” by the ABA. Lawrence VanDyke will take a seat on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeal.

Healthcare:

1. The Supreme Court refuses to hear an appeal of Kentucky’s abortion law that requires doctors to perform medically unnecessary procedures before performing an abortion. So now we all will spend millions in insurance dollars for procedures that are solely designed to make women feel guilty.
2. A study published this week supports the medical opinion that attempting to reverse medication abortions is dangerous to the health of the mother.

• • The study was designed to find out if a medication abortion could be halted with hormone treatment, but they had to stop the study when three of the women hemorrhaged so much blood they had to go to the ER.
  • Still, six states require providers to tell their patients it can be reversed, and lawmakers stand by their bills despite evidence to the contrary.

International:

1. Benjamin Netanyahu resigns from all his ministerial positions (health, welfare, agriculture, and diaspora affairs), but remains as Prime Minister despite being under indictment for corruption and fraud.
2. The Washington Post obtains a trove of government documents about the war in Afghanistan showing that U.S. officials haven’t been telling the truth about the situation in Afghanistan for 18 years and that they hid evidence that the war was unwinnable.

• • The war and attempt at rebuilding have cost us at least $1 trillion.
  • U.S. officials continually tried to paint a rosier picture than reality.
  • In 2008, Congress created SIGAR, a group to investigate waste and fraud.
  • In 2015, the mission of SIGAR changed to gather lessons learned from the debacle.
  • This war is now 18 years old.

3. The Trump administration plans to withdraw 4,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan.
4. Brits give the Tories a landslide victory in the elections called by Boris Johnson. This makes Brexit all but a done deal and gives the markets a little certainty. It also renews calls in Scotland for the country to leave the U.K. and rejoin the European Union.
5. China’s foreign minister calls the U.S. the “troublemaker of the world.” Chinese leaders are angry about U.S. support of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests.
6. The Senate confirms the current Deputy Secretary of State, John Sullivan, to be U.S. Ambassador to Russia.
7. After being delayed by the White House three times, the Senate finally passes a resolution recognizing the Armenian genocide.
8. Trump’s senior aides further restrict who can listen in on his calls with foreign leaders. Fewer people also receive the transcripts of those calls.
9. Dozens are injured when protests in Beirut, Lebanon, grow violent. Anti-Government demonstrations have been ongoing since October.
10. Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests have been going on for six months.
11. India’s new citizenship law sets off destructive protests. The law offers Hindus and Christians in neighboring countries a path to citizenship, but doesn’t make the same offer to Muslims.

Border Wall/Shutdown/National Emergency:

1. A federal judge in Texas says Trump can’t use $3.6 billion in military funds to pay for his border wall. He says Trump’s emergency proclamation isn’t justified. The suit was brought by El Paso County, which doesn’t want the border wall in their section of the border.

Family Separation:

1. Since the Trump administration ended its family separation policy at the southern border, the government has taken more than 1,100 children from their families.

Travel Ban/Immigration/Discrimination:

1. Thousands of protestors march in Glasgow, Scotland, to protest the re-election of Boris Johnson, which many think was based on anti-immigration and protectionist sentiments.
2. Ukraine’s in the news for a completely different reason. Kyiv hosts a “militant black metal” music festival, Asgardsrei, which has become a major networking center for international neo-Nazis. Asgardsrei was founded by a far-right Russian dissident.
3. Trump signs a much-maligned executive order that extends protections to Jews under the Civil Rights Act. At first, the EO appears to redefine the Jewish religion as the Jewish ethnicity, but it actually spells out that since so many hate groups don’t differentiate the two, this is required to give needed protections from antisemitism.
4. A federal judge rejects the Trump administration’s request to delay a case related to the handling of adding a citizenship question to the 2020 Census. The lawsuit is against Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross for ignoring subpoenas.

Climate:

1. Smoke has covered Sidney, Australia, for a month due to the high volume of wildfires burning there. The air at some points measured at 11 times the level considered hazardous.
2. Greenland’s ice sheet is now losing about seven times the amount it was losing per year in the 1990s. The losses have doubled each decade.
3. The percent of Americans calling climate change “a crisis” has jumped from 23% to 38% over the past five years. Over 75% of U.S. adults and teenagers think humans influence the climate. But they aren’t quite clear on the science or what human activities are the biggest contributors.
4. This is more environmental than climate related, but a volcano erupts in New Zealand, killing at least eight people an injuring more. Seismologists had raised the alert level for volcanic activity, but tourists were still allowed on the island.
5. Time Magazine names 16-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg as its 2019 person of the year. Cue the social media bullying of a teenage activist. Trump joins in to mock her on Twitter. #BeBest
6. The two-week UN Climate Summit in Madrid ends with disputes over implementing the Paris agreement. Countries are supposed to ratchet up implementation in 2020.

Budget/Economy:

1. Trump has blocked appointments to the World Trade Organization’s dispute resolution court long enough to make the global watchdog ineffective.

• • The U.S. has been one of the biggest benefactors of a functioning WTO.
  • Trump has reduced the number on the court from 7 to 3, which means they don’t have enough members to issue a binding ruling. He’s doing with the FEC.

2. Internal documents show that Betsy DeVos overrode career staff in the Department of Education’s Borrower Defense Unit when she decided that defrauded students should only get partial debt relief.
3. House Democrats have been working on amendments to the updated NAFTA deal on workers’ rights, environmental protections, and prescription drug costs. Representatives of each country agree to the amendments.

• • This is one of Trump’s top priorities, but it still cracks me up that it’s basically NAFTA (the worst trade deal ever made, according to Trump) plus parts of the TPP (really the worst trade deal ever made, according to Trump) plus a few tweaks here and there. It needed to be modernized, but this is not groundbreaking.

4. The U.S. and China reach a tentative phase 1 agreement to start winding down the trade war.

• • The U.S. suspends the tariffs slated to go into effect this week.
  • China cancels its retaliatory tariffs.
  • China agrees to increase purchases of U.S. goods by $200 billion over the next two years, including $32 billion in agriculture (that’ll almost make up the amount we’ll have paid in farm bailouts).
  • The deal also includes stronger protections for patents, copyrights, and trademarks.

5. U.S. companies and consumers have been paying around $40 billion per year for Trump’s trade war with China.
6. Congress reaches an agreement on a spending bill for 2020, averting a government shutdown.

Elections:

1. A federal judge orders Georgia’s Governor Brian Kemp to submit to two hours of questioning for a lawsuit around irregularities in last year’s state elections. Kemp was the Secretary of State overseeing his own election in the race for governor.
2. Trump threatens to not participate in the 2020 presidential debates because they aren’t fair.

Miscellaneous:

1. Sinclair Broadcasting drops commentator Boris Epshteyn’s segments. Sinclair has been forcing its local stations to air his “news” segments that were actually right-wing propaganda pieces.
2. Four months before the Mongolian government gave Donald Trump Jr. special treatment to obtain a hunting permit, Mongolian officials visited Mar-a-Lago.

Polls:

1. A Fox News poll shows that 54% of U.S. adults think Trump should be impeached.
2. 50% think he should be impeached and removed.
3. 22% say what Trump did to Zelensky was OK.
4. 52% say Trump hasn’t cooperated enough.