Like so many products of Trumpworld, de Caluwe is both clownish and menacing. Menacingly clownish. Clownishly menacing.
tomhsays
McConnell’s legacy will long outlive him.
Religion Clause
Supreme Court Grants Review In Contraceptive Mandate Exemption Case
Jan 17, 2020
The U.S. Supreme Court today granted review in Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania and Trump, President of the U.S. v. Pennsylvania (certiorari granted 1/17/2020). The two cases were consolidated for oral argument. In the case, the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a district court’s entry of a nationwide preliminary injunction against enforcement of the Trump Administration’s final rules expanding the scope of the exemptions under the Affordable Care Act for employers having religious or moral objections to contraceptive coverage.
From the latest batch of materials released by the House – “Parnas holding copy of the Pete Sessions letter to Pompeo smearing Yovanovitch that he delivered to Trump as part of campaign for his foreign backers. Sessions said he did not commit an official act cuz of Parnas donations. Envelope is marked ‘official business’ & ‘Pete Sessions’.”
In reference to comment 483 in the previous chapter of this thread: SC linked to a Twitter thread that included this comment from a reader:
The most obvious explanation for why Kash Patel was showing up in the Oval Office pretending to be the NSC Ukraine guy is because Nunes and Harvey told him to.
Yes! That makes so much sense now.
Derek Harvey is a top aide to Representative Devin Nunes. Nunes is the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee. The new information and documents obtained from Lev Parnas clearly implicate Nunes in Trump’s Ukraine scheme.
The text messages corroborate Parnas’s previous claims that he arranged conversations with the Ukrainian prosecutors for the Nunes aide. And they deepen questions about how much Nunes knew about the pressure campaign — even as he served as one of Trump’s most vociferous defenders during the House impeachment hearings. […]
Lev Parnas says Devin Nunes was “involved in getting all this stuff on Biden.” […]
The series of comments from 483 to 500 in the previous chapter of this thread are well worth reading.
An interesting video from “AM Joy,” aired this morning: Link
Lev Parnas’s interview with Rachel Maddow in which Parnas makes allegations implicating Donald Trump, Attorney General William Barr, and more is discussed with Maddow on AM JOY with Joy Reid. Maddow tells Joy that Parnas described Barr as, in Parnas’ opinion, allegedly being “fully apprised of what was going on in Ukraine.”
The conversation between Joy Reid and Rachel Maddow is quite good. They analyze the new information well.
From Maddow:
He [Trump] doesn’t do things directly. […] He would rage behind closed doors, “You, fire her!” […] This sheds light on why they needed the smear campaign. […] If there was a public smear campaign in the US press about Yovanovitch, that would both enable the President to potentially fire her by tweet, and it also might clear the way to sort of collapse all of the normal channels so that he could fire her regardless of whatever his ridiculous causes were. It would create a sense that there was some real reason to fire her. […]
That part is interesting in terms of understanding how dysfunctional Trump is, and how chaotic the entire system around him has become. Everything is provisional. However, Trump obsessively moves toward his goal of firing Yovanovitch and getting dirt on Biden no matter how dysfunctional everything is.
Other parts of Joy’s interview are even more important in revealing the Trump team’s crimes.
[…] Last night’s document dump makes clear that there was at least some truth to the claim Ambassador Yovanovitch was being surveilled by some group of feral Trumpers.
The latest documents are a bit hard to make sense of at first. So let me take them one step at a time. What we have are screenshots of WhatsApp conversations between Hyde and another man named Anthony de Caluwe. Hyde apparently took screenshots of those exchanges and then sent those as attachments to Parnas. A number of those claims we had earlier seen Hyde sending to Parnas – for instance the line about having someone “on the inside” – were directly copied and pasted messages de Caluwe sent to Hyde.
So just to keep this all straight. Hyde sent Parnas screenshots of his exchanges with de Caluwe and he also separately copied and pasted individual sentences of text and sent those as well, as though they were messages from Hyde himself. […].
Now who is Anthony de Caluwe and what is his involvement? Well, this is a little convoluted too. Let me try to unpack it.
Yesterday Hyde put out a profanity-laced video message in which he denied knowing anything about Ukraine or having anyone there surveilling anyone. He demanded that Adam Schiff release the other side of the WhatsApp messages which he said were with someone named Anthony de Caluwe who “works for government departments whatever he is” or later “some intel guy probably.”
NBC News contacted de Caluwe yesterday based on that video. He confirmed knowing Hyde and confirmed that Hyde had asked him to surveil Yovanovich. Be he claimed he refused because doing so would be illegal.
NBC’s reporting with de Caluwe seemed to stop there until last night’s documents showed that Caluwe had at least told Hyde he was doing just that. At that point, perhaps unsurprisingly, de Caluwe stopped replying to NBC’s messages. But NBC was contacted by Karyn Turk, a pro-Trump Youtube personality, who told them she was now representing de Caluwe with the press. (Turk was sentenced to a month in federal prison last week for stealing her deceased mother’s social security checks.)
So who is de Caluwe? The first thing is that he’s yet another Trump mega-fan. His Twitter and Facebook pages are non-stop MAGA and Trump. The first suggests he’s some sort of financial services trader and lists locations as “MIAMI/ZURICH/LONDON”; the latter gives a tagline as “IT Tech Geek”. […] Turk told NBC News that de Caluwe is a Belgian, who is based in Florida but frequently travels to Belgium. (It’s not clear whether that means he’s a Belgian citizen or just from there originally.) The cell number de Caluwe was texting from in the WhatsApp messages to Hyde has a Belgium country code. […]
For the moment, all we can say with some confidence is that this wasn’t just Hyde making stuff up out of whole cloth. He was talking to someone, de Caluwe, who at least claimed to have Yovanovitch under some kind of surveillance. Whether that was true or how elaborate the surveillance was, if it was true, remains to be seen.
RICHMOND, Va. — Days before a planned gun rights rally that has set Virginia’s capital on edge, President Trump warned that state Democrats were threatening Americans’ right to bear arms.
“Your 2nd Amendment is under very serious attack in the Great Commonwealth of Virginia,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter on Friday. “That’s what happens when you vote for Democrats, they will take your guns away. Republicans will win Virginia in 2020. Thank you Dems!”
The state legislature, where Democrats recently took control for the first time in a generation, is considering several gun control bills, including measures that would require background checks for people purchasing firearms and give municipalities the authority to ban weapons in public buildings.
Thousands of people are expected to descend on the Capitol in Richmond on Monday to protest those measures, in a state where hunting is popular and gun ownership is common in rural areas. Several men with ties to right-wing militias who had planned to attend the rally have been arrested in recent days.
On Saturday, the area around the State Capitol was enclosed by a temporary chain-link fence, barricades and patrolled by groups of law enforcement officers.
Gov. Ralph Northam declared a state of emergency and banned firearms and other weapons on the Capitol grounds this week, further inflaming gun rights activists. The order was challenged in court by the rally’s organizers, the Virginia Citizens Defense League. On Friday evening, the State Supreme Court upheld the ban.
European countries are trying to save the Iran nuclear deal. They are trying to clean up Trump’s mess, as Trump continues to add to the mess.
To save the Iran nuclear deal, the EU and the E3 — Britain, France and Germany — must bend the space-time continuum, stretching a mediation period that could last just 30 days into as many weeks, or months, as it takes to calm the fury between the U.S. and Iran, and to broker a new deal.
Doing so will require the unanimous agreement of Russia and China, and of Iran — any of whom can declare the mediation process dead and prevent further stalling.
It will require withstanding a potential barrage of bullying threats by U.S. President Donald Trump, as well as maintaining the support of U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson as he leads his country out of the EU and begins to negotiate new trade agreements, including with the U.S.
And it will require cajoling Trump and Iranian leaders into signing a new accord, possibly one already proposed unsuccessfully by French President Emmanuel Macron, at a time when the Europeans have virtually no incentives to offer Washington or Tehran.
And those are the more realistic scenarios.
The long-shot options are seen by European officials as a way to keep treading heavy water long enough for U.S. voters to oust Trump from office in November or, seemingly even less likely, for street protests or other unforeseen events to drive Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, from power.
In short, saving the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), will require nothing less than political miracles and a magical manipulation of the calendar. But EU countries view that as crucial to keeping themselves in the game and preventing a direct standoff between Tehran and Washington.
As a result, the EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, and his team, who are tasked with coordinating the effort, have already waved their wand and created a cloud of confusion over whether the clock has even started counting toward the first 15-day deadline in the mediation process formally known as the “dispute resolution mechanism” or DRM.
Under the terms of Article 36 of the JCPOA, Iran or any of the other guarantors of the deal could declare the other side in breach, and trigger the DRM — setting in motion a 15-day review process, to be followed in case of no resolution by another 15 days of review at the level of foreign ministers. A three-member advisory board could also be created to issue a non-binding opinion on the dispute, operating in parallel with the 15-day foreign ministers’ review or in place of it.
Either the first 15 days, or the second 15 days, can be extended, by an unlimited amount of time, as long as the E3, Iran, Russia and China all agree. […]
Yesterday, Trump, ever the unhelpful blowhard, tweeted:
The so-called “Supreme Leader” of Iran, who has not been so Supreme lately, had some nasty things to say about the United States and Europe. Their economy is crashing, and their people are suffering. He should be very careful with his words!
From Melinda Haring, writing for the Washington Post:
This week, the House Intelligence Committee released a trove of documents from Lev Parnas, Rudolph W. Giuliani’s notorious fixer. The dump includes WhatsApp messages Parnas exchanged with Ukrainian officials. On March 26, 2019, then-Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko sent a text to Parnas: “Already getting killed in the Washington Post.” Parnas responded, “I know.” The article Lutsenko was complaining about was mine.
In my piece, I described how Lutsenko was using the conservative media in the United States to push a false narrative about Ukraine. Specifically, Lutsenko used an interview with journalist John Solomon of the Hill to announce that he was opening a criminal investigation into an alleged attempt by a top Ukrainian law enforcement official to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. […]
It was quite clear at the time that the story was fake, and I dismantled it accordingly. Yet I and other Ukraine-watchers had no idea that we had spotted just one small part of a much larger scheme to boost […] Trump’s reelection via intrigues in Kyiv. We didn’t know that Giuliani was already plotting to dig up dirt on former vice president Joe Biden. We hadn’t heard of Parnas or Igor Fruman.
What we thought we were seeing was then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko trying to curry favor with Trump for his own domestic political advantage. That spring, Poroshenko was facing a reelection of his own, and he was tanking in the polls. As I noted in my article, he clearly had an incentive to help Trump by promoting the story of Ukraine collusion in the 2016 election. (Back then, Trump was still dealing with the Mueller investigation, and he could have used the diversion.) A White House meeting in return would have been a big help to Poroshenko.
I might not have been entirely wrong about that. What I didn’t see, though, was that the real push was coming from Washington. We didn’t know that Giuliani and Co. were orchestrating a full-blown campaign to pressure Ukraine into going after Biden.
Parnas got Lutsenko to play along in exchange for a promise to remove Marie Yovanovitch, then serving as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. […]
“Lutsenko was motivated out of a lust for revenge,” a top former U.S. official told me. […]
The Parnas-Lutsenko chats show how deep the scheme went. In February, long before the notorious July 2019 phone call that prompted Trump’s impeachment inquiry, Team Giuliani was pressuring Poroshenko to announce an investigation into Biden and his son Hunter. In one of his interviews this week, Parnas claimed that the first quid pro quo offer was made to Poroshenko; in exchange for launching an investigation into Biden, […]
Parnas would continue the same tactics with Poroshenko’s successor, Volodymyr Zelensky. As the chats show, officials in Kyiv understood very well that Parnas represented Giuliani and therefore Trump. Parnas had access to Zelensky’s inner circle as well as the head of the Ukrainian security service […]
I find myself wondering how the United States will be able to promote democracy and anti-corruption programs in Ukraine now that Americans acting in the name of the president have shown that they can be as transactional as the most ruthless oligarchs. And I wonder how the U.S. foreign service will continue to attract top talent when the president and the secretary of state won’t stand by their own ambassadors.
How much worse can it get?
As the National Archives of the United States, we are and have always been completely committed to preserving our archival holdings, without alteration.
In an elevator lobby promotional display for our current exhibit on the 19th Amendment, we obscured some words on protest signs in a photo of the 2017 Women’s March.
This photo is not an archival record held by the @usnatarchives, but one we licensed to use as a promotional graphic. Nonetheless, we were wrong to alter the image.
We have removed the current display and will replace it as soon as possible with one that uses the unaltered image.
We apologize, and will immediately start a thorough review of our exhibit policies and procedures so that this does not happen again.
I don’t see anything about accountability in there. Someone did this or told others to do it, and it hints at other alterations of records to mollify the baby in the Oval Office.
Rebecca Ballhaus: “Robert Hyde, who denied to Buzzfeed last year that he was behind these Facebook pages, now is complaining about Facebook taking down those pages, which purported to by run by groups of Trump supporters in different states.”
Christopher Bouzy, who created Bot Sentinel: “Please be advised there are inauthentic accounts pretending to be Warren and Sanders supporters, it appears they are attempting to inflame tensions between the two camps. I will release a report soon, but please be cautious when you see an account tweeting questionable content.”
Craig Silverman, BuzzFeed, re #15: “Unbelievable. We showed these pages working in coordination, misleading people about their connections and nature, and spreading false information back in November. But now FB acts on them because the guy running them ends up in the news?”
Right now, Texas is under siege, and there’s not too much our military can do about it.
On Jan. 7, Gov. Greg Abbott told the Domestic Terrorism Task Force that the Texas Department of Information Resources (DIR) measured, over a 48-hour period, a colossal increase of cyberattacks from Iran on their state agencies “at a rate of about 10,000 per minute.” […]
Iran has invested heavily in cyberwarfare ever since the Stuxnet virus attack on their uranium enrichment facility in November 2007. […] During the past 10 years, Iranian hackers have breached several U.S. banks, stolen terabytes of information from universities and government agencies, and even broke into the computer system of a dam outside New York City. In 2013, right after Sheldon Adelson suggested that the United States threaten Tehran with a massive explosion, his Las Vegas Sands’ Casino had its hard drives wiped, allegedly costing $40 million in damages. […]
The Iranian cyberattacks have seriously escalated since the Jan. 2 assassination of Soleimani, and will likely continue to increase for some time. […]
it’s gotten so bad that even disgraced former DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen admitted that cyberattacks have moved from an “epidemic” to a “pandemic.” Now Iran is launching an all-out assault, joining other American adversaries such as Russia, China, and North Korea. We can expect ongoing attacks against critical infrastructure sectors, major businesses, and even our elections for the foreseeable future.
We are in desperate need of strong leadership to fight this new war—and it is a war. Unfortunately, we have Donald Trump, who POLITICO appropriately refers to as the “anti-cybersecurity president.” […]
Trump has practically waged his own personal war against any and all cybersecurity measures. In April 2018, one month after Trump congratulated Putin on his fourth consecutive sham re-election, Trump demoted and marginalized our nation’s top cybersecurity officials across various agencies. The following month, he completely eliminated the vital Cybersecurity Coordinator on the National Security Council. He’s done everything he can to leave the nation more vulnerable to these types of attacks […]
Trump has openly encouraged foreign cyberattacks that he thinks will personally benefit him, and has previously stated that he did not believe his own intelligence agencies were more credible than Putin’s word that Russia would never engage in a cyberwar against us.
Many suspect that Trump is actually counting on foreign intervention to help his election campaign once again. [Mitch] McConnell has refused to allow any election security bills to come up for a vote, although a tough election year has been weakening his resolve.
Even worse than Moscow Mitch is Trump ally Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican who leads the Senate committee on cybersecurity issues. He has largely escaped media scrutiny thus far, but has been very successful at blocking all major cybersecurity legislation during Trump’s tenure. […]
At the other end of the spectrum, an assortment of military leaders and cyber experts have not only asked to make cyberwarfare a high priority for the nation’s defense, but have called for the establishment of a new force to tackle what’s become the country’s top foreign threat. […]
Trump, for his part, did agree that the nation needed a new branch of the military; unfortunately, it was the Space Force. […] it literally started off as a joke. Trump, who is not an expert on anything, put about as much thought into this new military force as one would expect. This was how he announced the effort:
You know, I was saying it the other day because we’re doing a tremendous amount of work in space. I said, maybe we need a new force. We’ll call it the Space Force. And I was not really serious. And then I said, what a great idea! Maybe we’ll have to do that. That could happen.
That could be the big breaking story… Ahhhh, look at those [reporters] back there. AHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, that fake news.”
And just like that, BOOM! A multi-billion dollar boondoggle was born.
According to Trump, the next “warfighting domain” is space. In describing the new military branch, your president envisions spacesuited warriors in spaceships fighting in outer space. Some of the first duties the Space Force’s new commander has been tasked with is the critical selection of a uniform design, logo, and an official service song. Trump’s campaign helpfully put out six potential Space Force logos in a competition, complete with cartoon rocket ships and slogans like “Mars Awaits.” […]
The Pentagon just released the new uniforms, and the internet is having a field day.
Thankfully, the Pentagon and Congressional leaders managed to take Trump’s preposterous idea and essentially just repackage existing military space missions from the Air Force and create a new military branch. This seems to have placated Trump, and his followers love him for it. Although what they think it actually is might be the most hilarious thing you’ve ever seen. [See the link for video]
[…] The service has nothing to do with rockets or going to Mars. Instead, it will primarily be focused on managing information from satellites. Unlike what Trump is telling his followers, it will NOT be, as one aerospace experts puts it, about “putting military servicemembers in space, it has nothing to do with NASA, it’s not about protecting Earth from asteroids or aliens.”
[…] former astronaut Mark Kelly has argued [that] submarines don’t get the same amount of attention as surface ships in the Navy, and yet no one has ever argued that the solution should be that they get their own service. […]
Reporter David Fahrenthold is responsible for perhaps 80% of everything we know about Donald Trump’s ongoing business operations. In a start-of-year summary of where things stand, Fahrenthold and other Washington Post reporters wrote up a terse rundown of the state of the presidential grift-o-matic; they question, among other things, whether the Trump family purging their businesses of undocumented workers (only after being caught, of course) will raise labor costs and whether the hit Donald’s companies have been taking due to their association with, you know, him will compel Trump to sell off assets or take other, similarly drastic measures.
Donald Trump only months ago sincerely, truly ordered the next G7 Summit be held at one of his own golf resorts, for example, and had the White House defending that obviously crooked money grab before backing down again. […]
Trump has begun to explore a possible half-billion dollar sale of his Washington D.C. hotel […] It has remained one of the easiest and most plausibly legal ways of buying presidential goodwill short of Mar-a-Lago membership itself […]
Selling the hotel for a half-billion dollars in an election year, however, opens up an entirely new avenue of grift. To hell with the petty stuff; if the royals of Saudi Arabia want a half-billion dollars worth of personal favors from the United States president they can write a single check and be done with it. If the same Russian oligarchs willing to polish Sen. Mitch McConnell’s record with the home crowd, to the tune of $200 million in investment, want to refinance their most loyal American defender, a man who yet again finds himself in steep debt despite every past attempt to save his bacon, they can spend two and a half times that much and own an American president outright. […]
The short version is that Trump’s properties here and abroad continue to not do well, the supplications of supporters are still not nearly enough to match the damage done as the rest of the nation cringes away from them, we continue to know almost nothing about the true nature of Trump’s finances but all investigation suggests he is again burdened by massive debts, […]
If you think the man can handle that sort of pressure without doing something astonishingly crooked and/or stupid, you haven’t been paying attention.
SC @19, yeah. I see that Trump’s legal team is full of bombast. They are highly indignant, accusing the Democrats of a “brazen and unlawful attempt” to overturn the results of the 2016 presidential election. Same old, same old.
[…] The articles of impeachment submitted by House Democrats are a dangerous attack on the right of the American people to freely choose their president, […]
This is a brazen and unlawful attempt to overturn the results of the 2016 election and interfere with the 2020 election, now just months awa. This highly partisan and reckless obsession with impeaching the president began even before his election and continues to this day. […]
Translation: Please, please let the Russians help Trump win the 2020 election! Postpone all of this impeachment stuff until after Trump is elected. Okay? Please also let Trump, Rudy, et.al. bring the Ukrainians onto the Trump team by ponying up bogus indictments of Trump’s rivals. Okay? We’ll only commit these particular crimes between now and November 2020. Deal?
The House Democratic managers argue the Senate must “eliminate the threat that the President poses to America’s national security” in the 111-page legal brief they filed Saturday. The brief lays out their impeachment case against President Trump.
With opening arguments in the Senate trial to begin Wednesday afternoon, the seven House managers had until 5 p.m. Saturday to file their brief describing why Trump should be convicted and removed from office. […]
The House legal filing reiterates the findings of the House Intelligence and Judiciary panels, which, after hearing from witnesses and experts, settled on charging Trump last month with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
“The evidence overwhelmingly establishes that he is guilty of both,” the managers wrote in the brief. “The only remaining question is whether the members of the Senate will accept and carry out the responsibility placed on them by the Framers of our Constitution and their constitutional Oaths.” […]
Forgot to say in comment 21 that, of course, the Republicans are also saying that “The articles of impeachment violate the Constitution. They are defective in their entirety.” Dunderheads.
Andrew Peek, the senior director for European and Russian affairs at the National Security Council, has been placed on administrative leave pending a security-related investigation, people familiar with the situation tell Axios.
Driving the news: Peek had been expected to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland next week, where President Trump is expected to meet with a number of world leaders as the impeachment trial takes place back in the Senate.
-Peek declined to comment.
-White House and National Security Council officials declined to discuss the situation. “We do not discuss personnel matters,” the NSC said in a statement to Axios.
Why it matters: Peek’s responsibilities at the NSC, and before that at the State Department, touch on a number of sensitive areas.
-He joined the NSC in November after serving as a deputy assistant secretary at the State Department, where he focused on Iraq and Iran.
-He previously served as a strategic adviser to now-retired Marine Gen. John Allen when Allen was commander of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.
Rep. Ro Khanna, a Sanders surrogate, tweeted: “There is absolutely no justification for anyone tweeting snakes at Senator Warren or any of her supporters —some who include women & people of color. It should stop. At the core of progressivism is respect for every participant & a belief in reasoned debate to advance a position.”
The responses thanking him for saying it and suggesting that he ask Sanders to call it out are getting swamped by the snake-emoji brigade (note #16 above) mocking and attacking Khanna, who is, again, a Sanders campaign surrogate.
NEW: The top Russia expert on Trump’s National Security Council, Andrew Peek, has left his post, just a couple months in, sources tell me, @nwadhams and @justinsink.
That’s the Fiona Hill, Tim Morrison, Russia/Ukraine job.
Peek was escorted from WH on Friday. Story out soon.
…There is no sound basis for Alan Dershowitz to claim that abuse of power is not an impeachable offense. In addition to being at odds with common sense, this claim is contradicted by a clear and consistent body of historical evidence.
Some of the best evidence comes from the case of Warren Hastings, which informed the drafting Art. II, Sec 4. The fact that he was not guilty of treason, but still deserved to be impeached, was a major reason “other high crimes and misdemeanors” was added to the Constitution.
Edmund Burke drew up impeachment charges against Hastings in 1786, and his trial began in the House of Lords in February 1788. Burke’s celebrated speeches and reports against Hastings—widely reprinted in US newspapers at the time—often accused him of abuse of power.
E.g., in a trial speech on 2/15/1788, Burke said: “It is by this tribunal, that statesmen, who abuse their power, are accused by statesmen, and tried by statesmen; not upon the niceties of a narrow jurisprudence, but upon the enlarged and solid principles of state morality…”
“…It is here that those who by the abuse of power have violated the spirit of law can never hope for protection from any of its forms; it is here that those who have refused to conform themselves to its perfections can never hope to escape through any of its defects…”
The next day (Feb. 16, 1788), Burke charged that Hastings “took advantage of the imperfections of the institution [i.e., the East India Company] to let in his abuse of the powers, with which he was intrusted.”
Finally, in an April 1794 report, Burke wrote that the House of Commons had chosen to impeach Hastings “because the inferior courts were habituated…to try men for the abuse only of their individual and natural powers, which can extend but a little way.” Burke then added…
“…But in the cause which your managers have in charge, the circumstances are the very reverse….The abuses, stated in our impeachment, are not those of mere individual, natural faculties, but the abuses of civil and political authority.”
There are many other sources & precedents that undercut Dershowitz’s claim. For example, abuse of power was one of the articles of impeachment adopted by the House Judiciary Committee against Richard Nixon in 1974 and against Bill Clinton in 1998.
In the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson, House Manager Benjamin F. Butler of Massachusetts defined “high crime or misdemeanor” to include “the abuse of discretionary power from improper motives or for any improper purpose.”
At the 1787 constitutional convention, Edmund Randolph explained that “The propriety of impeachments was a favorite principle with him [because]… The Executive will have great opportunit[ie]s of abusing his power.”
Finally, there is the text of the Constitution itself, which imposes solemn obligations of “faithful execution” on the President in exercising all of his executive powers. Abusing delegated powers is the antithesis of faithfully executing them.
All of these sources and others like them (e.g., Hamilton’s remark on the “abuse or violation of some public trust” in Federalist 65) suggest that Dershowitz – and Trump – will have a hard time making a persuasive case that “abuse of power” is not an impeachable offense.
For at least some GOP Senators, Republican voters, or others who profess to be originalists, however, Burke’s impeachment of Hastings may be the most relevant and instructive precedent confirming what should be obvious: grave abuses of power can be impeachable.
President Donald Trump made just 15 false claims two weeks ago, a holiday week during which he uttered few public remarks.
He gave fact checkers only a brief respite. Back to Washington and back to doing interviews and campaign rallies, Trump made 81 false claims last week. That is tied for the fifth-highest total in the 27 weeks we have counted at CNN.
It was an eclectic batch of dishonesty. Among other things, Trump took unearned credit for both the Ethiopia-Eritrea peace agreement and for the drop in the US cancer death rate, absurdly claimed that NATO “had no money” before his presidency, wrongly denied that his golf excursions cost taxpayers any money, and repeated his usual varied inaccuracies about impeachment, immigration and the nuclear agreement with Iran.
Trump made 27 of the false claims at his campaign rally in Toledo, Ohio. He made 16 more in a Fox News interview with Laura Ingraham. He made six in his speech on National Environmental Policy Act regulations, plus 10 in his exchange with reporters after the speech.
Trump’s total of 81 false claims last week was above his average of about 61 per week. Trump is now up to 1,636 false claims since July 8, an average of about nine per day.
The most egregious false claim: Smearing Democrats
Prominent Democrats had a consistent response to Trump’s decision to kill Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani: criticize Trump’s decision and say nothing nice about Soleimani.
Trump nonetheless claimed that they were saying nice things about the top Iranian general.
Appearing on Rush Limbaugh’s radio show on January 6, Trump said, “Democrats are trying to make him sound like he was this wonderful human being.” Speaking to reporters after his January 9 speech on environmental regulation, he claimed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in particular was “trying to defend this monster from Iran.”
At a press conference the very same morning as Trump’s regulation event, Pelosi had called Soleimani a “terrible person” who “did bad things.”
The most revealing false claim: Ethiopia and the Nobel Peace Prize
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed won the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize in large part for Ahmed’s successful effort to make a peace deal with neighboring Eritrea.
Trump is an incorrigible acclaim-seeker who has been open about his desire for a Nobel. At his January 9 rally, he claimed that he was a more deserving recipient than Ahmed — not for some other initiative of his own but because, he suggested, he was the one who actually made Ethiopia’s big deal. “I made a deal. I saved a country, and I just heard that the head of that country is now getting the Nobel Peace Prize for saving the country,” he complained.
This left Ethiopians baffled. Experts on Ethiopia say there is no sign Trump played an important role in the deal….
House Intelligence chair Adam Schiff says that the Intel community is withholding documents relevant to the impeachment trial in the Senate.
[…] When ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos asked Schiff on his thoughts of Politico’s report that the intelligence community is resisting coming forward in a public hearing due to fear of angering President Trump, Schiff responded […]
“Unfortunately, I think those reports are all too accurate,” Schiff said. “The intelligence community is reluctant to have an open hearing, something that we had done every year prior to the Trump administration, because they’re worried about angering the President.”
Schiff then said that he’s worried that the intelligence community is “succumbing to the pressure of the administration” by withholding documents from Congress that could be relevant to the Ukraine pressure campaign.
“And I’ll say something even more concerning to me, and that is the intelligence community is beginning to withhold documents from Congress on the issue of Ukraine. They appear to be succumbing to pressure from the administration,” Schiff said. “The NSA in particular is withholding what are potentially relevant documents to our oversight responsibilities on Ukraine, but also withholding documents potentially relevant that the senators might want to see during the trial.”
[…] “There are signs that the CIA may be on the same tragic course,” Schiff said. “We are counting on the intelligence community not only to speak truth to power, but to resist pressure from the administration to withhold information from Congress because the administration fears that they incriminate them.” […]
I would guess that the Intel community is not only worried about angering the fool in the WH but also about leaks from Repuglican committee members like Nunes.
—————-
The Senate has the chance to prevent Trump from aggregating all power under his control. If they don’t, the Republic isn’t really set up to resist the combined efforts of the CIA, NSA, and GRU.
The bottomless pit that is the Ukraine scandal continues to grow. According to a report from ABC News on Sunday, the House Intelligence Committee is now in possession of audio and video recordings as well as photographs that include both President Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani. The materials were handed over as part of a congressional subpoena by Giuliani associate Lev Parnas.
ABC News reported it is unknown what is said on the recordings, and the attorney for Parnas, Joseph A. Bondy, would not comment on the matter. Instead, Bondy directed ABC News to an earlier statement from Sunday that read in part, “Mr. Parnas has vociferously and publicly asserted his wish to comply with his previously issued subpoena and to provide the House Intelligence Committee with truthful and important information that is in furtherance of justice, not to obstruct it.”
The statement continued, “His evidence and potential testimony is non-partisan, and not intended to be part of a battle between the left and the right, but rather an aid in the determination by our government of what is in the best interests of our nation.”
ABC News also reported that some of the information the House Intel Committee wants is in possession of the Southern District of New York which has not yet been turned over. […]
House Judiciary Committee chair Jerry Nadler’s comments:
[…] Trump’s legal team said that the President “categorically and unequivocally denies each and every allegation in both articles of impeachment.” […]
“Both of those statements are errant nonsense,” Nadler said. “There is ample evidence, overwhelming evidence. Any jury would convict in three minutes flat that the president betrayed his country by breaking the law.”
Nadler then cited the Government Accountability Office’s report last week that said the White House Office of Management and Budget unlawfully withheld military aid to Ukraine.
“The reason he did that was in order to extort a foreign government to smear his political opponent for his personal benefit and to help try to rig the 2020 election as he worked with the Russians to try to rig the 2016 election. Same pattern,” Nadler said. “There’s no question that working with a foreign power, trying to extort a foreign power to interfere in our election, is about as bad as you can imagine.”
Nadler added that the framers of the Constitution put in the impeachment clause because “they were afraid of foreign interference our domestic affairs” and the White House’s argument in its formal response to the Senate summons “that he broke no law is absurd.”
Later in the interview, said that Trump is engaging “in a concerted attempt to deny all evidence.”
“Everyone who testified defied the President testifying. I mean, Mike Pompeo ought to testify. John Bolton ought to testify. What is the president hiding?” Nadler said. “The President says don’t let these people testify. If they were — if they had exculpatory evidence, he’d be saying let them testify.” […]
House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff pushed back against criticism that the House didn’t do enough to enforce its impeachment subpoenas, rejecting a need to tangle with the courts.
“If you argue that, well, the House needed to go through endless months or even years of litigation before bringing about an impeachment, you effectively nullify the impeachment clause,” Schiff said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”
“You allow the president of the United States — by delay, by playing rope-a-dope in the courts — to defeat the power of the impeachment clause,” the California Democrat added, employing a boxing term describing a strategy designed to wear out one’s opponent. [….]
OMG. Do Republicans really consider this to be a defense of Trump?
Republican Sen. Richard Shelby (Ala.) on Sunday said President Trump’s requests for foreign nations to investigate 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son were “just statements” and that presidents were prone to “mistakes of judgement.”
Shelby made the comments amid questioning on ABC’s “This Week” about the upcoming Senate impeachment trial and whether Trump’s dealings with Ukraine met the standard for an impeachable offense. Host George Stephanopoulos pressed Shelby on whether it was appropriate for Trump to solicit foreign interference, regardless of whether he felt it was impeachable or not.
“Well, I don’t know that has actually been proven. That’s all in dispute. I’ve never seen anything where Trump was actually involved in it,” Shelby responded, prompting Stephanopoulos to note that Trump publicly urged China and Ukraine to investigate the Bidens in early October.
“We’ve seen the president in public ask the Ukrainians to get involved, asked the Chinese to get involved,” Stephanopoulos said.
“Well, those are just statements, political. They make them all the time,” Shelby said.
“So it’s OK?” Stephanopoulos asked.
“I didn’t say it was OK. People do things, things happen,” Shelby responded, noting that the president is “human” and that he’s going to make “mistakes of judgement.” He argued that both Republican and Democratic presidents made similar mistakes in the past.
Dennis Prager, of the Prager Institute, devoted time out of an existence that is finite to relitigate the 2016 presidential election, specifically the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape. In case we need to remind you, Donald Trump was caught on a hot mic boasting about how he could sexually assault women with impunity because he was a celebrity. […]
Now, it’s 2020. Trump is impeached. Yet the injustice of Trump’s first of so very many bad news cycles is still fresh in Prager’s mind. He declared this week during a “fireside chat,” while in the presence of an innocent beagle, that we shouldn’t care what people say in the privacy of an “Access Hollywood” bus.
PRAGER: My point is not Trump. My point is not what he said. My point is this. I don’t care what people say privately nor should you. That is not an accurate indicator of a person’s character.
Prager is a white heterosexual male, so he’s probably heard his friends at the country club “privately” smear people because of their race, gender, or sexual orientation. He doesn’t think this detracts from their “character” because their comments don’t personally diminish him. Most importantly, their offensive statements don’t reflect how they view Prager as a person. […]
It’s a shocking concept but Trump isn’t like Martin Luther King or John F. Kennedy. They were flawed men privately whose public behavior and actions inspired us greatly. There is no significant difference between “public” and “private” Trump. Neither wears a tie correctly. […]
Guys like Prager probably hang out regularly with guys like Trump. Their big issue with the president is that he doesn’t zip it in public so Republicans can just close their eyes and imagine he’s Mitt Romney. What’s infuriating about the “everyone is as awful as Trump in private” argument is that conservatives […] hate it when women claim they can never fully trust men, but the “Access Hollywood” tape — with “amiable” Billy Bush chuckling along with Trump — sort of proves their point.
Evangelist Dwight L. Moody put it best: “Character is who you are in the dark.” Donald Trump, however, lacks character whether the lights are on or off.
My point is this. I don’t care what people say privately nor should you.
It’s not the central point, but he was literally in a workplace. He was on mic because he was on the NBC bus getting ready to tape a segment for Access Hollywood.
I wonder if they got wind of what’s on some of the recordings now in possession of the House Intel Committee and are trying to get ahead of it…
SC @39, “he was literally in a workplace. He was on mic because he was on the NBC bus getting ready to tape a segment for Access Hollywood.” Good point. I hadn’t thought of that.
“This is a difficult time for our country,” Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said last Wednesday, after the clerk of the House of Representatives arrived in the Senate chamber carrying articles of impeachment against […] Trump. McConnell added, “But this is precisely the kind of time for which the Framers created the Senate.” That is true, even if his claim that the Senate would “rise above short-termism and factional fever” is risible. […] But this is the Senate we have at an extraordinarily wrenching juncture in our history, and on Thursday, following the direction of the Constitution, Chief Justice John Roberts swore in its members as jurors. The seven House managers whom Speaker Nancy Pelosi named last week are now basically petitioners, coming in to make their arguments before senators whose votes may be fixed by partisanship. And yet they have a strong case to present.
It could, no doubt, be stronger still. Just a few hours after McConnell spoke, Lev Parnas, an associate of Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, appeared on MSNBC in a doozy of an interview with Rachel Maddow. Parnas asserted that he had understood from Giuliani that they had Trump’s approval to pressure officials in Ukraine to investigate Hunter Biden, former Vice-President Joe Biden’s son, who had a paid seat on the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma. Parnas described a plot involving, among others, Attorney General William Barr. […]
And more revelations are sure to follow. The essential dilemma, with Trump, is that there is always a new path leading to the disaster site of his Administration: a Parnas interview; a hint from John Bolton, the former national-security adviser, that, if the Senate subpoenas him, he will have interesting things to say; a decision from the Government Accountability Office that the Administration’s withholding of aid to Ukraine, during its pressure campaign, broke a law called the Impoundment Control Act. […]
The impeachment is the House’s expression of faith in its case, and it should not be forgotten that the managers already have powerful witnesses. More than a dozen testified in the House, defying the President’s orders to stay away. Their damning accounts will be heard in the Senate and by the public, whether in video clips or in transcripts that the managers quote, and their words should resonate. […]
The message that, without new witnesses, the trial may prove a sham also risks reinforcing the Senate Republicans’ complaint that the House sent them something shoddy and incomplete, and that they can’t be expected to do the lower chamber’s work for it. But their work is there; much evidence is in hand. The Republicans’ craven indifference to the Constitution will be all the more clear to the public if the emphasis is on what the managers do have, rather than on what they don’t. And then the country can judge the Senate.
Thanks to an encouraging tweet from Donald Trump, militias around the United States are preparing to assemble in Richmond, Va., on Monday, to protest gun-control legislation—many vowing to bring their guns, in open defiance of Gov. Ralph Northam’s declaration of emergency and its accompanying ban on any kind of weaponry at the state Capitol.
[…] Trump tweeted an attack on Northam that aligned perfectly with far-right extremists’ paranoid claims about the planned legislation: “Your 2nd Amendment is under very serious attack in the Great Commonwealth of Virginia,” he wrote. “That’s what happens when you vote for Democrats, they will take your guns away.”
Trump is, quite blatantly, encouraging violence.
The Monday protest—which extremist groups are calling the “Boogaloo,” a reference to their long-hoped-for opportunity to declare a civil war against liberals—has inspired a number of such groups to declare their intent to show up fully armed. Infowars’ Alex Jones has preemptively declared that any violence that occurs will be a “false flag,” and has said he will be in Virginia to observe, because “we’ve had two revolutionary wars basically start in Virginia, and it looks like one may start again.” […]
The violent nature of the “Boogaloo” was emphasized this week by the FBI’s arrests of seven members of The Base, a neo-Nazi paramilitary group openly dedicated to training for a “race war.” The first three were arrested Thursday, including Canadian fugitive Patrik Mathews; in addition to being caught with multiple weapons (including an illegal automatic rifle) and a large cache of ammunition, the men had spoken openly of attending Monday’s rally in Richmond and opening fire there.
Three more were arrested Friday in Georgia, charged with plotting the murders of a local antifascist couple, as well as overthrowing the local county government. […]
Gov. Northam’s plans call for prohibition of any and all weapons from the Capitol Grounds, enforced by state troopers who have set up a security perimeter.
However, that is likely to mean that most of the protesters will be circulating around downtown Richmond—which, as in Charlottesville, is when and where most of the planned violence is likely to occur.
The invading army of paranoid “Patriots” have received official encouragement both from Trump […] and from religious leaders such as the Rev. Jerry Falwell Jr., who called for “civil disobedience” in response to the Legislature’s planned gun-control measures. […]
A number of the militia groups that plan to be in Richmond on Monday include organizations that were banned by court-ordered consent agreement from Charlottesville, Va., following the disastrous Aug. 12, 2017, “Unite the Right” rally in which an antifascist protester was murdered. […]
Joshua Shoaff, another social-media personality operating under the under the pseudonym “Ace Baker,” not only has been urging his audience to attend the rally, but has been issuing death threats to an African-American Virginia legislator, apparently with the approval of Facebook, where he publishes his livestreams for his 540,000 followers.
“You should be pulled out of office by the hair on your head, walking down the streets of the capital, walked up to the steps of a swinging rope that’s placed around your neck, because you, sir, are a tyrant and you’re committing treason,” […]
Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes is particularly keen on the movement “Patriots” are promoting in rural Virginia counties and towns to establish “Second Amendment sanctuaries” in which any state-approved gun-control laws are declared null and void. […]
In a recent interview on the conspiracist “Power Hour Nation” interview program, Rhodes wants to use the opportunity to realize a longtime “Patriot” movement fantasy: Namely, establishing “constitutionalist” counties in which federal laws are null and void, and the county sheriff is the highest law in the land. […]
Telegram, which has banned ISIS content, remains a favored tool of white supremacists.
Neo-nazi and fascist groups have been posting antisemitic and racist messages and calls for violence on the encrypted messaging app Telegram in advance of a massive gun rally in Richmond, Virginia on Monday that far-right extremists are expected to attend and that officials fear might turn violent.
“If you are not ready to leave your family, friends and daily life and get violent then you need to sit the fuck down,” read a message posted by one account with over a thousand followers that has pushed a new civil war. “Virginia is less than a week away and it will decide the fate and the rate for this year.”
Another account with thousands of followers has been posting compressed files of “reading material” in the lead up to event with file names like “Guerrilla Warfare, Terrorism,” “Tracking and Evasion,” and “Revenge Anarchy.”
On sites like 4chan and other forums popular with internet racists, there’s little that can be done to stop neo-Nazis and white supremacists from posting and organizing. But in the case of Telegram, though, Google and Apple have the power to curb neo-Nazi communications if they choose to. […]
How to continue to scam people, even after you have died:
[…] like the spirits he’s claimed to be able to speak to, lo these many years, death is not keeping Derek Acorah down. In fact, up until this weekend, his website was still offering text message “readings” from Derek for £3 ($3.90) for those who wished to receive his help to contact their deceased loved ones. Each follow-up message cost £1.
The site was taken down after a reporter from the Daily Record pretended to be a customer who wished to hear from his dead uncle:
Posing as a bereaved relative, our reporter texted to say his uncle Joe King had passed away two years ago, and asked to make contact.
Within minutes, a series of three messages arrived back at a cost of £1 each.
One said: “Welcome darling. He has been trying to contact you and is coming through to sit with you now. He says that he is worried that you tend to allow yourself to get into ruts in life.”
The last text finishes by saying “More darling”, and which point we responded “Yes please, Derek”. Another three premium rate texts were duly delivered, with one advising: “He says that you will never know what you like or are capable of, if you are not willing to try new things.”
The last text again ended by prompting to request even more information from the fictitious relative.When the Mail contacted Acorah’s spokesman, he refused to comment on the record but threatened legal action if we ran a story.
[…] It seems highly unlikely that he was writing these text messages from dead people himself while he was alive, either. That would take up a LOT of time.
I understand why people might find something like this comforting when they are grieving the loss of a loved one. I don’t blame them at all. I am a “whatever gets you through the day” kind of lady. What I don’t understand is how someone decides to make their living (or, in this case, deading?) by scamming grieving people.
In conclusion: The Fox Sisters were cracking their toes, Uri Geller was using pre-bent spoons, no one has magic powers […]
[…] Trump, whose businesses and now campaign have left a long trail of unpaid bills behind them, has never discriminated when it comes to stiffing people who work for him. That includes lawyers — which is part of the reason he found the need to make some curious last-minute tweaks to his team, announcing the addition of the legal odd couple of Alan Dershowitz and Kenneth W. Starr.
The president has consistently encountered difficulty in hiring good lawyers to defend him. In 2017, after Robert S. Mueller III became special counsel, Trump couldn’t find a high-end law firm that would take him as a client. His reputation for nonpayment preceded him: One major Manhattan firm I know had once been forced to eat bills for millions in bond work it once did for Trump. No doubt other members of the legal community knew of other examples.
Of course, being cheap wasn’t the only reason Trump struck out among the nation’s legal elite. There was the fact that he would be an erratic client who’d never take reasonable direction — direction as in shut up and stop tweeting. […] Top law students of varying political stripes who might be willing, even eager, to join a firm that provides pro bono representation to murderers on death row, want nothing to do with Trump. […]
“Any litigator will tell you that adding to your legal team on the eve of trial most likely will not produce better lawyering but, rather, chaos. In that sense, at least, Trump will be getting the representation he deserves. […]
“.@AlanDersh comments on impeachment on Larry King Live, 8/24/98
01:41:04 DERSHOWITZ: ‘It certainly doesn’t have to be a crime if you have somebody who completely corrupts the office of president and who abuses trust and who poses great danger to our liberty’.”
I’m going to expand a bit on #31, not to “attack” Sanders, but because I’m seeing some annoying responses to the clip and I want to be clear about what bothers me and how it could have been done better.
Sanders is asked “Do you think that female candidates have a different experience running for president, and do you think that gender is still an obstacle for female politicians?”
In response, he begins by lumping gender in with advanced age and inexperience. In a (presidential) campaign, advanced age and relative inexperience are reasonable and legitimate concerns to have about a candidate. Being 78 during the campaign is an issue, heart attack aside. The presidency (if the job is actually done, which isn’t currently the case) is physically and cognitively demanding and exhausting. Having relatively little political experience is also in many ways a drawback. These concerns aren’t ageism.
Being a woman is not like these two things. There’s nothing inherent to being a woman that is itself a negative in terms of a potential presidency. The obstacles for women are external – sexism and misogyny. Sexism and misogyny aren’t rooted in reasonable or legitimate concerns but in false beliefs and stereotypes. This is true also of race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, and gender identity. But Sanders refers to being a woman, like being his age or having little experience, as a “problem,” a “negative,” a “disadvantage,” an imperfection. Rather than locating the issue in the people responding with sexism and misogyny, he’s locating it in women.
He then immediately transitions to talking about how his age can actually be seen as a positive, pushing aside the original question. And indeed, advanced age hasn’t really been that much of a hindrance in US history. The same, of course, can be said of youth and relative inexperience. Not once does he suggest any positive aspect of being a woman.
Encouraging people to “look at the totality of a candidate – not at their sexuality, not at their gender, not at their age” is in some ways great, but ignores the basis of the first question, which concerned whether women have a different experience running for president. In a week in which Warren has faced swarms of his supporters tweeting snake emojis and smears at her, he could have used the opportunity to talk about online misogyny and to send a message to his base. The other day, people were sharing a ranking showing that Susan Collins has now overtaken Mitch McConnell as the most unpopular Senator in her state. Women make up 26% of the Senate, but there’s one woman among the 10 most popular Senators and 6 among the 10 least popular. Susan Collins is less popular than Moscow Fucking Mitch. This is what women are dealing with online.
He also could have talked about not ignoring but acknowledging the obstacles that people discriminated against (including himself as a Jewish man and not an old white dude) can face, and how that requires strength and resilience and can lead to a better understanding of other people’s challenges. He could have talked about some of the people on his campaign and what they’ve faced and how impressive they are… But he didn’t.
Laurence Tribe: “.@AlanDersh is grossly misstating law, history, and even the arguments in the Johnson Senate impeachment trial. He’s not to be trusted. Trump’s mendacity has sadly rubbed off on my former colleague. Read my @washingtonpost op-ed laying it all out:…”
(Incidentally, I’m endlessly amused by how many people in the news Tribe has taught. He was interviewed the other day about the Senate trial and casually mentioned “the Chief Justice, who was a student of mine at Harvard…” and I loled.)
Part of the discussion after Elizabeth Warren NYT edboard interview that just aired:
– She’s got chops.
– Did those chops sound a bit patronizing though?
– You know who doesn’t like that — male voters
How Warren “comes across” discussion continued by NYT ed board:
– How she talks comes across as “condescending”
– She can make people feel like if you disagree with her, they’re dumb
– Some of that is probably unfair and sexist
Bizarre. Warren is among the least condescending or patronizing candidates I’ve ever seen.
Among the gifts the Sardines – the Italian movement facing off against the far-right politics of Matteo Salvini – received in recent weeks were six works of art by the late Aldo Borgonzoni, a painter and anti-fascist resistance fighter.
Borgonzoni’s granddaughter is Lucia Borgonzoni, the far-right candidate seeking to bring an end to 70 years of leftwing rule in Emilia-Romagna on Sunday in regional elections that will prove an important test for the stability of the national government coalition between the centre-left Democratic party (PD) and the Five Star Movement (M5S), and may decide whether Salvini and the far-right League return to power.
The paintings were donated by her father, Giambattista, a self-described “veteran communist” who said last week “the Sardines are better than my daughter’s party”.
“He gave us another painting today,” Mattia Santori, one of the young founders of the Sardines, told the Guardian on Sunday. “We’re allowed to sell them to raise money for the movement.”
Lucia Borgonzoni, 43, is among the crop of Emilia-Romagna natives who have jettisoned the leftwing ideals of their parents and grandparents and helped bolster support for Salvini’s League, in the region that gave birth to Italian socialism.
The Sardines sprang up in mid-November to counteract the rising popularity of the League, which, together with its allies, the fellow far-right Brothers of Italy and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, triumphed in Emilia-Romagna in the 2018 national elections and again in last year’s European parliamentary ballot.
The Sardines – so-called because they have packed out city squares for demonstrations – have managed to galvanise support across the country in recent months, bringing an estimated 40,000 people together in Bologna’s Piazza VIII Agosto on Sunday in the final major show of strength before the Emilia-Romagna local election.
Many believe that a defeat for the PD in Emilia-Romagna could lead to a government collapse as it would increase tensions between the PD and its coalition partner M5S, with more MPs from both absconding as their faith in the alliance dwindles further.
The outcome of the vote will also dictate the future of the Sardines.
“We’ll know what kind of impact this experiment has had after that,” said Santori. “But what we have understood is that, for many people, we are the first real alternative to the populism of the right.”
Final polls before the blackout period began on 11 January put Borgonzoni and the League slightly behind Stefano Bonaccini, the incumbent Emilia-Romagna president from the PD.
Bonaccini, elected president in 2014, has distanced himself from his party’s troubles at national level, focusing his campaign on local issues….
The SNP’s leader at Westminster has written to Boris Johnson demanding that he take immediate steps to allow the suppressed report into Russia’s interference in the British political system to be published.
Ian Blackford, the leader of the third-largest party in the Commons, called on the prime minister to begin appointing members of parliament’s intelligence and security committee, necessary to allow the controversial document to be released.
“It is unacceptable that your government has repeatedly and intentionally failed to take steps to establish the committee and has sought to escape scrutiny on vital issues,” Blackford writes in a letter that has been shared with the Guardian.
“The public interest and the imperative is and has always been clear: lift your sanction on publishing this report and re-establish the intelligence and security committee so that it can be immediately published,” the SNP MP added.
…
Ministers have repeatedly said there are no examples of “successful Russian interference” in the 2016 EU referendum or an election, although there is scepticism as to whether that has been properly investigated.
The report was nevertheless awaiting final clearance from Downing Street, to check it did not contain any classified information, when the election was called. No 10 said it was not possible to clear it in time, a point disputed by the previous chairman of the committee, former MP Dominic Grieve.
Downing Street eventually said after the election that the report was cleared. But its release depends on the appointment of nine cross-party backbench MPs and peers to the committee’s membership, a task that falls to Johnson after consulting with other parties.
…
“Russian interference in elections is widespread and well documented, the evidence that Russia poses a direct threat to the functioning and operability of democracy among our allies in the EU and beyond is overwhelming,” Blackford writes.
“If this report, as you have recently claimed, shows that Russia has never interfered in any democratic event in the UK then it is inexplicable that you chose not to restore public trust and publish this report before the 2019 general election.”
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 56
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blockquote>So the NYT has endorsed both Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar, which is a weird thing to do.
It isn’t when you have to play to the left AND the center in order to keep your subscribers and advertisers.
“Russian Prosecutor Chaika has been fired!
He is best known to Americans for his actions during 2016 elections via Russian lawyer Veselnitskaya and Dana Rohrabacher. What ever happened to Rohrabacher? Another one who disappeared without any investigations
Rohrabacher’s role was to convince US to remove Russian sanctions tied to Magnitsky Act”
We don’t know what exactly the impeachment trial will look like. But we do know that whatever unfolds in the Senate in the next few weeks matters to every American. So we’re going to try to help people cut through the noise and access the primary source.
We assume not everyone can devote hours to CSPAN each day. But watching the five minute highlight reels and listening to what other people think was important won’t be enough. So we are going to take the trial audio each day and condense it down to something manageable.
We’re jumping into this without knowing any of the details and we’ll make changes as we go. The audio might be dry, who knows, but democracy is never boring! If you want to follow along, hear what senators are hearing, and decide for yourself, subscribe.
From Steve Benen, a look at the documents filed in preparation for the beginning of the impeachment trial tomorrow:
[…] The 111-page document [from the U.S. House of Representatives] is a persuasive, substantive, well-researched, and thoroughly footnoted indictment against a president who, according to overwhelming and uncontested evidence, abused the powers of his office as part of an unprecedented extortion scheme. It concludes by asking senators to do their duty and bring Trump’s presidency to an end.
A few hours later, the White House submitted a short “answer” to the House’s allegations. As the New York Times reported:
In a six-page filing formally responding to the House impeachment charges submitted shortly after and filled with partisan barbs against House Democrats, Mr. Trump’s lawyers denounced the case as constitutionally and legally invalid, and driven purely by a desire to hurt Mr. Trump in the 2020 election. […]
The president’s lawyers did not deny any of the core facts underlying Democrats’ charges, conceding what considerable evidence and testimony in the House has shown: that he withheld $391 million in aid and a White House meeting from Ukraine and asked the country’s president to investigate former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son, Hunter Biden.
But they said Mr. Trump broke no laws and was acting entirely appropriately and within his powers when he did so, echoing his repeated protestations of his own innocence. They argued that he was not seeking political advantage, but working to root out corruption in Ukraine.
[…] while it’s true that most of the missive was familiar palaver, there was one element worth dwelling on.
[…] the president’s lawyers argued that the first article of impeachment approved by the House “fails on its face to state an impeachable offense.” It’s a curious argument: the first article of impeachment charges Trump with abusing the powers of his office. By the White House’s latest reasoning, that’s not something a president can or should be impeached for having done.
The document then complains that the House has not accused Trump of statutory crimes, before adding, “House Democrats’ ‘abuse of power’ claim would do lasting damage to the separation of powers under the Constitution.” […]
Team Trump, in other words, is of the opinion that there can be no accountability for presidents who abuse the powers of their office. Even if Trump is guilty of abuses of power, the argument goes, Congress can and should have no recourse. […]
One of the few things the legal defense team was willing to put in writing was a strange, eight-page screed in October – it was, oddly enough, longer than the document it submitted over the weekend – that even some conservatives described as “bananas” and a “barely-lawyered temper tantrum.”
That was three months ago. The president and his lawyers have had time to craft a more serious defense, but there’s little to suggest they’ve used that time wisely.
The editorial board of the Quad City Times in Iowa endorsed Amy Klobuchar.
A new Focus on Rural America poll showed the following: Joe Biden leading with 24%, followed by Elizabeth Warren at 18%, and Pete Buttigieg at 16 %. Bernie Sanders was at 14%, and Amy Klobuchar had 11% support.
As many of us have long suspected, the new Phase 1 trade deal with China indicates a complete and total failure on the part of the Trump Administration. The current Administration ended up obtaining basically none of his original goals. If I can use an analogy, the following sums up what has happened between the U.S. and China since Donald Trump was inaugurated in 2017:
In January 2017, when Donald Trump took office, he stood at the bottom of a big staircase. During the past three years, he basically took 4 steps up the staircase. As he took those four steps up, Americans everywhere suffered. Farmers lost their businesses, and dairy farms collapsed. Other farmers barely stayed out of bankruptcy, and the American consumers were forced to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in tariffs. In addition, the U.S. government has been forced to pay countless millions of dollars to try and keep farmers afloat.
Trump’s Phase 1 Trade Agreement represents Donald Trump taking 2 steps back down the staircase. He’s lessoning the tariffs, and in exchange, China has agreed to buy more from us than they have recently been purchasing from us. All of the pain has basically been pointless. Donald Trump is retreating—he is caving—as the Chinese always knew he would.
So, in three years, Donald Trump has basically gone somewhere, placing lots of tariffs on China, and taken us halfway back cutting those tariffs in half, all while creating a whole lot of suffering, and all the while basically getting none of his goals accomplished. This was always going to happen because the Chinese do things long term, and they were always going to wait for Donald Trump to cave. This is because they knew he would cave before the 2020 election. All of that pain and all of that suffering ended up having no purpose whatsoever. Few things sum up the Trump Presidency like this. What a complete moron, and what an epic failure. […]
U.S. officials have deported some asylum-seekers without first telling them where they’re going.
The Trump administration’s inhumane move deporting Honduran and Salvadoran asylum-seekers to Guatemala as part of a so-called “safe-third-country” agreement is bad enough. That the administration may be deporting these asylum-seekers without even telling them where they’re being sent makes a bad situation worse.
Advocates say that U.S. officials have put asylum-seekers, including children, on planes to Guatemala “without being told where they were headed, and left here without being given basic instruction about what to do next,” The Washington Post reports. “When the migrants land in Guatemala City, they receive little information about what it means to apply for asylum in one of the hemisphere’s poorest countries.”
One of these children, a 17-year-old boy, had fled Honduras with his mom after being shot in the face by gang members. This family should be in the U.S. seeking safety, but they say they were instead deported without even knowing where they were going. “In the U.S., the agents told us our cases would be transferred, but they didn’t say where. Then they lined us up to get on the plane,” his mom Marta told The Post. “When we looked out the window, we were here. We thought, ‘Where are we? What are we supposed to do now?’” […]
Tribe: “Besides, if shaking down an ally to get illegal foreign help in winning re-election with a hit job against a political opponent and using taxpayers’ funds to engage in that extortion ISN’T ‘crime-like’ conduct, what in the world WOULD be?”
As I said @ #25, I want someone to ask him this question. Dershowitz says he’s been consistent over the years, but the only consistency I’ve seen is that he always opposes impeachment whatever the conduct at issue. Extortion isn’t just bribery-like – it’s the worst form of bribery. (And the new evidence from Parnas suggests that they committed other forms of bribery as well, for example defaming and recalling the US ambassador to Ukraine to bribe Lutsenko to give them Biden dirt.)
“Dershowitz on CNN in 1998: ‘I think endangering the country through a course of action which was not criminal’ could be impeachable if it’s ‘a total abuse and misuse of office in a way that endangers the liberty of all Americans’.”
He cited Filegate.
Dershowitz’s standard for non-criminal impeachable conduct in 1998 was Filegate.”
Transcript and video atl. Filegate was one of these bullshit rightwing investigative crusades they’ve harassed the Clintons with for three decades. It’s not a great thing to resurface for anyone on the Right given the zeal with which they investigated these substanceless allegations. The fact that Dershowitz believed it could still be true in 1998 doesn’t speak well of him. Starr and Ray admitted there was nothing to it in November of 1998 – “Starr also chose this occasion to clear President Clinton in the Travelgate matter, and to say that he had not committed impeachable wrongdoing in the Whitewater matter; Democrats on the committee immediately criticized Starr for withholding all these findings until after the 1998 Congressional elections.” In any case, the Ukraine scheme is far worse than even the Republican fever-dream version of Filegate, so Dershowitz’ argument takes another major hit.
About half of Americans say the Senate should vote to convict President Donald Trump and remove him from office in the upcoming impeachment trial (51%), according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS, while 45% say the Senate should vote against conviction and removal.
Nearly seven in 10 (69%) say that upcoming trial should feature testimony from new witnesses who did not testify in the House impeachment inquiry. And as Democrats in the Senate seek to persuade at least four Republican senators to join them on votes over allowing witnesses in the trial, the Republican rank and file are divided on the question: 48% say they want new witnesses, while 44% say they do not.
The poll is the first major national telephone poll since the articles of impeachment were sent to the Senate, formally launching Trump’s trial there. They are also the first such poll results since Soviet-born businessman Lev Parnas, an associate of Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani, publicly implicated the President in the Ukrainian pressure campaign during a series of television interviews.
The new poll also finds majorities of Americans view each of the charges on which Trump will face trial as true: 58% say Trump abused the power of the presidency to obtain an improper personal political benefit and 57% say it is true that he obstructed the House of Representatives in its impeachment inquiry.
Massive partisan gaps continue to dominate views on Trump and his impeachment trial. Overall, 89% of Democrats say he should be removed from office, while just 8% of Republicans feel the same way. Among independents, it’s nearly dead even: 48% say the Senate should vote to remove him, while 46% say that they should not. Views on whether Trump should be impeached and removed are also evenly split across battleground states, 49% are on each side across the 15 states decided by 8 points or less in 2016. Those states are Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.
Beyond partisanship, there are wide divisions in the poll by gender, race, education and age. Nearly six in 10 women (59%) say the Senate should remove Trump from office; 42% of men agree. Among African Americans, 86% say Trump should be removed. That drops to 65% among Hispanics and 42% among whites.…
Are mass deportation agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement going around a New York directive in order to continue detaining immigrants in and around the state’s courthouses? It sure looks that way, […]
In a groundbreaking decision last year, New York’s Office of Court Administration said ICE agents couldn’t sweep up immigrants at the state’s courthouses unless they had a federal judicial warrant or order first, as it should be. But, immigration officials flouted this directive and swept up 127 immigrants at courthouses in 2019, Immigrant Defense Project said in the new report.
“Following issuance of the April 2019 directive, ICE told its agents in an internal communication that ‘we are good to make the arrest outside the courthouse with or without a judicial warrant,’” the report said. “As promised, plainclothes ICE agents stationed themselves in multiple locations in and around courthouses, trailed individuals undercover, and arrested most people outside of courthouses.”
“From April 2019 onward, ICE used tactics that skirted the Directive by moving their arrests to court entrances and exits, while still surveilling people inside courthouses,” the report continued. “In some cases, ICE violated the Directive outright—refusing to identify themselves as required, failing to wait for a supervising judge to review a warrant, and escorting an individual out of the courthouse to handcuff them outside. ICE’s use of force has resulted in injuries, broken glass doors, and crippling fear of attending court.”
ICE’s actions have already had immense consequences when it comes to the most vulnerable, with prosecutors across the U.S. previously stating that anti-immigrant policies have made it harder to seek justice for immigrant victims of abuse. ICE has long believed it’s above the rules, as this report continues to confirm, and as long as there’s no consequences to this, it’ll continue to believe it’s above restraint. State leaders need to dig into this, because lives are depending on it.
Followup to tomh @comment 7, and to comments 46 and 47.
Luckily, there was no violence in Virginia today. There was some mocking of the “warriors” who showed up.
[…] Today we saw a loose gaggle of dime-store warriors without a war […], dressed to the nines in tactical gear, with no combatants in sight, primed for a battle with nothing to shoot at. It was a walking talking premature ejaculation, where the deed was done just by putting on the “manly” gear because there was nothing else to do. The optics were horrible. Paunchy, scruffy, out-of-shape men, wearing camo and scarves (just in case a sandstorm kicked up in the middle of the Virginia winter), flack jackets and boots so that they could… stand around and look tough.
In the end, the overkill backfired. They revealed themselves to be worthy of ridicule, […]
They didn’t think it through, because that many guys walking down the street with huge guns was tactically inane. What was the point of that? What were the options? Use the guns. BAD! They’d get hauled off to jail. Don’t use the guns. BAD! They looked like kids in cos-play primping for show and tell. Threaten to use the guns in the future if they don’t get what they want. BAD! Now they’re terrorists. Hug the guns closely to themselves and use them like a blanky. BAD! They look like pathetic wanna-be soldiers.
This whole event was a mistake. The minute they brought guns to a conversation, they were no longer interested in “conversation.” At that point, they were just vaguely threatening people, and wandering aimlessly around with big guns and no one to point or shoot them at. That didn’t make their intended audience inclined to listen to what they had to say. It made their audience pity, mock and ridicule them. They did not come off as G.I. Joes. They came off as G.I. Jokes.
“NEW at SCOTUS: the justices REFUSE to expedite review of the 5th-circuit ruling against Obamacare, pushing that explosive question off at least until the election has passed.”
“House managers argue WHC Pat Cipillone’s involvement in the events underlying both articles of impeachment present[s] a conflict of interest in his representing Trump in the Senate Trial.
For backup, the Managers cite Cipillone’s fellow Trump defense lawyer, then-Judge Ken Starr.”
Carl Bernstein sent social media users into overdrive after he slapped Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) with a taunting new nickname.
The famed Watergate reporter called McConnell “Midnight Mitch” during a panel discussion on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360°” on Monday. It centered on McConnell’s proposed compressed schedule for President Donald Trump’s imminent Senate impeachment trial over the Ukraine scandal that would see some testimony taking place in the early hours.
Said Bernstein:
The most important moment for the Republican Party since the censure of Joe McCarthy and the impeachment and resignation of Richard Nixon, in which Republicans became great heroes and patriots. Now, we’re looking at ‘Midnight Mitch’ and the so-called world’s greatest deliberative body really embracing a cover-up that is there for all to see. That’s what this is about. It’s about preventing information from becoming known and seen by the American public.
Bernstein noted how in the impeachments of former Presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton there had been “no problem about knowing the truth of the facts.”
But in the impeachment trial of Trump, he said, “we still have a factual problem here because the president and those who work for him and Mitch McConnell have impeded the facts from the beginning.”
The rules would prevent the evidence from the House from being admitted at the beginning, as it was in the Clinton trial.
#MidnightMitch is still trending on Twitter. Multiple examples at the link.
President Donald Trump is dishonest about a whole lot of things. But he is rarely as comprehensively dishonest as he has been about his dealings with Ukraine and the impeachment process.
From the eruption of the Ukraine controversy in September to the Senate trial that officially began on Thursday, relentless deceit has seemed to be Trump’s primary defense strategy in the court of public opinion. He has made false claims about almost every separate component of the story, from his July phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, to the whistleblower who complained about the call, to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s own relations with Ukraine. […]
To help you fight Trump-induced dizziness as the trial gets underway, we’ve tallied his dishonesty on the subject of Ukraine and impeachment. Our original list from mid-November included 45 false claims he has made and a brief fact check of each one.
We have since added 20 more for a total of 65. […]
So, yes, Daniel Dale’s report documents 65 false claims that Trump made in connection with the Ukraine scandal. Here’s just a sampling. (See the link for all 65 falsehoods, and Dale’s expert debunking of each one.)
The phone call with Zelensky
1. Trump released an “exact transcript” of his July call with Zelensky. (The document says on its first page that it is “not a verbatim transcript.”)
2. When Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman wanted to add in a word that was missing from the rough transcript, “they added the word.” (Vindman testified that two “substantive” changes he suggested were not made, though he also testified that the document remained “substantively correct.”)
3. Trump did not ask Zelensky for anything on the call. (Trump asked Zelensky to look into former Vice President Joe Biden, look into a debunked conspiracy theory about Democratic computer servers, and speak with his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr.)
4. Zelensky criticized former US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch “out of the blue” on the call. (Trump brought up Yovanovitch first.)
5. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was “angry” when she saw the rough transcript of the call, and she said, “This is not what the whistleblower said.” (Pelosi has said no such thing in public, and there is no evidence she has said anything like that in private. Her public statement on the call was scathing.)
6. “Everybody” that looked at the text of the call agreed that it was “perfect.” (Some of Trump’s staunch defenders agreed with this characterization, but clearly not “everybody” did.)
7. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell spoke to Trump about the call and said, “That was the most innocent phone call that I’ve read.” (McConnell said he doesn’t recall speaking to Trump about the call. His public statement on the call was far less effusive than Trump’s description.)
8. People were not talking about the call anymore in late October. (People continued to talk about the call, a central focus of the impeachment inquiry.)
9. The Washington Post made up fictional sources for its article on how Trump had allegedly tried to get Barr to hold a news conference saying Trump had broken no laws in the call. (There is no evidence that the Post invented sources. Other major news outlets, including CNN, quickly reported the same thing the Post did.)
10. Zelensky affirmed in December that “President Trump did nothing wrong.” (Zelensky has said Trump applied “no pressure,” but he did not say Trump did nothing wrong. Zelensky did say, “Look, I never talked to the President from the position of a quid pro quo. That’s not my thing.” But he continued: “I don’t want us to look like beggars. But you have to understand. We’re at war. If you’re our strategic partner, then you can’t go blocking anything for us. I think that’s just about fairness. It’s not about a quid pro quo. It just goes without saying.”)
The whistleblower
11. The whistleblower was “sooo wrong.” (The rough transcript and witness testimony have proven the whistleblower to have been highly accurate.)
12. The whistleblower should be investigated for “fraud.” (Nothing the whistleblower is known to have done remotely resembles fraud.)
13. The whistleblower, a second whistleblower and the first whistleblower’s source have all “disappeared.” (There is no evidence for this. Whistleblowers do not have an obligation to speak publicly after filing their complaints.)
14. The whistleblower had “all second hand” information. (While the whistleblower did get information about the call from other people, the whistleblower also had “direct knowledge of certain alleged conduct,” noted Michael Atkinson, the Trump-appointed inspector general for the intelligence community.)
15. The whistleblower “said ‘quid pro quo’ eight times.” (The whistleblower did not even use the words “quid pro quo” in the complaint, much less specify a number of times Trump allegedly said those words. Trump may have been referring to a Wall Street Journal article that had asserted that Trump urged Zelensky “about eight times to work with Rudy Giuliani” on a probe that could hurt Biden; the article did not say this claim came from the whistleblower.)
16. The whistleblower “works now for Biden.” (There is no evidence for this. The whistleblower’s lawyers said their client has never worked for or advised a candidate, campaign or party; the lawyers said the whistleblower has come into contact with presidential candidates for both parties while working as a civil servant in the executive branch.) […]
Trump certainly likes the word “warrior.” He misapplies it all the time. (Remember when he called Rudy Giuliani a warrior.) Now Trump is designating some Republican lawmakers who have basically been shut out of the Senate impeachment trial as his “warriors.”
After excluding House Republicans from his defense team, President Donald Trump announced Monday night that eight of them would serve as his personal warriors.
Republican Reps. Doug Collins (Ga.), Mike Johnson (La.), Jim Jordan (Ohio), Debbie Lesko (Ariz.), Mark Meadows (N.C.), John Ratcliffe (Texas), Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) and Lee Zeldin (N.Y.) will “serve as part of his team working to combat this hyper-partisan and baseless impeachment,” according to a White House news release Monday.
[…] The official White House announcement, introducing the eight GOP members, was a little odd. For one thing, it insisted that during the House impeachment process, the White House “was prohibited from participating in the proceedings.” That’s plainly false: Trump and his attorneys were invited to play a role, but they refused. That’s not a prohibition on participation; it’s the opposite.
[…] House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) was not included [hmmm]
[…] what exactly are these eight House Republicans going to do? They’re now part of Trump’s “impeachment team,” but what does that mean?
The Politico report quoted a GOP source who said the lawmakers “are expected to play a more behind-the-scenes role, with a focus on messaging and strategy.”
Or put another way, it seems these eight House Republicans are going to appear on television a lot in coming days, but unlike so many of Trump’s GOP allies, they’ll enjoy the White House’s semi-official imprimatur.
Postscript: The official statement last night described the eight-person lineup as an “initial list,” which suggested more congressional Republicans may end with the same White House stamp of approval.
After reading his resolution, it’s clear Senator McConnell is hell-bent on making it much more difficult to get witnesses and documents and intent on rushing the trial through. On something as important as impeachment, Senator McConnell’s resolution is nothing short of a national disgrace.
If you don’t have a real trial that you can judge impeachment on the merits, then this democracy is eroded. And Mitch McConnell will go down in history as one of the people eroding democracy because he has gone along with President Trump’s cover up hook, line and sinker.
As SC noted upthread, and as bears repeating: Under McConnell’s proposed rules, evidence gathered by the House will not be entered in the trial unless the Senate votes to allow it. Additionally, the House impeachment team and President Donald Trump’s lawyers will only have 24 hours each to make their arguments within 2 days.
WTF!? Mitch McConnell is not allowing the evidence gathered by the House? So, no already existing evidence, and no new evidence either? I wonder if McConnell actually has the votes to block all of the evidence the House gathered.
More discussion regarding that letter from White House counsel Pat Cipollone and Trump’s current personal attorney Jay Sekulow:
[…] the letter does more than just muster all Trump’s dander behind demands that the whole case be dismissed. It also argues that Trump should be able to bully Ukraine all he wants because it’s just “a comparatively small European republic” and the United States is a superpower. Somehow, this disparity of size is supposed to mean that there’s nothing that Ukraine has that Trump would want. He can’t be guilty of extorting Ukraine because its leaders don’t have “vast treasures at their disposal” to “actually buy off the Chief Executive.”
Which seems very much as if Trump’s attorney’s are not arguing about what Trump is. They’re debating his price.
[…] their argument is really aimed at the idea of impeachment. According to them, the reasons for impeachment existed when the United States was “a fledgling, debt-ridden republic situated on the seaboard of a vast wilderness continent.” But now we’re all grown up. And if the corruption comes from America … it’s not an issue.
Trump’s legal duo follows up telling the authors of the Constitution that their document is no longer required by moving to an argument about what they really meant. Forget what it says on paper. Forget what the much-quoted-by-Republicans Alexander Hamilton actually had to say about impeachment in The Federalist No. 65, in which he defined impeachment as dealing with “those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust.”
Instead, Trump’s attorney’s argue that the framers intended only a very “limited impeachment power” that expressly does not allow impeachment over abuse of power. They also belittle the idea of “foreign entanglements” as being subject to impeachment, because of that whole “superpower” thing. And, of course, the pair argue simultaneously that Donald Trump is perfectly within his authority to deny the House both testimony and documents, while also claiming that the House lacks enough direct first-hand evidence to take the case to the Senate.
The whole document is a master class in contradiction and internal inconsistencies. It’s also so boot-lickingly close to Trump’s own Tweet-logic that some readers have suggested that Trump himself authored parts of the missive. The document certainly contains enough Arbitrary Capitalization to support that argument. […]
Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has delivered his resolution proposing the rules by which Donald Trump’s impeachment trial will be conducted. And it’s not as bad as many expected—it’s far worse. McConnell has not only set up Trump to receive a hasty, perfunctory process that offers no opportunity to interview witnesses, introduce documents, or seriously discuss the issues— […] rules intentionally designed to hide the evidence of Trump’s crimes by squeezing the case into the wee hours of the morning.
[…] while in Clinton’s case those hours unfolded in prime time over the course of a week, McConnell is requiring that the case in the Trump trial be made in just two days. And if that sounds bad, it’s actually much worse. Chief Justice John Roberts, who will preside over the trial in the Senate, has already informed McConnell that he needs to be at the Supreme Court in the mornings. So each session in the Senate will begin no earlier than 1 in the afternoon.
This means that, even if there was not a single break or a moment of process, each day of hearings will carry on until at least 1 a.m. More likely, House managers would be delivering the case against Trump in the hours more commonly associated with heart attacks and robberies. […]
McConnell’s proposed rules ensure that the case will be conducted with the least possible scrutiny. It’s a proposal that extends the cover-up of Trump’s extortion scheme directly into the rules of the Senate trial. […]
McConnell does something utterly unique, and arguably unconstitutional, by refusing to take the most basic step of any impeachment: accept the case from the House. Instead, McConnell would require senators to vote on the acceptance of each plank of the House case. This makes it likely that Republicans will simply exclude everything the House has assembled, [with the likely result that we will see Republicans frequently objecting] that none of that information is actually in evidence for the Senate trial.
McConnell has crafted a resolution in which the Republican-dominated Senate has to agree on what evidence it’s going to let in. That doesn’t mean just blocking the testimony of additional witnesses; it also means blocking admission of facts learned from witnesses who have already testified before the House. Under these rules, Republicans can literally pick and choose which evidence they accept.
[…] Republicans get a chance to simply vote down the idea of hearing any witnesses. If that doesn’t stop the process at the outset, they then get to secretly depose any witnesses before testimony. And, with that deposition in hand, they will vote again on whether witnesses will be allowed to speak. It’s a process that seems tailored to filter out anyone with less than whole-throated praise for Trump. […]
But of course, none of this may matter. Because McConnell’s proposal also gives the Senate another option: vote to dismiss the whole impeachment. […] Republicans could well decide to simply show their allegiance by throwing the Constitution out wholesale. In a way, that’s probably more honest.
The co-founder of The Intercept, Glenn Greenwald, has been criminally charged in Brazil and accused of being part of a “criminal organization,” The New York Times reported Tuesday, for his outlet’s role in publishing the private discussions of members of a Brazilian anti-corruption task force.
Last summer, The Intercept, which has an office in Brazil, obtained and reported on the internal communications of the task force, called “Operation Car Wash.” The articles, which showed wrongdoing from current Justice Minister Sergio Moro, rocked the country.
The Intercept said the leaked documents came from an anonymous source.
In response, Moro said that The Intercept was “allied with criminal hackers,” the Columbia Journalism Review noted in August. Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro, who’d attacked Greenwald in the past, mused in June that the journalist could “do time.”
In the criminal complaint reported by the Times, prosecutors alleged that Greenwald had a “clear role in facilitating the commission of a crime,” based on his communications with the hackers who allegedly provided the leaked material.
“Federal judge issues temporary order to not deport a Northeastern student. CBP does anyway. Federal judge gives up on the case saying ‘I don’t think they’re going to listen to me’.
Schiff is speaking against the McConnell trial-rigging rules now.
Manu Raju: “Reason why press restrictions need to be reversed. You’re not allowed to walk with senators by floor as usual. We can only talk to them if they stop by our penned areas. I just asked Susan Collins and Cory Gardner about McConnell resolution – and they both ignored the questions.”
I’m sure this is the primary reason for the rules – to allow vulnerable Senators to avoid press/public accountability.
The new version was just read on the floor – changes happened very late in the process after some concerns were raised about those sections
On the evidence piece – evidence will now be admitted automatically unless there are objections (as opposed to not put in record unless voted into it)”
I muted McConnell, but it appears they can object of the basis of hearsay, etc. They will object all over the place. The information is already public, FFS.
I’m really starting to suspect that a number of Senators don’t know much about the evidence and McConnell is trying to keep them from finding out.
“Schiff: The most important decision is whether there will be a fair trial. It’s even more important than whether you vote guilty or innocent.”
Akira MacKenziesays
Fuck it! The fact that the Dems haven’t orchestrated an armed coup over this outrage only shows that they are spineless hypocrites who love to talk about democracy and progress but are too cowardly to spill the blood necessary to achieve it.
“Three 8-hour days isn’t an ideal schedule but it is at least moderately defensible. The 12-hour plan was so absurd that I wonder if it wasn’t designed to make this look reasonable.”
That and they’re already putting out that Collins had objected to the earlier version, so it’s a ploy to make her look moderate. It’s all very similar to the Kavanaugh confirmation, which we have not forgotten.
‘Senator Collins and others raised concerns about the 24 hours of opening statements in 2 days and the admission of the House transcript in the record….She thinks these changes are a significant improvement’.”
Now Cipollone is back up making shit up. They keep asserting “We’re prepared!” but…I don’t think they are. They’re just rehashing the nonsense arguments from the House Republicans.
Pat Cipollone thinks he made a point by reminding @RepAdamSchiff that “Laurence Tribe” says punishing people for invoking their constitutional rights is dangerous. Of course it is! But Article 2 does nothing of the sort. Cipollone’s argument was pathetic.
.@RepAdamSchiff’s opening was magnificent. If you missed it, you owe it to yourself to find it and listen to it. It made me proud not just as his teacher, mentor, and friend but as a lawyer, a professor, and, above all, as an American.
“White House Counsels are not supposed to act as personal lawyers to a POTUS. This is really unconscionable. He should have to resign before functioning in this capacity.”
Mom: “How can they say…?” “Why are they allowed to…?” “How come nobody stops them from…?”
Me: “NONE OF THIS IS LEGAL, MA. NONE OF THIS HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH SOUND LEGAL PRINCIPLES.”
— I figure there are other mothers of lawyers who need this message.
“Trump’s team has spent so many months giving fake, Fox-News-friendly defenses of Trump that they forgot that in the real world, the facts and evidence arrayed against Trump are incredibly damning.”
“BOOM. Referencing Alan Dershowtiz’s argument that abuse of power is not impeachable: ‘There’s a reason they had to go outside the realm of constitutional lawyers and get a criminal defense lawyer, because no reputable constitutional lawyer would say it’.
McConnell has called for tabling (US meaning) Schumer’s amendment, and so far is seems like a party-line vote. Collins’ vote was inaudible, but all of the Republicans so far are voting against subpoenaing the documents now.
Jeff Bezos, the billionaire owner of the Washington Post, had no reason to be suspicious when he received a WhatsApp message from the account of the crown prince of Saudi Arabia in May 2018.
Bezos and Mohammed bin Salman had attended a dinner together in Hollywood a few weeks earlier hosted by Brian Grazer, the Oscar-winning producer, and Ari Emanuel, the powerful talent agent, as part of the young crown prince’s tour of America, which was hailed by some observers as an effort to rebrand the kingdom and set it on a new course.
The then 32-year-old Saudi heir, known all over the world as “MBS”, had been greeted with open arms from Los Angeles to New York – with stops at the White House, MIT, and Harvard. He had rubbed shoulders with celebrities ranging from Oprah to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.
It appeared to be a PR coup for the the crown prince, who had previously been criticised by human rights campaigners about his decision to wage a bloody war in Yemen – and also the alleged imprisonment and torture of rich Saudis at the Ritz-Carlton in Riyadh.
Amazon had even been in talks about the possibility of opening data centres in Saudi Arabia.
The dinner engagement could have been the start of a promising relationship between two of the world’s most powerful men. But it would swiftly turn sour – and in spectacular fashion.
According to sources who have spoken to the Guardian, the message sent to Bezos on that Tuesday 1 May from the personal account of the crown prince contained a video file – of what, it is not clear.
But a forensic technical analysis of the file has found that it is “highly probable” it contained malware that penetrated Bezos’s mobile phone and exfiltrated a large amount of data within hours.
Bezos, it seems, had been hacked.
The Guardian has no knowledge about the precise nature of the material that was allegedly taken or what was done with it.
But this apparent targeting of Bezos’s phone appears to fit into a broader pattern of behaviour by Saudi Arabia.
The crown prince and his inner circle have been criticised for attempting to undermine real and perceived critics of his regime all over the world.
Was Bezos, the owner of the Washington Post, the paper that employed the eloquent Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi, considered one of them?
Certainly, among all of the perceived enemies of the crown prince, Khashoggi was considered one of the most dangerous. His knowledge of the royal Court – he had once worked within it – and the platform then afforded him by such a respected newspaper, gave his articles real weight.
And this was causing great agitation inside the royal court.
According to a a New York Times report in 2019, MBS was growing “increasingly alarmed” by Khashoggi’s criticisms during this period.
In September 2017, just as Khashoggi wrote that Saudi Arabia was becoming “unbearable” because of its repression, the young prince privately told an aide that he would use a “bullet” on Khashoggi, according to current and former US and foreign officials cited by the New York Times.
At nearly the same time, the crown prince was developing a relationship with a different American publisher who would print a far more flattering portrait of the Saudi heir.
According to the New York Times, in September 2017, MBS met David Pecker, the chief executive of American Media Inc (AMI), the owner of the National Enquirer supermarket tabloid, in Saudi Arabia.
Pecker is an important player in Washington. Two months earlier he had had a private dinner with Donald Trump in the White House. Among the other guests was Kacy Grine, a financier who reportedly served as an advisor to Saudi royals.
Pecker and Trump were longtime allies. A Department of Justice investigation would later reveal that Pecker had played a critical role in helping the Trump campaign to “kill” negative stories about the then-candidate’s extramarital affairs and pay hush money to women who were interested in telling their stories.
When MBS flew to the US for his maiden trip as crown prince in March of the following year, it was Pecker’s company that published a glossy magazine hailing him as a great leader who would transform the world.
Pecker, Grine, and MBS met for a second time during the crown prince’s stay in New York.
A few weeks after the alleged Bezos hack, another suspected cyber attack was launched. The target was an influential Saudi dissident who was living in Canada and was a close friend of Khashoggi.
…
Two months after the killing on 2 October 2018, another story emerged. It was seemingly unrelated to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi and was far more salacious.
On 10 January 2019, the National Enquirer published a special edition that exposed Bezos had had an affair.
More than a dozen other articles followed across various AMI publications, in what seemed to be a campaign against the CEO.
The story of the extramarital relationship included intimate details – including the text messages he had sent to his girlfriend months earlier, text messages that were sent just days after Bezos’s mobile phone had been sent the WhatsApp message with the malicious file.
Trump, an ardent critic of Bezos, the Washington Post, and Amazon, who was alleged in a media report to be “obsessed” with Amazon, appeared to revel in the news.
“So sorry to hear the news about Jeff Bozo being taken down by a competitor whose reporting, I understand, is far more accurate than the reporting in his lobbyist newspaper, the Amazon Washington Post,” he tweeted. “Hopefully the paper will soon be placed in better & more responsible hands!”
You know, there are episodes of Law & Order that deal with hearings or trials being rigged and unjust for some crooked reason, and they’re painful to watch. Millions of US voters have seen them and know that feeling.
tomhsays
Good to know the Republicans are taking this seriously.
The Democratic case to subpoena the State Department didn’t make much of an impression on one key Republican senator, Sen. James E. Risch of Idaho, who appeared to be asleep for a significant portion of it.
Shortly after 5:30 p.m., Risch — chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which oversees the State Department — could be seen from the press gallery motionless, with his eyes closed and head slumped against his right hand.
Risch was the first lawmaker seen by Washington Post reporters to clearly have fallen asleep, about four hours after the trial proceedings began Tuesday.
When Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.) cued up video of testimony from U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, Risch briefly perked up, but quickly closed his eyes again.
“47 Democratic Senators voted to seek missing documents from the White House, State Dept, Defense Dept, or the Office of Management and Budget. 53 Republicans opposed them.
47 Democratic Senators voted to summon the witnesses no one has heard from. 53 Republicans opposed them.
Thus blinkered, the trial will now proceed to opening args tomorrow at 1p. The House will have 24h over 3 days, followed by the President’s lawyers for the same amount of time. Then 16h of questions. Then a new vote on whether to debate seeking the missing evidence and witnesses.”
Three weeks after Election Day 2016, the Kremlin officially floated a theory that would ultimately lead to only the third presidential impeachment in U.S. history.
“Ukraine seriously complicated the work of Trump’s election by planting information” aimed at damaging his campaign chairman Paul Manafort, a spokeswoman for Russia’s Foreign Ministry told reporters on Nov. 30, 2016, accusing the Ukrainian government of scheming to help elect Hillary Clinton.
President-elect Donald Trump by this time was busy staffing up his incoming administration, and some of his top advisers, including his son-in-law Jared Kushner and incoming national security adviser Michael Flynn, were making overtures to Russia’s ambassador in the hopes of establishing a diplomatic backchannel to Moscow.
Russian officials offered no evidence—on that day or on any other day—that it was really Kyiv and not Moscow that meddled in the 2016 election. Nor have U.S. intelligence agencies backed off on their collective finding that the Kremlin orchestrated a major effort to help Trump win office.
But as Trump himself would later complain, spokeswoman Maria Zakharova noted in her Nov. 30 briefing that a smattering of Ukrainian officials had criticized him during the campaign.
“You probably remember that Ukrainian officials and diplomatic representatives abroad did not express their views or political assessments but openly insulted the person whom the American people elected their president. You may remember that they later tried to delete these statements from their social networks accounts and their sites, saying that they had been wrong and had rushed to conclusions,” she said.
Zakharova’s claims seemed easy enough to shrug off at the time. It was not surprising that the Kremlin, highly skilled in the dark arts of dezinformatsiya, would try to shift blame to its adversaries in Kyiv.
But that effort to shift blame may have started months earlier. A review of Russian state media reports from the time and interviews with a dozen current and former officials and experts in Kyiv and Washington paint a more sinister picture: that Zakharova’s seemingly throwaway accusation was actually the culmination of a year-long effort to frame Ukraine for a Russian attack, ultimately leading to parallel efforts by Moscow and President Donald Trump to try to game the 2020 election by seeking dirt on former vice president Joe Biden.
…
Cindy Otis, a former political and military analyst at the CIA who now leads the disinformation analysis program at Nisos, a cyber security firm, says that Moscow may even have planted the seeds even earlier than Zakharova’s news conference.
“There’s been an evolution of the main narrative” tying Ukraine to the 2016 election, Otis said. She pointed to a March 2015 article in the Kremlin-funded outlet Russia Today that tried to connect former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the future Democratic presidential nominee, to the popular uprising against the pro-Russian Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych in 2013.
“The Russian narrative in 2015-2016 was that Clinton interfered in Ukraine, and that her campaign was being directed or driven by Ukrainian oligarchs,” Otis said.
…
But it wasn’t just isolated accounts accusing Ukraine of manipulating the 2016 election; lawmakers say they’ve seen signs of an organized, top-down effort directed by the Kremlin to create a false narrative and exonerate Russia.
…
That initial disinformation effort failed to catch fire, but it solidified a Clinton-Ukraine connection among some on the political fringes—the RT story was posted dozens of times in far-right, pro-Trump, and pro-Bernie Sanders Facebook groups between 2015 and 2019—and set the stage for another Russia-promoted conspiracy theory that continues to be amplified by Trump: that the Ukrainians hacked the Democratic National Committee with the help of a cybersecurity firm, CrowdStrike, and framed Russia.
…
Once he was sworn in, Trump had unfettered access to the unclassified intelligence that informed the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia hacked the DNC and interfered to help him win. But he still refused to believe it, preferring the unsubstantiated rumors about Ukraine’s attempts to sabotage his candidacy.
“He would almost never not bring it up,” one former White House official said of Trump’s fixation with the Ukraine conspiracy theory. “And that certainly continued the whole time I was there. It was Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine. You just couldn’t make him understand that’s not how it turned out.”
Suspicion of Ukraine already ran deep among some of Trump’s top advisers, according to another former White House official. “Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller had an enormous amount of distrust and suspicion toward Ukraine,” the former official said, and thought the Ukrainians were trying to get the U.S. to be more adversarial toward Russia.
“I thought it was odd, because it seemed obvious that Ukraine was someone we needed to be closely allied with,” this former official said.
Early on in his presidency, Trump went as far as to ask the Justice Department, then helmed by Jeff Sessions, to investigate the issue of Ukrainian interference on several occasions, the formal official said. But DOJ would always decline, this person added, “because their sense was that Mueller was going to do it for them.” A DOJ spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
It would fall to Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to seek evidence implicating Ukraine in 2016 election meddling—a quixotic mission fueled by his client’s insistence on complete exoneration as his own administration deepened its probe into Russia’s very real involvement.
The origins of Giuliani’s private investigation are murky….
…
It was clear to many government officials early on, however, that the theory was rooted in Russian disinformation and could even be part of an intelligence operation, said another person close to the White House. And intelligence officials have since briefed lawmakers on their belief that the theory is Russian propaganda, according to a person familiar with the briefings.
But Trump’s advisers soon gave up on trying to convince him of Russia’s role, said the first former official.
“Anything he associated with the intel community, he rejected pretty much out of hand because his sense was that the ‘Deep State’ had decided in some star chamber or secret meeting that they would feed intelligence to him that would cause him to make mistakes, and disprove a lot of his theories about what happened in the election,” the person said….
I’m trying to remember if anything about this was in the disinformation packet Veselnitskaya gave them at the Trump Tower meeting.
A hidden camera captured members of a white supremacist group expressing hope that violence at Monday’s gun-rights rally in Richmond could start a civil war, federal prosecutors said in a court filing Tuesday.
Former Canadian Armed Forces reservist Patrik Jordan Mathews also videotaped himself advocating for killing people, poisoning water supplies and derailing trains, a prosecutor wrote in urging a judge in Maryland to keep Mathews and two other members of The Base detained in federal custody.
The three were arrested Thursday. A day earlier, Gov. Ralph Northam had cited safety threats in declaring a state of emergency and temporarily banning guns from Capitol Square for the rally.
Mathews, a 27-year-old Canadian national, didn’t know investigators were watching and listening when he and two other group members talked about attending the Richmond rally in the days leading up to Monday’s event, which attracted tens of thousands of people and ended without violence.
Last month, a closed-circuit television camera and microphone installed by investigators in a Delaware home captured Mathews talking about the Richmond rally as a “boundless” opportunity.
“And the thing is you’ve got tons of guys who … should be radicalized enough to know that all you gotta do is start making things go wrong and if Virginia can spiral out to [expletive] full-blown civil war,” he said.
Mathews and fellow group member Brian Mark Lemley Jr., 33, of Elkton, Md., discussed the planning of violence at the Richmond rally, according to prosecutors. Lemley talked about using a thermal imaging scope affixed to his rifle to ambush unsuspecting civilians and police officers, prosecutors said.
“I need to claim my first victim,” Lemley said on Dec. 23, according to Tuesday’s detention memo.
“We could essentially like be literally hunting people,” Mathews said, according to prosecutors. “You could provide overwatch while I get close to do what needs to be done to certain things.”
Lemley talked about ambushing a police officer to steal the officer’s weapons and tactical gear, saying, “If there’s like a PoPo cruiser parked on the street and he doesn’t have backup, I can execute him at a whim and just take his stuff,” according to prosecutors.
FBI agents arrested Mathews, Lemley and William Garfield Bilbrough IV, 19, of Denton, Md., on Thursday as part of a broader investigation of The Base. Authorities in Georgia and Wisconsin also arrested four other men linked to the group.
Detention hearings for Mathews and Bilbrough are scheduled for Wednesday at the federal courthouse in Greenbelt, Md. Their attorneys didn’t immediately respond to the memo filed Tuesday by Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Windom.
…
Mathews, who was a combat engineer in the Canadian Army Reserve, illegally crossed the U.S. border near Minnesota in August after reporting by the Winnipeg Free Press led to his identification as a member of The Base.
Investigators believe Bilbrough and Lemley, who was a “cavalry scout” in the U.S. Army, drove from Maryland to Michigan to pick up Mathews and bring him to the Mid-Atlantic region, authorities said.
On Jan. 5, Mathews and Lemley returned to the Delaware home from a gun range in Maryland and began packing rations and other material that investigators believe they planned to use during and after the Richmond rally, court documents said.
They packed containers with food and supplies before Mathews remarked about needing to bring a gas mask, investigators said.
Lemley also said he thought they’d have food to last between three and five months and that it “might be enough til the war is over,” according to the filing.
The Anti-Defamation League said members of The Base and other white supremacist groups have frequently posted online messages advocating for “accelerationism,” a term far-right extremists “have assigned to their desire to hasten the collapse of society as we know it.”…
“NEW: UN investigators echo the allegation that MBS was directly involved in hacking Bezos’ phone.
They say it was part of an effort to intimidate Washington Post into halting its critical coverage of Khashoggi’s killing.”
UN OHCHR release at the link.
…The circumstances and timing of the hacking and surveillance of Bezos also strengthen support for further investigation by US and other relevant authorities of the allegations that the Crown Prince ordered, incited, or, at a minimum, was aware of planning for but failed to stop the mission that fatally targeted Mr. Khashoggi in Istanbul.
At a time when Saudi Arabia was supposedly investigating the killing of Mr. Khashoggi, and prosecuting those it deemed responsible, it was clandestinely waging a massive online campaign against Mr. Bezos and Amazon targeting him principally as the owner of The Washington Post….
Marie Yovanovitch’s name & shameful treatment will likely come up during the trial. .@ChristopherJM notes (& new info to me) she had to leave her ailing 90 yr old mother behind in Ukraine upon being abruptly recalled. She later joined her in the US & passed away soon after.
Her mother had been living in Ukraine with her while her daughter was stationed there and was described as “fascinating”. She had been working on her memoirs at the time. Yovanovitch’s mother was originally from Germany, her father, from the former Soviet Union.
“In an incredible exchange at Davos, @realdonaldtrump admits he is comfortable with the status of the impeachment trial because the White House is withholding evidence. ‘Honestly, we have all the material. They don’t have the material’. As always, he says the quiet part out loud.”
“EMBARRASSING, Trump thinks president of Iraq Kurdistan @IKRPresident is the commander of Syrian SDF @MazloumAbdi! These two are completely different
Trumps says things have turn out great with Turkey in Syria and mistakenly thanks Barzani for keeping ‘my safe zone’ safe.”
At a lavish August gathering at a private estate in Spain, a wealthy Venezuelan businessman under criminal investigation in the United States introduced Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, to the father of Venezuela’s opposition leader, Juan Guaido.
The affair was part of a campaign for leniency for the businessman, Alejandro Betancourt, who sought to demonstrate his close ties to opposition figures looking to oust Venezuela’s socialist President Nicolas Maduro – a key objective of the Trump administration.
Betancourt told Giuliani he secretly helped bankroll Guaido’s efforts to take over the leadership of Venezuela, according to four people familiar with the situation, two of whom provided details about the meeting in Spain. Betancourt hoped those bona fides would enable Giuliani, his lawyer, to persuade Trump’s Justice Department to drop its probe of Betancourt in connection with a Florida money laundering and bribery case, the people said.
A month later, at a meeting in Washington, D.C., Giuliani urged Justice Department prosecutors to go easy on Betancourt, according to a person with direct knowledge of the meeting, and Lev Parnas, a former Giuliani associate, who said Giuliani told him about it soon afterward. Parnas and the other person said Giuliani told prosecutors that Betancourt had provided assistance for Guaido’s political efforts, and was therefore doing good work for the United States.
This is the first time Parnas detailed his story about Betancourt, Giuliani and Venezuela.
Giuliani declined to confirm meeting with U.S. prosecutors on Betancourt’s behalf and wouldn’t say whether the Venezuelan businessman is a client. “Lev Parnas has no right to be talking about that meeting,” Giuliani told Reuters in a brief phone interview. “It was a confidential meeting – if it did happen.”
“Lev Parnas’s credibility is worth nothing,” Giuliani said.
The Justice Department declined to comment. Betancourt and his attorney Frank Wohl did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Reuters couldn’t determine whether Betancourt did provide financing to the U.S.-backed opposition or if he was just claiming he did.
Guaido and the main opposition political party, Popular Will, both denied receiving funding from Betancourt….
…
Wilmer Guaido, Guaido’s father, denied meeting Betancourt in Spain….
Giuliani’s meeting with Betancourt at the Spanish estate, and his efforts to lobby the Justice Department on the businessman’s behalf, were previously reported by the Washington Post. Reuters is the first to report that Betancourt told Giuliani that he provided financial support for Venezuela’s opposition, and that Giuliani touted that alleged assistance to U.S. prosecutors as a reason to remove the legal cloud dogging his client.
The episode speaks to the complex roles that Giuliani, the former New York City mayor, has played in Washington since Trump took office in 2017.
Giuliani frequently proclaims himself a business consultant and lawyer working on behalf of private clients. Yet he also enjoys extraordinary access to the halls of power as the president’s unpaid personal attorney – work that has landed him at the center of Trump’s impeachment trial.
Any attempt by a Giuliani client to avoid possible prosecution by claiming to have been backing an American foreign policy objective – the toppling of Maduro in this case – could prove embarrassing to the administration.
…
A representative of Betancourt who declined to be identified said the magnate “didn’t do anything and he has not been charged with any wrongdoing.” He also told Reuters that the businessman had provided “very substantial” financial support to Venezuela’s opposition. [Wait, what? – SC]
…
Parnas said the August meeting at Betancourt’s estate outside Madrid, and the presence of Guaido’s father, were meant to demonstrate Betancourt’s strong ties to Guaido and his support for U.S. interests in Venezuela. It was to show Giuliani “that Betancourt is a really important person for the cause and that he is helping America,” Parnas said.
The lobbying took place in Washington the month after the Spain meeting. Giuliani met with Assistant U.S. Attorney General Brian Benczkowski, a Justice Department lawyer working on the case, and some other government lawyers, according to Parnas and the person with direct knowledge of that meeting.
Department of Justice spokesman Peter Carr, who handles communications for Benczkowski, said the department declined to comment.
The person said Giuliani was there with two other Betancourt lawyers, and made his pitch that the prosecutors let Betancourt off the hook for the case in Florida.
Giuliani first insisted there wasn’t enough evidence to prosecute the case. He then moved to U.S. foreign policy, pointing to Betancourt’s alleged support for Guaido. “This guy’s been helping the United States,” the person with direct knowledge of the meeting said in describing Giuliani’s reasoning.
Giuliani argued that Betancourt was crucial to the survival of the Venezuelan opposition, and he urged the Justice Department lawyers to talk to Guaido themselves to corroborate his claims, the person said.
The prime ministers of Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago are boycotting a scheduled meeting with the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, in a growing row between Caribbean nations who are open to improved relations with the Trump administration, and those who have opposed talks on principle.
Pompeo arrived in Jamaica on Tuesday, where he was set to meet seven Caribbean leaders to discuss regional concerns including Venezuela’s political crisis, trade and national security.
But the meeting represents a departure from formal talks between the US and Caricom, the 15-member organization that advocates for collective regional interests.
Barbados’s prime minister, Mia Mottley – who is also the Caricom chair – announced earlier this month that she would not be attending the meeting in Jamaica, which she described as “an attempt to divide [the] region.”
“I am conscious that if this country does not stand for something, then it will fall for anything,” she said. “As chairman of Caricom, it is impossible for me to agree that my foreign minister should attend a meeting with anyone to which members of Caricom are not invited.”
Mottley has previously criticized the US for inaction on the climate crisis and its regional impact on migration. The Trinidad and Tobago PM, Keith Rowley, later joined Mottley’s boycott, announcing on Monday he would also not be taking part in the meeting.
“[She] has the full support of the government and the people of Trinidad and Tobago in outlining our principles and vision of Caribbean unity. In the expectation of Caribbean unity, the prime minister of Barbados speaks for Trinidad and Tobago,” Rowley said in a speech.
The Jamaican PM, Andrew Holness, will be joined by leaders representing the Bahamas, Belize, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, St Kitts and Nevis and St Lucia. Kamina Johnson Smith, Jamaica’s affairs and foreign trade minister, called Pompeo’s two-day visit “a symbol of Washington’s engagement with the Caribbean”.
…
The meeting in the Caribbean comes a year after Jamaican, Bahamian, Lucian, Haitian and Dominican leaders privately met Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort. Trump promised investment aid in exchange for support of US interests.
Shortly after, the same nations broke from other Caricom members to back Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido as head of state. Caricom officially recognizes Nicolás Maduro as Venezuela’s president and urges dialogue with the leaders of the opposition.
“For the thousands of US service-members who suffered traumatic brain injury from IEDs & other attacks, the president saying ‘I don’t consider it very serious’ will be inexplicable.”
“I asked Trump why he said no Americans were hurt after Iran retaliated for the Solemaini strike even though 11 US service members were airlifted. He said he heard they had ‘headaches’ but does not consider potential traumatic brain injuries to be serious compared to losing limbs.”
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a leading ally of Trump, told The Washington Post in an interview Wednesday that 45 Republicans are ready to dismiss the charges against the president and said he would keep pushing to rally a majority of GOP senators to end the impeachment trial.
“There are 45, with about five to eight wanting to hear a little more,” Paul said. “I still would like to dismiss it, but there aren’t the votes to do it just yet.”
With support from other Trump allies, Paul said he would continue to pressure his colleagues in the coming days to move on from the trial and stop hearing from the House’s Democratic managers, including Schiff.
Elie Mystal: “How many Senators do you think are hearing the full story of @realDonaldTrump’s corruption for literally the first time from @RepAdamSchiff?”
As I suggested @ #103 above, I really suspect a decent number of them have been ensconced in the Fox bubble and/or actively avoiding information.
“Schiff: Trump’s ‘misconduct cannot be decided at the ballot box. For we cannot be assured that the vote will be fairly won. In corruptly using his office to gain a political advantage … the president has shown that he believes he is above the law and scornful of constraint’.”
“‘I recognize there will be times during the trial that you may long to return to the business of the Senate’, Schiff says. ‘The American people look forward to the same. But not before you decide what kind of democracy that you believe we ought to be’.”
Rep. Raskin: “Cipollone must be forced by CJ Roberts to correct the record and apologize or face disbarment for brazen lack of candor to the tribunal in a legal proceeding. I was in nearly every deposition and the GOP Members were always present.”
The newly released documents – @ #132 above – include emails from legislators or their aides to OMB asking why the aid was being withheld. These include at least one Senator. I hope they’re introduced in the trial this week.
I really suspect a decent number of them have been ensconced in the Fox bubble and/or actively avoiding information.
and
Cipollone must be forced by CJ Roberts to correct the record and apologize or face disbarment for brazen lack of candor to the tribunal in a legal proceeding
Cipollone is either a liar, or he has restricted the information he allows into his mind to that approved by Trump.
That lie about Republicans not being let into “secret basement meetings” is easily debunked. As Nicole Wallace noted, MSNBC and other networks have footage of Republicans entering and exiting those meetings. Plus, the approximately 100 senators allowed into those depositions is a matter of public record. It was never secret.
That’s not the only lie Cipollone told. Is he an ethical lawyer of just a Liar-for-Trump? Reminds me of William Barr in some ways. Are Cipollone and his team actually ill-informed?
I would not really be surprised if not only the Republican senators, but many people on Trump’s team are hearing the facts/timeline behind the articles of impeachment for the first time. Adam Schiff is doing a good job of presenting the facts. They must hate having to listen to that.
Their defense, however, will be repetition of talking points, lies, and a refusal to acknowledge the evidence. And that reminds me of both Trump and William Barr.
[…] The House Judiciary Committee [a category of lie that Daniel Dale noted in his list]
Sekulow alleged that Trump’s constitutional rights were violated by the House Judiciary Committee.
“During the proceedings that took place before the Judiciary Committee, the President was denied the right to cross-examine witnesses, the President was denied the right to access evidence, and the President was denied the right to have counsel present at hearings,” he said.
Facts First: This is false. The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jerry Nadler, formally invited Trump to have a lawyer participate in the proceedings in that committee — but Cipollone declined the offer, saying in a letter to Nadler that “an invitation to an academic discussion with law professors does not begin to provide the President with any semblance of a fair process.”
[…] Sekulow was wrong when he continued that not having the President’s lawyer question witnesses in a House impeachment hearing “violates the Constitution of the United States.”
Sekulow might perhaps have made an inadvertent error when he named the Judiciary Committee. Trump was indeed denied the right to have his own counsel participate in the preceding House Intelligence Committee hearings, during which the fact witnesses testified. (A lawyer for House Republicans, Steve Castor, was permitted to question witnesses at the House Intelligence Committee.)
The constitutional rights of criminal defendants, such as the right to have the assistance of counsel and to call and confront witnesses, do not apply to the subjects of House proceedings. […]
[…] Mueller and obstruction [a category of lies in Daniel Dale’s list]
Sekulow said: “And then we had the invocation of the ghost of the Mueller Report, I know something about that report — it came up empty on the issue of collusion with Russia. There was no obstruction, in fact, the Mueller Report, to the contrary of what these managers say today — came to the exact opposite conclusions of what they say.”
Facts First: Sekulow’s wording was too vague for us to declare his claim false, but special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the Trump campaign’s relationship with Russia did not come to a conclusion of “no obstruction,” nor did it say “the opposite” of Democrats’ claims that Trump did commit obstruction.
Mueller laid out multiple instances in which Trump may have committed obstruction, but he explained that he would abide by a Justice Department policy that holds that a sitting president cannot be indicted.
The report said: “…If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment. Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”
Attorney General William Barr then determined that the evidence laid out by Mueller was “not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.” […]
tomhsays
This simply confirms what we already know. As long as Trump delivers what they want, whether it’s taxes, anti-abortion judges, religious privilege, or whatever, most Republicans don’t care whether he is acting legally or not.
While 63 percent of Americans say Trump has definitely or probably acted illegally as president or as a candidate, a slim 51 percent majority says he should be removed from office for those crimes, according to a new Pew Research Center poll.
That distinction makes the Democrats’ job more difficult: They have to convince Americans not only that Trump committed illegal acts but also that those acts should result in the ultimate punishment by the Senate.
An even larger majority, 70 percent of Americans, says the president has definitely or probably acted unethically, the poll found.
The poll also shows why it will be difficult for Democrats to persuade Republicans in Congress to side with them in the impeachment probe. A 59 percent majority of the Republicans who think Trump definitely or probably acted illegally still oppose removing him from office.
By Colby Itkowitz and Emily Guskin
NEW/UPDATE: Last week, the govt was supposed to turn over to @BuzzFeedNews & @CNN Jared Kushner’s FBI interview summary (302) from the Mueller investigation in response to our #FOIA lawsuits but didn’t and failed to explain why
Today, govt atty explained why we didn’t receive it
“It is my understanding that the Kushner 302 has been referred by the FBI to a member of the intelligence community in compliance with 28 CFR 16.4. When that member has finished its review, the 302 will be released with the appropriate redactions.”
The White House Correspondents’ Association (@WHCA), which does *NOT* make credentialing decisions, confirms to me that the White House credentialed the anti-Semitic TruNews.
The D.C. press corps is filling in where the cameras that Mitch McConnell refused to allow into the impeachment trial are absent. So we know just what a farce Republicans consider this exercise to be. And precisely why McConnell made sure the American people don’t see it.
Reporter Michael McAuliff tweeted that, a few of hours into Rep. Adam Schiff’s presentation “21 empty seats on the GOP side of the Senate, 2 on the Dem side. […] Some are just stretching their legs, but most are not in the chamber. Some of them have been out of there for a while.”
Those who were out for “for a long time”—Republicans Lindsey Graham, Jim Risch, and Bill Cassidy. Reporter Paul McLeod tweeted about McConnell’s histrionics toward the end of Schiff’s presentation when “McConnell threw his hands down and made a clear ‘are you kidding me?’ face.” Republican Rand Paul, Ben Jacobs tweeted, decided to occupy his time working on a crossword puzzle. That’s how much they care about the process; how much they care about their singular role in our republic.
As for Chief Justice John Roberts, it shows how seriously he’s taking this whole thing, too. Because it’s his job to enforce the rules, which tell them they have to give up electronic devices and stay silent and are “requested to remain in their seats at all times they are on on the Senate floor” during the proceedings.
They’re all taking this about as seriously as they took that oath they swore to at the outset, to provide impartial justice.
I would not really be surprised if not only the Republican senators, but many people on Trump’s team are hearing the facts/timeline behind the articles of impeachment for the first time.
Good point. This might have been at the root of my reaction to Cipollone yesterday – he seemed almost shocked and unable to process the facts as the House Managers were describing them. So it wouldn’t just be a lack of preparation, but a preparation based on falsehoods they’ve absorbed over months, which don’t cohere into any reasonable narrative.
President Trump gave huge tax cuts to big corporations and the ultra-wealthy that exploded the deficit by $2.3 TRILLION.
How does he want to pay for that?
By cutting critical programs like Medicare and Social Security.
WaPo link atl. The Republicans have tried for years to take away people’s health care, and they have an ongoing lawsuit to destroy the ACA with nothing to replace it. After a tax scam that vastly increased the wealth of the richest people and corporations, inequality, and the debt, they want to do more cuts to basic public services. So populist.
SC @162, Yes. but Roberts seems to be more interested in maintaining what he calls “decorum” than he is in making sure that Republicans adhere to the rule that says they are to remain seated in the chamber most of the time.
Followup to SC’s comment 163. Yeah, Trump needs a second term so he can cut Medicare and Social Security.
Commentary from Steve Benen:
[…] CNBC’s Joe Kernen sat down with the president this morning and broached the subject.
KERNEN: Entitlements ever be on your plate?
TRUMP: At some point they will be…. And at the right time, we will take a look at that.
At that point, the president shifted his focus a bit, exaggerating the recent economic growth – GDP growth, in reality, is both short of his projections and slower than parts of Obama’s second term – seemingly as a way to suggest this would make cuts easier. [Trump lied.]
Kernen followed up, asking about Medicare and Trump’s willingness to “do some of the things that you said you wouldn’t do in the past.”
The president replied, “We’re going to look.”
This is obviously the sort of thing that raises any number of questions – the details matter – and there are no available answers.
But at its core, there’s a basic truth that’s unavoidable: ahead of the 2016 cycle, Trump insisted he wouldn’t cut any these social-insurance programs, and ahead of the 2020 cycle, his position is fundamentally different.
And in case that weren’t quite enough, there’s a larger context that includes Larry Kudlow, the director of the Trump White House’s National Economic Council, arguing in the not-too-distant past that the president’s team is prepared to look at entitlement “reforms” – which is a common euphemism for cuts.
As CNBC reported a year and a half ago, Kudlow added that the White House was determined to reduce federal spending, and “part of the Republican plan to curb spending is tackling entitlements.”
No matter who wins the Democratic presidential nomination, Trump and his team have made this a key 2020 issue […]
From Robin Wright, writing for The New Yorker: “THE STAGGERING (AND UNCOVERED) LEGAL BILLS FACING IMPEACHMENT WITNESSES”
Kurt Volker, President Trump’s former special representative for Ukraine, has accrued legal bills of about eighty thousand dollars related to the impeachment inquiry.
In November, the State Department announced that it would cover the legal fees of senior staff summoned to testify during the House Intelligence Committee’s hearings on the impeachment of President Trump. After all, none of the diplomats had been accused of doing anything wrong. […]
That claim was only partially true—and in very small part. Witnesses have accrued as much as half a million dollars in legal fees that are not being covered by the State Department, according to six witnesses, who spoke on condition of anonymity, lawyers, and others involved in helping with the soaring bills. […]
“Many of these public servants stand to amass legal bills in the six or seven figures,” […]
The State Department’s program will reimburse the lawyers of witnesses for only a fraction—about a quarter—of the charges for a single lawyer versed in constitutional, U.S. foreign-policy, or government issues at a Washington law firm, according to lawyers working on behalf of witnesses. But the key witnesses have each required teams of several lawyers and law-firm associates, who spent months reconstructing how the Trump Administration’s Ukraine policy unfolded relevant to their clients, piecing together a paper trail, collecting evidence, prepping their clients for closed-door depositions and then public testimony, in addition to dealing with security and the press, and keeping up with how the case unfolds daily. […]
For the witnesses involved in a high-profile impeachment, a single partner at a major Washington law firm charges up to twelve hundred dollars an hour, with associates making at least half that. Multiple lawyers representing witnesses said the average case would be between four hundred thousand and half a million dollars—so far. […]
The legal bills of witnesses from the White House, Pentagon, or Office of Management and Budget are not covered by the State Department program, according to lawyers and witnesses. […]
A few witnesses—including one at the State Department, one from the White House, and a third from another department—have tapped into personal-liability insurance to help cover costs. “I can’t imagine my situation if I hadn’t had liability, just because I am sure it could have been tens of thousands of dollars,” one witness, who was deposed behind closed doors but was not called to testify in the open hearings, told me.
Liability insurance has limits, however. Government employees first have to take it out at personal expense. Not all do. And some insurance companies do not assist with legal fees unless the policyholder is charged with a crime or a civil offense, lawyers involved in the impeachment said. Multiple witnesses had claims rejected by their insurance agencies.
Only one State Department witness is receiving modest reimbursement from a liability policy. He, too, was originally rejected; his legal team had to intercede to persuade the insurer to pay. […]
Sarah Kendzior, Andrea Chalupa, and Rep. Raskin all endorse Elizabeth Warren.
johnson catmansays
re Lynna @164:
Yes. but Roberts seems to be more interested in maintaining what he calls “decorum” than he is in making sure that Republicans adhere to the rule that says they are to remain seated in the chamber most of the time.
Would jurors in ANY trial in ANY courtroom in the US be allowed to just walk out of the proceedings of a trial? Of course not. This is just more proof that neither the “jurors” nor the “judge” in this “trial” are taking any of it seriously.
“‘If FOIA stands for anything, it is that the statute should not be misused to cover up illegal conduct.’ NYT presses argument for public access to Ukraine military aid emails. New court filing:…”
Joyce White Vance on a report on #158 above: “This violates a federal judge’s order to turnover by January 17. Unless DOJ got an extension of time, which the article doesn’t reflect, this is Trump again acting like he’s above the law. The redactions on Kushner’s 302’s, once turned over, will merit heavy scrutiny.”
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 157
<
blockquote>While 63 percent of Americans say Trump has definitely or probably acted illegally as president or as a candidate, a slim 51 percent majority says he should be removed from office for those crimes, according to a new Pew Research Center poll.
<
blockquote>
Did Pew bother to ask that 12 percent WHY a president who acted illegal SHOULDN’T be removed from office?
Fuck it, it doesn’t matter. May the end of this shithole country come soon.
On December 19, during the news lull just before the holidays, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) made public changes to its National Detention Standards (NDS), which govern the conditions and management of some of its detention facilities. The agency says the updates to the standards streamline its focus on “essential requirements.” But immigrant advocacy groups fear that the changes water down critical protections and allow for looser oversight, threatening the health and safety of roughly one-fifth of all immigrants in detention.
Among the wide range of changes, ICE broadened the reasons a detainee can be placed in solitary confinement and removed language preventing officers from using “hog-tying, fetal restraints, [and] tight restraints.” The agency also extinguished requirements for new facilities to have outdoor recreation areas and provisions guaranteeing that nonprofit organizations have access to the detention centers. There were also significant revisions to protocols in the case of serious injury, illness, or death, such as allowing guards to notify ICE “as soon as practicable” (as opposed to immediately) that a detainee needs to be transferred to a hospital and removing any mention of how to proceed if a detainee dies during the transfer. Attorneys worry the revised standards will have a real impact on the way immigrants in custody are treated.
“ICE’s [revised] standards for these detention facilities have weakened protections for immigrant detainees across the board,” said Eunice Cho, a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Prison Project.
The new guidelines apply to as many as 140 facilities across the United States, including as many as 18 in Texas. The standards primarily apply to local jails and prisons that have contracted with ICE to rent beds to hold immigrants alongside other inmates.
ICE has taken the position that less robust safeguards are a testimony to partnering law enforcement’s ability to “successfully manage their own populations.” But several of these facilities, including lockups in East and West Texas, have repeatedly violated detainees’ civil and constitutional rights.
Under the new weaker standards, chances are that local jails and prisons will have an easier time passing inspections and keeping their lucrative contracts with ICE in place. “The way that the new national detention standards are structured, it removes any incentive to really provide the minimal care and oversight necessary for detainees,” Cho said.
…
While experts agree that higher standards are better, none of ICE’s rules carry much weight. Ultimately, the agency is not required to incorporate the most updated safeguards to its agreements, and if facilities fail to comply, there are generally very few consequences. Although ICE conducts annual inspections in most detention centers, even those that repeatedly violate the standards are given a pass…..
From the article: “One of the men who fled Somalia, fearing for his life, said the conditions at the West Texas facility were so bad he would rather go home.”
“Schiff: ‘There are not many first person cables that come in … [Bill] Taylor sent that cable on August 29th. Would you like me to read that to you right now? I would like to read it to you right now. Except I don’t have it. Because the State Department wouldn’t provide it’.”
“Hot mic: In chat at start of World Holocaust Forum, Pence and Bibi chat about impeachment. ‘We are contending. He’s unstoppable’, Pence tells Bibi about Trump. ‘Like somebody else I know’.”
Roberts announces Senators can read classified testimony (White House won’t let public see).
Topic: Pence-Zelenskyy call.
@RepZoeLofgren: ‘I’ve read that testimony and I’ll just say: A coverup is not a proper reason to classify a document’.”
This happened at the end of the proceedings last night. Claire McCaskill said that if a Senator thinks it’s important information for the public to have and that it shouldn’t be classified, they could reveal its contents, and then the burden would be on the so-called administration to show that it was properly classified; but Chuck Rosenberg thought this would be very risky. Presumably someone could leak it…?
One year from today, the next president will begin her first full day of work. She’ll inherit a government in crisis, infected by corruption, and will need the expertise and drive to rebuild it and ensure it works for the people. I’ve got a plan for that.
[link to her plan at the link]
Donald Trump has done serious damage to our government. He’s left key positions unfilled. Of those he has filled, he’s appointed lobbyists, campaign donors, and cronies. His current vindictive actions mean he’s likely to do everything he can to undermine the next president.
I know how to get our government working for the people because I’ve done it before. In 2010 President Obama picked me to get the CFPB up and running. We recruited a mission-driven staff, set up the organization, and it acted swiftly to protect Americans from financial predators.
On day one of my presidency, I will take aggressive steps to root out the corruption and incompetence of the Trump administration, starting by removing all political appointees, except those necessary to preserve continuity and protect national security.
I will also direct the Justice Department to establish an independent task force to investigate violations of specific anti-corruption and public integrity laws during the Trump administration, with independent authority to pursue any substantiated violations.
I’ll move swiftly to appoint new personnel who will undo the Trump administration’s disastrous policies. I’ll adopt the strictest anti-corruption hiring rules of any administration in American history.
Under the Trump administration, we’ve seen appointees who are actively hostile to the missions of their agencies, like Secretary Betsy DeVos, who doesn’t believe in public education. As president, I’ll appoint people who want to fulfill their agency’s mission, not undermine it.
Our government officials can best serve the American public when they reflect the diversity of the country itself. That’s why I’ll build a Cabinet and senior leadership team that reflects the full diversity of America.
Donald Trump’s presidency has been a dark time—but it won’t end just because he’s left office. Rooting out corruption and incompetence, rebuilding our government, and ensuring it will work for the people will require painstaking work. I’ve got a serious plan to get it done.
Justin Amash, agreeing with Lynna and me :): “Based on my experience with Republican colleagues in the House, I suspect that many Senate Republicans are hearing the facts of this case for the first time.”
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 177
At that moment, McConnell, clad in a black robe, declares “I AM THE SENATE!” before blasting Harris is force lightning.
Akira MacKenziesays
Edit: …blasting Harris with force lightning.
johnson catmansays
re SC @189:
I suspect that many Senate Republicans are hearing the facts of this case for the first time.
While listening to the news this morning, I heard one Senator make a comment along the lines of “All this just over a phone call?” So, they aren’t even listening to the evidence at the trial. They have made up their small minds, and they will not change.
“Homewrecker.” “Traitor.” “Tramp.” These are just some of the insults flung at Lisa Page—the former FBI lawyer whom President Trump has targeted for her text messages critical of him during the 2016 election—in the almost four thousand responses to a tweet she posted on Jan. 18.
Phrased like this, such insults might seem unsurprising, if gross. Public figures often receive online abuse, after all. But the replies to Page’s tweet stand out. They likely represent a targeted trollbot attack—one that nobody has reported on until now.
I operate Bot Sentinel, a platform that uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to classify Twitter accounts who exhibit toxic troll-like repetitive behavior—that is, misleading or coordinated posting. Because of my experience, I see a lot of bile from trolls and inauthentic accounts on Twitter. But when my team examined the responses to Page’s tweet, even I was shocked by what we discovered.
…
More than one in four of the replies to Page’s tweet comes from accounts likely to be trollbots. 3891 accounts replied to her tweet, and a staggering 28.42 percent of responders received Bot Sentinel “Trollbot rating” of 75 percent—the threshold for accounts that we classify as “alarming.”
We classify accounts using a four-tiered structure, with a percentage calculated to reflect how likely it is that the account is a trollbot: normal (0-24 percent), moderate (25-49 percent), problematic (50-74) and alarming (75-100). We calculate an account’s score based on several factors, including an account’s propensity to retweet known misleading news and to engage in repetitive bot-like behavior.
Only the worst accounts receive a rating above 75 percent. Such high a rating is indicative of an inauthentic account that participates in coordinated swarms on a particular tweet or user.
…
The proportion of these “alarming” accounts replying to Page’s tweet is highly abnormal. Of the total number of accounts analyzed by Bot Sentinel within a 24-hour time period, on average only 15 percent receive an “alarming” trollbot rating. The proportion among those accounts replying to Page’s tweet is nearly double that: 28 percent of the accounts replying to Page meet the threshold of likely trollbots.
It’s exceedingly rare to see such a large percentage of trollbot-like responses on a tweet like Page’s. We see swarms like this several times a month, but they almost always target tweets linked to a major news event. For example, on the day the Senate began the impeachment trial, swarms of inauthentic accounts targeted House impeachment managers and shared disinformation about Democrats and the Ukraine scandal….
But that’s not what surprised us the most. Our team was most struck by the sheer vitriol of the trollbot attacks against Page. It is our job to identify and examine inorganic activity on social media platforms; we sift through vulgar and toxic content all the time. Yet the replies to Page’s tweet stood out for their unusually vile quality.
This analysis doesn’t definitively prove a coordinated campaign against Page. However, the suspicious activity associated with her tweet has all the characteristics of such a campaign: a swarm of inauthentic accounts using the same toxic language and repetitive activity. It looks a lot like the coordinated campaigns we witnessed during the 2016 election, where a swarm of accounts would suddenly begin tweeting the same toxic messaging.
All this raises a question: Who is behind the apparent trollbot activity against Page?
It is not often that a two-hour, Portuguese-language documentary about Brazilian politics, directed by a Brazilian film-maker, is nominated for an Oscar. But on Monday, the Academy-nominated Petra Costa’s Netflix film The Edge of Democracy – not as a foreign film, but as a contender for the more mainstream title of Best Documentary of 2019.
As its title suggests, the film is a warning about the multiple threats posed to democratic values and institutions in the world’s sixth most populous country. That Brazilian democracy is imperiled by the 2018 election of the far-right, dictatorship-supporting former army captain Jair Bolsonaro has been much discussed in the international press.
But Costa’s film makes clear that Bolsonaro did not materialize from nowhere. As is true of the US election of Donald Trump and the UK’s ratification of Brexit, the conditions that nurtured that traumatic and disruptive event were years in the making. Indeed, The Edge of Democracy devotes only a few minutes near the end to Bolsonaro’s rise, implicitly depicting it as the consequence of the events that preceded it and that compose the bulk of the film.
The film focuses on two pre-Bolsonaro events: the 2016 impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff and the 2017 corruption conviction, and ultimate imprisonment, of Rousseff’s party compatriot, Lula da Silva, when Lula was leading all polls by a substantial margin for the 2018 presidential race. Both Rousseff and Lula are members of the center-left Workers’ party (PT).
…
Notwithstanding the genuine corruption that plagued Lula and Rousseff’s party – corruption which even Lula has acknowledged – the Car Wash corruption inquiry was itself corrupt. It was a stealth rightwing political operation that weaponized the law rather than upheld it, all in the service of achieving what the Brazilian right has tried but failed to accomplish at the ballot box since 2002: removing PT from power and destroying the party.
In other words, the dominant force in Brazilian politics for the last five years was not elections and politics – where PT has always thrived – but legal and judicial power used for obviously politicized ends. When leaders are determined not by popular vote or electioneering but by unelected judges with a clear political ideology, then democracy exists in name only.
Beyond the political events which Costa’s film so powerfully covers, her Oscar nomination is itself an important development in Brazilian democracy. It comes at a time when not only press freedoms and democratic values are under assault in Brazil, but also artistic expression.
Late last week, Bolsonaro was forced to fire his Culture Minister, Ricardo Alvim, after Alvim, among other stunning offenses, plagiarized the words of Joseph Goebbels. Alvim’s 6-minute speech, viewable with English subtitles, has to be seen to be believed: it channels Nazi themes with shocking deliberateness and thoroughness.
Last month, a member of the far-right party PSL, armed with a molotov cocktail, attacked the production company, Porta dos Fundos, that produced a controversial Netflix film depicting Jesus as gay. (Bolsonaro was a member of PSL, but left in November due to internal disagreements.) The alleged attacker, Eduardo Fauzi, fled Brazil to Russia, where he is currently seeking asylum.
Recently a far-right judge with sympathies to Bolsonaro issued a shocking ruling that ordered Netflix to remove the film from its streaming platform and barred it from ever showing it again. Though the Brazilian supreme court overturned the order, these multipronged attacks on the film underscore the systemic hostility which film-makers and artists are encountering.
Threats of violence prevented one of Brazil’s most famous and admired actors – Wagner Moura, of Narcos fame – from showing his 2019 film about the leftist guerrilla Carlos Marighella in cinemas. Throughout 2019, other artists, journalists and writers have had to cancel scheduled public events due to threats of violence from the far right, or have encountered violence when they appeared.
…
Films and plays that offend far-right sentiment are subject to violence and censorship. Center-left parties that win elections are destroyed by rightwing judges who then join the government they helped elect. Truly Brazil tinkers on the edge of democracy.
The White House says Schiff is lying for saying Trump withheld an Oval Office meeting that has…never happened.
At the very UN meeting this tweet cites, Zelensky told/prodded/ribbed Trump, “You invited me. But I think – I’m sorry, but I think you forgot to tell me the date.”
As reported by NPR, in Utah a new rule under the Mental Health Professional Practice Act (full text of rule [scroll to pp. 61-66]) bans mental health professionals from providing conversion therapy to minors. The rule defines conversion therapy as “any practice or treatment that seeks to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of a patient or client, including mental health therapy that seeks to change, eliminate, or reduce behaviors, expressions, attractions, or feelings related to a patient or client’s sexual orientation or gender identity.”
The new rule became effective yesterday. It excludes from coverage:
(i) a clergy member or religious counselor who is acting substantially in a pastoral or religious capacity and not in the capacity of a mental health therapist; or
(ii) a parent or grandparent who is a mental health therapist and who is acting substantially in the capacity of a parent or grandparent and not in the capacity of a mental health therapist.
[…]
While Utah becomes the 19th state to pass this sort of ban, it is the first with a Republican governor and Republican controlled legislature to do so.
Tucker Carlson got quite… heated on Wednesday as he ranted about the media’s coverage of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).
Schiff, the lead House impeachment manager, was praised by cable news pundits for his speech on day two of the Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.
CNN chief legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin described Schiff’s performance as the “second-best courtroom address… that I ever heard.”
“I thought the way he wove through both the facts of the case and the historical context was really remarkable,” he said.
Others, including CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and former Robert Mueller team lawyer Andrew Weissmann, lauded his speech as inspiring and powerful. Attorney George Conway said it was a “very coherent, cohesive narrative.”
These reactions, according to Carlson, were “pornographic.”
“They were too deep in bliss. To the mouth-breathers on cable television, an Adam Schiff speech is like a brainstem massage, surging waves of ecstasy flood the central nervous system. Linear thought ceases. All that’s left are satisfied grunts of pleasure.”
After airing several clips of commentators discussing Schiff on cable TV, Carlson apologized to “any viewers under 18 who may have just watched that. It was obviously pornographic and not suitable for children.”
There’s a video making the rounds online this morning of Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) fielding a question from a reporter about Donald Trump’s Ukraine scandal. This was the most notable part of the exchange:
REPORTER: So you’re saying that it’s okay for a President to ask a foreign leader to investigate a political rival and withhold foreign aid to coerce him into doing so?
BRAUN: No, I’m not saying that’s okay. I’m not saying that’s appropriate. I’m saying that it DIDN’T HAPPEN.
For those familiar with the basic elements of the controversy, this seems like a deeply embarrassing incident for the freshman Republican senator. But part of the reason the video is making the rounds is that Braun himself is promoting it. The GOP Hoosier is proud of what he said and how he said it.
[…] Braun’s assertions have no basis in reality. We know the president asked foreign leaders to investigate a domestic rival because he did so, on camera, while standing on the south lawn of the White House. We also know Trump withheld foreign aid in order to coerce a foreign leader because there’s a mountain of documentary evidence — not to mention a recent GAO report and a confession from the White House chief of staff — that definitely proves that it happened.[…]
My point is not to pick on the junior senator from Indiana, since he’s hardly alone in his embrace of up-is-down, day-is-night politics.
But I once again find myself thinking anew about former Rep. Earl Landgrebe (R-Ind.), who refused to break with Richard Nixon, […]
“Don’t confuse me with the facts,” Landgrebe said the day before Nixon’s resignation. “I’ve got a closed mind. I will not vote for impeachment. I’m going to stick with my president even if he and I have to be taken out of this building and shot.”
The difference between 1974 and 2020 is simple: nearly a half-century ago, Landgrebe was one of a tiny minority. Now, Congress is filled with a few too many Earl Landgrebes.
NEW: The FBI in Boston says they’ve taken Christopher Cantwell into custody for threatening a person on the Telegram app.
Cantwell was part of the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, VA. He’s been dubbed ‘The Crying Nazi’ online because of his interviews with Vice News
According to the indictment Cantwell allegedly threatened a man to hand over the personal identifying information of a person who went by a pseudonym online.
He allegedly told the person he would “come and f*ck your wife in front of your kids” if he didn’t hand the info over.
Trump claimed yesterday that, “The other thing I wanted to check very carefully, and it’s very important, is corruption.” Oh FFS. He is trying to revive that bogus argument again?
Commentary:
[…] Sen. Ted Cruz added on Twitter yesterday afternoon: “A reminder of what this is all about: any president — any administration — is justified in investigating corruption.” […]
Do we really have to do this again? Hasn’t the argument already been discredited enough?
To show that Trump has no genuine concerns about corruption we could shine a light on his efforts to make international bribery easier. We could also note the many instances in which the president has faced credible allegations of corruption since he took office. We could even note how difficult it is to see the president as an anti-corruption crusader given the number of close Trump associates who’ve recently ended up in prison.
But let’s instead focus specifically on the subject at hand, highlighting a point House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) made during yesterday’s impeachment trial about why Trump’s claim is impossible to take seriously.
“If the president was fighting corruption … why would he hide it from us?” Schiff said. “Why would he hide it from the Ukrainians? Why would he hide it from the rest of the world? … Why wouldn’t he be proud to tell the Congress of the United States, ‘I’m holding up this aid, and I’m holding it up because I’m worried about corruption’?”
“Why wouldn’t he? Because of course it wasn’t true,” Schiff said.
That’s a devastatingly good point, but there’s no reason to stop there.
If Trump’s interest in Ukrainian corruption was sincere, why didn’t he broach the subject during his July phone meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky? For that matter, why did Trump also fail to broach the subject in his April phone meeting with Zelensky?
Why is it that Trump was specifically urged by his own staff to bring up corruption when speaking with Zelensky, only to have the Republican ignore the advice?
If Trump was serious about corruption concerns, why did he rely on a private attorney – Rudy Giuliani – and his controversial associates, rather than turning to official channels?
If Trump “wanted to check very carefully” about corruption in Kyiv, why is there literally no evidence of any such Trump administration investigation? […]
To hear Trump tell it, his desire to get foreign governments like Ukraine and China to open investigations into the Biden family is all about principled corruption concerns, not politics…. But all it took was one question from CNBC’s Eamon Javers to destroy his talking point.
“Have you asked foreign leaders for any corruption investigations that don’t involve your political opponents?” Javers asked.
The answer, it quickly became apparent, was no […]
The president got caught engaging in an illegal extortion scheme, which sparked an intense effort to come up with a credible excuse.
But this talking point has been discredited. They’ll have to look elsewhere.
One of the many tells that Trump is lying: he claims a project or a required action is “ahead of schedule.” Your alarm bells should be ringing.
Trump commented on the military aid package to Ukraine — the one he blocked as part of an illegal extortion scheme — and used a familiar phrase.
“[B]y the way, in terms of the money, it got there two or three weeks ahead of schedule — long before it was supposed to be there,” the president claimed. “There was absolutely nothing done wrong.” He echoed the point again yesterday, telling reporters, in reference to officials in Kyiv, “They got their money long before schedule.”
[…] Trump’s claims are ridiculously untrue. As the New York Times recently explained:
The 2019 federal fiscal year ended on Sept. 30, the date by which all appropriated aid to Ukraine was supposed to be disbursed. But because of the freeze ordered by Mr. Trump, not all of the aid was spent before the deadline.
Congress had appropriated $391 million in military assistance to Ukraine — $250 million from the Pentagon and $141 million from the State Department — meant to be spent by the end of September. Though the Pentagon announced its plans to provide the aid in June, White House officials blocked its release in July. It remained frozen until mid-September, when Mr. Trump relented after pressure from lawmakers and administration officials.
[…] he’s making stuff up.
[…] Roughly a year into his term, Trump spoke at a religious right gathering where he boasted, “I didn’t have a schedule, but if I did have a schedule, I would say we are substantially ahead of schedule.”
It’s a phrase he embraced with great enthusiasm and without regard for accuracy. Before adding an inch of border barriers, for example, Trump told supporters, “We’re building the wall…. Way ahead of schedule, way ahead of schedule. Way, way, way ahead of schedule.”
The president added that his plans to overhaul veterans’ care were “ahead of schedule.” He insisted that his proposed changes to U.S. education policy were “ahead of schedule.” Before the Republican tax plain even existed, Trump assured the public that his plan was “actually ahead of schedule.”
Nixon says he will ‘fight like hell’ against impeachment, while still engaged in a massive coverup. He is desperately hiding certain incriminating evidence.
It would come out 6 months later & he resigns 8/9, damaging the @GOP massively in mid-terms.”
Jay Sekulow, one of Trump’s attorneys, embarrassed himself big time.
From Steve Benen:
[…] “‘Lawyer lawsuits’?” Sekulow asked incredulously. “‘Lawyer lawsuits’? … The managers are complaining about ‘lawyer lawsuits’? The Constitution allows lawyer lawsuits. It’s disrespecting the Constitution of the United States to even say that in this chamber — ‘lawyer lawsuits.'”
No one had any idea what he was talking about, but eventually it became clear that one of the House managers referenced “FOIA lawsuits” — in reference to the Freedom of Information Act — and Sekulow misunderstood. Nevertheless, the White House, true to form, refused to acknowledge the misstep, and said Sekulow’s mistake was actually correct. […]
From the Washington Post:
In an exchange with reporters during the first break, Jay Sekulow, Trump’s personal lawyer, rebutted a reference by Schiff to a quid pro quo.
“You’ve noticed that Adam Schiff today talked about quid pro quo,” Sekulow said. “Notice what’s not in the articles of impeachment: allegations or accusations of quid pro quo. That’s because they didn’t exist. So, you know, there’s a lot of things to rebut.”
From Steve Benen’s commentary on the Washington Post article:
[…] White House officials liked the line so much that it used its official Twitter account to promote Sekulow’s argument, which was most unfortunate.
While it’s true that articles of impeachment do not literally use the exact Latin phrase, “quid pro quo,” the first article accuses Trump of pressuring Ukraine into targeting his domestic opponents and “conditioning official United States Government acts of significant value to Ukraine on its public announcement of the investigations. President Trump engaged in this scheme or course of conduct for corrupt purposes in pursuit of personal political benefit.”
In other words, the articles of impeachment accuse the president of a quid pro quo, which is what Schiff accurately referenced yesterday.
Honestly, Sekulow’s argument to reporters yesterday would’ve generated derisive laughter at a high-school debate tournament.
New York’s Jon Chait added, “It’s probably inevitable, given the nature of the defendant and the charges against him, that Trump’s lawyers will bungle the facts and the law. But is it really necessary for the president of the United States to employ a lead attorney who is unable to understand words?”
“Trump’s TV lawyer falsely claims that Trump has invoked Executive Privilege. The only time that was even hinted was for [consults name on indictment] Lev Parnas.”
The White House comments for the first time on the U.N. report tying the Saudi crown prince to the hack of Bezos’s phone. “Saudi Arabia is obviously an important ally,” Hogan Gidley says. “I don’t have any more information than that. Obviously we take this situation seriously.”
Meanwhile…one of the U.N. investigators involved in assessing the attack says, “I will hope that Donald Trump’s son-in-law & anyone else is at the moment changing their phone, checking their phone and contacting the best cyber security experts…”
Trump flipped out. He broke his previous record for number of tweets per hour, posting 40 or more rants in a short amount of time. (Over 130 tweets yesterday.)
From Peter Baker:
Trump breaks his own Twitter record with 132 tweets or retweets as of 4:45 p.m., the most of any single day of his presidency, as he defended himself and lashed out at the House managers.
The final count for the day was 142 tweets and retweets.
Commentary from Cristina Cabrera:
After mostly confining his Twitter feed to retweets from GOP allies this week, a livid […] Trump fired off tweet after tweet in an extended rant about his Senate impeachment trial on Thursday morning.
“The Democrat House would not give us lawyers, or not one witness, but now demand that the Republican Senate produce the witnesses that the House never sought, or even asked for?” he tweeted. “They had their chance, but pretended to rush. Most unfair & corrupt hearing in Congressional history!”
The tweet contained multiple falsehoods; House Democrats had invited White House lawyers to participate in the Judiciary Committee’s impeachment hearings and had issued several subpoenas to the Trump administration officials whom Democrats seek to subpoena again in the Senate trial. However, GOP senators have voted against allowing witnesses and documents.
“No matter what you give to the Radical Left, Do Nothing Democrats, it will never be enough!” Trump wrote a few minutes later.
Followed up by: “The Democrats & Shifty Schiff, whose presentation to the Senate was loaded with lies and misrepresentations, are refusing to state that the Obama Administration withheld aid from many countries including Ukraine, Pakistan, Philippines, Egypt, Honduras, & Mexico. Witch Hunt!” […]
Still after Obama after all these years. ‘Because I said so’ is not a legal defense. ‘Because someone else did it too’ is not a legal defense.
Again, if they have the docs and witnesses that prove his innocence, release it all and let it come forward.
——————-
Excellent. He’s running scared now. His cult is covering for him in the Senate, but the dems are scoring point after point on him. Add to that the fact that he was generally pretty much dismissed by the other attendees at Davos, and you have major insecurity. Thus the hysterical screaming.
I would posit that there’s a direct correlation between Trump’s stress levels and the intensity of his tweets, which is a quite useful metric for anyone interested in punching his numerous buttons.
———————
We may be romantising this but Schiff and the other House managers have been great, impressive beyond expectations.
——————–
“The Democrats & Shifty Schiff, whose presentation to the Senate was loaded with lies and misrepresentations, are refusing to state that the Obama Administration withheld aid from many countries including Ukraine, Pakistan, Philippines, Egypt, Honduras, & Mexico. Witch Hunt!”
Clearly ghostwritten, and by a mid-level flunky. Trump has no capacity for listing countries, let alone spelling them correctly. And Trump would blame Obama personally. Besides, it’s a bad lie. If it were true, Team Trump would have mentioned it long ago.
———————
Withholding aid is not the issue. Withholding aid as a means of pressuring another nation to do something illegal is.
———————–
The model underlying the construct suggests that narcissistic injury occurs when a narcissist feels that their hidden, “true self” has been revealed.
Mike Pence is in Jerusalem attending the Fifth World Holocaust Forum, where attendees are marking the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
As Charles, the Prince of Wales, entered the venue, he and his wife, Camilla, made their way down a row of dignitaries, stopping for handshakes and polite chit-chat. That is, until Charles arrived at Mike and Karen Pence. What happened next absolutely had to sting, as Charles looked at Mike Pence directly in the eyes and kept moving, never extending his hand, instead reaching toward Benjamin Netanyahu’s hand. […]
The VP’s office has responded with a photo showing the pair talking either before or after the event, but it is difficult to take the official handshake line passover as anything other than a deliberate snub. […]
“Now, with me, there’s no lying,” Donald Trump said Wednesday about impeachment. You know what happened next, right? Yup, Trump unleashed a barrage of lies about impeachment. Trump made 14 false claims Wednesday spread out between the press conference in which he said “Now, with me, there’s no lying” and interviews with CNBC and Fox Business.
CNN’s invaluable Daniel Dale has the tally: Trump repeatedly claimed, in different ways, that House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff misled Democrats about what Trump said in his July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and that once the White House released the call summary, “all hell broke out with the Democrats, because they say, ‘Wait a minute. This is much different than Shifty Schiff told us.’” In reality, Schiff’s comments on the call came after the White House released the summary, and the only way Democrats were taken aback by the contents of the call is that it was kind of unbelievable how blatantly Trump worked to extort Zelensky.
Trump also claimed that “I never see them talking about the transcription. I never see them talking about the call, because there’s nothing to say.” This is false. He has been impeached as a direct result of the call, and it is still being discussed constantly. Sections of the call were read out on Wednesday as part of the impeachment trial. […]
Other Trump lies included basically anything you can think of about funding to Ukraine: he said “They got their money long before schedule,” which they did not on account of how he held it up illegally. He lied about the type of aid that former President Obama extended to Ukraine. He lied about how much funding Ukraine has gotten from Europe.
Donald Trump lies about everything, big and small, but when it’s about impeachment, it’s almost always big. Usually very big, with the biggest being the fundamental claim that the July 25 call that showed firsthand that he was trying to pressure Ukraine into investigating his political opponents is somehow exonerating. He did what Democrats say he did, and we have it in his own words, released on his authority. No matter how often he lies about it, he can’t change it.
Now Nadler is using @LindseyGrahamSC during the Clinton impeachment to disagree with… whatever sneering ringwraith inhabits Lindsey Graham’s body now.
Again, if the GOP felt shame, this would be effective. Since they don’t it will just lead to more screaming on Fox.
Sorry, I mentioned Lindsey Graham so I am morally obligated to say VOTE @harrisonjaime, the man who can put a stop to the Senator from Mar-a-Lago and restore South Carolina back to TWO members of the U.S. Senate working for their interests.
[…] Obama did withhold funds. He did so when, between the time Congress allocated funds and the time the Pentagon approved their release, military forces in Egypt mounted a coup. Not only were those funds not approved to be sent, not only did Obama notify Congress that they were being withheld, but members of Congress insisted that the funds not be turned over. That included pleas from Sen. Lindsey Graham to hold the funds. But as the House team continues to lay out its case, and Republicans wait for their chance, it appears that “Obama did it too” is going to be the go-to argument from Team Trump. […]
[Republicans and Trump] are ignoring more than just the lack of a quid pro quo in any of Obama’s foreign assistance delays. Every aid package has qualifications that have to be met in order for the aid to be approved. Legislation authorizing foreign assistance routinely includes review by agencies that have to sign off that goals have been achieved in advance of the release. In the case of 2019 assistance to Ukraine, that responsibility was assigned to the Department of Defense, which completed its review on May 23 with a conclusion that Ukraine had met required goals on both fighting corruption and promoting democracy.
What happened in past delays was often simply that the certifying agencies found issues, or that, as in the case of Egypt, conditions on the ground had changed significantly between the time the legislation was passed and the time the funds were slated to go out. In some cases, the result was further review before funds were eventually released. In some cases, the result was a more prolonged delay: Egypt didn’t get any funds from the U.S. for almost two years, until the State Department was satisfied that the new president wasn’t just a puppet of the military. In every case, both Congress and the public were aware not just that there was a delay, but of the reasons for the delay. […]
“Legal scholars and historians agree no statutory crime is required by the Constitution for impeachment and that abuse of power is in fact the essence of impeachability,” Conway, the husband of Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway, wrote recently in The Washington Post.
“The English parliamentary history upon which the Framers adopted impeachment makes clear that a public official’s breach of duty to put the public interest first constitutes an impeachable, removable offense.”
“Lev Parnas has no right to be talking about that meeting,” Rudy Giuliani told Reuters yesterday. “It was a confidential meeting — if it did happen.” You don’t even need the back story to know that this is comically, ridiculously not how law goes. If Rudy flapped his yap about confidential client matters to his chucklefuck buddy Lev, then Lev was under absolutely no legal obligation to keep quiet about it. Clearly, the person who breached his obligation of confidentiality is Rudy himself!
[…]
[…] The Constitution is not a suicide pact. It does not leave us stuck with presidents who abuse their power in unforeseen ways that threaten our security and democracy. Until recently, it did not occur to me that our president would call a foreign leader and demand a sham investigation meant to kneecap his political opponents, all in exchange for releasing vital military aid that the president was already required by law to provide.
President Trump has made clear in word and deed that he will persist in such conduct if he is not removed from power. He poses a continuing threat to our nation, to the integrity of our elections, to our democratic order. He must not remain in power one moment longer.
[…] So, we heard in March about the effort to get rid of [Yovanovitch], and it succeeded. And guess what message that sent to the Ukrainians? About the power the president’s lawyer has. The Ukrainians were watching this whole saga. They were hearing his interviews. They were seeing the smears that he was putting out, and this attorney for the president, working hand-in-hand with these corrupt Ukrainians, was able to get a new ambassador yanked out of her job. Proof positive: You want a window to this president? You want entree to this president? You want to make things happen with this president? You go through his lawyer. […]
April: Zelensky has this huge victory in the presidential election. He gets a congratulatory call from the president. The president assigns Vice President Pence to go to the inauguration. May: Giuliani is rebuffed by Zelensky, cancels the trip to Ukraine, the one where he wanted to go, remember, “meddle, in the investigation.”
May: Trump disinvites Pence to the inauguration. Pence is going, Giuliani is rebuffed, Pence ain’t going. That’s May. Instead, May 23rd, we have this meeting at the White House and there’s a new — a new party in town: the “three amigos.” They’re going to be handling the Ukraine portfolio. And they’re told, work with Rudy, work with Rudy. […]
The country’s top intelligence official has failed to turn over to Congress a report on the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, sources say, flouting a law passed last month.
In December, lawmakers passed a sweeping defense bill that included a provision ordering the Director of National Intelligence to send Congress an unclassified report identifying those responsible for Khashoggi’s death at a Saudi Arabian consulate in 2018. The legislation set the deadline for the report at 30 days, which passed earlier this week.
Though the CIA has reportedly concluded that Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered Khashoggi’s killing at the consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, Saudi officials have denied his involvement — something President Donald Trump seemed willing to believe. The unclassified report, if Congress receives and releases it, could provide the administration’s first public acknowledgement of the crown prince’s role, or that of other Saudi officials, in Khashoggi’s brutal death.
The provision requiring the report was contained in the larger National Defence Authorization Act that Trump signed into law on Dec. 20. The bill required Joseph Maguire, the acting director of national intelligence, to provide the report to four congressional committees: the House Foreign Affairs and Intelligence committees, and the Senate Foreign Relations and Intelligence committees.
…
The provision requiring the report on Khashoggi’s murder said it should include conclusions and evidence about “the advance knowledge and role of any current or former official of the Government of Saudi Arabia or any current or former senior Saudi political figure over the directing, ordering, or tampering of evidence” of Khashoggi’s killing. The provision also asks for a list of foreigners that “were responsible for, or complicit in, ordering, controlling, or otherwise directing an act or acts contributing to or causing,” Khashoggi’s death, as well as anyone who “impeded the impartial investigation” of his killing.
It’s unclear what, if any, steps lawmakers might take next to force ODNI to turn over the report, but as the oversight bodies, the intelligence committees have a range of options, including scheduling hearings or cutting off funding.
Lawmakers — Republicans included — have already shown they are willing to retaliate against the Saudis for Khashoggi’s killing. In December 2018, two months after his death, senators voted to end US military aid for the Saudi war in Yemen. The vote stood in contrast to Trump’s comments on the Saudi crown prince, who most recently has been accused of hacking the cell phone of Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos in response to negative press coverage.
IIRC this was the defense bill from which a still-unnamed Republican Senator stealthily removed tougher provisions on Saudi Arabia. So they’re not even complying with the watered-down requirements, and offering no explanation.
“A lot of laughs on both sides of the Senate chamber when House impeachment managers played a clip of former Trump homeland security adviser Tom Bossert saying that hiring Rudy Giuliani was impeaching one’s self.”
Garrett Haake just said Graham wasn’t in the room for #s 208/215 – the only one not there at that moment. He said they do get a packet of the slides and such beforehand, so he might have absented himself when he knew it was coming.
It’s good that the House Managers are using some Senate-related evidence, like the letters they sent to Poroshenko calling for anti-corruption reform (including getting rid of Shokin) and the findings of the Senate Intel report on Russian interference.
SC @223: “In unrelated news, Chris Matthews is supremely annoying.”
Yes, he certainly is. I’m trying to watch analysis provided by expert panels on MSNBC, but Matthews makes it hard. He interrupts the experts. He is very insistent when it comes to propounding his own views. He takes every opportunity to pump up Joe Biden’s reputation, even when the opinions he offers are not directly related to the Biden references brought up during the impeachment trial.
An excerpt from Representative Sylvia Garcia’s presentation:
Vice President Biden’s conduct was uniformly validated by the witnesses in the House investigation who confirmed his conduct was consistent with U.S. policy. Every single witness who was asked about the allegations again and said that Biden had nothing to do with it and it was false. They testified that he acted properly and every witness with knowledge of this issue testified that Vice President Biden was carrying out official U.S. policy.
Garcia relied on footage of witnesses testifying to back up her summary.
“Thank God,” Putin said. “Nobody is accusing us anymore of interfering in U.S. elections. Now they’re accusing Ukraine.'” Well, you’ve gotta give Donald Trump credit for this … He has made a religious man out of Vladimir Putin.
Followup to Elizabeth Warren’s comment about Betsy DeVos, (as posted by SC in #188):
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos compared the abortion rights debate to the battle to eliminate slavery during remarks at a Colorado Christian University event in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday night.
DeVos, a Christian conservative, discussed the Trump administration’s record of opposition to abortion, and said she was reminded of President Abraham Lincoln. “He, too, contended with the ‘pro-choice’ arguments of his day,” she said, […] “They suggested that a state’s ‘choice’ to be slave or to be free had no moral question in it.”
She said Lincoln reminded “those pro-choicers” that a vast majority of Americans viewed slavery as a vast moral evil. “Lincoln was right about the slavery ‘choice’ then, and he would be right about the life ‘choice’ today,” she said. “Because as it’s been said: Freedom is not about doing what we want. Freedom is about having the right to do what we ought.”
Similar comparisons between slavery and abortion by conservatives have drawn intense criticism. For example, minority members of the Utah Legislature, all of them Democrats, condemned comments by GOP Lt. Gov Spencer Cox comparing abortion to slavery at an Eagle Forum convention earlier this month. […]
DeVos, an avid school choice proponent, also said at the Colorado Christian University gathering there is “irony” in being pro-choice for the mother who seeks an abortion but not for the mother who seeks a different school for her child. […]
Yes, he certainly is. I’m trying to watch analysis provided by expert panels on MSNBC, but Matthews makes it hard. He interrupts the experts. He is very insistent when it comes to propounding his own views. He takes every opportunity to pump up Joe Biden’s reputation, even when the opinions he offers are not directly related to the Biden references brought up during the impeachment trial.
This exactly. During the break he started to say something about Pelosi being a greatly feared Machiavellian “Prince, Princess, Queen” and I couldn’t get to the mute button fast enough.
When bombarded by constant lies from the White House and President Trump’s Republican toadies — e.g., the Ukrainians did not know aid was withheld, there was no “quid pro quo” — we should not ignore that there is a great deal of dissembling coming straight from Trump’s lawyers. Contrary to popular cynicism about lawyers, this is not acceptable, and state bar investigators have an obligation to police their own, regardless of whether a lawyer is in a court of law or a Senate court of impeachment.
A case in point: White House counsel Pat Cipollone lied during the Senate impeachment trial when he said Republicans were not allowed in the secure briefing room during House impeachment hearings. Confronted by this blatant untruth, one of Trump’s lawyers, Robert Ray, declared, “I’m not interested in wading in the procedural weeds here.”
Stop right there. Ray knows Cipollone lied; Cipollone knows he has been caught. Neither has corrected the assertion or apologized to the Senate. Some senator should send a note up to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. asking him to admonish Cipollone.
In a court, the judge would not only intervene but very possibly hold the lawyer in contempt for such a blatant misrepresentation. Should Cipollone not come clean, his home-state bar should investigate. It is one thing to get carried away and overstate or misstate something but quite another to allow a known falsehood to go uncorrected. […]
As impeachment managers churn on through the second day of opening arguments in President Trump’s impeachment trial, one thing hasn’t stopped: the conduct that got Trump impeached in the first place
Yes, that’s right.
Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani tweeted Thursday morning that he intends to release “the evidence” at an unspecified date and time, presumably in the near future.
Everything I tried to tell the press last March is now coming out, and more. I will now start to reveal the evidence directly to you, the People. The Biden Family Enterprise made millions by selling public office. Then when Joe was Obama’s Point Man, they ALL made millions.
Giuliani purportedly prepared a report after traveling to Kyiv in December and meeting with an array of discredited figures, each with obvious interests in making explosive allegations about Joe Biden and supposed Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election.
It’s not clear to what new allegations Giuliani may be referring. […]
Oh! Schiff explains why I couldn’t find the readout of the July 25 Zelenskyy call on the WH web site. They didn’t post an official readout, but just a separate statement to reporters, for obvious reasons.
The Trump Administration’s new Dirty Water Rule is an outrageous assault on the clean water that millions of Californians and Americans across the country rely on to grow our food, preserve our diverse ecosystems and protect the health of our children and families.
This shameful policy will give polluters free rein to dump pesticides, fertilizers and chemicals directly into waters, threatening the drinking water of 117 million Americans and setting us back decades in our work to clean and protect our nation’s vital water systems.
If a trial goes for a long time, often [regular jurors in other trials] don’t collect their paycheck from that and are given a meager amount of money relative to what some of those people might make. This [impeachment trial jury duty] is literally [senators’] job. If you find it too annoying or frustrating or uncomfortable to sit for eight hours and listen, you can resign tomorrow and go get another job.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) was red-faced as a House manager made her case by invoking a 2016 letter he and other senators sent urging reforms of the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office.
Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-Tex.) used the letter from Sens. Johnson, Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and other members of the Senate Ukraine Caucus to argue that Biden’s desire to see then-prosecutor Viktor Shokin removed reflected official U.S. policy and was not a sign of personal corruption.
As Garcia spoke, a visibly upset Johnson rose from his seat, approached Portman and whispered in his ear. Portman reacted impassively, but his comments did not appear to calm Johnson, who departed the floor for the Republican cloakroom moments later.
When he returned, a still-agitated Johnson spoke again to Portman, who still appeared unmoved, before taking his seat.
Johnson, a fierce ally of Trump, said in October that he did not recall signing the letter. After reviewing it, he released a statement suggesting that Congress was “subjected to the same misinformation campaign against the Ukrainian prosecutor general, perpetrated by representatives of the U.S. government.”
“The Senate Ukraine Caucus’ 2016 letter was encouraging the Ukrainian government to vigorously pursue an anti-corruption agenda generally,” Johnson stated.
On the Senate floor, Garcia had said: “Let’s be very, very clear: Vice President Biden called for the removal of this prosecutor at the official direction of U.S. policy, because the prosecutor was widely perceived as corrupt, and with the support of all our international allies. His actions were therefore supported by the executive branch, Congress and the international community.” […]
Graphic atl with the 10 kinds of evidence that the investigations (or announcement thereof) were for Trump’s personal benefit. He’s running through each one systematically and energetically.
A federal judge in Washington aired broad concerns Thursday about diminishing confidence in government institutions as he grappled with secrecy surrounding the firing and criminal investigation of Andrew McCabe, a former FBI leader who was terminated in 2018 following an internal inquiry into his contacts with the news media.
During an hourlong hearing, U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton weighed releasing transcripts of three closed-door discussions he had with Justice Department lawyers last year in a Freedom of Information Act case seeking records related to McCabe’s termination. In those private discussions, held between July and September, Justice Department lawyers argued that records concerning McCabe’s firing should be withheld because they related to an ongoing law enforcement proceeding.
The Justice Department backed off that argument in November, prompting Walton to question whether he had been “manipulated” for months into stalling public release of public records.
Walton, speaking in court Thursday, described the public interest in McCabe’s firing as “significant” and “tremendous,” while also raising concerns that keeping the public “in the dark” about the termination of a top FBI official risked undermining the bureau.
“I’m becoming really concerned about the American public having faith in our institutions,” Walton said.
“I don’t want to see the court dragged down into that concern,” he added, voicing worries that the court could be seen as “complicit” in the government’s drive to keep certain documents under wraps.
Walton’s remarks came in a case filed by the watchdog group Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington, which sued in July 2018 for records related to McCabe’s firing.
The case has played out against the backdrop of a criminal investigation into whether McCabe misled federal agents about his role in providing a Wall Street Journal reporter with information in 2016 about the FBI’s probe into the Clinton Foundation.
Last year, a grand jury convened to consider the case against McCabe without issuing an indictment, but the Justice Department has given no public indication that it has abandoned the investigation. McCabe, represented by lawyers from Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer, in August sued the Justice Department alleging retaliation. The government is opposing his claims.
On Thursday, Anne Weismann, a lawyer for CREW, said the threat of criminal prosecution “continues to hang over Mr. McCabe’s head.”
As he has presided over the public records case, Walton has voiced frustration with the Justice Department’s drawn-out criminal investigation into McCabe, saying the probe has left the former deputy FBI director in “limbo.” On Thursday, he said there was “a lot of suspicion among the American people about what the heck the government is doing.”…
From text quoted by SC in comment 245: “a lot of suspicion among the American people about what the heck the government is doing.”…
Absolutely true. Judge Reggie Walton is not the only once voicing that concern.
The parts of the government over which Trump has managed to exercise undue influence … those are the parts we can no longer trust, like the DOJ. And the cancer seems to be spreading.
Manu Raju: “Tried to ask Ted Cruz if he defends Trump conduct on Ukraine, and if Trump call with Zelensky was “perfect.” He said: ‘You asked a question last night[,] let me let someone else ask a question’. Then @npfandos asked the same question, he ignored it. He took one other q, then split.”
Perhaps some people should consider that there is no moral case for their cause, that their cause is misogynistic and vicious, and that this is why it’s been so easy for Trump to usurp their cause.
Giuliani tweeted: “My 1st podcast will be a conclusive demonstration of the illicit Democrat impeachment for non-impeachable, and entirely proper, conduct.
#UnimpeachablePhonecall”
Appropriate venue for my conclusive demonstration – Senate trial or podcast? Podcast, definitely.
Re #244 – “NEW: Lt. Col. Vindman’s attorney says the attacks by @MarshaBlackburn reveal ‘her true character – she has failed to follow her oath of impartiality while serving as a juror’. Says she’s ‘smearing his service to our country and his courageous act of reporting Trump’s misconduct’.”
The Guardian has learned the true identity of the leader and founder of the US-based neo-Nazi terror network the Base, which was recently the target of raids by the FBI after an investigation into domestic terrorism uncovered their plans to start a race war.
Members of the group stand accused of federal hate crimes, murder plots and firearms offenses, and have harbored international fugitives in recent months.
The Base’s leader previously operated under the aliases “Norman Spear” and “Roman Wolf”. Members of the network do not know his true identity due to the group’s culture of internal secrecy.
But the Guardian can reveal that “Norman Spear” is in fact US-born Rinaldo Nazzaro, 46, who has a long history of advertising his services as an intelligence, military and security contractor. He has claimed, under his alias, to have served in Russia and Afghanistan.
The revelation of his identity comes after a months-long investigation by the Guardian into Nazzaro and the activities of the Base.
While Nazzaro’s most recently used address is in New Jersey, there is evidence supporting his claims of being based in Russia, where he lives with his Russian wife.
The Base – which is an approximate English translation of “al-Qaida” – began recruiting in late 2018. The white supremacy group, which has regional and international cells, extols the virtues of an all-out race war while specifically targeting African Americans and Jewish people.
Using encrypted apps, members of the highly organized group planned terror campaigns; vandalized synagogues; established armed training camps and recruited new members.
The US attorney for Maryland, Robert K Hur, speaking after the recent arrest of three members of the Base, said that they “did more than talk – they took steps to act and act violently on their racist views”.
Few traces of him exist anywhere
Rinaldo Nazzaro has maintained a decidedly low profile: he has no visible presence on any major social media platforms, no published writings under his own name, and no profile in local or national media.
Few traces of him exist anywhere, except where a name is required in official business – such as real estate purchases and the registration of companies.
Multiple emails and phone calls to Nazzaro went unanswered.
But through a painstaking investigation involving freedom of information requests, the analysis of material provided to the Guardian by a whistleblower inside the group, and cross-examination of information found online and in databases, the Guardian was able to piece together his identity and some of his whereabouts.
The Guardian was able to unravel Nazzaro’s identity due to his 2018 activities in a remote corner of the Pacific north-west.
…
This detail, coupled with other leads, compelled many to speculate whether “Norman Spear” was, in fact, a federal agent operating inside the Base.
…
Beginning in 2009 and until as late as 2019, Nazzaro billed himself as an intelligence expert working with various government and military agencies.
Nazzaro is the principal of an LLC called Omega Solutions International (OSI), a company offering a range of intelligence and security contracting.
Its website, which was removed from the Internet some time after August 2019, boasted of the firm’s “experience conducting intelligence analysis for government agencies, military organizations, and private businesses”, as well as access to a network of seasoned security professionals with expertise in counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, homeland security, hostage rescue/negotiations, psychological operations, and more.
The firm also has a Cage Code, which is an administrative requirement for military and government contractors.
Materials inspected and sources consulted by the Guardian indicate that Nazzaro, as “Spear”, has faced persistent suspicions from current and former members of the group that he is a “fed”, or the agent of a foreign government, or that the Base is a “honeypot” intended to lure neo-Nazis out into the open for the benefit of law enforcement agencies.
Former members have cited this as a reason for leaving.
…
Richard Tobin, a Base member, is awaiting trial in New Jersey over allegations that he coordinated the September vandalism of synagogues in Michigan and Wisconsin. In a December custody hearing, the prosecuting assistant US attorney cited Tobin’s self-professed belief that “Norman Spear” was a Russian spy.
The Guardian has discovered that all of the business addresses associated with Nazzaro’s OSI LLCs are “virtual offices”. This describes a situation where a second company provides a business address, and sometimes meeting rooms and greeting services, for businesses who do not wish to maintain their own premises.
The addresses are often prestigious: OSI’s virtual address locations include Fifth Avenue in Manhattan and K Street in Washington DC, an address associated with federal government contracting and lobbying.
Meanwhile, “Norman Spear” appears to have had no extended history in the neo-Nazi movement before emerging as leader of the Base.
According to an internally placed source, the only people within the movement who vouched for “Spear” were connected to the Northwest Front (NWF). The NWF founder, Harold Covington, was himself the subject of persistent rumors within the white nationalist movement that he was a federal informant, and that NWF was itself a honeypot – a front organization routinely used by US law enforcement in order to entrap people.
“Norman Spear” has told Base members that he remains in Russia. Law enforcement sources have indicated on background that Nazzaro is believed by some agencies to be working for the Russian government.
The US government may have been monitoring “Norman Spear’s” activities for some time. In the April conversation planning a meetup in July, “Spear” was concerned that he would not be able to attend.
“I have confirmed that I am on the FBI terrorism watch list. I mean, that doesn’t really matter in the context of the training. What matters is that I’m on it.”
The Guardian’s investigation of the group continues.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), one of the House impeachment managers in the Senate trial of President Donald Trump, closed his Thursday presentation with an appeal to the Constitution itself.
“If right doesn’t matter, we’re lost. If truth doesn’t matter, we’re lost. The framers couldn’t protect us from ourselves if right and truth don’t matter,” Schiff said. “And you know that what [Trump] did was not right.”
He added:
“No Constitution can protect us if right doesn’t matter anymore. And you know you can’t trust this president to do what’s right for this country. You can trust he will do what’s right for Donald Trump. He’ll do it now. He’s done it before. He’ll do it for the next several months. He’ll do it in the election, if he’s allowed to.”
And that, Schiff said, is why Trump must be removed.
“Right matters. And the truth matters,” Schiff said. “Otherwise we are lost.”
The speech caused Schiff’s name to trend on Twitter, along with the phrases #RightMatters and #TruthMatters, His supporters praised the speech as one destined for the history books:…
“CBS News reports that GOP Senators have been warned by Trump team: ‘Vote against the president, and your head will be on a pike’. How is this acceptable?”
Many Republicans seem to believe that their complicity with Trump will enhance their collective power. In fact, it further diminishes their power and enhances Trump’s power over them. He’s openly threatening them now; imagine what he’ll feel emboldened to do once they give him a public pass.
“Everyone on the left has correctly expended so much energy over the past years condemning Trump for his association with and support from white supremacists, but when it’s Sanders and an anti-trans, anti-gay bigot it’s ‘he’s a part of our politics, what can we do?’ What bullshit.”
“Schiff’s closing, where he asked if senators had confidence that Trump would pick national interest over himself, was probably the most interesting moment so far of Dem arguments.
Chamber was dead silent and focused on him – didn’t see a single conversation on GOP side.”
One of the reasons House Democrats ultimately impeached Donald Trump is that they recognized that if they didn’t try to stop him from doing crimes, he would be emboldened do more of them. Or to put it another way, if the Congress makes an institutional decision to cede all of its oversight power back to the Executive Branch, the president will come to believe, quite correctly, that he is in fact above the law. Recall that the “perfect” phone call asking the president of Ukraine to announce that he would investigate corruption around Burisma took place the day after Robert Mueller let Trump off the hook in House testimony about Russian election interference. So, after weeks (and months and years) of trying to avoid impeachment entirely, House Democrats realized they had almost no other choice but to go ahead, even though the chance of Trump being removed from office was still essentially zero. Impeachment, put plainly, was undertaken not just to punish past misconduct, but to attempt to deter more of it.
Now, we find ourselves in the middle of an impeachment trial whose outcome is essentially pre-ordained. And as Republicans in the Senate are rewarding Trump for his blanket obstruction of Congress, the president has been chortling in Davos that he is obstructing Congress. In other words, Senate Republicans’ refusal to exercise their oversight muscles means that those muscles are atrophying before our very eyes, and this administration continues to flout the law in real time as a result. Senators who mistakenly think this is all about this president’s single call to Ukraine fail to comprehend that it’s about all kinds of lawlessness on the part of all of his enablers and appointees that they are also choosing to let slide. That lawlessness isn’t a static thing; it begets more and more of the same.
Under cover of the fog of impeachment, in large ways and small, other lawbreaking, other refusals of oversight, and other overt criming keeps on happening. What other bad acts has this president and members of this administration undertaken this month alone? Well, on Tuesday, the Commerce Department announced that it would refuse to obey a congressional demand for the release of a 2018 investigation into national security risks around imports of autos and auto parts, citing a presidential claim that it would “interfere with the president’s ability to protect confidential executive branch communications and could interfere with ongoing negotiations.” (Republican Sen. Pat Toomey “blasted the decision.”) Just last week, without any explanation, the Trump administration abruptly canceled four classified briefings related to the Iran crisis, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo refused a House request that he speak at a public hearing on the assassination of Iranian Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani. This, after there remain profound questions about whether the killing of Soleimani without congressional approval was itself unlawful. Earlier this month, Steve Mnuchin, Trump’s treasury secretary, tried to block disclosure of how much taxpayer money has been spent on Secret Service protection for presidential travel for Trump and his adult children until after the 2020 election. Last week, the FBI failed to comply with U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton’s order to turn over, by Jan. 17, summaries from interviews with Jared Kushner in Robert Mueller’s investigation to CNN and BuzzFeed. The FBI missed the deadline, then claimed this week that a member of the intelligence community “needs to ensure the material has been properly redacted.” It’s not clear when the summaries will be turned over.
Also this week, U.S. Customs and Border Protection deported an Iranian student on a valid visa who was returning to Boston for school. Despite the fact that a federal judge had issued an emergency stay ruling his removal be stayed for two days pending a hearing in his case, CBP ignored this order and sent him home Monday night. Politico is reporting that a CBP officer is now alleging that their staff in the Seattle field office was told to target Iranian-born travelers for such questioning as of early January. On Thursday, a panel of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals excoriated the Board of Immigration of Appeals for overt defiance of an earlier court order, reminding the BIA that “The Board seemed to think that we had issued an advisory opinion, and that faced with a conflict between our views and those of the Attorney General it should follow the latter.” It perhaps bears mention that William Barr and Pat Cipollone—both of whom have participated in the acts at issue in the impeachment—are involved in defending Trump’s conduct in these proceedings. Also this week, D.C.’s Attorney General Karl Racine charged the Trump inaugural committee and the Trump Organization with using $1 million of charitable funds to enrich the Trump family during the inauguration. If you’re interested in more, CREW has more and more. This list isn’t by any means comprehensive, by the way. It’s more a tasting menu. None of this is normal, none of it OK, all of it is sliding by, as oversight moves away from government to journalists and private watchdogs, and as defiance of the law becomes the new normal.
…The president’s defense team, in asserting the broadest possible claims that nothing the president does is illegal or impeachable, and also that Congress has no role in checking him, are actively fostering congressional obsolescence. Senators who agree to this as they play with fidget spinners and launch podcasts are greenlighting more law breaking as they limit their own ability to check it.
…
Nobody should be fooled into believing that Trump himself would be deterred from lawless or improper actions just because he’s in the midst of a Senate impeachment trial. Indeed, as Stephen Collinson has pointed out, given that Trump has never once moderated his conduct in the face of being caught out, we might also recognize that even impeachment won’t stop him and in fact, the possibility of acquittal in the Senate may actually embolden him. “It’s unthinkable that Trump will emerge from his impeachment drama chastened,” Collinson wrote. “He is instead likely to perceive validation for his conduct, and may consider, since he is branded with a historic badge of honor, that he has not got much more to lose and could shed even more restraints.”…
I don’t share her fatalism (it ain’t over till it’s over) or the idea that he’s doing it “under cover of the fog of impeachment” (he’s doing the same things as always, and the impeachment and trial are calling attention to the pattern and making it harder to get away with some of it), and I think she’s ascribing motives to the Democrats that weren’t central to their decision to impeach, but she makes some important points. The House Managers will be talking about obstruction of Congress today. I don’t know if they’re planning to put the Ukraine-related obstruction in this broader context – will be interesting to see.
House Democrats on Thursday night flagged to a federal appeals court panel comments made earlier this week by President Donald Trump’s lawyers during the Senate impeachment trial in hopes it can spur a win in a pending case that could open a spigot of new information in their bid to remove the president.
The two-page letter from the House’s top lawyer brings to the attention of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit remarks made by Trump’s personal attorney Jay Sekulow on the Senate floor questioning why Democrats hadn’t tried to secure testimony in court from a key former White House aide — rather than push ahead with impeachment.
Sekulow’s comment, House Counsel Douglas Letter wrote, runs counter to one of the central arguments the Justice Department has made that federal judges should not get involved in disputes between Congress and the executive branch.
“President Trump’s arguments in the impeachment trial contradict DOJ’s assertion in this case that the Committee may not seek to enforce its subpoenas in court,” Letter said.
A three-judge panel from the D.C. Circuit is expected to rule any day now in a case involving the House Judiciary Committee’s monthslong fight to subpoena testimony from Don McGahn, the former White House counsel….
…
Democrats on Thursday also sent a letter to the D.C. Circuit in a second impeachment-related case tied to their long-standing attempts to learn Mueller’s grand jury secrets.
In that letter, they informed the court about the start of the Senate impeachment trial this week and urged it to rule “expeditiously” on whether impeachment investigators can see all of the blacked-out words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs and entire pages in the version of the Mueller report released last April summarizing his investigation.
“It is difficult to conceive of a public interest more substantial than ensuring that the House obtains highly pertinent evidence to present to the Senate as it considers whether the President should be removed from office,” Letter wrote.
Two different D.C. Circuit panels heard arguments earlier this month in both the McGahn and Mueller grand jury cases….
Elizabeth Warren tweeted yesterday: “The Bolsonaro government is pursuing state retaliation against Glenn Greenwald because of his work as a journalist to expose public abuse and corruption. Brazil should drop the charges immediately and stop its attacks on a free and open press.” (See #96 above for background.)
Greenwald retweeted it, writing “Thank you, Senator @ewarren.” But the trollbot and rabid Sanders fan swarm is all over her tweet with a pattern of canned responses: this comes too late, probably had to focus-group test it, prove you’re a progressive by saying the same about Assange, this is a “bad look,” “hacking is not journalism,” you lost my vote for supporting a Russian asset.
In other news, MSNBC in its great wisdom has decided that this morning their audience will get a panel featuring Chuck Todd and Peggy Noonan. What a treat!
On Fox & Friends this morning: “Rudy pushed Ukraine conspiracy theories so breathlessly that Fox & Friends hosts couldn’t even get a word in. Beyond parody. He then called for an investigation into Joe Biden.”
…Last year Nazzaro was listed as a guest at a Russian government security exhibition in Moscow, which “focused on the demonstration of the results of state policy and achievements”.
A video posted online in March 2019 shows Nazzaro in Russia wearing a t-shirt bearing an image of President Vladimir Putin along with the words “Russia, absolute power”.
We traced Nazzaro and his Russian wife to an upmarket property in central St Petersburg purchased in her name in July 2018 – the same month to which the FBI dates the creation of The Base….
Re #270 – “Wildly conflicting figures on how many but appeared to us to be to be at least a couple hundred thousand – some wire stories saying just ‘thousands’. Extremely disciplined no matter the numbers. Sadrists and others sent their message and went home.”
Months later, The Hill is *STILL* reviewing John Solomon’s work. The outlet’s editor-in-chief told me there’s no “exact timetable” for completing it, but that it will be finished in the “near future.” It’s unusual for a review like this to take so long.
Solomon’s work really constitutes the underpinnings of the Republican defense of Trump (that Biden misused his office, was corrupt, etc). It would matter a lot more if The Hill issued corrections to Solomon’s work before the trial ends, versus after impeachment has concluded.
It’s unclear why months after the review was announced, The Hill has yet to complete it. People w/1st-hand knowledge of relevant events have disputed Solomon’s work ON THE RECORD in testimony TO CONGRESS.
But The Hill says the “review continues with a collective intensity…”
Akira MacKenziesays
Last year Nazzaro was listed as a guest at a Russian government security exhibition in Moscow, which “focused on the demonstration of the results of state policy and achievements.
Seem the Germans are no longer the “go to” guys for racial supremacy.
A recording reviewed by ABC News appears to capture President Donald Trump telling associates he wanted the then-U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch fired while speaking at a small gathering that included Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman — two former business associates of Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani who have since been indicted in New York.
The recording appears to contradict statements by President Trump and support the narrative that has been offered by Parnas during broadcast interviews in recent days. Sources familiar with the recording said the recording was made during an intimate April 30, 2018, dinner at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.
Trump has said repeatedly he does not know Parnas, a Soviet-born American who has emerged as a wild card in Trump’s impeachment trial, especially in the days since Trump was impeached.
“Get rid of her!” is what the voice that appears to be President Trump’s is heard saying. “Get her out tomorrow. I don’t care. Get her out tomorrow. Take her out. Okay? Do it.”
On the recording, it appears the two Giuliani associates are telling President Trump that the U.S. ambassador has been bad-mouthing him, which leads directly to the apparent remarks by the President. The recording was made by Fruman, according to sources familiar with the tape. The White House did not respond to an ABC News request for comment.
During the conversation, several of the participants can be heard laughing with the president. At another point, the recording appears to capture Trump praising his new choice of secretary of state, saying emphatically: “[Mike] Pompeo is the best.” But the most striking moment comes when Parnas and the president discuss the dismissal of his ambassador to Ukraine.
Parnas appears to say: “The biggest problem there, I think where we need to start is we gotta get rid of the ambassador. She’s still left over from the Clinton administration,” Parnas can be heard telling Trump. “She’s basically walking around telling everybody ‘Wait, he’s gonna get impeached, just wait,” he said. (Yovanovitch actually had served in the State Department since the Reagan administration.)
It was not until a year later that Yovanovitch was recalled from her position — in April 2019. She said the decision was based on “unfounded and false claims by people with clearly questionable motives” that she was disloyal to Trump.
…
The identities of others participating in the recorded conversation are unclear. During an early portion of the recording where video can be seen, Donald Trump Jr. appears on the recording posing for pictures with others. Sources say they were attending a larger event happening at the hotel that night for a super PAC that supports the president.
Another clip seen on the recording, according to the sources, is of individuals entering what appears to be a suite at the Trump Hotel for the intimate dinner. The phone that was recording the Trump conversation appears to be placed down on a table with the audio still recording the conversation between the commander-in-chief and other guests, according to the sources. The image of the president does not appear on the video reviewed by ABC News.
…
A copy of the recording is now in the custody of federal prosecutors in New York’s Southern District, who declined to comment to ABC News.
…
“I don’t know him,” the president said just last week when asked about Parnas. “I don’t know Parnas other than I guess I had pictures taken, which I do with thousands of people, including people today that I didn’t meet. But I just met him. I don’t know him at all. Don’t know what he’s about, don’t know where he comes from, know nothing about him. I can only tell you this thing is a big hoax.”
…
Parnas and Fruman were indicted by the Southern District of New York on charges including conspiracy to commit campaign finance fraud, false statements to the Federal Election Commission and falsification of records as part of an alleged scheme to circumvent federal campaign finance laws against straw donations and foreign contributions. Both have pleaded not guilty.
Sen. Schatz: “From the floor it was clear that Schiff’s speech shook some Republican Senators. But it will be a historic shame if they shut down this trial after opening arguments. Any Republican Senator who stakes a claim to reasonableness must allow witnesses and documents.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on Friday picked apart the increasingly common argument among Republicans against calling witnesses in President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial.
Some Republican senators, after delaying a vote on whether to call witnesses in the trial until after the week of opening arguments, now say that calling witnesses would result in a months-long court battle and is therefore impractical, given Trump’s threat to invoke executive privilege to prevent administration officials from testifying.
…
House Democrats opted not to pursue a court battle to force documents and testimony from key administration witnesses after many complied with Trump’s order not to cooperate with the chamber’s impeachment probe. Instead, they added a second impeachment charge, Obstruction of Congress.
In the Senate, Schumer reiterated Friday, subpoenas for testimony would be different than those issued by the House: They would necessarily be bi-partisan — four Republican votes are needed to supplement the Democratic caucus for a majority in the Senate — and signed by the chief justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts, who is presiding over the trial.
“Those who are subject of those subpoenas are expected to comply,” Schumer said. And if they don’t, he added later, “they would be given very prompt judicial review given the urgency and the stakes of an impeachment trial.”
Schumer also pointed to John Bolton, the former national security adviser, who is no longer a member of the Trump administration.
“He’s not in the Executive Branch, so executive privilege cannot be used against him,” Schumer said.
There’s also a simple route, Schumer said. Republicans should “go tell the President not to invoke executive privilege. He’s the one delaying it.”
“New in Flynn: US District Judge Emmet Sullivan raises possibility of Michael Flynn testifying—’under oath, subject to cross-examination’—as he moves to withdraw his guilty plea ahead of sentencing.”
The Trump administration on Friday threatened to withhold federal funding from California over its requirement that private insurers cover abortions — a move California officials immediately denounced as a “cheap political” shot on the day the president was addressing the annual March for Life rally.
Top Trump health officials said California had 30 days to stop the alleged violation but did not specify what funds it would withhold or on what timeline it would act. They said their announcement serves as warning to other states with similar requirements but declined to identify which, if any, of those states might be targeted.
The announcement came as President Trump was expected to address thousands of antiabortion demonstrators gathered for the March for Life, an annual rally to mark the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion. The warning is the latest in a series of antiabortion regulations and actions the agency has taken to win support from Trump’s evangelical Christian base, which helped elect him in 2016 and is seen as key to his 2020 reelection prospects.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom dismissed the threat as a political maneuver.
Despite a federal opinion four years ago confirming California’s compliance with the Weldon Amendment,” he said, “the Trump administration would rather rile up its base to score cheap political points and risk access to care for millions than do what’s right. California will continue to protect a woman’s right to choose, and we won’t back down from defending reproductive freedom for everybody — full stop.”
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said on Twitter that California would defend the law.
“The President & VP are once again attacking women’s health in order to grandstand at today’s anti-choice rally,” Becerra wrote.
[…]
“At the end of this remarkable exchange, during which @NPRKelly asks @SecPompeo why he hasn’t defended Amb. Marie Yovanovitch, the Secretary of State ends the interview:…”
The highlighted part of this is amusing. But the next sentence is: “[Giuliani] also gave a quote to someone on the phone about how the people of Venezuela stand with President DONALD TRUMP against the ‘unconstitutional’ impeachment.”
WTF? In what capacity is he giving such a quote? For whom is he speaking? Why would he be asked for a quote about this at all? On what basis would Rudy Giuliani be asked to express the views of the people of Venezuela?
Akira MacKenziesays
SC @ 284
Why the hell would Venezuela in general care and why would it matter if they did?
From the BBC piece @ #272: “Court documents prepared by the FBI describe The Base as a ‘racially motivated violent extremist group’ that ‘seeks to accelerate the downfall of the United States government, incite a race war, and establish a white ethno-state’.”
So a guy who was “listed as a guest at a Russian government security exhibition in Moscow” last year is, from Russia, trying to organize people to commit acts of terrorism in the US and violently overthrow the US government.
Natasha Bertrand re the report @ #276: “An interesting twist to this: The recording was made by Fruman, not Parnas, according to ABC. Fruman was at one point in a joint defense agreement with Giuliani–unclear if that’s still the case.”
southpaw: “‘I don’t have any comment’, Fruman’s attorney Todd Blanche said when I asked whether the JDA is still in effect.”
In response to SC @263: “I don’t share her fatalism (it ain’t over till it’s over)…”
I agree. I cringe every time a pundit proclaims that, as far as the impeachment trial is concerned, “it’s a foregone conclusion,” or that “Republicans will not vote to impeach Trump.” Various pundits, news hosts and print media journalists are making it more likely that Trump will not be held to account by their constant repetition of statements that fall into the “we already we know the end of this story” category.
“Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand on CNN: ‘When you put your head in the sand, you shouldn’t be complaining that it’s dark. Ask for the witnesses, ask for the testimony’.”
This is also worth watching: Stephen Colbert talks about Trump fan-boy Matt Gaetz’s hurt feelings, among other topics related to the impeachment trial.
About Lindsey Graham: “People change. Spines disintegrate.”
tomhsays
Vice President Pence to reporters in Italy:
“What I’ve said over and over again is I was never aware of the allegations that there was some pressure campaign for investigations against the Bidens that was underway until those matters became public,” Pence said.
Asked whether Giuliani exercised good judgment in bringing Parnas into Trump’s orbit, Pence said, “I hold Rudy Giuliani in the highest regard.”
Two weeks ago, in retaliation for the U.S. airstrike that killed Gen. Qassim Soleimani, Iran fired more than a dozen ballistic missiles at two Iraqi air bases housing U.S. forces. As we’ve discussed, the next morning, Donald Trump delivered a strange speech, littered with unnecessary falsehoods, though the president stressed an important bottom line.
“I’m pleased to inform you, the American people should be extremely grateful and happy no Americans were harmed in last night’s attack by the Iranian regime,” Trump said near the outset of his remarks. “We suffered no casualties, all of our soldiers are safe, and only minimal damage was sustained at our military bases.”
It now seems obvious those claims weren’t true. NBC News reported last week that 11 service members were transported to two hospitals for treatment for concussions following the strike. As of today, that number has tripled.
Thirty-four U.S. service members were diagnosed with concussions and traumatic brain injuries following Iranian airstrikes on the Al Asad Air Base in Iraq earlier this month, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman said Friday. […]
As it turns out, we know why the president boasted that “no Americans were harmed” when, in reality, some Americans were harmed: Trump told reporters this week that he’d heard that some of the servicemen and women had experienced “headaches,” but he added, “I don’t consider them very serious injuries relative to other injuries that I’ve seen.”
Just so we’re all clear, there’s a qualitative difference between troops with “headaches” and troops who require hospitalization for brain injuries in the wake of a missile attack. Indeed, the U.S. military has a very specific message to troops who suffer brain injuries, and the president managed to completely contradict that message with his careless remarks.
[…] A month before Election Day in 2016, the then-candidate said “strong” servicemen and women “can handle” combat without suffering from PTSD or needing mental-health treatment. […]
Schiff just pointed out to the Senators that, as they undoubtedly already know, Trump wouldn’t hesitate to order a sham investigation against any one of them if he thought it was in his interest.
The lawsuit could reveal the depths of chaos and waste in Trump’s introduction as president.
[…] according to documents recently revealed as part of a lawsuit, staffers were worrying about the bad optics of some of their financial decisions even as they moved forward with them […]
The records made public as part of the lawsuit reveal that there was a real lack of separation between the Trumps as business owners and the Trumps as the incoming First Family. Shortly after the 2016 election, as the newly-formed committee was scrambling to organize inaugural events, Rick Gates, the committee’s deputy chairman, received a quote from the Trump International Hotel in Washington for the cost of using the hotel’s ballroom. The price tag for the luxury DC establishment, housed in the historic Old Post Office building and owned and operated by the family of the president-elect was huge: $3.6 million for eight days of use, or $450,000 per day. Gates emailed Ivanka Trump—who owns a piece of the hotel—to raise his concerns.
“First, the cost itself seems quite high compared to other property buyouts for the week,” Gates wrote. “Second, I am a bit worried about the optics of PIC [Presidential Inaugural Committee] paying Trump Hotel a high fee and the media making a big story out of it.”
A few days later, Ivanka Trump told Gates that she had called the general manager of the property and the hotel came back to the inaugural committee with a new quote—better, but still asking for $175,000 a day. That rate far exceeded the hotel’s own internal pricing guidelines, and it seems likely that Ivanka Trump, as a part-owner, knew that. (For comparison, the new court filing shows that another nonprofit paid just $5,000 to use part of the Trump Hotel ballroom for part of one of the days the Inaugural Committee had rented it, which matched the internal guidelines.)
At this point, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, an event planner and personal friend of Melania Trump who managed much of the inaugural planning, warned Ivanka Trump and Gates that when all was said and done, there would be scrutiny of their decision here—audits on what locations were used and how much was paid to use them would be made public. […]
Winston Wolkoff’s concerns were ignored. The Presidential Inaugural Committee ended up paying the Trump Hotel $1 million for four days use of the hotel’s ballroom. […]
The lawsuit bringing these records to light was filed by Karl Racine, the attorney general of Washington, DC, […] Racine is arguing that the District has the right to seek the repayment of funds because nonprofits operating in Washington, DC, which the Inaugural Committee did, may not work to create profits for a private organization or individual. According to Racine, the Inaugural Committee “coordinated with the Trump family to grossly overpay for event space in the Trump International Hotel.” […]
If the new lawsuit, which was filed this week, goes forward, it could release a further avalanche of details on how the most lavishly funded inaugural celebration frittered away tens of millions of dollars—and more details about how involved the Trump family itself was in the decision making. […]
Racine’s lawsuit also highlights how negotiations between the Inauguration Committee and the hotel happened specifically in the context of profits for the hotel. In early January 2017, when the Inaugural Committee was considering pulling out of at least one event at the hotel, the hotel’s manager emailed Gates highlighting his concerns: “Just heard that the Friday night reception had been canceled. Is it accurate? Tough on us if it is as it was a lot of revenue for 1,250 people,” Michael Damelincourt wrote. Gates continued the negotiation. […]
One of the benefits of this lawsuit, if it goes forward, is discovery of more malfeasance on the part of the Trump family.
A black man in Detroit who won a racial discrimination suit against his former employer ended up filing yet another racial discrimination suit this week after his bank refused to deposit the checks from his lawsuit and instead called the police on him, the Detroit Free Press reported.
The man, Sauntore Thomas, 44, walked into TCF Bank in a Detroit suburb on Tuesday to open a savings account, deposit three checks, and withdraw cash. According to the filing, the assistant branch manager, a black woman, appeared immediately suspicious of Thomas. She told him that they would have to verify the checks and asked Thomas how he got the money. When he told her, she walked off to “call in” the checks. When she returned, she said the person they needed to verify the check wasn’t there, and Thomas promised to wait until that person arrived.
Minutes later, two police officers arrived at the bank, while another two lingered outside. One told Thomas that the bank had called to report a “problem” with his checks. The officer also asked Thomas how he had gotten the money.
Thomas’ lawyer spoke with the officers and the assistant bank manager, and she said she even sent them legal records to prove the settlement was real. But the bank still refused to deposit the checks. According to the lawsuit, the bank then filed a police report against Thomas for trying to deposit fraudulent checks.
Thomas was not arrested. He instead closed his account at the bank, opened a new one at another bank, and deposited the checks there with no difficulty. But he said in his lawsuit that the experience was humiliating, and he questioned the need to involve police. Thomas’ lawyer also criticized TCF for not calling the bank that issued the checks to confirm their authenticity.
The bank has said that the manager’s actions had nothing to do with race and that Thomas’ checks had watermarks invalidating the checks when they were scanned. Thomas dismissed TCF’s argument, noting that the checks were cleared quickly at the second bank. On Thursday, TCF apologized to Thomas for the police involvement, but it maintained that the precautions had been routine for large checks. […]
Can’t believe that Trump’s lawyer Jay Sekulow just told reporters that he intends to bring up conspiracy theories related to Fusion GPS as part of his defense of Trump.
Sekulow is actually planning to employ debunked and nonsensical conspiracy theories to argue, in so many words, that the Democrats colluded with Ukraine to influence the 2016 election.
First of all, that old crap is crap, and also, what does that have to do with Trump pressuring a foreign leader to interfere in the 2020 election? What does that have to do with Trump withholding military aid from Ukraine?
“Inside chamber, senators sat silently as Schiff railed on ‘the most incredible propaganda coup’ of Trump ‘reciting Kremlin talking points’ and pushing a ‘kooky’ conspiracy theory.
Most GOP senators were in the chamber – I counted about 10 empty seats. And about 3 empty Dem seats.”
The debunked conspiracy theories that Sekulow touted to reporters today were earlier touted by Devin Nunes.
“There is collusion in plain sight. Collusion between Russia and the Democratic Party. The Democrats colluded with Russian sources to develop the Steele dossier,” Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., alleged during his opening statement.
I should have noted in the earlier comment that Republicans, and Sekulow, were purporting collusion between Russia and the Democratic Party, and not just collusion between the Democrats and Ukraine.
Her is some of the fact-checking:
There’s no evidence that the Democratic Party colluded with the foreign adversary that, according to the conclusions of the intelligence community and the results of Mueller’s investigation, was working to elect their political opponent. […] there is no publicly available evidence of the kind of extensive conspiracy Nunes is alleging.
Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee, through a lawyer, did foot the bill for Washington-based research firm Fusion GPS to probe then-candidate Trump and his ties to Russia. Fusion GPS hired Christopher Steele, a British ex-spy and Russia expert, to do the work, and Steele ultimately penned an explosive report — the “dossier” — that included unverified claims that the Russian government was working with Trump and that the president was filmed with prostitutes in Moscow.
(Clinton has said she did not know of Steele’s efforts, and her campaign has pointed out that the practice of gathering opposition research on rival political candidates is routine.)
[…] the FBI noted in official proceedings that Steele was initially hired by political opponents, they also said they viewed him as credible.
Politico, citing two sources familiar with the Justice Department probes, reported earlier this month that Steele was interviewed by the DOJ internal watchdog in June.
Nunes’ office did not immediately respond to a request for additional information. Mueller, for his part, repeatedly declined to answer any questions about Steele or the dossier. “These matters are the subject of ongoing review by the Department,” Mueller told the House Judiciary Committee. […]
The above text is fact-checking provided by NBC News in July 2019.
Solid presentation from Rep. Garcia about how Trump instructed every part of the executive branch to refuse to comply entirely with congressional subpoenas. State and Defense had initially signaled that they would work and negotiate with congress, but that totally shut down after Cipollone’s October 8th letter.
Maddow: “Interesting line of argument from Manager Garcia here — a reminder that there were initial indications from both State and Defense that they would cooperate with the Impeachment Investigation and provide documents.
But then something happened to reverse their course.”
Now Lofgren is going through the subpoenaed witnesses and showing a graphic with a photo of each one in turn with “BLOCKED” stamped in red letters over their face.
Coming after Schiff’s remarks @ #306 and the warnings reported @ #258, Demings’ descriptions of Trump’s smears and threats against the whistleblower and his sources and career diplomatic staff who testified put into relief what a two-bit thug he is.
Speaking of thugs…update to #283 – “Wow. @NPR’s @NPRKelly just now on @npratc says @SecPompeo was furious about being questioned about Ukraine in her interview. Took her into his office, cursed at her, dropping f-bombs, made her point to Ukraine on an unmarked map (she did). It’s just…shocking.”
“I was taken to the Secretary’s private living room where he was waiting and where he shouted at me for about same amount of time as the interview itself.
He was not happy to have been questioned about Ukraine. He asked, ‘do you think Americans care about Ukraine?’
He used the F-word in that sentence and many others. He asked if I could find Ukraine on a map. I said yes, and he called out for aides to bring us a map of the world with no writing. I pointed to Ukraine. He put the map away.
He said, ‘people will hear about this’.”
“Confirmed: Lev Parnas attorney, Joseph Bondy, tells me he has turned over to the House Intel Committee an hour long recording of President Trump talking about firing former US Amb to the Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. Bondy said Parnas found the recording in his iCloud account.”
The story is that he found it after seeing the ABC report.
I agree. I cringe every time a pundit proclaims that, as far as the impeachment trial is concerned, “it’s a foregone conclusion,” or that “Republicans will not vote to impeach Trump.” Various pundits, news hosts and print media journalists are making it more likely that Trump will not be held to account by their constant repetition of statements that fall into the “we already we know the end of this story” category.
Absolutely.
[existentialist rant] It also grants them irresponsibility for their choices. Nothing is forcing any Republican to vote in any way. Not fate, some supernatural force, the Republican Party or its base, donors, McConnell, Trump. They’re responsible for their choices. For the media to pretend there’s no decision involved absolves them of that responsibility. The media has to start treating them like adults who bear responsibility for their decisions and expecting them to explain those decisions. [/existentialist rant]
“Republicans are VERY angry about Schiff’s decision to reference that CBS ‘head on a pike’ report. Murkowski says ‘that’s where he lost me’. Barrasso says ‘whatever gains he may have made, he lost all of it — plus some — tonight’.”
Schiff’s citing a news report is now responsible for their decisions. I think fucking not, Murkowski and Barrasso. Your decision is all on you, and you know it.
“Some Republicans: I was on the verge of doing my duty as a Senator to support the Constitution but then Adam Schiff referenced a news report about something a White House source said so I am mad and now I won’t fulfill my constitutional responsibility.”
It’s farcical. I’m reading A Very Stable Genius. Almost all Trump does is nurse grievances; rage at his perceived enemies; and seek vengeance against people, organizations, states, countries,… He does it privately. He does it publicly. All the time. The House Managers showed a clip in the trial of Trump calling for the whistleblower and his sources to be executed, FFS.
It’s just bizarre that they’re putting so much emphasis on Trump’s claims that European countries weren’t “sharing the burden” of Ukraine aid – including saying to Zelenskyy that Germany does almost nothing for them. As the House Managers already pointed out, these claims are totally false.
Pompeo has issued an appalling statement about his tantrum.
Marc Polymeropoulos: “This absurd press release embarrasses the State Dept like nothing I’ve seen before in 26 years. My sincere sympathy to all my State friends. We know this is not u.”
Sekulow’s presentation is sad. He’s just doing what the Republicans tried to do in the House hearings: pull a few snippets of testimony out of the entire context of information like no one knows the context. But the Senate just spent three days hearing all of the surrounding information. This can work for a soundbite on Fox or when speaking with reporters, but the snippets carry no weight when people have all of the other information. “They didn’t tell you about that” is only effective if that remains significant in light of all of the other evidence. Also, the House Managers methodically presented evidence for hours, and their ignoring it doesn’t make it go away.
Cipollone just said they’ll be done in a few minutes. They’re all speaking slowly and taking long pauses and they can’t even fill up three hours on the first day.
Now Cipollone wants people to believe that Zelenskyy could just like drop by the White House.
Doesn’t really matter how many cherry-picked quotes that Trump’s lawyers present to claim that Trump was focused on ending corruption in general (apparently planet-wide), Trump still leveraged a White House meeting and military aid to pressure Ukraine to announce a bogus investigation into Biden and into debunked conspiracy theories about 2016 election interference.
“@SenJoniErnst: ‘Within two hours I thought that the White House Counsel and their team entirely shredded the case that has been presented by the house managers’.”
“The cherrypicking was hilariously obvious and it was even funnier because they kicked things off by playing a clip of Schiff paraphrasing Trump and calling if ‘fake’, but they forgot to cut the part of Schiff’s comments where he said, essentially, ‘the following is a paraphrase’.”
I don’t know what I was doing at the beginning of that hearing, but I’m not sure if I heard Schiff’s comments. Not only does he make it clear that he’s conveying the gist of the call (which is also much closer to the way Trump actually does speak than the more formal language he uses when he knows there will be an official record!) but he really accurately conveys the gist of the call. It’s incredible that there could have been any controversy about it at all.
…Trump owns and dominates the GOP. Once he turns against an elected official it’s not only that the money and apparatus of the party turn against that person Republican voters do too. Cross Trump and you’re finished. This is not only obviously true but a point President Trump and the White House embrace to show the price of crossing him.
Every person in American politics knows this is true. They know it because they’ve seen it happen again and again. The President and his followers embrace it. So set aside the feigned outrage. The idea this isn’t true as a factual matter is comical. We all know this.
But clearly having Schiff say it – not on MSNBC but right in the Senate and right to the Republican senators’ faces – was intensely uncomfortable because it drops the charade that Republican Senators are doing some kind of disinterested consideration of the evidence. We all know that’s absurd.
So yes, all the feigned outrage. And yes, it’s the absurd outrage offramp that they’re looking for to try to make sense of ignoring the Everest of evidence against the President, the emblematic and foundational subject changing that is Trumpism. But I think Schiff really did get under their collective skins in an uncomfortable, undigestible way because this just explodes the charade, the shared illusion that all the Republican Senators aren’t owned and controlled by the President. Every elected official in the Republican party today exists at the sufferance of Donald Trump. That means having to go along with literally anything he does. Stating all that explicitly, as opposed to indulging the charade that the Republican Senators are doing any kind of serious review or consideration of the evidence was clearly upsetting. Especially to someone like Susan Collins or perhaps Lisa Murkowski since they are in the lead indulging that fiction.
“I cannot stop thinking about @SecPompeo’s statement that is on official US State Department letterhead, disparaging an American journalist and American journalism. The State Department is first stop for American journalists taken hostage or in peril overseas.”
johnson catmansays
re SC @314: Pompouseo is such a great example of a fine christian man, isn’t he?
The Base, a US-based white supremacist “social network” that has recently been targeted by the FBI in raids leading to the arrest of several members, was active, growing and continuing to prepare for large-scale violence.
The Guardian has obtained chat records, audio recordings and videos provided by an anti-fascist whistleblower who spent more than a year charting the inside workings of the Base.
The Guardian studied leaked materials relayed by the whistleblower and pursued other lines of inquiry to exclusively reveal the real identity of the Base’s secretive leader as Rinaldo Nazzaro, 46, from New Jersey.
Nazzaro is currently living in Russia with his Russian wife. Until the Guardian’s exposé little was known about his background and he was only known by the alias “Norman Spear”.
The exclusive materials show how the group has planned terror campaigns; vandalized synagogues; organised armed training camps; and recruited new members who extolled an ideology of all-out race war. The cache of documents and recordings gives a rare insight into how such neo-Nazi terror groups operate.
The Base – an approximate English translation of “al-Qaida” – began recruiting in late 2018 and pushing for both the collapse of society and a race war. Members of the group stand accused of federal hate crimes, murder plots and firearms offenses, and have harbored international fugitives in recent months.
It was the very real threat of violence that convinced the whistleblower to infiltrate the Base and stay undercover for months, gaining the trust of other members, only to later contact the Guardian to expose them.
The Guardian’s source said that in recent months “the pieces were coming together to build the infrastructure for a strong, neo-Nazi militant underground, with places to train, to make connections and expand the network.” He felt he had to act to stop it.
The source said: “The ‘Norman Spear’ I spoke with told me in no uncertain terms that the purpose of the Base is to cause the collapse of our society, not survive it.”…
Iraqi security forces have raided Baghdad’s main anti-government protest site and attempted to eject protesters in southern cities, firing teargas and bullets which killed four people and wounded dozens more, police and medical sources said.
The push to end the demonstrations and restore order came hours after the populist cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who has millions of supporters in Baghdad and the south, said he would halt his involvement in anti-government unrest.
Sadr’s supporters, who had bolstered the anti-government protesters and sometimes played a role in protecting them from attacks by security forces and unidentified gunmen, began withdrawing from sit-ins early on Saturday after Sadr’s announcement.
Clashes then took place after authorities began removing concrete barriers near Tahrir Square, where anti-government demonstrators have camped out for months, and across at least one main bridge over the Tigris River in the capital.
Supporters of Sadr had begun to leave protest camps overnight after he announced he would no longer be involved in the anti-government demonstrations.
In the southern city of Basra, security forces raided the main anti-government protest site overnight and deployed force to stop protesters gathering there again, security sources said. Police arrested at least 16 protesters in the city, they said.
In Baghdad, at least one person was killed and more than 30 injured in clashes between police and protesters near Tahrir Square. Another three died and 14 were wounded in the southern city of Nassiriya when security forces took control of a bridge occupied for days by demonstrators, security sources and medics said.
Iraq’s security forces have used teargas and live ammunition against mostly peaceful protesters since anti-government unrest broke out in Baghdad on 1 October. More than 450 people have died in the violence, according to a Reuters tally from police and medics.
The demonstrators are demanding the removal of what they see as a corrupt Iraqi ruling elite and the end of interference in politics by foreign powers, especially Iran, which has come to dominate state institutions since the toppling of Saddam Hussein in a 2003 US-led invasion.
The actions of the security forces appeared to be an attempt to end months of demonstrations calling for the removal of Iraq’s ruling elite.
The raids began hours after Sadr said he would halt the involvement of his supporters in the protests….
“Sekulow has now raised the false flag of Ukraine interfering in the last election. Several witnesses and experts have called this theory as a concerted Russian disinformation campaign designed to undermine Ukraine and US. This is dangerous territory for the defense team.”
The lawyers also expressed contempt for the Mueller investigation/report and suggested that Trump was right to dismiss the findings of the intelligence community and go with “people he trusts” (presumably Putin, Giuliani, and Firtash’s lawyers).
State Department investigators this week interviewed hundreds of diplomats and employees at the US embassy in Ukraine as part of an investigation into the alleged surveillance of former ambassador Marie Yovanovitch by associates of Rudy Giuliani, two US officials with knowledge of the investigation told BuzzFeed News.
The interviews were conducted on Wednesday and Thursday by officers from the State Department’s federal law enforcement and security arm, the Diplomatic Security Service (DSS), the diplomatic sources told BuzzFeed News. One of the sources said DSS was coordinating with Ukrainian authorities, which opened their own investigation into the matter on Jan. 16.
The US embassy declined to comment. Ukraine’s Interior Ministry, which announced the Ukrainian investigation, couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on Saturday but it said previously that it would be asking US authorities to work together.
One diplomatic source described the investigation as “cynical” and a “cover your ass” move on the part of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo ahead of his scheduled visit to Kyiv on Jan. 30 and 31. The source said it seemed as though it was happening “so that Pompeo could walk in and say: ‘investigating your security is our number one priority.’”
One of the sources described US embassy workers as being “spooked” by the surprise investigators showing up. It’s unclear how many of them were present, but the embassy employs over 300 people, including diplomats and local staff, so it would take several officers to get through them all in two days. All diplomats and staff were explicitly told not to speak to the press about the matter, according to one of the sources.
The DSS officers’ arrival came almost a week after Pompeo vowed to investigate whether Yovanovitch was being physically and electronically spied on while still in her role last March….
Pompeo was criticized for being slow to react to news of possible surveillance of Yovanovitch, a three-time ambassador and public servant for 33 years who colleagues have described as “a diplomat’s diplomat.” And he has not publicly spoken out in support of her despite claiming that he has in an explosive interview with National Public Radio’s Marie Louise Kelly on Friday….
…
Yovanovitch was recalled in April last year after being accused of disloyalty by allies of Trump. In a partial video and recording from April 30, 2018 and published by ABC News on Friday, we learn why. It appears to catch the president telling his associates to “take her out” and “get rid” of her. During his now-infamous July 25 call with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky that ultimately led to his impeachment, Trump expressed his disdain toward Yovanovitch, who was already back in Washington, and said she would soon “go through some things.”
It’s one thing for Joe Rogan to endorse a candidate. It’s another for @BernieSanders’ campaign to produce a video bolstering the endorsement of someone known for promoting transphobia, homophobia, Islamophobia, racism and misogyny.
We urge Sen. Sanders and his campaign to apologize and stop elevating this endorsement. We stand in solidarity with folks hurt by this.
The swarm is out in full force in the responses attacking MoveOn.
Here’s a link to the full 1.5-hour video (mostly audio) of the donor event at which Trump told people to get rid of Yovanovitch and asked how long Ukraine would last in the war with Russia without US support.
President Donald Trump inquired how long Ukraine would be able to resist Russian aggression without U.S. assistance during a 2018 meeting with donors that included the indicted associates of his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani.
“How long would they last in a fight with Russia?” Trump is heard asking in the audio portion of a video recording, moments before he calls for the firing of U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. She was removed a year later after a campaign to discredit her by Giuliani and others, an action that is part of Democrats’ case arguing for the removal of the president in his Senate impeachment trial.
A video recording of the entire 80-minute dinner at the Trump Hotel in Washington was obtained Saturday by The Associated Press. Excerpts were first published Friday by ABC News. People can be seen in only some portions of the recording.
The recording contradicts the president’s statements that he did not know the Giuliani associates Lev Parnas or Igor Fruman, key figures in the investigation who were indicted last year on campaign finance charges. The recording came to light as Democrats continued to press for witnesses and other evidence to be considered during the impeachment trial.
On the recording, a voice that appears to be Parnas’ can be heard saying, “The biggest problem there, I think where we need to start is we got to get rid of the ambassador.” He later can be heard telling Trump: “She’s basically walking around telling everybody, ‘Wait, he’s gonna get impeached. Just wait.’”
Trump responds: “Get rid of her! Get her out tomorrow. I don’t care. Get her out tomorrow. Take her out. OK? Do it.”
Ukraine came up during the dinner in the context of a discussion of energy markets, with the voice appearing to be Parnas’ describing his involvement in the purchase of a Ukrainian energy company.
…
Also visible in the video are the president’s son Donald Trump Jr. and former counselor to the president Johnny DeStefano. Jack Nicklaus III, the grandson of the golf icon, and New York real estate developer Stanley Gale also attended the event for a pro-Trump group.
Just a few minutes into the conversation, Trump can be heard railing against former President George W. Bush, China, the World Trade Organization and the European Union. “Bush, he gets us into the war, he gets us into the Middle East, that was a beauty,” Trump says. “We’re in the Middle East right now for $7 trillion.” He later says: “China rips us off for years and we owe them $2 trillion.” The president blames the WTO because it “allowed China to do what they’re doing.”
“The WTO is worse,” than China, he declares. “China didn’t become great until the WTO.”
Trump also seemed to question the U.S. involvement in the Korean War: “How we ever got involved in South Korea in the first place, tell me about it. How we ended up in a Korean War.”
Trump provided the guests with an update ahead of his first meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, revealing that he’d settled on a date and location. One of the people in attendance sought to pitch a different location: Songdo, South Korea, which is 70% owned by Gale International and features a Nicklaus-designed golf course.
“You know that Kim Jong Un is a great golfer,” Trump is heard telling the guests, who roar with laughter….
[…] He [Pompeo] says in that statement, “NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly lied to me, twice. First, last month in setting up our interview […].” Kelly, in the interview, refutes that. Pompeo tries to filibuster his way out of answering questions about Ukraine by saying “You know, I agreed to come on your show today to talk about Iran.” Kelly interjects: “I confirmed with your staff [crosstalk] last night that I would talk about Iran and Ukraine.” In discussion following the airing of the full interview, “All Things Considered” hosts Ari Shapiro and Audie Cornish confirm that Kelly has emails with Pompeo’s staff confirming that she would discuss Iran and Ukraine […] Note as well that the transcript the State Department posted does not have Pompeo or his aide who is in the room disputing that.
The second part of Pompeo’s statement continues with the next lie: “[…] then again yesterday, in agreeing to have our post-interview conversation off the record.” Kelly herself took that straight on Friday, explaining the interaction with ATC co-host Cornish. She said that the aide who was staffing Pompeo, and who escorted her to the room where Pompeo swore and yelled at her, did not say that this meeting would be off the record, and Kelly said that she never would have agreed to it being off the record. In her words: “the same staffer who had stopped the interview reappeared, asked me to come with her—just me, no recorder, though she did not say we were off the record, nor would I have agreed.” Yes, that’s “he said, she said” but this is an experienced reporter for a respected national outlet. She’s not going to flub something so basic.
Then, in his statement, Pompeo offers the usual Trumpian attack: “It is no wonder that the American people distrust many in the media when they so consistently demonstrate their agenda and their absence of integrity.” Then he really shows the full force of his ill-informed and vile misogyny: “It is worth noting that Bangladesh is NOT Ukraine.” That’s his response to this, from Kelly: “He asked if I could find Ukraine on a map; I said yes. He called out for his aides to bring him a map of the world with no writing, no countries marked. I pointed to Ukraine.”
Kelly NPR bio says she was national security correspondent for NPR News and she has had a distinguished reporting career since graduating from Harvard University as an undergrad; her master’s degree is from Cambridge University in England, in European studies. […]
Yes, she knows where Ukraine is on a map. That was just too big of a tell on Pompeo’s part, coming up with something as farcical as this.
[…] It started with the president’s critical July 25th call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. White House Deputy Counsel Michael Purpura referred repeatedly to how what he called “the actual transcript” and “the real transcript” of this call led to an investigation that resulted in Trump’s impeachment. But the document Purpura quoted is not a transcript. It is a “memorandum of telephone conversation,” which means that it reflects the memories of aides who listened in, but may exclude significant parts of Trump and Zelensky’s conversation. Purpura should know the difference.
Trump and his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, are accused of withholding a White House meeting from Zelensky to try to force him to announce investigations into Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, as well as an investigation into a false conspiracy theory that a Democratic National Committee server is secretly stored in Ukraine. When that didn’t work, Trump is accused of withholding nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine to increase his leverage in forcing Zelensky to announce the probes.
That adds up to two quid pro quos, but Purpura on Saturday simply ignored the first one. He played a clip that showed US Ambassador the European Union Gordon Sondland saying that while he believed Trump had conditioned the release of aid on Zelensky announcing investigations, he didn’t know for sure. But Purpura simply ignored Sondland’s unqualified statement that Trump had conditioned a White House meeting for Zelensky on his announcing investigations. “Was there a ‘quid pro quo’?” Sondland said in his testimony before the House Intelligence Committee in November. “With regard to the requested White House call and the White House meeting, the answer is yes.”
Purpura also ignored the part of Sondland testimony in which the ambassador said he had told Zelensky’s top aide on September 1 that US aid would not resume until Ukraine announced the investigations. That is, Sondland, believing he was acting on Trump’s behalf, actually offered this supposed trade.
Having pretended that one of the proposed quid pro quos Trump is accused of did not not exist, Purpura attacked the existence of the second one with additional false claims. “The Ukrainians did not know that the security assistance was paused until the end of August,” he said, arguing Ukraine couldn’t have been extorted if they didn’t know of the hold. But evidence Purpura blew off suggests they did. Olena Zerkal, Ukraine’s former deputy foreign minister says Ukrainians knew of the hold in July. “We had this information,” Zerkal told the New York Times last month. And that’s not all. Laura Cooper, a deputy assistant secretary of Defense, in testimony before the House last fall, said that her staff received an email on July 23 indicating that Ukrainians were asking about the delay in delivery of aid.
Trump’s lawyers also rolled out the litany of their favorite old arguments. They noted that “security assistance flowed” to Ukraine in September without Zelensky announcing the investigations Trump wanted. The release of the aid, of course, only came after a whistleblower complaint drew intense media scrutiny. As House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), one of Democrats’ impeachment managers, memorably put it: The Trump administration released the aid because “they got caught.” Trump’s lawyers simply pretended the release of the aid came without public pressure. Purpura also argued that Trump had increased lethal US support for Ukraine, an argument that overlooks the president’s alleged subverting of that very policy to benefit his presidential campaign.
But the attorneys real argument is more basic. “The president did absolutely nothing wrong,” White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, said in his opening remarks on Saturday. That’s what they’re going with when the next phase of the White House defense begins Monday afternoon.
The number-one super-PAC for Donald Trump […] has come up with a nifty fundraising gimmick: the “Witch Hunt Timeline”. This interactive chronology supposedly details “the road to a sham impeachment” to show how a phony Russia scandal turned into a phony Ukraine scandal that turned into a phony impeachment. But this is a highly selective timeline, and in a bout of Trump-sized chutzpah, America First Action leaves out at least one crucial episode: its own role in the Ukraine scandal.
In a fear-mongering email seeking donations, the super-PAC claims that Trump is a victim of a nefarious and wide-ranging plot, insisting that “federal law enforcement officers, intelligence agencies, and government bureaucrats engaged in a shocking effort to influence the 2016 election, crush the Trump campaign, and cripple our elected president.” […] it’s part of another rightwing buck-raking scam.
[…] This super-PAC is run by the the cream of Trump World. It is chaired by Linda McMahon, who was Trump’s pick to run the Small Business Administration. Its senior adviser and spokesperson is Sean Spicer, Trump’s first White House press secretary. Kelly Sadler, formerly a senior Trump White House official in charge of coalitions outreach, is the communications director for the group. Steve Cortes, another adviser for this super-PAC, has been a member of Trump’s Hispanic Advisory Council.
[…] As a super-PAC, it is supposed to act independently of Trump’s official reelection campaign. But its affiliated non-profit, America First Policies, which last month announced it was spending $2 million on anti-impeachment ads, was cofounded by Brad Parscale, who is now Trump’s campaign manager.
The timeline ignores many significant moments of Trump’s Russia and Ukraine scandals. Gone are key contacts between the Trump campaign and Russians in 2016. There’s nothing on Trump’s secret endeavors during that campaign to score a deal in Moscow to develop a tower that could earn him hundreds of millions of dollars […] Trump’s denials that Russia was attacking the US election? Nope, not there. The release of Russian-stolen Democratic emails just when the grab-them-by-the-[P-word] tape emerged? They forgot that, too.
The timeline neglects to mention that the US intelligence community concluded Moscow attacked the 2016 election in part to help Trump win the White House. […]
In October, two Soviet-born American businessmen who were working with Rudy Giuliani to dig up dirt on Joe Biden in Ukraine, Lev Parnas, and Igor Fruman, were indicted for violating campaign finance law by allegedly creating a dummy company to provide cover for large donations they were making to Republicans. One of the payments cited was a hefty $325,000 contribution made in May 2018 to…the America First Action Super-PAC. […]
So Parnas and Fruman were allegedly using the America First Action super-PAC to do the bidding of Ukrainian officials. How did this work? The indictment explains that during the 2018 election, the America First Action Super-PAC spent $3 million to help a member of Congress referred to as “Congressman-1” who was running for reelection, and it implies that the $325,000 donation was related to this particular effort. The indictment states that Parnas and Fruman also contributed directly to “Congressman-1,” who has been identified as Pete Sessions, a Texas Republican.
Moreover, the feds point out that during this stretch, Parnas met with Sessions and sought his “assistance in causing the U.S. Government to remove or recall” Marie Yovanovitch, the US ambassador to Ukraine, “at least in part, at the request of one or more Ukrainian government officials.” In fact, on the day that Parnas met with Sessions in the US Capitol, the congressman sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urging the firing of Yovanovitch. And around that time, Parnas and Fruman had an intimate dinner with Trump during which they claimed that Yovanovitch was bad-mouthing him—to which Trump replied, “Get rid of her!…Take her out.” […]
[The PAC’s] impeachment timeline did not include the Parnas and Fruman donation to the PAC or any reference to how the super-PAC itself was [used]
Yes, America First Action, the Ukraine scandal is real, and you know that because you were involved in the caper. But the goal here is to squeeze money out of Trump-loving donors on the PAC’s email list. That is, to follow the lead of Trump himself and con them by playing up the false narrative that there’s nothing to Trump’s Russia and Ukraine scandals and by depicting Trump as the innocent target of an evil cabal. This timeline is rank disinformation, designed to scam and to serve Trump first.
OMFG. This, my friends, is from the President of the United States:
Our case against lyin’, cheatin’, liddle’ Adam “Shifty” Schiff, Cryin’ Chuck Schumer, Nervous Nancy Pelosi, their leader, dumb as a rock AOC, & the entire Radical Left, Do Nothing Democrat Party, starts today at 10:00 A.M. on @FoxNews, @OANN or Fake News @CNN or Fake News MSDNC!
In other news, tomh @362, I agree. She was just shopping for an excuse. It didn’t matter what the excuse was.
In a credibility contest between @NPRKelly and any power-seeking politician, mark me down for Mary Louise Kelly every time. She is a journalist of impeccable integrity and absolute professionalism.
From Chris Megerian:
“Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?” is an interesting thing for Mike Pompeo to tell a reporter shortly before he visits Ukraine.
From David Gura:
A few things:
There is no way Mary Louise Kelly, who has a master’s degree in European studies from Cambridge, confused Bangladesh and Ukraine.
It is unbelievable he characterizes his berating of her as “a conversation.”
How dare he question her journalism or decency.
From Maggie Haberman:
The secretary of state is trying to accuse Kelly of some kind of professional breach after he used the OTR to try to humiliate her instead of to have a substantive conversation.
Note, it was not an OTR (off the record) conversation, as already noted.
From General Michael Hayden:
For the record when I was in government I dealt with Mary Louise Kelly@NPRKelly a fair bit. I found her to be a real professional. Tough questions, tough answers but totally honest. She’s no liar and I’m quite sure she knows where Ukraine is on a map.
From Wonkette:
[…] At the end of the day, Secretary Pompeo has still said not one single word in defense of Marie Yovanovitch. He’s bullied a female reporter (again), and tried to get her alone with him in his private rooms. And when she reported his wildly inappropriate behavior, he made up an easily disprovable lie. Because this entire administration is abusive FILTH.
Barack Obama’s private assessment of Donald Trump: He’s a fascist.
That is, at least, according to Tim Kaine, the Democratic senator from Virginia and a friend of the former president. In a video clip from October 2016, Kaine is seen relaying Obama’s comment to Hillary Clinton. The footage is part of the new Hulu documentary Hillary, which was obtained by The Atlantic ahead of its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival today.
“President Obama called me last night and said, ‘Tim, this is no time to be a purist,’” Kaine tells his then–running mate. “‘You’ve got to keep a fascist out of the White House.’”
Clinton replies: “I echo that sentiment.”
A representative for Obama declined to comment on the conversation. A representative for Kaine did not respond to requests for comment.
In an interview at Sundance today with Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic’s editor in chief, Clinton elaborated on her exchange with Kaine. “If you look at the definition [of fascist], which I’ve had the occasion to read several times,” Clinton said, “I think we can agree on several things: One, he has authoritarian tendencies and he admires authoritarian leaders, [Vladimir] Putin being his favorite. He uses a form of really virulent nationalism. He identifies targets: immigrants, blacks, browns, gays, women, whoever the target of the day or week is … I think you see a lot of the characteristics of what we think of [as] nationalistic, fascistic kinds of tendencies and behaviors.”
Obama has been careful in how he’s publicly discussed his successor….
Obama has never gone as far as using the word fascist in public, even though that’s not an uncommon opinion, especially on the left. Journalists and academics who have lived in and studied fascist regimes regularly point to the traits Trump seems to share with those leaders, including demanding fealty, deliberately spreading misinformation, and adopting Joseph Stalin’s slur that the press is the “enemy of the people.” And that’s not to mention Trump’s apparent admiration for living authoritarians, such as Russia’s Putin, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. “He speaks, and his people sit up at attention,” Trump gushed about Kim in a 2018 interview on Fox & Friends. “I want my people to do the same.”
…
In the Sundance interview, Clinton said that Obama had never used the word fascist in conversations with her about Trump. But, she said, what Obama “observed was this populism untethered to facts, evidence, or truth; this total rejection of so much of the progress that America has made, in order to incite a cultural reaction that would play into the fear and the anxiety and the insecurity of people—predominantly in small-town and rural areas—who felt like they were losing something. And [Trump] gave them a voice for what they were losing and who was responsible.”
In the documentary footage, Clinton also notes that she is “scared” and suspicious of what Trump is up to. “His agenda is other people’s agenda,” she says. “We’re scratching hard, trying to figure it out. He is the vehicle, the vessel for all these other people.”
“[Paul] Manafort, all these weird connections,” Kaine replies, referring to Trump’s former campaign chair, who is now in prison after being convicted of financial crimes related to his international business dealings.
“[Michael] Flynn, who is a paid tool for Russian television,” Clinton continues, referring to Trump’s onetime national security adviser and former campaign surrogate. “The way that Putin has taken over the political apparatus …” she starts to say. Then, a voice off camera interrupts her.
[…] Alternative Fact: “President [Volodymyr] Zelensky and high-ranking Ukrainian officials did not even know — did not even know — the security assistance was paused until the end of August, over a month after the July 25 call.”
Actual Fact: Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary Laura Coopercq testified that the Ukrainians were inquiring about the status of the security assistance on July 25.
Alternative Fact: “They kept telling you it was Russia alone that interfered in the 2016 election, but there is evidence that Ukraine also interfered.”
Actual Fact: “We have no information that indicates that Ukraine interfered,” said Trump’s FBI director, Christopher Wray.
Alternative Fact: The administration fought subpoenas because “the subpoenas were not authorized because there were no votes” to start an impeachment inquiry.
Actual Fact: The administration fought the subpoenas even after the formal vote to open the impeachment inquiry.
Alternative Fact: “The transcript shows that the president did not condition either security assistance or a meeting on anything.”
Actual Fact: The “transcript” is not an actual transcript but a partial reconstruction of the call by the White House. It includes the Trump phrase “do us a favor though” immediately following the Ukrainian president’s mention of military help and immediately before Trump’s request for investigations.
Alternative Fact: “They design[ed] a mechanism here where the president was locked out and denied the ability to cross-examine witnesses” in the House impeachment.
Actual Fact: Cipollone declined an invitation to participate in the House impeachment hearings before the Judiciary Committee.
Alternative Fact: “The Democrats’ allegation that the president engaged in a quid pro quo is unfounded.”
Actual Fact: Told that what he was describing was a quid pro quo, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said at a news conference: “We do that all the time.”
Alternative Fact: “The Mueller Report … after $32 million and roughly 500 search warrants, determined that there was no collusion.”
Actual Fact: “We did not address ‘collusion,’ which is not a legal term,” Mueller testified. […]
President Donald Trump’s defense team consistently drilled down on one key point as it began opening arguments in his impeachment trial on Saturday: the evidence against Trump is limited, at best, and he can’t be impeached because the public hasn’t heard direct evidence of his misconduct from him or anyone close to him.
…
…Trump’s lawyers seemed to bolster Democrats’ case by repeatedly claiming that they hadn’t heard from a single witness who had “direct contact” with the president.
Although their statements were misleading (Gordon Sondland, the US’s ambassador to the European Union, was in frequent touch with Trump and testified to Congress that the president engaged in a quid pro quo with Ukraine), Democratic lawmakers noted that their statements underscored the need to hear from more firsthand witnesses.
…
“Now, the first point that I would like to make is that the president’s counsel did something that they did not intend: They made a really compelling case for why the Senate should call witnesses and documents,” said Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer.
“They kept saying there are no eyewitness accounts, but there are people who have eyewitness accounts, the very four witnesses and the very four sets of documents that we have asked for,” he said. “But there are people who do know. Mick Mulvaney knows. In all likelihood, Mr. [Robert] Blair, [an aide to Mulvaney], knows. Mr. Bolton may know. ‘Why shouldn’t we have witnesses and documents here?’ I thought.”
Sen. Joe Manchin of Virginia, who is widely considered a Democratic swing vote because he represents a deep-red state, told CNN he thought Trump’s team did a “good job” of “making me think about things.” He added, “One thing that stuck in my mind is they said there isn’t a witness they have had so far that had direct contact with the president. I’d love to hear from Mulvaney and Bolton.”
Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut echoed that point, telling MSNBC that Trump’s lawyers “repeatedly said that we have heard limited evidence from individuals who talked directly to the president, who were ordered by the president to engage in this scheme.”
“Of course, the reason for that is because the White House won’t let us hear” from those people, he added. “So if what’s missing … is direct evidence of what the president told the people who work for him, there’s a way to solve for that. I hope we don’t have to get leaked audio of the president directing orders in this corruption scheme in order to prove our case.”…
Alternative Fact: “The Mueller Report … after $32 million and roughly 500 search warrants, determined that there was no collusion.”
Actual Fact: “We did not address ‘collusion,’ which is not a legal term,” Mueller testified.
I remain amazed at how they continue to talk about the Mueller investigation. The first volume didn’t cover only the question of whether there was a criminal conspiracy with the Trump campaign but the “sweeping and systematic” Russian interference in the 2016 election. All of Trump’s efforts to obstruct and shut down the investigation detailed in Volume 2 were efforts to sabotage the investigation of Putin’s actions as well. All of his attacks on the intelligence community worked and continue to work to Putin’s benefit as he continues to attack the US. The Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee, who reached the same conclusions as Mueller’s team and shared their view of the seriousness of the Kremlin’s actions, somehow have nothing to say about Trump’s lawyers dismissing Mueller’s work and spewing Kremlin propaganda on the Senate floor.
A word in remembrance to my former Congressman, Pete Stark, who died yesterday, the first, perhaps only, openly atheist member of Congress. Thirty years ago he was talking about the 1%, introducing bills for single payer health care, bills to ban LGBTQ discrimination, enacting family leave and many other things, now seen as progressive.
Being outspoken, he made a lot of enemies, on both sides of the aisle, and had to apologize more than once–for example he charged Bush with sending young soldiers to war in Iraq “to get their heads blown off for the president’s amusement.” But he added to his apology, “But I respect neither the commander in chief who keeps them in harm’s way nor the chicken-hawks in Congress who vote to deny children health care.”
He grew more crusty and grouchy after 20 terms in Congress, but in his prime he was a force to be reckoned with.
Slate Trumpcast: “A Historical Lens on Trump’s Authoritarianism: And what we can learn from earlier fear-based political structures?” – interview with Ruth Ben-Ghiat in which she discusses her forthcoming book Strongmen: How They Rise, Why They Succeed, How They Fall
Slate Trumpcast: “Why People Fall for Trump’s Political Cult: A cult expert weighs in on Trumpism.” – “Virginia Heffernan talks to Steven Hassan, author of The Cult of Trump, about why we fall for cults, Donald Trump’s brainwashing, and stories of his own deprogramming from a political cult in the 1970s.”
Yesterday’s Lovett or Leave It: “The Rural Jurors.” The discussion of the Fox wardrobe and the rant at the end about “gaygeism” are especially good.
Rubicon: “The Fix” – “What if the Senate completes an impeachment trial in a way that deprives the public of the fairness it demands, and plainly violates the oath senators take to do impartial justice? Noah Feldman, a Harvard Law Professor and host of the Deep Background podcast joins host Brian Beutler to discuss the opening of the trial of Donald Trump, and the legitimacy crisis we face if Republicans complete his coverup for him.”
“Lev Parnas’s attorney, Joseph Bondy, tells @andersoncooper that his client is in possession of more recordings of President Trump, some of which they’ve sent to the House Intelligence Committee, and which they may release to the public.”
Walter Dellinger: “Read the Nixon ‘smoking gun’ transcript and you will conclude that it would not even have been a speed bump for the crowd defending Trump. ‘Nothing there’ would have been endlessly and successfully repeated.”
Barb McQuade: “President Trump’s continued use of public intimidation and retaliation is a form of jury tampering. Imagine if a defendant could publicly denounce the prosecution and negatively influence career prospects of a juror.”
As part of President Donald Trump’s impeachment defense team, Alan Dershowitz is expected to argue on behalf of the president at the Senate trial early next week. But in a 2016 book he authored, the famed defense attorney called Trump a “destabilizing and unpredictable candidate,” warning that the then-presidential candidate “openly embraces fringe conspiracy theories peddled by extremists.”
Dershowitz wrote those statements in his book titled “Electile Dysfunction: A Guide for Unaroused Voters.” [ew – SC] As part of Trump’s defense team, Dershowitz will outline the “foundations of what it means to rise to the level of what is impeachable and what is not,” Jay Sekulow, one of Trump’s lead impeachment lawyers, said this week on Fox News.
In a phone call with NBC about his comments in the 2016 book, Dershowitz clarified his views about the president. “I was campaigning for Hillary Clinton at the time. I hadn’t really ever met President Trump and it was just typical campaign rhetoric,” he said. “I would not repeat that characterization today having met him.”
Several Clinton campaign officials, including Adrienne Elrod, who ran the 2016 campaign’s surrogate operation, told NBC News they do not recall Dershowitz doing anything in coordination with the official campaign.
…
Dershowitz also warned of Trump’s approach to foreign policy: “What is clear is that Trump is prepared to violate existing international and domestic laws, as well as widely accepted principles of human rights, in his effort to stop terrorism.”
“Even more disturbingly, Trump has sometimes lurched into the realm of dog-whistle anti-Semitism by half-heartedly courting the support of white-nationalist bigots,” he wrote….
Yesterday President Trump issued a Presidential Proclamation (full text) declaring January 26 to February 1 as National School Choice Week. His Proclamation says in part:
Each child is a gift from God who has boundless potential and deserves a fair shot at the American Dream. To have that fair shot, children and their families must be free to pursue an educational environment that matches their individual learning style, develops their unique talents, and prepares them with the knowledge and character needed for fulfilling and productive lives…..
Today, I renew my call on the Congress to focus on what is best for children and pass a Federal tax credit to support State-based educational choice programs…..
Choice=Religious schools. Trump going all out for the Evangelicals.
The first volume didn’t cover only the question of whether there was a criminal conspiracy with the Trump campaign but the “sweeping and systematic” Russian interference in the 2016 election. All of Trump’s efforts to obstruct and shut down the investigation detailed in Volume 2 were efforts to sabotage the investigation of Putin’s actions as well. All of his attacks on the intelligence community worked and continue to work to Putin’s benefit as he continues to attack the US. The Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee, who reached the same conclusions as Mueller’s team and shared their view of the seriousness of the Kremlin’s actions, somehow have nothing to say about Trump’s lawyers dismissing Mueller’s work and spewing Kremlin propaganda on the Senate floor.
johnson catmansays
re tomh @383: I very much doubt that The Orange Toddler-Tyrant wrote that proclamation. It actually has coherent sentence structure. Maybe Paula White and Betsy DeVos got together and wrote it for him.
Oh, FFS. Now Trump is threatening to cut NPR’s funding. That’s his response to Pompeo melting down during and especially after an interview. Trump has threatened to cut NPR’s funding before. I think he just renewed his support for that idea because his good buddy and fellow small-minded misogynist Mike Pompeo was shown to be a dunderhead by NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly.
[…] Trump retweeted a comment from right-wing radio host Mark Levin, who had highlighted a Fox News story about the Pompeo controversy and asked: “Why does NPR still exist? We have thousands of radio stations in the U.S. Plus Satellite radio. Podcasts. Why are we paying for this big-government, Democrat Party propaganda operation.” Trump added that Levin’s tweet raised a “very good question!” […]
In his budget proposals, Trump has repeatedly signaled a desire to eliminate funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which distributes government funds to public TV and radio stations. So far, that hasn’t happened. […]
“Elimination of federal funding would result in fewer programs, less journalism—especially local journalism—and eventually the loss of public radio stations, particularly in rural and economically distressed communities,” NPR notes on its website.
More abjectly delusional comments from a Republican senator:
“This president, as you know, he’s going to take acquittal and think, ‘I can keep doing this,'” [Chuck] Todd said.
“No, I don’t think that,” Braun [Republican Senator Mike Braun] replied. “Hopefully it’ll be instructive.”
“I think he’ll put two and two together,” the Indiana Republican added. “In this case, he was taken to the carpet.” […]
Asked if he thinks Trump regrets what he did, Braun answered: “I think he’ll be instructed by what has occurred here and certainly any individual would want to avoid whatever might need to be modified to go through this again because the threat has already been out there that we might find something else to impeach on, which I think is a mistake because I think we need to get back to what most Americans are interested in: the agenda.”
johnson catman @385, I agree. And I think it’s good to note when others are ghost-writing Trump’s tweets.
In a way, the ghost-written tweets remind us that Trump is easily swayed by whomever is close to him — just like we saw in the recent recorded conversation in which Trump, without even knowing her name, orders the firing of the ambassador to Ukraine when a purported stranger, Lev Parnas, badmouths the ambassador.
Also, the ghost writing reminds us that Trump is not only a hypocrite, he is an ignorant hypocrite.
There are now four cases of the new coronavirus in the USA.
In other news, we are seeing increased activity at some of North Korea’s missile research centers.
North Korea’s Sanumdong missile research center has seen a flurry of vehicle activity in recent days, according to U.S. officials, citing satellite imagery.
[…] the “activities are consistent with what we’ve seen prior to other missile tests,” a senior U.S. official told CNN.
While analysts could not rule out that tests were imminent, Pyongyang would have to go through several more steps, including visible fueling, before the government is capable of launching long-range missiles, according to the officials, CNN said.
Researchers with the Middlebury Institute also noted that North Korean officials are aware the site is monitored and that any visible activity at the site could be part of a deliberate effort to mislead surveillance. […]
“The important thing is that there is an uptick in activity at the site, just as there has been at Sohae and other facilities,” he said.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un recently announced Pyongyang’s intention to develop “strategic” weapons to push back against “hostile” U.S. policy.
Former Los Angeles Lakers player Kobe Bryant, 41, died in a helicopter crash Sunday morning […]
The helicopter, which crashed in Calabasas, California around 10 am PT, had at least five passengers on board. LA County Sheriffs confirmed that there were no survivors.
The Los Angeles Times reports the crash caused a bush fire that made it difficult for firefighters to reach the vehicle. The cause of the crash is still under investigation, though the Times reports foggy conditions may have made navigation difficult for the helicopter’s pilot.
Bryant is a five-time NBA champion with the LA Lakers, a team with which he spent his entire 20 year basketball career, until his retirement in 2016. He became the youngest player to score 30,000 points at the age of 34. And he was expected to be indicted in the Hall of Fame in 2021, per the requirement that an indictee must be retired for at least four full seasons.
Following his retirement, Bryant spent time as a youth basketball coach and won an Oscar for his animated short film, Dear Basketball.
Off the court, Bryant was known for a rape allegation; he was accused of sexual assault in 2003 by a then 19-year-old woman in Colorado. He denied the charges, claiming the encounter had been consensual. His accuser did not want to testify, and the matter was settled out of court. The allegation resurfaced during Bryant’s Oscar campaign in 2018, and his short film was removed from a festival at the request of activists over the issue.
Bryant is survived by his wife Vanessa Bryant and four children, Gianna, Natalia and Bianca and Capri.
On Friday, Donald Trump became the first sitting US president to give a speech at the March For Forced Birth. On Saturday, footage surfaced of White House spiritual advisor Paula White demanding the immediate miscarriage of all Satanic babies.
White, if you don’t know, is into the whole Prosperity Gospel thing. The gist of which is that if you are rich, that means God loves you and thinks you are great and wants you to have all of the golden toilet seats, and if you are poor, it’s because you are bad and God hates you and the only way you can get God to love you and give you money is if you give money to people like Paula White. […]
In the clip, White is seen praying for God to miscarry all the Satanic pregnancies. Whether that applies to humans or just like, jackals that are pregnant with the Antichrist or just women who live next door to Ruth Gordon, we don’t actually know. But she wants those Satan babies aborted and she wants to do the D&C.
Transcript:
Hey Hey! Hey Hey! Hey Hey! We interrupt that which has been deployed to hurt the church in this season, that which has been deployed to hurt this nation in the name of Jesus. FORGIVE US! For our sins. Come on I need you guys to pray. We cancel every surprise from the witchcraft in the marine kingdom, any hex, any spell, any witchcraft, any spirit of control, any Jezebel, anything that the enemy desires through spells, through witchcraft, through any way that is manipulation, demonic manipulation, we curse that, we break it.
According to the word of God, in the name of Jesus, we come against the marine kingdom, we come against the animal kingdom, any — the woman that rides upon the waters, we break the power, in the name of Jesus. And we declare that any strange winds, any strange winds that have been sent to hurt the church, sent against this nation, sent against the president, sent against myself, sent against others. We break it by the superior blood of Jesus right now, in the name of Jesus, we arrest every infirmity, affliction, fatigue, weariness, weakness, fear, sickness, any self-righteousness, any self-serving action, God, let pride fall! LET PRIDE FALL! LET PRIDE FALL! LET PRIDE FALL!
In the name of Jesus, we command all satanic pregnancies to miscarry right now. We declare that anything that’s been conceived in Satanic wombs, that it’ll miscarry. It will not be able to carry forth any plan of destruction, any plan of harm.
Now, look. I realize that the story here is the Satanic abortions and we will get to that in a moment, but I have to ask: Does Paula White think The Little Mermaid is real?
“Witchcraft in the marine kingdom!” […]
[See link for video segments]
What else could she possibly be talking about?
Are sea witches a pressing concern in the evangelical community? Is that a thing? […]
I have a lot of questions here, but back to the whole “every sperm is sacred, except for Satan’s, and I want to use my magic Jesus powers to abort all of those Satanic babies” thing. This is also confusing. Satan is impregnating ladies (or jackals, it could also be jackals), so the babies are Satanic that way, but also the wombs of the women/jackals are Satanic, so they are also Satanic in that way. How?
And if your pregnancy is Satanic, how do you even know? It’s not like you can go on Maury, take a DNA test and find out that Satan is the daddy. What if Paula White is slacking on her job and somehow skips over you when she’s demanding the miscarriages, and then the baby you’re forced to give birth to has hooves? What then?
Should we be leaving this responsibility entirely on Paula White? After all, she has sea witches to contend with and old people to scam out of their Social Security checks, and that must take up a lot of her time. It seems to me that if we really want to control the population of Satanic babies, we’re going to have to keep abortion legal.
Super religious man of God Donald Trump kicked off his Sunday with bitterness, resentment, and thinly veiled death threats. The president’s grossness will never rest — not even on the seventh day. Trump took aim at his personal Javert, Adam Schiff, who he believes has not “paid the price yet” for performing his constitutional duty.
Shifty Adam Schiff is a CORRUPT POLITICIAN, and probably a very sick man. He has not paid the price, yet, for what he has done to our Country!
Trump equates his own sorry ass with “our Country” as a whole, which is typical narcissistic behavior. He also puts the call out for Schiff to get fitted with cement galoshes, which is more of his standard mobster talk. Although, most mobsters with functioning brains avoid threatening prosecutors from their ongoing trial in front of 72 million witnesses. […]
Republicans were greatly offended Friday when Schiff implied that the president was an unhinged vindictive sociopath who threatened to literally get medieval on any Republican who didn’t fully support him. Schiff just quoted the president’s own words, which appalled Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins so much they retracted Schiff’s invitation to the Bingleys’ ball at Netherfield Park. […]
If Trump only meant that Schiff will pay a “political” price, this just shows he has no concept of the world outside of Fox News.
Schiff represents California’s 28th congressional district, which is a Democratic stronghold. Hillary Clinton, […] carried the district with more than 70 percent of the vote. Schiff himself has won his past four elections with close to 80 percent of the vote. He’s quite popular, and it’s not like impeachment is going to make him any less popular — quite the opposite. The entire state of California thinks Trump sucks. Schiff could run for governor or senator with ease. My boy’s on the move, and he’s not just appealing to hippies whose pot-addled minds are jonesing for democracy. When conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin talks about Schiff, she sounds like my friend Liz after seeing a Bruce Springsteen concert.
Thank God I was alive to hear Adam Schiff speak these past few days.
johnson catmansays
re Lynna @392: Kobe
was expected to be indicted in the Hall of Fame in 2021, per the requirement that an indictee must be retired for at least four full seasons.
I think whoever wrote the story missed some proofreading.
[…] Is the president lying about his relationship with Parnas or is he prone to endorsing rash personnel changes based on unfounded assertions from strangers?
It’s oddly easy to believe that either might be the case. Trump’s predilection for seeking out the opinions of random nearby individuals is well-documented. This is a president who held a discussion with a foreign leader about an international crisis in the middle of the dining room at one of his properties. This is also a president who has made more than 16,000 false or misleading statements during three years in office.
[…] Bear in mind, this dinner, where one attendee recorded the entire discussion, was not organized by the Republican Party. It was instead for a pro-Trump super PAC, a group to which Parnas allegedly made contributions illegally. Once in the room, he got the president to endorse his opinion of the ambassador to Ukraine.
That exchange has been known for a while; The Washington Post first reported it in November. Given what we know about where Parnas wound up and the extent to which he was involved in the successful effort to oust Yovanovitch that picked up steam in early 2019, it’s worth asking: How does Parnas’s request fit into what we know about Yovanovitch’s firing?
Parnas was not yet working for Giuliani during that April 30 event; Giuliani had himself only begun working for Trump two weeks prior.
A few weeks after the dinner, though, Parnas and a colleague met with then-Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Tex.), at which point the two advocated for Yovanovitch’s ouster and, according to the later indictment of Parnas, agreed to raise money for Sessions. The day they met, Sessions wrote a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo calling for Yovanovitch to be removed. This, again, appears to have occurred before Parnas and Giuliani were connected.
That effort expanded in early 2019, in part at the encouragement of Yuri Lutsenko, then Ukraine’s prosecutor general and someone who viewed Yovanovitch with hostility. By then, Parnas and Giuliani were connected, with Parnas joining Giuliani’s interviews of Lutsenko in January of that year. […]
Photos provided to the House Intelligence Committee complicates the matter of Parnas’s role and relationship to Trump. One image shows a copy of the Sessions letter. Two others show someone, presumably Parnas, holding an envelope addressed to the president and identified as coming from Sessions’s office. The flap is sealed, with Sessions’s signature written across it. A later photo, apparently taken during an America First event in June 2018 shows Trump near Parnas as the president puts something in his pocket that appears to match the shape of the envelope. [See link for images]
What Trump is putting in his pocket may not be Sessions’s letter. But Parnas appears to have had control of the letter at some point. Why? Was it a function of his relationship with Trump? Did it relate to his conversation with Trump in April? […]
On the recording, one of the attendees — perhaps Donald Trump Jr. — mentions the Javelin missiles.
“I guess there’s supposed to be an order of Javelin missiles over there, right?” he says. “They’re the antitank missiles. I saw that go through today.”
“Today?” Trump responds.
“I saw — I read about it today,” the person replies. “I don’t know when it happened. It must have happened in the last couple of days.”
This does not suggest Trump is intimately familiar with the transmission of the weapons. Reporting the prior year suggested Trump was wavering on authorizing lethal arms sales to Ukraine, something that he eventually approved.
We do know what happened when military aid to Ukraine was announced in mid-June 2019. When Trump saw news coverage of a Defense Department announcement that it would provide $250 million in aid to that country, Trump intervened with questions. A few weeks later, the aid was placed on hold, an act that is at the center of the impeachment inquiry.
Trump’s team has argued the hold was an outgrowth of his skepticism about foreign aid while claiming his support for Ukraine was steadfast. In that meeting in April 2018, in conversation with a donor he had met a few times before, Trump seemed unclear on the timing of a major component of his administration’s policy about Ukraine. […]
I reread the the conversation about Javelin missiles, and the following paragraphs. It certainly sounds to me like Trump was ignorant, not “steadfast,” when it came to military support for Ukraine.
Frank Figliuzzi: “Think about this; a US congressman will need even more security because of a tweet from a President. In a real trial, the judge would warn the defendant’s lawyers about implied calls to harm the prosecutor, and would eventually gag the defendant.”
Kobe was a legend on the court and just getting started in what would have been just as meaningful a second act. To lose Gianna is even more heartbreaking to us as parents. Michelle and I send love and prayers to Vanessa and the entire Bryant family on an unthinkable day.
[…] Susan B. Glasser wrote in the New Yorker that a former senior White House official described Pompeo as “among the most sycophantic and obsequious people around Trump.” That’s saying something, because Trump is surrounded by more servile courtiers than a medieval monarch. […]
Pompeo has become a Trump mini-me who emulates his master in boorishness, bombast, bullying — and dishonesty. Every day that Pompeo stays in office, he makes Tillerson — once seen as the worst secretary of state ever — look better by comparison.
[…] The Senate Republicans may well vote to acquit Trump, but they will not be able to erase the record that Adam Schiff and his colleagues laid down clearly, methodically, and meticulously over three days of arguments. […]
As they went along, the House managers were also careful to point to gaps in the record that could have been filled if the President hadn’t prevented many key witnesses and documents from being presented to Congress. Without being overly melodramatic, the Democratic representatives also highlighted the moral burden that rests on the fifty-three Republican senators who will determine Trump’s fate. In terms of the trial verdict, this may all have been in vain. But the verdict of history will be very different.
Nobody who watched even some of the House managers’ presentation could be in any doubt that there was, indeed, an illicit scheme to coerce Volodymyr Zelensky, the President of Ukraine, into announcing an investigation into a Ukrainian company that employed Hunter Biden; that this scheme was carried out with Trump’s knowledge, and at his behest; and that the President and his staff did all they possibly could to prevent the details from emerging. “He tried to cheat, he got caught, and then he worked hard to cover it up,” Representative Hakeem Jeffries, one of the House managers, noted on Friday, in a succinct summary of the case. […]
As public servants, Schiff and his colleagues did their duty. So did the government officials and the former officials whose testimony formed the basis of the House Democrats’ case. For this, they all deserve great credit. It may not have been enough to drive Trump from office, but at least it showed that he hasn’t yet succeeded in trashing the American polity entirely.
Are sea witches a pressing concern in the evangelical community? Is that a thing?
I can generally make sense of what people are trying to say, but I honestly have no idea what she’s talking about. Is she high? What on earth is she talking about?
Also, a miscarriage of a desired pregnancy is often devastating. It’s despicable for her to be wishing that suffering on people.
“I know it’s an outrageous outrage to suggest Republican senators are engaged in a cover-up but… if they don’t call Bolton after this, they are most definitely engaged in a cover-up.”
2. Bolton said he’d testify if subpoenaed (he presumably knows would be despite any WHouse objection).
3. Senate not calling him now is not about a fair trial, it’s about whether there’s a trial at all.
“Trump told his national security adviser in August that he wanted to continue freezing … security assistance to Ukraine until officials there helped with investigations into Democrats including the Bidens, according to an unpublished manuscript by the former adviser.”
Raises again issues of Barr’s ethical failure to recuse from whistle blower complaint, criminal referrals to DOJ, and more.
[screenshot atl]
#BoltonBook draft: looks like Bolton was present for or knows details of May 23 Oval Office meeting of “three amigos” that gave birth to the “highly irregular channel” with Giuliani, as Taylor testified.
Also present in meeting: GOP Senator (now impeachment juror) Ron Johnson.
“Pompeo acknowledged privately that there was no basis to claims by the president’s lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani that the ambassador to Ukraine was corrupt and believed Mr. Giuliani may have been acting on behalf of other clients, Mr. Bolton wrote.”
Sen Schatz: “The NYT is breaking a very big story that under normal circumstances would cause Senators to unanimously request to hear from those with first hand knowledge of what the President did.”
Article says Bolton book submitted to WH for prepublication rev. If Trump and defense team have read it&delaying publication (as nyt suggests), may further obstruction case. This is where Trump decn to use WH lawyers may haunt him. No atty/client privilege
“Bolton’s submission of the book to the White House may have given the White House lawyers direct insight into what Mr. Bolton would say if he were called to testify… It also intensified concerns among some of his advisers that they needed to block Mr. Bolton from testifying”
Three rockets slammed into the US embassy in Iraq’s capital on Sunday in the first direct hit reported after months of close calls, as thousands kept up anti-government sit-ins across the country.
The attack marked a dangerous escalation in the spree of rocket attacks in recent months that have targeted the embassy or Iraqi military bases where American troops are deployed.
None of the attacks has been claimed but Washington has repeatedly blamed Iran-backed military factions in Iraq.
On Sunday, one rocket hit an embassy cafeteria at dinner time while two others landed nearby, a security source told AFP.
A senior Iraqi official told AFP at least one person was wounded, but it was not immediately clear how serious the injuries were and whether the person was an American national or an Iraqi staff member working at the mission.
The US embassy did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
…
Vehemently anti-American cleric Moqtada Sadr organised a mass rally in Baghdad on Friday, where thousands of his supporters called for American troops to leave.
Sadr had previously backed separate anti-regime protests sweeping Iraq’s capital and south, even though he controls the largest bloc in parliament and top ministerial posts.
Bolstered by his own protest on Friday, Sadr announced he was dropping support for the youth-dominated reform campaign rocking the country since October.
His followers, widely regarded as the best-organised and well-stocked of the anti-government demonstrators, immediately began dismantling their tents and heading home.
Activists feared that without his political cover, authorities would move to crush their movement — and indeed, within hours, riot police tried to storm protest camps across the capital and south.
Those efforts continued into Sunday, with security forces using live rounds and tear gas to try to flush protesters out of squares and streets they had occupied for months.
One protester was shot dead in Baghdad and another in the flashpoint southern city of Nasiriyah, medical sources said, and dozens more were wounded across the country.
In the capital, riot police have tried to clear streets around the main protest camp of Tahrir Square but have yet to enter the symbolic area, where many protesters stood their ground even after tents there were dismantled.
Just after midnight in Nasiriyah, unknown assailants stormed the main protest camp in Habbubi Square and set the tents on fire, the flames lighting up the night sky, an AFP correspondent there said.
Despite the renewed violence, thousands of students flooded the streets in the capital and across the south in a bid to keep national attention focused on their demands.
“Only for you, Iraq!” read a sign held by a young protester in the shrine city of Karbala, hinting at the movement’s insistence on not being affiliated with any political party or outside backer.
In Basra, hundreds of students gathered to condemn the riot police’s dismantling of their main protest camp the previous day, according to an AFP correspondent.
The youth-led protests erupted on October 1 in outrage over lack of jobs, poor services and rampant corruption before spiralling into calls for a government overhaul after they were met with violence.
More than 470 people have died, a vast majority of them demonstrators, since the rallies erupted.
Protesters are now demanding snap elections, the appointment of an independent premier and the prosecution of anyone implicated in corruption or recent bloodshed.
Their voices have been heard by top UN envoy in Iraq Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert who has said: “Unaccountability and indecisiveness are unworthy of Iraqi hopes, courageously expressed for four months now.”
“While death and injury tolls continue to rise, steps taken so far will remain hollow if not completed,” she said Saturday.
“NEW stmt from impeachment managers: ‘Senators should insist that Mr. Bolton be called as a witness, and provide his notes and other relevant documents…There is no defensible reason to wait until his book is published, when the information he has to offer is critical’ to Senate
‘There can be no doubt now that Mr. Bolton directly contradicts the heart of the President’s defense and therefore must be called as a witness at the impeachment trial of President Trump’, their stmt continues, calling it an ‘explosive’ revelation.”
I’ve seen several suggestions that they subpoena the book draft from Simon & Schuster.
A retired Salvadoran general on Friday acknowledged for the first time that the armed forces were responsible for a notorious 1981 massacre of more than 1,000 people during the country’s civil war.
Juan Rafael Bustillo, a former commander of the Air Force, told a court the elite Atlacatl Battalion carried out the El Mozote massacre in eastern El Salvador in which unarmed villagers, most of them women and children, were slaughtered.
According to a U.N. report, soldiers tortured and executed over 1,000 residents of El Mozote and surrounding hamlets in the Morazan department, 180 km (110 miles) northeast of San Salvador, as they searched for guerrillas in December 1981.
…
“I almost feel it was like a moment, some instance of madness on the part of Colonel Monterrosa to have committed that offense, because it was an offense,” he added.
Monterrosa, a highly regarded officer in his day, died in 1984 during a helicopter explosion in the east of the country.
The 1980-1992 civil war, which pitted leftist guerrillas against the U.S.-backed Salvadoran army, lead [sic] to the deaths of an estimated 75,000 people and left 8,000 more missing.
In 2016, a judge ordered the case of the El Mozote massacre to be re-opened. Sixteen military officials including ex-defense minister Guillermo Garcia are being tried over the killings.
Representatives of the victims hailed Bustillo’s testimony.
“General Bustillo has confirmed many of the excesses demonstrated by evidence and which were denounced by victims,” David Morales, one of the victims’ lawyers, told reporters. “He fully accepts that this massacre was carried out.”
At the time and later, Reagan officials, particularly Elliott Abrams, called reporting on the massacre and the Salvadoran army’s responsibility leftist propaganda.
The Atlacatl Battalion’s first trained Salvadoran soldiers arrived back in El Salvador in 1981. The Battalion was trained at Ft. Bragg, NC by US Special Forces and the 2nd Battalion, 505th Infantry of the 82nd ABN. Atlacatl soldiers were equipped and directed by U.S. military advisers operating in El Salvador during the civil war of the 1980s. The New York Times described the Atlacatl Battalion as “the pride of the United States military team in San Salvador. Trained in antiguerrilla operations, the battalion was intended to turn a losing war around.”
War criminal and war-crime apologist Abrams was appointed a year ago by Trump as the US Special Representative for Venezuela. Of course.
Biden surrogate Dave Harden tweeted at Omar: “I was a career FSO and later Obama appointee, Elliott Abrams was a kind, thoughtful, non partisan mentor. Let’s try to see the best – rather than the worst – in people.”
David Cay Johnston: “At long last, vindication for @RayBonner1 & other journalists whose truthful 1981 El Mozote massacre reporting was denounced by Reagan Admin officials.
Bonner got yanked back from El Salvador to NYC by @nytimes editors. Other journalists also wronged.”
Interim Bolivian President Jeanine Áñez, who came to power in November, has rejected claims that her predecessor, Evo Morales, was ousted in a coup — while cracking down on dissent and calling for new elections to solidify the rule of conservative opposition forces that seized control of the government in Morales’s absence.
As many critics have noted, the cycle bears a striking similarity to the coup d’etat that ousted Honduran President Manuel “Mel” Zelaya a decade ago. The left-wing leader was whisked out of office by the military, only to be replaced with an interim government led by right-wing opposition forces that swiftly consolidated power through a controversial election process.
The parallels were apparently not lost on the Bolivia’s new rulers. The Áñez government has retained the services of the same Washington, D.C., consultants hired by the Honduran interim government to build American support.
In December, Bolivia inked an agreement with CLS Strategies to provide “strategic communications counsel” for new elections this year and other interactions with the U.S. government. The lobbying firm, previously known as Chlopak, Leonard, Schechter & Associates, provided remarkably similar work after Zelaya’s ouster, helping the interim Honduran government earn backing from American policymakers and media outlets as the country held new elections.
CLS Strategies did not respond to a request for comment.
The crisis in Bolivia mirrors the 2009 coup in Honduras in many ways. Morales and Zelaya both forged ties with Venezuela, raised the minimum wage, expanded social services, and opposed the privatization of major industries. The two leftist presidents faced mounting criticism over what looked like attempts to undemocratically remain in office. Zelaya sought a referendum on whether he could pursue a second term in office, which was prohibited by the constitution….
AAAAAAAAAAARGH! You have to fix this and other errors, Intercept! This is inexcusable! This was not what the referendum was on! And Zelaya was leaving office in the same election in which the referendum was to take place! It didn’t “look like” any such thing! Aaaaaaaargh this drives me nuts! There are so many lies about Latin America in US media – it is totally unacceptable and irresponsible for a leftwing publication to lazily repeat them.
SC, I only know a couple of words in Babbletongue, but here’s a fellow on Twitter who seems to have some background in it who offers a short thread of explanation. Submitted for your consideration.
…So to counter the demonic, you engage in what’s called “spiritual warfare”, where you name the spirits and use sources of authority to command them to stop.
Some Neo-Charismatics teach that these spirits take on metaphoric qualities from the natural world.
For example, an “octopus spirit” might cling to you or a “snake spirit” might keep you on the ground or make you feel cold-blooded. She’s also based in Florida, where praying against marine spirits is common. It comes from a broader belief that the whole world is demonized….
Not only does this explain it in the way that makes the most sense to me, it’s significant in terms of my current research, so I’m bookmarking it (so thanks for that, too!). These sorts of beliefs about the natural world are incredibly tragic and dangerous. Wild that a hostility toward “marine spirits” would be common even among neo-charismatics in Florida of all places.
I’m not as convinced as he is about the pregnancy/miscarriage references being purely metaphorical (she’s claiming this, too, unconvincingly). The language is just too concrete. (It’s quite strange that she would choose this language even metaphorically. It seems possible that she wanted to try to turn around reproductive rights arguments and use them against reproductive rights proponents, but if so it wasn’t very well thought through.)
WASHINGTON — President Trump told his national security adviser in August that he wanted to continue freezing $391 million in security assistance to Ukraine until officials there helped with investigations into Democrats including the Bidens, according to an unpublished manuscript by the former adviser, John R. Bolton.
The president’s statement as described by Mr. Bolton could undercut a key element of his impeachment defense: that the holdup in aid was separate from Mr. Trump’s requests that Ukraine announce investigations into his perceived enemies, including former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son Hunter Biden, who had worked for a Ukrainian energy firm while his father was in office.
Mr. Bolton’s explosive account of the matter at the center of Mr. Trump’s impeachment trial, the third in American history, was included in drafts of a manuscript he has circulated in recent weeks to close associates. He also sent a draft to the White House for a standard review process for some current and former administration officials who write books.
Multiple people described Mr. Bolton’s account of the Ukraine affair.
The book presents an outline of what Mr. Bolton might testify to if he is called as a witness in the Senate impeachment trial, the people said. The White House could use the pre-publication review process, which has no set time frame, to delay or even kill the book’s publication or omit key passages.
Over dozens of pages, Mr. Bolton described how the Ukraine affair unfolded over several months until he departed the White House in September. He described not only the president’s private disparagement of Ukraine but also new details about senior cabinet officials who have publicly tried to sidestep involvement.
For example, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo acknowledged privately that there was no basis to claims by the president’s lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani that the ambassador to Ukraine was corrupt and believed Mr. Giuliani may have been acting on behalf of other clients, Mr. Bolton wrote.
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Mr. Bolton also said that after the president’s July phone call with the president of Ukraine, he raised with Attorney General William P. Barr his concerns about Mr. Giuliani, who was pursuing a shadow Ukraine policy encouraged by the president, and told Mr. Barr that the president had mentioned him on the call. A spokeswoman for Mr. Barr denied that he learned of the call from Mr. Bolton; the Justice Department has said he learned about it only in mid-August.
And the acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, was present for at least one phone call where the president and Mr. Giuliani discussed the ambassador, Mr. Bolton wrote. Mr. Mulvaney has told associates he would always step away when the president spoke with his lawyer to protect their attorney-client privilege.
During a previously reported May 23 meeting where top advisers and Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, briefed him about their trip to Kyiv for the inauguration of President Volodymyr Zelensky, Mr. Trump railed about Ukraine trying to damage him and mentioned a conspiracy theory about a hacked Democratic server, according to Mr. Bolton.
The White House did not provide responses to questions about Mr. Bolton’s assertions, and representatives for Mr. Johnson, Mr. Pompeo and Mr. Mulvaney did not respond to emails and calls seeking comment on Sunday afternoon.
Mr. Bolton’s lawyer blamed the White House for the disclosure of the book’s contents. “It is clear, regrettably, from the New York Times article published today that the pre-publication review process has been corrupted and that information has been disclosed by persons other than those properly involved in reviewing the manuscript,” the lawyer, Charles J. Cooper, said Sunday night.
He said he provided a copy of the book to the White House on Dec. 30 — 12 days after Mr. Trump was impeached — to be reviewed for classified information, though, he said, Mr. Bolton believed it contained none.
The submission to the White House may have given Mr. Trump’s aides and lawyers direct insight into what Mr. Bolton would say if he were called to testify at Mr. Trump’s impeachment trial. It also intensified concerns among some of his advisers that they needed to block Mr. Bolton from testifying, according to two people familiar with their concerns.
The White House has ordered Mr. Bolton and other key officials with firsthand knowledge of Mr. Trump’s dealings not to cooperate with the impeachment inquiry. Mr. Bolton said in a statement this month that he would testify if subpoenaed.
In recent days, some White House officials have described Mr. Bolton as a disgruntled former employee, and have said he took notes that he should have left behind when he departed the administration.
Mr. Trump told reporters last week that he did not want Mr. Bolton to testify and said that even if he simply spoke out publicly, he could damage national security.
“The problem with John is it’s a national security problem,” Mr. Trump said at a news conference in Davos, Switzerland. “He knows some of my thoughts. He knows what I think about leaders. What happens if he reveals what I think about a certain leader and it’s not very positive?”
“It’s going to make the job very hard,” he added.
The Senate impeachment trial could end as early as Friday without witness testimony. Democrats in both the House and Senate have pressed for weeks to include any new witnesses and documents that did not surface during the House impeachment hearings to be fair, focusing on persuading the handful of Republican senators they would need to join them to succeed.
But a week into the trial, most lawmakers say the chances of 51 senators agreeing to call witnesses are dwindling, not growing.
Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, said the Bolton manuscript underscored the need for him to testify, and the House impeachment managers demanded after this article was published that the Senate vote to call him. “There can be no doubt now that Mr. Bolton directly contradicts the heart of the president’s defense,” they said in a statement.
Republicans, though, were mostly silent; a spokesman for the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, declined to comment.
Mr. Bolton would like to testify for several reasons, according to associates. He believes he has relevant information, and he has also expressed concern that if his account of the Ukraine affair emerges only after the trial, he will be accused of holding back to increase his book sales.
Mr. Bolton, 71, a fixture in conservative national security circles since his days in the Reagan administration, joined the White House in 2018 after several people recommended him to the president, including the Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson.
But Mr. Bolton and Mr. Trump soured on each other over several global crises, including Iranian aggression, Mr. Trump’s posture toward Russia and, ultimately, the Ukraine matter. Mr. Bolton was also often at odds with Mr. Pompeo and Mr. Mulvaney throughout his time in the administration.
Key to Mr. Bolton’s account about Ukraine is an exchange during a meeting in August with the president after Mr. Trump returned from vacation at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J. Mr. Bolton raised the $391 million in congressionally appropriated assistance to Ukraine for its war in the country’s east against Russian-backed separatists. Officials had frozen the aid, and a deadline was looming to begin sending it to Kyiv, Mr. Bolton noted.
He, Mr. Pompeo and Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper had collectively pressed the president about releasing the aid nearly a dozen times in the preceding weeks after lower-level officials who worked on Ukraine issues began complaining about the holdup, Mr. Bolton wrote. Mr. Trump had effectively rebuffed them, airing his longstanding grievances about Ukraine, which mixed legitimate efforts by some Ukrainians to back his Democratic 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton, with unsupported accusations and outright conspiracy theories about the country, a key American ally.
Mr. Giuliani had also spent months stoking the president’s paranoia about the American ambassador to Ukraine at the time, Marie L. Yovanovitch, claiming that she was openly anti-Trump and needed to be dismissed. Mr. Trump had ordered her removed as early as April 2018 during a private dinner with two Giuliani associates and others, a recording of the conversation made public on Saturday showed.
In his August 2019 discussion with Mr. Bolton, the president appeared focused on the theories Mr. Giuliani had shared with him, replying to Mr. Bolton’s question that he preferred sending no assistance to Ukraine until officials had turned over all materials they had about the Russia investigation that related to Mr. Biden and supporters of Mrs. Clinton in Ukraine.
The president often hits at multiple opponents in his harangues, and he frequently lumps together the law enforcement officials who conducted the Russia inquiry with Democrats and other perceived enemies, as he appeared to do in speaking to Mr. Bolton.
Mr. Bolton also described other key moments in the pressure campaign, including Mr. Pompeo’s private acknowledgment to him last spring that Mr. Giuliani’s claims about Ms. Yovanovitch had no basis and that Mr. Giuliani may have wanted her removed because she might have been targeting his clients who had dealings in Ukraine as she sought to fight corruption.
Ms. Yovanovitch, a Canadian immigrant whose parents fled the Soviet Union and Nazis, was a well-regarded career diplomat who was known as a vigorous fighter against corruption in Ukraine. She was abruptly removed last year and told the president had lost trust in her, even though a boss assured her she had “done nothing wrong.”
Mr. Bolton also said he warned White House lawyers that Mr. Giuliani might have been leveraging his work with the president to help his private clients.
At the impeachment trial, Mr. Trump himself had hoped to have his defense call a range of people to testify who had nothing to do with his efforts related to Ukraine, including Hunter Biden, to frame the case around Democrats. But Mr. McConnell repeatedly told the president that witnesses could backfire, and the White House has followed his lead.
Mr. McConnell and other Republicans in the Senate, working in tandem with Mr. Trump’s lawyers, have spent weeks waging their own rhetorical battle to keep their colleagues within the party tent on the question of witnesses, with apparent success. Two of the four Republican senators publicly open to witness votes have sounded notes of skepticism in recent days about the wisdom of having the Senate compel testimony that the House did not get.
Since Mr. Bolton’s statement, White House advisers have floated the possibility that they could go to court to try to obtain a restraining order to stop him from speaking. Such an order would be unprecedented, but any attempt to secure it could succeed in tying up his testimony in legal limbo and scaring off Republican moderates wary of letting the trial drag on when its outcome appears clear.
Katie Benner, Nicholas Fandos and Sheryl Gay Stolberg contributed reporting.
“Just to recap: The president’s personal lawyer contradicted his press secretary, implying that his client’s relationship with Parnas and Fruman—made manifest by Fruman’s video—predates his own…. which also contradicts his client’s prior denial that any such relationship exists.”
johnson catmansays
from tomh @426 re Orange’s thoughts on John Bolton testifying:
What happens if he reveals what I think about a certain leader and it’s not very positive?
That would be every leader that has been an ally of the US in the past. It would exclude any dictators, who are admired and revered by The Orange Toddler-Tyrant.
Thanks, tomh @ #426! It’s even more explosive than I thought!
In recent days, some White House officials have described Mr. Bolton as a disgruntled former employee, and have said he took notes that he should have left behind when he departed the administration.
“Wow. Bill Taylor, who Pompeo picked to lead US embassy Kyiv after Amb. Yovanovitch was recalled & before having him depart this month, writes in NYTimes: ‘Yes, Secretary Pompeo, Americans Should Care About Ukraine’.
[NYT link atl]
This follows Pompeo telling NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly in a tirade Friday, do you think Americans care about Ukraine.
Was told by a former US official that the US embassy has indicated that they don’t want Pompeo to do a town hall when he travels to Ukraine later this week.”
Gianna Bryant died on Sunday morning when the helicopter she was riding in crashed into a hillside in Calabasas, Calif., a city 30 miles northwest of Los Angeles. She was 13.
Bryant, known as “Gigi,” was the second of four children born to NBA basketball legend Kobe Bryant and his wife Vanessa, a former model. Her father died alongside her in the crash, which claimed the lives of seven other victims including the pilot, according to Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva. There were no survivors.
Gianna Maria-Onore “Gigi” Bryant was born on May 1, 2006.
As a young child, Gigi became a fixture at Lakers basketball games alongside her older sister, Natalia, 17, and her mother. (The Bryants later had two additional daughters after Kobe retired from basketball: Bianka, 3, and Capri, 7 months).
As Gigi grew into a young teenager, her love for basketball transcended watching her dad. She began playing competitive ball year-round, with her father helping to coach her team. During an interview on Jimmy Kimmel’s television show recently, Kobe said of Gigi that she “for sure” wanted to play in the WNBA someday.
“The best thing that happens is when we go out and she’ll be standing next to me and fans will come up to me like ‘Hey, you gotta have a boy, you and (Vanessa) gotta have a boy — somebody to carry on the legacy and the tradition’ and (Gigi) will be like ‘Oy, I got this. We don’t need a boy for that. I got this!’”
Kobe told the Showtime Basketball podcast “All the Smoke” that after he retired he had stopped watching basketball. But it was Gigi’s love for the game that got him watching again. Gigi’s favorite players were Trae Young, Luka Doncic, James Harden, Russell Westbrook and LeBron James.
By all accounts, she was developing into a fine basketball player in her own right.
When Gigi and her dad flew to Atlanta to watch Young play, Young joked that he was just as excited to meet Gigi as she was to meet him because he had been watching her highlight reels.
…
Gigi woke up Sunday morning to go play basketball, like any other day. She had her whole life ahead of her, and she does not deserve to be remembered for the way she died. She was just a kid who loved her family, her friends and playing and watching basketball.
On the morning of the crash, it is believed she and her father and the other passengers were headed to a basketball tournament at Mamba Sports Academy in Newbury Park, where Gigi was expected to play on Sunday.
All of the games there were canceled.
Gigi died en route to doing what she loved, but that does not make the loss of a child any easier. She was poised to write her own story as a tremendous athlete and fierce competitor. That story ended way too soon on Sunday.
Italy’s far-right leader Matteo Salvini has suffered a setback after his League Party failed to unseat the left in a key election in the country’s north.
The centre-left Democratic Party’s (PD) Stefano Bonaccini won 51.4% of the vote in Emilia-Romagna, while the League candidate Lucia Borgonzoni took 43.6%.
The election had been seen as a test of Italy’s national coalition government.
Mr Salvini campaigned extensively in Emilia-Romagna, hoping to depose the left and force snap elections.
The wealthy northern region has been a stronghold of Italy’s centre-left since the Second World War.
“Emilia-Romagna has sent a signal,” PD leader Nicola Zingaretti tweeted. “Salvini knows how to talk about problems, but he doesn’t know how to sort them out and the people have responded.”
Mr Zingaretti said the result made his party stronger, adding that Mr Salvini had failed in his aim to “shove the government out”.
…
Twice in six months, Matteo Salvini has hoped to topple the government from the sidelines. Twice he has failed.
First, he quit the coalition last summer, assuming it would spark fresh elections. Then, he threw everything at winning Emilia-Romagna, the bastion of the left. Both bids for power have foundered.
…
Matteo Salvini hoped that it would be Emilia first and Italy next. He miscalculated. But he’ll try again.
…
Turnout for Sunday’s ballot was about 67% of some three-and-a-half million registered voters, compared with 37% in a previous vote in 2014.
It comes as Italy has seen the rapid rise in recent weeks of a group known as the Sardines – an anti-nationalist movement started by four flatmates in the Italian city of Bologna that now demonstrates across the country.
Mr Bonaccini, who retains his position as governor of Emilia-Romagna following the result, praised the Sardines during his victory speech.
He said the movement had made a difference by taking to the streets in their tens of thousands and asking for “a more polite and peaceful politics”.
Mr Salvini and his centre-right allies Forza Italia – led by former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi – enjoyed more success in a separate election in Italy’s southern region of Calabria.
The candidate for Forza Italia, Jole Santelli, won more than 55% of the vote.
Laurence Tribe: “A horrible connection if it pans out: On Dec. 30, Trump learned what Bolton’s book would say. Bolton has been pushing war with Iran for years. Iran’s General Soleimani was in US sights for years. Trump suddenly ordered his assassination on Jan. 3, four days after seeing the book.”
Maggie Haberman: “Per sources, some GOP senators privately pushing White House for information on who at administration had visibility into the manuscript over the last month. Senators feel blindsided.”
Before joining the White House, Bolton spent a decade as Kilmeade’s Fox colleague.”
Video clip atl. Later this week, Trump could muse about investigating/imprisoning Bolton and the F&F gang would get behind it. In a few months, Trump could turn on one of them for whatever reason and the other two would go along.
Julian Sanchez re #441: “It’s amazing how they haven’t processed that inculpatory evidence is going to keep coming out. It’s like after every embarrassing disclosure they exhale and think: ‘Well, at least THAT’s surely the last of it…'”
“Notes…memos…tapes…
Adam Schiff this morning on CNN said that he is more interested in Bolton’s notes than the manuscript: ‘These notes took place while the events were happening,while they were fresh in his mind. Those in many respects are more important than the manuscript’.”
Yes, it is not only Trump’s lawyer, Jay Sekulow, who seems to believe bonkers conspiracy theories. Many Republican senators believe the same discredited conspiracy theories.
[…] When asked by CBS’ Margaret Brennan on whether he thinks it was a “misstep” for Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow to float the conspiracy theory that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 election on the Senate floor, Cotton [ Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR)] replied “that’s not a conspiracy theory.’
Brennan then pointed out that Sen. John Thune (R-ND) – one of Cotton’s Republican colleagues – said that he’d prefer for Trump’s lawyers to not spread Ukraine conspiracy theories during the trial, which Cotton dismissed as “a Democratic talking point.”
After Brennan pointed out to Cotton again that Thune is a Republican leader who takes issue with Ukraine conspiracy theories being mentioned on the Senate floor, Cotton doubled down that the criticism is a “Democratic talking point.” […]
Re 443. The Rethugs remind me of the guy who falls from the 99th floor of the Empire State Building and is heard as he passes the 50th floor, “So Far, so good.”
From Dana Milbank, writer for The Washington Post:
As outlined in two hours on the Senate floor, theirs is a world in which Ukraine interfered in the U.S. election in 2016; where the FBI and intelligence community are disreputable; where the United States, not Europe, gives Ukraine the bulk of its foreign aid; where there was no quid pro quo with Ukraine and where a “transcript” of President Trump’s call conclusively proves it; where the halt of military aid to Ukraine was routine, and where Ukrainian officials didn’t even know about it; where the president was barred from impeachment proceedings; and where Robert Mueller totally vindicated Trump.
President Donald Trump stated falsely Monday that House Democrats never called his former national security adviser to testify in their impeachment inquiry. Actually they did.
Trump’s tweet about John Bolton came as the Senate enters the second week of the impeachment trial and followed a fresh disclosure that Bolton claims Trump told him directly that he wanted to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in security aid from Ukraine until it helped with investigations into Joe Biden and Democrats.
Bolton’s assertion, in his forthcoming book, contradicts key assertions by Trump and his defense team’s argument that there is no evidence the president conditioned aid to Ukraine on an investigation of his political rivals. The disclosure prompted Trump to strike out on Twitter, where he misrepresented what happened in the impeachment inquiry.
As well, in their opening defense arguments on the weekend, Trump’s attorneys perpetuated a baseless claim that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election as they argued that Trump had good reason to withhold military aid to the country.
A sampling of recent statements where truth came up short:
TRUMP: “The Democrat controlled House never even asked John Bolton to testify. It is up to them, not up to the Senate!” — tweet Monday. […]
Matthew Miller: “It’s easy to get cynical and join the Nothing Matters crowd, but you can see the ground shifting today. Not because the GOP wants to do the right thing, but because public opinion might force them to. Keep calling and fighting.”
It’s increasingly apparent that it would be important to hear from John Bolton. I, of course, will make a final decision on witnesses after we have heard from not only the prosecution but also the defense. But I think at this stage it’s pretty fair to say that John Bolton has a relevant testimony.
A number of Republican Senators and not a few commentators are now putting forward the argument that calling John Bolton to testify is a waste of time because the White House would bog the question down for months in the Courts. This is a bogus line of argument for two crystal clear reasons I want to briefly explain. Not a bad argument, a fake one. It doesn’t exist.
First, executive privilege can be used to prevent someone from being forced to testify. It cannot prevent a willing witness from testifying. As lawyers put it, it is a shield, not a sword. If Bolton wants to testify he can.
The second reason is more foundational. It is almost certainly true that there is no judicial review of any decisions made by the Senate in an impeachment trial. Everything about how to run a trial is left in the hands of the Senate and the text is clear: “The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments.” The “sole power” – the decisions are unreviewable.
There is a secondary logical argument about the structure of the constitution. An impeachment trial involves the House bringing a case against the President with the Senate sitting as Jury and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court presiding as Judge. It is literally and figuratively all the power of the state assembled together into a single room. It is absurd to think that all the branches of government assembled together in a single contest to determine something so foundational as removing a President would be held up by the review of an inferior district or circuit court judge. […]
What is possible is that Republican Senators could throw up their hands and say they won’t defy a Presidential claim of executive privilege. After all, the President can claim literally anything.
But the key point is clear. Calling witnesses or not is 100% the choice of 51 Senators. It’s all up to them. No one has the power to stop them or delay them and no one can give them an excuse.
[…] There is no way that McConnell didn’t know what the White House was sitting on with the Bolton manuscript. There is no way that McConnell wasn’t acting with the White House to keep this information from his Republican senators. If in fact he did keep it under wraps. If they’re blindsided by anything, it’s because they thought the White House had done a better job at shutting Bolton up.
What Mitch McConnell said earlier:
Everything I do during this, I’m coordinating with White House Counsel. There will be no difference between the president’s position and our position as to how to handle this.
…It is hard even to raise the question, “What is the meaning of Auschwitz?” To assume it has a meaning is already deeply presumptuous, in every sense. It is easy to use its unfathomable meaning for fathomable political ends, to vilify an enemy (in a speech in October 2015, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, completely unjustifiably, shifted the blame for the gas chambers of the Holocaust from Hitler and the Nazis to the Palestinian grand mufti of Jerusalem). In spite of these misuses, we must use the Holocaust politically.
Auschwitz was a creation of humans convinced of a political ideology, Nazism, which was the product of humans – not just any humans, but Germans, who have given the world so much spiritually and intellectually. Germany is the land of Goethe. And Kant. And Auschwitz.
Nazism – the ideology that led to Auschwitz – had roots in other lands. Hitler was much taken by the example of the United States, which in Mein Kampf he describes as the young nation closest to realising a “national state” in his favoured sense. The Nazis admired America’s racial ideology, and our “race science”. Our Jim Crow laws were used as a model for the Nazi Nuremberg laws. Our immigration laws, which banned non-whites and Jews, and the sick and the weak, were vocally admired by Hitler.
Again, we see the ideology so admired by Hitler dominate US politics. What does this mean? When one raises this question, one is told, “but there is no Auschwitz on the immediate horizon in America”. This draws attention away from America’s prison gulag, which results in black Americans making up almost 10% of the world’s prison population, despite being only 13% of the US’s population. Of course it goes without saying that US prisons are not Auschwitz.
My parents’ scars are not the cruellest scars imaginable, of the sort that descend from Auschwitz. My parents’ scars come from an early fear of having to hide, of having the wrong papers. They remember how they were described in the press and by the leaders – as criminals, as fundamental threats, as non-humans. They remember the rough treatment from official bureaucracies. They remember the family separations.
I have lived my life in the shadow of Auschwitz. Rather than address its unfathomable meaning, I have chosen to look at the surrounding structure, what accompanied and enabled it, which its incomprehensible shadow, quite understandably, occludes.
Rudi Giuliani, proven liar, obvious trumpian lickspittle, and conspiracy theorist extraordinaire, tried to insult John Bolton:
There is no way in the world President Trump would say this to John Bolton. It’s a shame that a man will sacrifice his integrity to make a few bucks on a book. No wonder he accomplished so little as National Security Advisor.
House Democrats continue to stand opposed to President Trump’s cruel, un-American travel ban in all of its iterations. In the coming weeks, the House Judiciary Committee will mark up and bring to the floor the NO BAN Act to prohibit religious discrimination in our immigration system and limit the President’s ability to impose such biased and bigoted restrictions.
Ari Melber: “Ken Starr opens by arguing impeachment has become too common in the modern era. I rarely use caps but that is BEYOND RICH coming from him.”
‘The reaction of the abuse-of-power skeptics –including Republican members of the House-surprised me. This wasn’t an obscure legal doctrine. This is what had brought Nixon down’.”
“BREAKING: On 5-4 vote, Supreme Court lets Trump administration start enforcing new immigrant wealth test, designed to screen out green card applicants seen as being at risk of becoming ‘public charges’.”
“Senior level White House sources tell @ABC the president’s legal team is preparing for the possibility of witnesses in the impeachment trial. Sources tell @jonkarl @KFaulders & me legal team preparing aggressive, drawn out legal fight to block testimony of potential witnesses.”
Starr is one of those pompous white men who delivers his weak and banal (and considering the partisan hack of a source here, insanely hypocritical) statements as if they’re profound and weighty and due special consideration. People granting this bullshit the respect it doesn’t deserve is how we got here.
“Starr’s claim that all House subpoenas issued before the House passed Res. 660 were void is legally wrong and is irrelevant to Impeachment Article 2, which focuses not on disobeying particular subpoenas but on directing unprecedented refusal to provide any and all information.”
“Jay Sekulow and Mike Purpura are arguing the ‘facts’ as though the Bolton bombshell hadn’t exploded. This displays incomprehensible argumentative ineptitude. Adapting to radically changed circumstances is the least that respect for one’s audience demands.”
JFC we have the chains of text messages in which they’re going back and forth on the precise content of the announcement of the investigations in exchange for getting a date set for an Oval Office meeting.
“Over and over again, the Supreme Court has not only ruled in favor of Trump’s immoral policies, but actively intervened to ensure those policies are implemented while cases are pending. That isn’t calling balls and strikes. It is choosing to exercise its discretion to do this.”
Purpura is now outright mischaracterizing the evidence about US policy towards Ukraine by cherrypicking quotes and spinning them into a characterization that isn’t what the witnesses said.
Jane Raskin is now talking about Giuliani. She’s already mischaracterizing the evidence the House Managers presented. I can’t imagine that she plans to ignore that Trump told Zelenskyy to talk to Giuliani in the call record.
She’s misrepresenting the House Managers’ arguments again – they didn’t claim that Giuliani had one single motive; in fact, they explicitly discussed the complex motives. She’s gonna put this on Giuliani.
Philbin just repeated the false and stupid “due process” arguments. He’s still droning on. Repetitive, no rhyme or reason, just stretching out time, evading reality. They came in talking about how they were going to show that Trump “did nothing wrong.”
“That was fascinating. Jane Raskin offered a full-throated defense of Rudy Giuliani, saying he wasn’t on ‘a political errand’ but just being a good defense attorney. ‘It turns out, Rudy was spot on’, she told the Senate. The president’s allies have largely avoided defending him.”
It still didn’t seem to me that they were really defending him so much as trying to push more of this onto him and distance Trump from him while not angering him.
You noted how irritating, and wrong, Ken Starr is/was.
Other people agree. This is from Steve Benen:
[…] The irony was staggering: Starr led an impeachment crusade against Bill Clinton 22 years ago, and there was no “national consensus” about the propriety of the special prosecutor’s pursuit. On the contrary, most Americans opposed Clinton’s impeachment, a detail Starr was comfortable ignoring. […]
The hypocrisy, of course, is breathtaking. When Starr was hunting Clinton, he had none of these concerns. It was only when a Republican president started abusing his power in the hopes of cheating in an election that Starr decided that he’d like to see the process used far less frequently.
But that’s not the only problem with his pitch. […]
[…] more than 2,000 historians – including well known scholars such as Ken Burns, Robert Caro, Ron Chernow, Jon Meacham, Sean Wilentz, and Brenda Wineapple – signed a joint statement describing Trump’s misconduct as “a clear and present danger to the Constitution.”
It came on the heels of a related effort from nearly 900 legal scholars who concluded that Trump is guilty of “impeachable conduct,” and who added, “His conduct is precisely the type of threat to our democracy that the Founders feared when they included the remedy of impeachment in the Constitution.”
What’s more, the idea that presidential impeachments occur “all too frequently” seems excessive. There have been three such Senate trials in a constitutional system that’s been around for nearly a quarter of a millennium. Yes, having two such experiences in one generation skews our perspective, but that is not a prima facia argument against the practice.
If Starr believes either of the two impeachments lacked merit, he’s welcome to make his case, but the fact that there have been two trials in 21 years isn’t a substantive argument.
Finally, I imagine Starr’s “age of impeachment” line will be seen as a complaint, but I also can’t help but wonder if it was a warning about how his party intends to operate in the future.
Or put another way, perhaps Starr’s “age of impeachment” phrasing was more of a declaration than a lament: he was sending a signal about how he and other Republicans perceive the era, and the degree to which, in their minds, impeachment may now be seen as a “normal” tool in the wake of Trump’s presidency.
A primary Republican talking point, recycled again Monday by Sens. Mike Braun (R-IN) and John Barrasso (R-WY) in the aftermath of John Bolton’s newest Ukraine revelation, is that it was the House investigators’ job to call witnesses — and that if they failed to get everyone they wanted, it’s not the Senate’s job to pick up their slack.
This argument is specious for a number of reasons, not least of which are the conveniently overlooked realities of ignored subpoenas and a White House aggressively blocking big players from testifying during the House’s inquiry. The House investigators tried to get some high-profile witnesses, but ultimately opted to use officials willing to testify rather than get tied up in lengthy court proceedings.
But, aside from the 2020 factors, the Republicans’ argument doesn’t even hold up against the United States’ very brief history of presidential impeachments: Both of them included new witnesses in the Senate trial portion of the impeachment procedure. [see the link for more details]
Senators like Braun and Barrasso may wish to leave responsibility for calling witnesses to the House, to spare their caucus a schism if moderate members conclude that the trial would lack even the whiff of fairness without their inclusion. But there is no historical precedent for leaving the investigatory work to the other chamber
They keep arguing that if the Senate gathers any evidence or subpoenas any witnesses, it will be terrible because that will be the “new normal.” But it’s the old normal. It happened in every case in the past. They also keep talking about executive privilege, which Trump has not invoked.
If the Senate won’t act, Cy Vance must investigate.
[…] As the Senate votes this week on whether to subpoena witnesses like Bolton, it should understand that its vote is not the final say. For one, the House could still subpoena or begin impeachment inquiries into many of the officials at the center of the Ukraine scandal. Another intriguing possibility for immediate criminal liability turns not on Attorney General William Barr’s Department of Justice but on New York conspiracy and extortion law. If Senate Republicans vote against witnesses or otherwise create a sham trial, then New York state prosecutors have the jurisdiction and the duty to investigate—and potentially indict—Giuliani and others for extortion conspiracy, and to subpoena his possible co-conspirators inside and outside the administration.
A state trial of Giuliani and any associates involved in a Ukraine bribery plot would serve the interests of justice and deterrence, especially given recent evidence raising new questions about the possible stalking and intimidation of Yovanovitch, and given Giuliani flagrantly continuing the same scheme. Such charges would also open an alternative legal process for pursuing subpoenas of key witnesses and documents that the Senate Republicans have been blocking thus far.
Can New York prosecutors like Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance pursue criminal charges? Under New York’s statute on criminal conspiracy jurisdiction, when two or more people agree in New York to engage in criminal conduct in another jurisdiction, it is punishable as conspiracy if that conduct is criminal in both New York and the other jurisdiction. […]
The bottom line is that a state criminal prosecution of Giuliani and his team could be based solidly on a combination of federal felonies (bribery and campaign finance, and perhaps stalking), state felonies (extortion), and conspiracy law, plus perhaps a combination of stalking crimes.
First, the conduct in Washington appears to have violated federal felony statutes as Giuliani (along with Trump and others) likely engaged in bribery, honest services fraud, and felony campaign finance violations. […] Trump was unintentionally correct on Sunday when he tweeted that “transcripts of my calls with President Zelensky are all the proof that is needed” in such a case. […] Giuliani himself undermined the argument that his efforts in any way related to the public interest when he wrote a letter to Zelensky saying that he was acting on behalf of Trump “as a private citizen, not as President of the United States.” […]
The biggest downsides of the state process are its slowness and reliance on federal courts for enforcing subpoenas. Giuliani, Parnas, and Fruman are not federal officials and have no claim of executive privilege of their own, and of course they have no other possible immunities for criminal conduct that federal employees might have. While a court fight could be lengthy, it would be difficult for Trump’s lawyers to run out the clock past the election. […]
Finally, as House impeachment manager Adam Schiff has repeatedly said in Trump’s impeachment trial, “the truth is going to come out” eventually. “More emails are going to come out. More witnesses are going to come forward,” Schiff warned the Senate. “They’re going to have more relevant information to share and the only question is, do you want to hear it now? Do you want to know the full truth now?” A state trial of Giuliani is legitimate and increasingly necessary for deterrence and the rule of law on its own terms. If the Senate does its job, a state prosecutor could agree to indict but reasonably hold off on any trial. But if the Republican-controlled Senate refuses to fulfill its own obligation to ensure a fair and full trial, New York state cannot be filibustered from pursuing a fair and full trial.
During his opening statement this afternoon, Ken Starr complained that there’s “no national consensus” when it comes to Donald Trump’s impeachment. […]
Most Americans support Trump’s impeachment, conviction, and removal from office — a point bolstered by three major national polls released just over the last several days — but it’d be a stretch to characterize a narrow national majority as a “consensus.”
There is one area, however, in which a consensus emerges. Consider this tidbit from the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll:
Despite divisions over the preferred outcome, 66 percent of Americans overall say the Senate should call new witnesses to testify at the impeachment trial, a question that has been fiercely fought among senators. […]
Nearly 9 in 10 Democrats and over 6 in 10 independents support calling new witnesses, while Republicans are split about evenly, with 45 percent saying new witnesses should be called and 43 percent saying they should not.
There’s more data along these lines. In the latest national Associated Press poll, 68% supported calls for new witnesses during the Senate proceedings. A CNN poll put the figure at 69%. […]
Yes. If Ken Starr is looking for a “consensus,” we have one: the Senate should call new witnesses.
“Reminder: when Pam Bondi was the AG of Florida, Trump U was under investigation for fraud there. After she sought—and received—a donation from Trump, the investigation against him & his conjob of an online university was magically dropped.”
SC @492, yeah, Pam Bondi is convicting Hunter Biden. It’s another bizarre moment. This has nothing to do with the articles of impeachment against Trump.
Still, Bondi is free to refer her case against Hunter Biden to law enforcement officials, if she so chooses.
“The Trump team is never going to get the chance to deliver this Hunter Biden message in a lofty venue like this again. They chose to have the Florida Attorney General who took money from Donald Trump while her office was investigating his fraudulent university carry it.”
Now she’s fully into the conspiracy theory, which all of the witnesses debunked. Complete with references to some unnamed consultant and the false claim that Shokin was investigating Burisma corruption. The Senate has already seen the evidence about this, and how Shokin wasn’t investigating, how he was corrupt, how firing him was US policy, how it was US’ allies’ policy, and how this made it more likely that the investigation of Burisma would be carried out.
“Bondi is reading to the Senate a reporting email that Ken Vogel sent to the State Dept like it’s an established fact, even though as she says Vogel never ran a story with the claims in the email.
If you FOIA a given reporter’s emails to a government agency, you’re going to find a lot of assertions that didn’t check out.”
It was really nauseating.
Now the next guy is telling the same lie about the House Managers presenting no evidence that the Biden allegations had been debunked. They presented extensive evidence of this. Oh jesus, he’s going to start the “Ukraine interfered in the 2016 elections.” Lying about the findings of the Mueller report. Off to a disgusting start.
I can’t believe they’re talking about this like Trump and his kids aren’t a bunch of professional grifters siphoning public money to line their pockets every second of every day. His daughter and son-in-law, who are totally unqualified and couldn’t get security clearances, work in the fucking White House. His sons continue to do overseas deals. He’s facing multiple emoluments suits. He’s illegally blocking turning over his tax returns. His chief of staff announced, during a press conference in which he admitted the impeachable quid pro quo, that the G-7 would be at one of his shitty failing properties. I could go on.
Statement from Anthony de Caluwe.
Like so many products of Trumpworld, de Caluwe is both clownish and menacing. Menacingly clownish. Clownishly menacing.
McConnell’s legacy will long outlive him.
Religion Clause
Supreme Court Grants Review In Contraceptive Mandate Exemption Case
Jan 17, 2020
From the latest batch of materials released by the House – “Parnas holding copy of the Pete Sessions letter to Pompeo smearing Yovanovitch that he delivered to Trump as part of campaign for his foreign backers. Sessions said he did not commit an official act cuz of Parnas donations. Envelope is marked ‘official business’ & ‘Pete Sessions’.”
Images at the link.
In reference to comment 483 in the previous chapter of this thread: SC linked to a Twitter thread that included this comment from a reader:
Yes! That makes so much sense now.
Derek Harvey is a top aide to Representative Devin Nunes. Nunes is the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee. The new information and documents obtained from Lev Parnas clearly implicate Nunes in Trump’s Ukraine scheme.
From tomh’s comment 494 on the same subject:
The series of comments from 483 to 500 in the previous chapter of this thread are well worth reading.
An interesting video from “AM Joy,” aired this morning: Link
The conversation between Joy Reid and Rachel Maddow is quite good. They analyze the new information well.
From Maddow:
That part is interesting in terms of understanding how dysfunctional Trump is, and how chaotic the entire system around him has become. Everything is provisional. However, Trump obsessively moves toward his goal of firing Yovanovitch and getting dirt on Biden no matter how dysfunctional everything is.
Other parts of Joy’s interview are even more important in revealing the Trump team’s crimes.
From Josh Marshall:
Link</>
See the link for the actual screenshots of exchanges.
NYT:
Trump on Virginia Gun Dispute: 2nd Amendment ‘Under Very Serious Attack’
By Timothy Williams
Jan. 18, 2020
European countries are trying to save the Iran nuclear deal. They are trying to clean up Trump’s mess, as Trump continues to add to the mess.
https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-iran-nuclear-deal-desperation/
Followup to comment 8.
Yesterday, Trump, ever the unhelpful blowhard, tweeted:
A contender for SC’s Tweet O’ the Day feature:
https://twitter.com/JRehling/status/1218387128465256448
From Melinda Haring, writing for the Washington Post:
Link
Melinda Haring is the deputy director of the Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council.
Update to #489 in the previous thread – the National Archives is apologizing for obscuring anti-Trump signs in photos of the Women’s March:
I don’t see anything about accountability in there. Someone did this or told others to do it, and it hints at other alterations of records to mollify the baby in the Oval Office.
Another candidate for tweet o’ the day.
Edward Hopper, LV Phone Case, 2020
Rebecca Ballhaus: “Robert Hyde, who denied to Buzzfeed last year that he was behind these Facebook pages, now is complaining about Facebook taking down those pages, which purported to by run by groups of Trump supporters in different states.”
WSJ link atl.
Christopher Bouzy, who created Bot Sentinel: “Please be advised there are inauthentic accounts pretending to be Warren and Sanders supporters, it appears they are attempting to inflame tensions between the two camps. I will release a report soon, but please be cautious when you see an account tweeting questionable content.”
Craig Silverman, BuzzFeed, re #15: “Unbelievable. We showed these pages working in coordination, misleading people about their connections and nature, and spreading false information back in November. But now FB acts on them because the guy running them ends up in the news?”
Followup to comment 10.
Military leaders requested new force to fight cyberwar, but got Space Force instead
House Managers’ impeachment trial brief.
Trump lawyers’ response.
The latter is short, unbearably stupid, and inconsistent with the line his supporters have been taking.
Trump’s finances appear shaky, opening up more opportunities to buy presidential ‘favors’
SC @19, yeah. I see that Trump’s legal team is full of bombast. They are highly indignant, accusing the Democrats of a “brazen and unlawful attempt” to overturn the results of the 2016 presidential election. Same old, same old.
Translation: Please, please let the Russians help Trump win the 2020 election! Postpone all of this impeachment stuff until after Trump is elected. Okay? Please also let Trump, Rudy, et.al. bring the Ukrainians onto the Trump team by ponying up bogus indictments of Trump’s rivals. Okay? We’ll only commit these particular crimes between now and November 2020. Deal?
“House Democrats say Senate must ‘eliminate the threat that the President poses to America’s national security.”
Washington Post link
Forgot to say in comment 21 that, of course, the Republicans are also saying that “The articles of impeachment violate the Constitution. They are defective in their entirety.” Dunderheads.
Axios – “NSC official on leave pending investigation”:
This was Fiona Hill’s position.
Rep. Ro Khanna, a Sanders surrogate, tweeted: “There is absolutely no justification for anyone tweeting snakes at Senator Warren or any of her supporters —some who include women & people of color. It should stop. At the core of progressivism is respect for every participant & a belief in reasoned debate to advance a position.”
The responses thanking him for saying it and suggesting that he ask Sanders to call it out are getting swamped by the snake-emoji brigade (note #16 above) mocking and attacking Khanna, who is, again, a Sanders campaign surrogate.
This.
I wish someone would ask Dershowitz to name a few acts that in his view would constitute other high crimes or misdemeanors.
Confirmation and slightly more re #23:
John Mikhail:
Daniel Dale and Tara Subramaniam at CNN – “Reverting to his usual level of dishonesty, Trump made 81 false claims last week”:
Much, much more at the link.
I need a shower after reading this Dershowitz thread.
House Intelligence chair Adam Schiff says that the Intel community is withholding documents relevant to the impeachment trial in the Senate.
TPM link
JFC.
Followup to comment 30.
Comments from readers:
Lordy, there are tapes. Rolling Stone link
SC @29, holy buckets of crap!
House Judiciary Committee chair Jerry Nadler’s comments:
Link
Link
I think Schiff’s explanation is correct.
OMG. Do Republicans really consider this to be a defense of Trump?
Link
From Wonkette:
Link
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/opinions/amp-stories/brodner-sharpie-image/
“The Sharpie Image,” a cartoon drawn by Steve Bodner.
From Lynna’s #37:
:)
It’s not the central point, but he was literally in a workplace. He was on mic because he was on the NBC bus getting ready to tape a segment for Access Hollywood.
I wonder if they got wind of what’s on some of the recordings now in possession of the House Intel Committee and are trying to get ahead of it…
Tweet o’ the day.
Re #40 – from AM Joy today: “Rep. Ayanna Pressley on alopecia, her struggle with hair loss.”
Video atl. I love the shout out to “bald nation” and her fellow “Alopecians.”
I feel that this public statement tells me a lot about Prager’s character.
SC @39, “he was literally in a workplace. He was on mic because he was on the NBC bus getting ready to tape a segment for Access Hollywood.” Good point. I hadn’t thought of that.
From Amy Davidson Sorkin, writing for The New Yorker:
Robert Reich:
Trouble is brewing, with Trump’s encouragement.
Beyond Monday’s gun-laden march in Richmond, militias’ plans for a ‘civil war’ look to go national.
Trump is, quite blatantly, encouraging violence.
More at the link.
Followup to comment 46.
Ahead of Richmond Rally, Apple and Google Are Letting Nazis Use This App to Coordinate
Telegram, which has banned ISIS content, remains a favored tool of white supremacists.
More at the link.
How to continue to scam people, even after you have died:
Link
From George Conway:
Washington Post link
Thread and short video from Elizabeth Warren: “Nearly 100 years ago, mobs of white residents descended on Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma, ransacking Black businesses and murdering hundreds of African Americans. The Tulsa Race Massacre was one of the worst incidents of racist violence in our nation’s history….”
This is righteous.
“.@AlanDersh comments on impeachment on Larry King Live, 8/24/98
01:41:04 DERSHOWITZ: ‘It certainly doesn’t have to be a crime if you have somebody who completely corrupts the office of president and who abuses trust and who poses great danger to our liberty’.”
I’m going to expand a bit on #31, not to “attack” Sanders, but because I’m seeing some annoying responses to the clip and I want to be clear about what bothers me and how it could have been done better.
Sanders is asked “Do you think that female candidates have a different experience running for president, and do you think that gender is still an obstacle for female politicians?”
In response, he begins by lumping gender in with advanced age and inexperience. In a (presidential) campaign, advanced age and relative inexperience are reasonable and legitimate concerns to have about a candidate. Being 78 during the campaign is an issue, heart attack aside. The presidency (if the job is actually done, which isn’t currently the case) is physically and cognitively demanding and exhausting. Having relatively little political experience is also in many ways a drawback. These concerns aren’t ageism.
Being a woman is not like these two things. There’s nothing inherent to being a woman that is itself a negative in terms of a potential presidency. The obstacles for women are external – sexism and misogyny. Sexism and misogyny aren’t rooted in reasonable or legitimate concerns but in false beliefs and stereotypes. This is true also of race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, and gender identity. But Sanders refers to being a woman, like being his age or having little experience, as a “problem,” a “negative,” a “disadvantage,” an imperfection. Rather than locating the issue in the people responding with sexism and misogyny, he’s locating it in women.
He then immediately transitions to talking about how his age can actually be seen as a positive, pushing aside the original question. And indeed, advanced age hasn’t really been that much of a hindrance in US history. The same, of course, can be said of youth and relative inexperience. Not once does he suggest any positive aspect of being a woman.
Encouraging people to “look at the totality of a candidate – not at their sexuality, not at their gender, not at their age” is in some ways great, but ignores the basis of the first question, which concerned whether women have a different experience running for president. In a week in which Warren has faced swarms of his supporters tweeting snake emojis and smears at her, he could have used the opportunity to talk about online misogyny and to send a message to his base. The other day, people were sharing a ranking showing that Susan Collins has now overtaken Mitch McConnell as the most unpopular Senator in her state. Women make up 26% of the Senate, but there’s one woman among the 10 most popular Senators and 6 among the 10 least popular. Susan Collins is less popular than Moscow Fucking Mitch. This is what women are dealing with online.
He also could have talked about not ignoring but acknowledging the obstacles that people discriminated against (including himself as a Jewish man and not an old white dude) can face, and how that requires strength and resilience and can lead to a better understanding of other people’s challenges. He could have talked about some of the people on his campaign and what they’ve faced and how impressive they are… But he didn’t.
So it was well-meaning but obtuse, is my view.
Ay.
Laurence Tribe: “.@AlanDersh is grossly misstating law, history, and even the arguments in the Johnson Senate impeachment trial. He’s not to be trusted. Trump’s mendacity has sadly rubbed off on my former colleague. Read my @washingtonpost op-ed laying it all out:…”
(Incidentally, I’m endlessly amused by how many people in the news Tribe has taught. He was interviewed the other day about the Senate trial and casually mentioned “the Chief Justice, who was a student of mine at Harvard…” and I loled.)
So the NYT has endorsed both Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar, which is a weird thing to do.
Also, MJ Lee:
Bizarre. Warren is among the least condescending or patronizing candidates I’ve ever seen.
Wikipedia has a list of NYT presidential endorsements over the years and it’s interesting. Their first endorsement was Abraham Lincoln in 1860.
Guardian – “Sardines take on League in birthplace of Italian socialism”:
The election is this coming Sunday, the 26th.
Guardian – “Boris Johnson urged to publish report on Russian meddling”:
@ 56
<
blockquote>So the NYT has endorsed both Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar, which is a weird thing to do.
It isn’t when you have to play to the left AND the center in order to keep your subscribers and advertisers.
“According to the White House schedule, President Trump has nothing on his public schedule to honor MLK Day.
The White House pool (which covers and travels with him) isn’t called to arrive until 3PM ET, and he leaves at 6:15PM for Davos.”
“Russian Prosecutor Chaika has been fired!
He is best known to Americans for his actions during 2016 elections via Russian lawyer Veselnitskaya and Dana Rohrabacher. What ever happened to Rohrabacher? Another one who disappeared without any investigations
Rohrabacher’s role was to convince US to remove Russian sanctions tied to Magnitsky Act”
Pussy Riot, “Chaika.”
Sorry – here’s the first link for #62.
Tweet o’ the day.
Imagine writing this letter.
Susan Hennessey, Lawfare:
Link atl.
Molly Crabapple in the New Yorker – “The Attack on Exarchia, an Anarchist Refuge in Athens.”
SC @64, wow. There are an awful lot of references to “filth” and to “dirt” in that letter. And I mean “awful” in two ways.
I don’t want that clear a glimpse into the minds of the people who were trying to get a civil rights leader to kill himself. Stuff of nightmares.
SC @53, that is an excellent analysis! Thanks for posting that.
From Steve Benen, a look at the documents filed in preparation for the beginning of the impeachment trial tomorrow:
Link
The editorial board of the Quad City Times in Iowa endorsed Amy Klobuchar.
A new Focus on Rural America poll showed the following: Joe Biden leading with 24%, followed by Elizabeth Warren at 18%, and Pete Buttigieg at 16 %. Bernie Sanders was at 14%, and Amy Klobuchar had 11% support.
Cartoon: “The return of the Unbelievable Trump”
On Trade With China, Donald Trump Folds Like A Cheap Suit.
U.S. officials have deported some asylum-seekers without first telling them where they’re going.
Link
Tribe: “Besides, if shaking down an ally to get illegal foreign help in winning re-election with a hit job against a political opponent and using taxpayers’ funds to engage in that extortion ISN’T ‘crime-like’ conduct, what in the world WOULD be?”
As I said @ #25, I want someone to ask him this question. Dershowitz says he’s been consistent over the years, but the only consistency I’ve seen is that he always opposes impeachment whatever the conduct at issue. Extortion isn’t just bribery-like – it’s the worst form of bribery. (And the new evidence from Parnas suggests that they committed other forms of bribery as well, for example defaming and recalling the US ambassador to Ukraine to bribe Lutsenko to give them Biden dirt.)
I’m enjoying watching Tribe tear apart Dershowitz’ arguments in real time on Twitter.
“Dershowitz on CNN in 1998: ‘I think endangering the country through a course of action which was not criminal’ could be impeachable if it’s ‘a total abuse and misuse of office in a way that endangers the liberty of all Americans’.”
He cited Filegate.
Dershowitz’s standard for non-criminal impeachable conduct in 1998 was Filegate.”
Transcript and video atl. Filegate was one of these bullshit rightwing investigative crusades they’ve harassed the Clintons with for three decades. It’s not a great thing to resurface for anyone on the Right given the zeal with which they investigated these substanceless allegations. The fact that Dershowitz believed it could still be true in 1998 doesn’t speak well of him. Starr and Ray admitted there was nothing to it in November of 1998 – “Starr also chose this occasion to clear President Clinton in the Travelgate matter, and to say that he had not committed impeachable wrongdoing in the Whitewater matter; Democrats on the committee immediately criticized Starr for withholding all these findings until after the 1998 Congressional elections.” In any case, the Ukraine scheme is far worse than even the Republican fever-dream version of Filegate, so Dershowitz’ argument takes another major hit.
House: “U.S. House of Representatives Files Replication to President’s Answer to the Articles of Impeachment.”
Ridiculous.
This is good. The Dem candidates marched arm in arm at the MLK event.
Lev Parnas’ lawyer has publicly released a letter he’s sent to Bill Barr calling on him to recuse himself and for the appointment of a special counsel from outside the DoJ.
Link atl.
Perfect.
Please, Switzerland, keep him. I beg of you.
CNN – “CNN poll: 51% say Senate should remove Trump from office”:
More atl.
More bad actions on the part of ICE:
Link
Followup to tomh @comment 7, and to comments 46 and 47.
Luckily, there was no violence in Virginia today. There was some mocking of the “warriors” who showed up.
Link
@ Lynna #85
Ha–It did remind me of cosplay.
“NEW at SCOTUS: the justices REFUSE to expedite review of the 5th-circuit ruling against Obamacare, pushing that explosive question off at least until the election has passed.”
“House managers argue WHC Pat Cipillone’s involvement in the events underlying both articles of impeachment present[s] a conflict of interest in his representing Trump in the Senate Trial.
For backup, the Managers cite Cipillone’s fellow Trump defense lawyer, then-Judge Ken Starr.”
Full letter here.
The House Managers are doing a press conference shortly.
HuffPo – “Carl Bernstein Hits Mitch McConnell With Scathing New Nickname That Explodes On Twitter”:
The rules would prevent the evidence from the House from being admitted at the beginning, as it was in the Clinton trial.
#MidnightMitch is still trending on Twitter. Multiple examples at the link.
“Alan Dershowitz tries to explain his contradictory views on impeachment by saying he wasn’t wrong during Clinton’s impeachment, he’s just ‘much more correct right now’.”
Video atl.
From Daniel Dale:
Link
So, yes, Daniel Dale’s report documents 65 false claims that Trump made in connection with the Ukraine scandal. Here’s just a sampling. (See the link for all 65 falsehoods, and Dale’s expert debunking of each one.)
Trump certainly likes the word “warrior.” He misapplies it all the time. (Remember when he called Rudy Giuliani a warrior.) Now Trump is designating some Republican lawmakers who have basically been shut out of the Senate impeachment trial as his “warriors.”
Politico link
Commentary:
link
Maybe the “warriors” will get little badges or hats?
From Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer:
As SC noted upthread, and as bears repeating: Under McConnell’s proposed rules, evidence gathered by the House will not be entered in the trial unless the Senate votes to allow it. Additionally, the House impeachment team and President Donald Trump’s lawyers will only have 24 hours each to make their arguments within 2 days.
WTF!? Mitch McConnell is not allowing the evidence gathered by the House? So, no already existing evidence, and no new evidence either? I wonder if McConnell actually has the votes to block all of the evidence the House gathered.
More discussion regarding that letter from White House counsel Pat Cipollone and Trump’s current personal attorney Jay Sekulow:
Link
Excellent commentary from Mark Sumner:
Because I wasn’t outraged enough today – TPM – “Report: Glenn Greenwald Charged In Brazil Over Stories That Embarrassed Bolsonaro Gov’t”:
It’s in the TPM article as well, but here’s the link to the Intercept’s Car Wash series.
Also, the judge in Michael Avenatti’s New York case is rightly demanding that prosecutors explain, by 2 this afternoon, why he’s being held in solitary confinement.
“Federal judge issues temporary order to not deport a Northeastern student. CBP does anyway. Federal judge gives up on the case saying ‘I don’t think they’re going to listen to me’.
I am at a total loss for words.”
“c-span now pointing out that @senatemajldr is blocking their cameras.”
“BREAKING from @CNN – CDC expected to announce first U.S. case of Wuhan Coronavirus this afternoon.”
One mystery solved: it’s pronounced “Cipollonee.”
Schiff is speaking against the McConnell trial-rigging rules now.
Manu Raju: “Reason why press restrictions need to be reversed. You’re not allowed to walk with senators by floor as usual. We can only talk to them if they stop by our penned areas. I just asked Susan Collins and Cory Gardner about McConnell resolution – and they both ignored the questions.”
I’m sure this is the primary reason for the rules – to allow vulnerable Senators to avoid press/public accountability.
“There are CHANGES to the McConnell resolution – presentations will now take place over 3 days (still 24 total hours)
Also changes to the evidence section
The new version was just read on the floor – changes happened very late in the process after some concerns were raised about those sections
On the evidence piece – evidence will now be admitted automatically unless there are objections (as opposed to not put in record unless voted into it)”
I muted McConnell, but it appears they can object of the basis of hearsay, etc. They will object all over the place. The information is already public, FFS.
I’m really starting to suspect that a number of Senators don’t know much about the evidence and McConnell is trying to keep them from finding out.
“Schiff: The most important decision is whether there will be a fair trial. It’s even more important than whether you vote guilty or innocent.”
Fuck it! The fact that the Dems haven’t orchestrated an armed coup over this outrage only shows that they are spineless hypocrites who love to talk about democracy and progress but are too cowardly to spill the blood necessary to achieve it.
America is dead and it deserves to rot!
“GOP SOURCE: Multiple Republican senators raised concerns about the original McConnell resolution.”
“Three 8-hour days isn’t an ideal schedule but it is at least moderately defensible. The 12-hour plan was so absurd that I wonder if it wasn’t designed to make this look reasonable.”
That and they’re already putting out that Collins had objected to the earlier version, so it’s a ploy to make her look moderate. It’s all very similar to the Kavanaugh confirmation, which we have not forgotten.
“Susan Collins spokesperson on McConnell rules changes:
‘Senator Collins and others raised concerns about the 24 hours of opening statements in 2 days and the admission of the House transcript in the record….She thinks these changes are a significant improvement’.”
LOL.
Sekulow is just babbling and lying.
At this rate, they should have just had Jordan and the other House Republican pinheads.
“Sekulow’s entire argument here is made up. No one said the courts have no role and the President has not in fact even invoked executive privilege.”
Now Cipollone is back up making shit up. They keep asserting “We’re prepared!” but…I don’t think they are. They’re just rehashing the nonsense arguments from the House Republicans.
“It’s astonishing. It’s just a rambling, inchoate assortment of irrelevant soundbites designed for replay on cable.”
On the one hand, much of it is performative. On the other, Cipollone seems not quite all there.
“Cipollone: ‘I could go on and on’
Everybody: No, clearly, you can’t. You ran out of stuff to say maybe 25 minutes ago.”
Ha – exactly what I was thinking.
“Cipollone says ‘Not even Mr. Schiff’s Republican colleagues were allowed into the SCIF’ during impeachment investigation.
That’s 100% false. Any member of the three investigating committees could attend, and many Republicans did!”
This is one of a large number of lies. Is anyone Daniel Daleing the trial?
Laurence Tribe:
“White House Counsels are not supposed to act as personal lawyers to a POTUS. This is really unconscionable. He should have to resign before functioning in this capacity.”
Elie Mystal:
Schiff is in his element.
Video of Schiff.
Rep. Lofgren is doing a fine job arguing that the Senate needs to subpoena relevant documents (per Schumer’s resolution).
“Trump’s team has spent so many months giving fake, Fox-News-friendly defenses of Trump that they forgot that in the real world, the facts and evidence arrayed against Trump are incredibly damning.”
“BOOM. Referencing Alan Dershowtiz’s argument that abuse of power is not impeachable: ‘There’s a reason they had to go outside the realm of constitutional lawyers and get a criminal defense lawyer, because no reputable constitutional lawyer would say it’.
DAYUM!!”
Patrick Philbin is making the same garbage arguments as Cipollone and Sekulow, soporifically.
McConnell has called for tabling (US meaning) Schumer’s amendment, and so far is seems like a party-line vote. Collins’ vote was inaudible, but all of the Republicans so far are voting against subpoenaing the documents now.
53-47. Tabled.
Schumer is proposing another amendment now, to subpoena documents from the State Department.
Guardian – “Revealed: the Saudi heir and the alleged plot to undermine Jeff Bezos”:
“Every Republican senator just voted to block key document subpoenas, so that the trial will begin with those documents still concealed. Cover up step one is complete.”
Tweet o’ the day.
Karen Attiah, WaPo opinions editor:
Schumer’s second amendment also tabled 53-47.
You know, there are episodes of Law & Order that deal with hearings or trials being rigged and unjust for some crooked reason, and they’re painful to watch. Millions of US voters have seen them and know that feeling.
Good to know the Republicans are taking this seriously.
WaPo:
Slumber claims its first victim — Sen. James Risch
By Mike DeBonis and Karoun Demirjian
“Random, but looking to see if Sekulow commented on impeachment in 1998 I found a minor freakout he had over gay pride flags in Orlando.”
Images atl.
American Oversight has received more (heavily redacted) documents from OMB related to the Ukraine aid hold via their FOIA lawsuit (or, as Jay Sekulow would call it, lawyer lawsuit).
“47 Democratic Senators voted to seek missing documents from the White House, State Dept, Defense Dept, or the Office of Management and Budget. 53 Republicans opposed them.
47 Democratic Senators voted to summon the witnesses no one has heard from. 53 Republicans opposed them.
Thus blinkered, the trial will now proceed to opening args tomorrow at 1p. The House will have 24h over 3 days, followed by the President’s lawyers for the same amount of time. Then 16h of questions. Then a new vote on whether to debate seeking the missing evidence and witnesses.”
The first episode of Lawfare’s condensed trial report is up. (I haven’t listened yet.)
Elie Mystal is entertainingly and informatively livetweeting.
Natasha Bertrand in Politico – “‘Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine’: When Russian disinformation met a Trump obsession”:
I’m trying to remember if anything about this was in the disinformation packet Veselnitskaya gave them at the Trump Tower meeting.
Richmond Times-Dispatch – “White supremacist group wanted Richmond rally to start a civil war, prosecutors say”:
“NEW: UN investigators echo the allegation that MBS was directly involved in hacking Bezos’ phone.
They say it was part of an effort to intimidate Washington Post into halting its critical coverage of Khashoggi’s killing.”
UN OHCHR release at the link.
Bianna Golodryga:
“In an incredible exchange at Davos, @realdonaldtrump admits he is comfortable with the status of the impeachment trial because the White House is withholding evidence. ‘Honestly, we have all the material. They don’t have the material’. As always, he says the quiet part out loud.”
“EMBARRASSING, Trump thinks president of Iraq Kurdistan @IKRPresident is the commander of Syrian SDF @MazloumAbdi! These two are completely different
Trumps says things have turn out great with Turkey in Syria and mistakenly thanks Barzani for keeping ‘my safe zone’ safe.”
Videos at the links.
Reuters – “Exclusive: Giuliani told U.S. his client deserves leniency for financing Venezuela’s opposition – Parnas”:
Guardian – “Caribbean leaders boycott Pompeo talks as row grows over US relations”:
“For the thousands of US service-members who suffered traumatic brain injury from IEDs & other attacks, the president saying ‘I don’t consider it very serious’ will be inexplicable.”
“I asked Trump why he said no Americans were hurt after Iran retaliated for the Solemaini strike even though 11 US service members were airlifted. He said he heard they had ‘headaches’ but does not consider potential traumatic brain injuries to be serious compared to losing limbs.”
Vice – “Here Is the Technical Report Suggesting Saudi Arabia’s Prince Hacked Jeff Bezos’s Phone.”
Me @ #114 above: This is one of a large number of lies. Is anyone Daniel Daleing the trial?
Fortunately, Daniel Dale is!
Adam Schiff has begun to present the case for conviction. He’s quoting Hamilton.
WaPo:
Paul says 45 GOP senators ready to dismiss impeachment charges
Benjamin Wittes points out that the Hamilton quote has been his pinned tweet since 2017.
Elie Mystal: “How many Senators do you think are hearing the full story of @realDonaldTrump’s corruption for literally the first time from @RepAdamSchiff?”
As I suggested @ #103 above, I really suspect a decent number of them have been ensconced in the Fox bubble and/or actively avoiding information.
“Schiff: Trump’s ‘misconduct cannot be decided at the ballot box. For we cannot be assured that the vote will be fairly won. In corruptly using his office to gain a political advantage … the president has shown that he believes he is above the law and scornful of constraint’.”
“‘I recognize there will be times during the trial that you may long to return to the business of the Senate’, Schiff says. ‘The American people look forward to the same. But not before you decide what kind of democracy that you believe we ought to be’.”
JFC this is infuriating. (Another thoughtful piece on the subject.)
Rep. Raskin: “Cipollone must be forced by CJ Roberts to correct the record and apologize or face disbarment for brazen lack of candor to the tribunal in a legal proceeding. I was in nearly every deposition and the GOP Members were always present.”
The newly released documents – @ #132 above – include emails from legislators or their aides to OMB asking why the aid was being withheld. These include at least one Senator. I hope they’re introduced in the trial this week.
Followup to SC @148 and 152:
and
Cipollone is either a liar, or he has restricted the information he allows into his mind to that approved by Trump.
That lie about Republicans not being let into “secret basement meetings” is easily debunked. As Nicole Wallace noted, MSNBC and other networks have footage of Republicans entering and exiting those meetings. Plus, the approximately 100 senators allowed into those depositions is a matter of public record. It was never secret.
That’s not the only lie Cipollone told. Is he an ethical lawyer of just a Liar-for-Trump? Reminds me of William Barr in some ways. Are Cipollone and his team actually ill-informed?
I would not really be surprised if not only the Republican senators, but many people on Trump’s team are hearing the facts/timeline behind the articles of impeachment for the first time. Adam Schiff is doing a good job of presenting the facts. They must hate having to listen to that.
Their defense, however, will be repetition of talking points, lies, and a refusal to acknowledge the evidence. And that reminds me of both Trump and William Barr.
From SC’s link @144:
More from SC’s link @144:
This simply confirms what we already know. As long as Trump delivers what they want, whether it’s taxes, anti-abortion judges, religious privilege, or whatever, most Republicans don’t care whether he is acting legally or not.
WaPo:
New poll finds 63 percent think Trump acted illegally, but only 51 percent want him removed
Jason Leopold, BuzzFeed:
“It is my understanding that the Kushner 302 has been referred by the FBI to a member of the intelligence community in compliance with 28 CFR 16.4. When that member has finished its review, the 302 will be released with the appropriate redactions.”
Jake Tapper:
Followup to SC’s comment 99.
Link
Republicans are leaving the chamber. They are not hearing everything that Schiff and Nadler have to say.
Lynna @ #154:
Good point. This might have been at the root of my reaction to Cipollone yesterday – he seemed almost shocked and unable to process the facts as the House Managers were describing them. So it wouldn’t just be a lack of preparation, but a preparation based on falsehoods they’ve absorbed over months, which don’t cohere into any reasonable narrative.
Lynna @ #160:
Seems like something Roberts should put a stop to, to put it mildly.
House Ways and Means Committee:
WaPo link atl. The Republicans have tried for years to take away people’s health care, and they have an ongoing lawsuit to destroy the ACA with nothing to replace it. After a tax scam that vastly increased the wealth of the richest people and corporations, inequality, and the debt, they want to do more cuts to basic public services. So populist.
SC @162, Yes. but Roberts seems to be more interested in maintaining what he calls “decorum” than he is in making sure that Republicans adhere to the rule that says they are to remain seated in the chamber most of the time.
Followup to SC’s comment 163. Yeah, Trump needs a second term so he can cut Medicare and Social Security.
Commentary from Steve Benen:
Link
From Robin Wright, writing for The New Yorker: “THE STAGGERING (AND UNCOVERED) LEGAL BILLS FACING IMPEACHMENT WITNESSES”
Kurt Volker, President Trump’s former special representative for Ukraine, has accrued legal bills of about eighty thousand dollars related to the impeachment inquiry.
Sarah Kendzior, Andrea Chalupa, and Rep. Raskin all endorse Elizabeth Warren.
re Lynna @164:
Would jurors in ANY trial in ANY courtroom in the US be allowed to just walk out of the proceedings of a trial? Of course not. This is just more proof that neither the “jurors” nor the “judge” in this “trial” are taking any of it seriously.
Tweet o’ the day.
“‘If FOIA stands for anything, it is that the statute should not be misused to cover up illegal conduct.’ NYT presses argument for public access to Ukraine military aid emails. New court filing:…”
Motion at the link.
Joyce White Vance on a report on #158 above: “This violates a federal judge’s order to turnover by January 17. Unless DOJ got an extension of time, which the article doesn’t reflect, this is Trump again acting like he’s above the law. The redactions on Kushner’s 302’s, once turned over, will merit heavy scrutiny.”
@ 157
<
blockquote>While 63 percent of Americans say Trump has definitely or probably acted illegally as president or as a candidate, a slim 51 percent majority says he should be removed from office for those crimes, according to a new Pew Research Center poll.
<
blockquote>
Did Pew bother to ask that 12 percent WHY a president who acted illegal SHOULDN’T be removed from office?
Fuck it, it doesn’t matter. May the end of this shithole country come soon.
“Some really striking numbers in the new Pew poll:
51% of Americans support removal (2nd poll this week showing majority support)
53% of college educated whites support removal…, which is remarkable
63% of ages 18-29 support removal“
@ #173
If only those people lived in the right states, electoral college-wise.
Apologies if this has been reported here previously, but !!! – Texas Observer – “ICE Quietly Lowers (Already Low) Standards at Some Immigrant Detention Facilities”:
From the article: “One of the men who fled Somalia, fearing for his life, said the conditions at the West Texas facility were so bad he would rather go home.”
Schiff is doing such a good job right now. I know all of this and I’m still absorbed.
Sen. Harris: “Let’s be clear: the integrity of the Senate is on trial. The world is watching.”
“Schiff: ‘There are not many first person cables that come in … [Bill] Taylor sent that cable on August 29th. Would you like me to read that to you right now? I would like to read it to you right now. Except I don’t have it. Because the State Department wouldn’t provide it’.”
That was a tour de force from Schiff.
WOW.
:).
I think there was applause for Schiff as he concluded and the Senate feed muted it.
Re #182 – OK, maybe not. I was on the phone just after, but haven’t seen anyone else talking about it.
These entitled fucks. And the indulgence of this reporting. Galling beyond belief.
“Hot mic: In chat at start of World Holocaust Forum, Pence and Bibi chat about impeachment. ‘We are contending. He’s unstoppable’, Pence tells Bibi about Trump. ‘Like somebody else I know’.”
Video at the link.
LOL.
“Significant.
Roberts announces Senators can read classified testimony (White House won’t let public see).
Topic: Pence-Zelenskyy call.
@RepZoeLofgren: ‘I’ve read that testimony and I’ll just say: A coverup is not a proper reason to classify a document’.”
This happened at the end of the proceedings last night. Claire McCaskill said that if a Senator thinks it’s important information for the public to have and that it shouldn’t be classified, they could reveal its contents, and then the burden would be on the so-called administration to show that it was properly classified; but Chuck Rosenberg thought this would be very risky. Presumably someone could leak it…?
Elizabeth Warren:
Justin Amash, agreeing with Lynna and me :): “Based on my experience with Republican colleagues in the House, I suspect that many Senate Republicans are hearing the facts of this case for the first time.”
@ 177
At that moment, McConnell, clad in a black robe, declares “I AM THE SENATE!” before blasting Harris is force lightning.
Edit: …blasting Harris with force lightning.
re SC @189:
While listening to the news this morning, I heard one Senator make a comment along the lines of “All this just over a phone call?” So, they aren’t even listening to the evidence at the trial. They have made up their small minds, and they will not change.
Related to #16 above – Christopher Bouzy at Lawfare – “Is There a Targeted Troll Campaign Against Lisa Page? A Bot Sentinel Investigation”:
Guardian – “A new film argues that Brazil teeters on the brink of authoritarianism. It’s true.”:
The Edge of Democracy trailer. You can watch it on Netflix.
Schumer’s press conference just now was very well done.
“trump could shoot someone in the senate and still get acquitted 53-47. unless he shot a republican, then it would be 52-47.”
White House Trump disinformation operation:
Daniel Dale replying:
Religion Clause
Utah Administrative Rule Banning Conversion Therapy Becomes Effective
HuffPo – “Tucker Carlson Just Got Weirdly Sexual In His Attacks On The Media”:
Reminder that Fox airs this guy.
Up is down, and day is night:
Link
Tom Winter, NBC:
Trump claimed yesterday that, “The other thing I wanted to check very carefully, and it’s very important, is corruption.” Oh FFS. He is trying to revive that bogus argument again?
Commentary:
Link
Nadler is doing a fine job.
One of the many tells that Trump is lying: he claims a project or a required action is “ahead of schedule.” Your alarm bells should be ringing.
Link
“46 years today 1/23/74
Nixon says he will ‘fight like hell’ against impeachment, while still engaged in a massive coverup. He is desperately hiding certain incriminating evidence.
It would come out 6 months later & he resigns 8/9, damaging the @GOP massively in mid-terms.”
Newspaper clipping atl.
Jay Sekulow, one of Trump’s attorneys, embarrassed himself big time.
From Steve Benen:
From the Washington Post:
From Steve Benen’s commentary on the Washington Post article:
“Trump’s TV lawyer falsely claims that Trump has invoked Executive Privilege. The only time that was even hinted was for [consults name on indictment] Lev Parnas.”
Hahaha – now Nadler is showing video of Lindsey Graham describing high crimes, while Graham has to watch silently.
Kaitlan Collins, CNN:
Trump flipped out. He broke his previous record for number of tweets per hour, posting 40 or more rants in a short amount of time. (Over 130 tweets yesterday.)
From Peter Baker:
Commentary from Cristina Cabrera:
TPM link
From the readers comments:
Trump is flying to his private resort today for an hour and a half to appear at the RNC national convention, which naturally is being held there.
Not the most important thing, but kind of funny:
Link
Daniel Dale at CNN – “Trump says ‘with me, there’s no lying’ — and makes 14 false claims about impeachment and Ukraine” in his Davos press conference and two interviews yesterday.
From Laura clawson:
Link
Elie Mystal re #208:
Followup to comment 210.
Some additional fact-checking:
Link
“Legal scholars and historians agree no statutory crime is required by the Constitution for impeachment and that abuse of power is in fact the essence of impeachability,” Conway, the husband of Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway, wrote recently in The Washington Post.
“The English parliamentary history upon which the Framers adopted impeachment makes clear that a public official’s breach of duty to put the public interest first constitutes an impeachable, removable offense.”
From Wonkette:
Followup to SC’s comment 203.
An excerpt from Nadler’s presentation:
Rep. Garcia did a good job as well. The video of the House witnesses and TV interviews is very effective.
She pre-debunked some of the nonsense Trump’s team is no doubt planning to go with.
An excerpt from Skiff’s presentation yesterday:
BuzzFeed – “The US’s Top Intelligence Official Missed A Deadline To Turn Over A Report On Jamal Khashoggi’s Killing, In Violation Of The Law”:
IIRC this was the defense bill from which a still-unnamed Republican Senator stealthily removed tougher provisions on Saudi Arabia. So they’re not even complying with the watered-down requirements, and offering no explanation.
“Senators seemed to be glued to materials and awake during the last section on Ukraine conspiracy theories. Looked like a lot of people didn’t know the level of this disinformation.”
In unrelated news, Chris Matthews is supremely annoying.
“A lot of laughs on both sides of the Senate chamber when House impeachment managers played a clip of former Trump homeland security adviser Tom Bossert saying that hiring Rudy Giuliani was impeaching one’s self.”
Garrett Haake just said Graham wasn’t in the room for #s 208/215 – the only one not there at that moment. He said they do get a packet of the slides and such beforehand, so he might have absented himself when he knew it was coming.
It’s good that the House Managers are using some Senate-related evidence, like the letters they sent to Poroshenko calling for anti-corruption reform (including getting rid of Shokin) and the findings of the Senate Intel report on Russian interference.
Fast work, TPM!:
“Nadler Uses Words Of Trump’s Allies Against Him At Impeachment Trial.”
“Dems Systematically Debunk Trump’s Bogus Conspiracy Theories On Biden.”
SC @223: “In unrelated news, Chris Matthews is supremely annoying.”
Yes, he certainly is. I’m trying to watch analysis provided by expert panels on MSNBC, but Matthews makes it hard. He interrupts the experts. He is very insistent when it comes to propounding his own views. He takes every opportunity to pump up Joe Biden’s reputation, even when the opinions he offers are not directly related to the Biden references brought up during the impeachment trial.
https://twitter.com/joshtpm/status/1220445312877244416
Video of Adam Schiff is available at the link.
An excerpt from Representative Sylvia Garcia’s presentation:
Garcia relied on footage of witnesses testifying to back up her summary.
From Adam Schiff:
Tweet o’ the day.
Followup to Elizabeth Warren’s comment about Betsy DeVos, (as posted by SC in #188):
Link
Lynna @ #227:
This exactly. During the break he started to say something about Pelosi being a greatly feared Machiavellian “Prince, Princess, Queen” and I couldn’t get to the mute button fast enough.
From Jennifer Rubin, writing for The Washington Post:
Sen. Murphy, earlier:
Meanwhile, In Giuliani-World, The Ukraine Scheme Continues
TPM link
Too late.
SC @235, we’re going to have to wait while the classification battle is fought, but when that Mike Pence shoe finally drops, it’s going to be loud.
Oh! Schiff explains why I couldn’t find the readout of the July 25 Zelenskyy call on the WH web site. They didn’t post an official readout, but just a separate statement to reporters, for obvious reasons.
From Speaker Nancy Pelosi:
From Chris Hayes:
Red-faced Republicans:
Washington Post link
“A handy graphic from Schiff’s presentation at the moment on why Trump’s Ukraine efforts amounted to abuse of power.”
Graphic atl with the 10 kinds of evidence that the investigations (or announcement thereof) were for Trump’s personal benefit. He’s running through each one systematically and energetically.
RAGE.
Law.com – “Judge Reggie Walton Is Fired Up (Again) in McCabe-Related FOIA Suit”:
From text quoted by SC in comment 245: “a lot of suspicion among the American people about what the heck the government is doing.”…
Absolutely true. Judge Reggie Walton is not the only once voicing that concern.
The parts of the government over which Trump has managed to exercise undue influence … those are the parts we can no longer trust, like the DOJ. And the cancer seems to be spreading.
LOL.
Hakeem Jeffries: “In America, what keeps us free from tyranny is the sacred principle that no one is above the law.”
Rep. Garcia is showing the Vindman testimony again and I’m crying again.
“Today my son Thomas took this heartbreaking shot of a Kangaroo wiping the smoke/dust from its eyes whilst fire spreads out of control behind. So sad what’s happening to our country.”
Photo at the link.
Frank Figliuzzi and Karen Schwartz at NBC – “Trump impeachment defense lawyers Ken Starr and Alan Dershowitz share disturbing problem: While the president still stands accused of sexual misconduct by more than 20 women, two of his lawyers are embroiled in their own sexual misconduct and assault scandals.”
Manu Raju: “Tried to ask Ted Cruz if he defends Trump conduct on Ukraine, and if Trump call with Zelensky was “perfect.” He said: ‘You asked a question last night[,] let me let someone else ask a question’. Then @npfandos asked the same question, he ignored it. He took one other q, then split.”
Perhaps some people should consider that there is no moral case for their cause, that their cause is misogynistic and vicious, and that this is why it’s been so easy for Trump to usurp their cause.
Giuliani tweeted: “My 1st podcast will be a conclusive demonstration of the illicit Democrat impeachment for non-impeachable, and entirely proper, conduct.
#UnimpeachablePhonecall”
Appropriate venue for my conclusive demonstration – Senate trial or podcast? Podcast, definitely.
Re #244 – “NEW: Lt. Col. Vindman’s attorney says the attacks by @MarshaBlackburn reveal ‘her true character – she has failed to follow her oath of impartiality while serving as a juror’. Says she’s ‘smearing his service to our country and his courageous act of reporting Trump’s misconduct’.”
Guardian – “Revealed: the true identity of the leader of an American neo-Nazi terror group”:
HuffPo – “‘Masterful’: Twitter Users Hail Adam Schiff’s ‘Powerful’ Case For Trump’s Removal”:
Here’s the historic segment of the speech on YT.
“CBS News reports that GOP Senators have been warned by Trump team: ‘Vote against the president, and your head will be on a pike’. How is this acceptable?”
Many Republicans seem to believe that their complicity with Trump will enhance their collective power. In fact, it further diminishes their power and enhances Trump’s power over them. He’s openly threatening them now; imagine what he’ll feel emboldened to do once they give him a public pass.
Elie Mystal:
“Everyone on the left has correctly expended so much energy over the past years condemning Trump for his association with and support from white supremacists, but when it’s Sanders and an anti-trans, anti-gay bigot it’s ‘he’s a part of our politics, what can we do?’ What bullshit.”
“Schiff’s closing, where he asked if senators had confidence that Trump would pick national interest over himself, was probably the most interesting moment so far of Dem arguments.
Chamber was dead silent and focused on him – didn’t see a single conversation on GOP side.”
“Fox News top legal analyst Judge Napolitano concludes Trump should be removed from office, ‘the evidence is ample and uncontradicted’.”
Link atl. Despite his being Fox’s top legal analyst, he hasn’t been on air during the impeachment trial. Surprising that this was even published.
Dahlia Lithwick at Slate – “Trump Is Not Shamed”:
I don’t share her fatalism (it ain’t over till it’s over) or the idea that he’s doing it “under cover of the fog of impeachment” (he’s doing the same things as always, and the impeachment and trial are calling attention to the pattern and making it harder to get away with some of it), and I think she’s ascribing motives to the Democrats that weren’t central to their decision to impeach, but she makes some important points. The House Managers will be talking about obstruction of Congress today. I don’t know if they’re planning to put the Ukraine-related obstruction in this broader context – will be interesting to see.
Politico – “House Dems say Trump lawyer ‘contradicts’ DOJ in McGahn lawsuit”:
Elizabeth Warren tweeted yesterday: “The Bolsonaro government is pursuing state retaliation against Glenn Greenwald because of his work as a journalist to expose public abuse and corruption. Brazil should drop the charges immediately and stop its attacks on a free and open press.” (See #96 above for background.)
Greenwald retweeted it, writing “Thank you, Senator @ewarren.” But the trollbot and rabid Sanders fan swarm is all over her tweet with a pattern of canned responses: this comes too late, probably had to focus-group test it, prove you’re a progressive by saying the same about Assange, this is a “bad look,” “hacking is not journalism,” you lost my vote for supporting a Russian asset.
Mehdi Hasan:
Video at the link.
“Yes, it’s Friday of the Senate’s historic impeachment trial of the President on grave allegations he hijacked US foreign policy for his personal purposes. And the president is complaining about… the ‘Death Valley’ Saturday ratings for his legal team.”
In other news, MSNBC in its great wisdom has decided that this morning their audience will get a panel featuring Chuck Todd and Peggy Noonan. What a treat!
Elie Mystal:
On Fox & Friends this morning: “Rudy pushed Ukraine conspiracy theories so breathlessly that Fox & Friends hosts couldn’t even get a word in. Beyond parody. He then called for an investigation into Joe Biden.”
Video atl.
“More than 1 million Iraqis out in the streets today telling America to get the f*** out of Iraq.
Absolutely amazing.”
Video atl.
#HeadOnAPike is now trending on Twitter.
The BBC with more re #256 – “Neo-Nazi Rinaldo Nazzaro running US militant group The Base from Russia”:
Re #270 – “Wildly conflicting figures on how many but appeared to us to be to be at least a couple hundred thousand – some wire stories saying just ‘thousands’. Extremely disciplined no matter the numbers. Sadrists and others sent their message and went home.”
Oliver Darcy, CNN:
Seem the Germans are no longer the “go to” guys for racial supremacy.
ABC – “‘Take her out’: Recording appears to capture Trump at private dinner saying he wants Ukraine ambassador fired”:
Sen. Schatz: “From the floor it was clear that Schiff’s speech shook some Republican Senators. But it will be a historic shame if they shut down this trial after opening arguments. Any Republican Senator who stakes a claim to reasonableness must allow witnesses and documents.”
TPM – “Schumer Picks Apart Latest GOP Excuse On Impeachment Witnesses”:
“New in Flynn: US District Judge Emmet Sullivan raises possibility of Michael Flynn testifying—’under oath, subject to cross-examination’—as he moves to withdraw his guilty plea ahead of sentencing.”
Document atl.
Akira MacKenzie @ #275:
And the ones who are…are backed by the Kremlin.
“NEW: 34 service members have been diagnosed with traumatic brain injury since the Jan. 8 Iranian missile attack, per the Pentagon.”
WaPo:
Trump administration threatens funds to California over requirement that health plans cover abortion
By William Wan and Yasmeen Abutaleb
“At the end of this remarkable exchange, during which @NPRKelly asks @SecPompeo why he hasn’t defended Amb. Marie Yovanovitch, the Secretary of State ends the interview:…”
Audio atl.
The highlighted part of this is amusing. But the next sentence is: “[Giuliani] also gave a quote to someone on the phone about how the people of Venezuela stand with President DONALD TRUMP against the ‘unconstitutional’ impeachment.”
WTF? In what capacity is he giving such a quote? For whom is he speaking? Why would he be asked for a quote about this at all? On what basis would Rudy Giuliani be asked to express the views of the people of Venezuela?
SC @ 284
Why the hell would Venezuela in general care and why would it matter if they did?
From the BBC piece @ #272: “Court documents prepared by the FBI describe The Base as a ‘racially motivated violent extremist group’ that ‘seeks to accelerate the downfall of the United States government, incite a race war, and establish a white ethno-state’.”
So a guy who was “listed as a guest at a Russian government security exhibition in Moscow” last year is, from Russia, trying to organize people to commit acts of terrorism in the US and violently overthrow the US government.
Schiff is showing video of John McCain talking about Russia and Ukraine.
Natasha Bertrand re the report @ #276: “An interesting twist to this: The recording was made by Fruman, not Parnas, according to ABC. Fruman was at one point in a joint defense agreement with Giuliani–unclear if that’s still the case.”
southpaw: “‘I don’t have any comment’, Fruman’s attorney Todd Blanche said when I asked whether the JDA is still in effect.”
In response to SC @263: “I don’t share her fatalism (it ain’t over till it’s over)…”
I agree. I cringe every time a pundit proclaims that, as far as the impeachment trial is concerned, “it’s a foregone conclusion,” or that “Republicans will not vote to impeach Trump.” Various pundits, news hosts and print media journalists are making it more likely that Trump will not be held to account by their constant repetition of statements that fall into the “we already we know the end of this story” category.
“Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand on CNN: ‘When you put your head in the sand, you shouldn’t be complaining that it’s dark. Ask for the witnesses, ask for the testimony’.”
This is worth watching: Seth Meyers points out that Trump continued to confess to crimes while the Senate impeachment trial was in progress.
Youtube link
The video is about 11.5 minutes long.
“Two Ohio cops who staged a wrongful arrest of Stormy Daniels, allegedly to discredit her criticism of Trump, then lied to internal affairs investigators, have been fired, reports @gettinviggy.”
NYT link atl.
“Trump’s statement after the killing of Suleimani
‘We caught a monster and we took him out’.”
This is also worth watching: Stephen Colbert talks about Trump fan-boy Matt Gaetz’s hurt feelings, among other topics related to the impeachment trial.
YouTube link
The video is 11:17 minutes long.
About Lindsey Graham: “People change. Spines disintegrate.”
Vice President Pence to reporters in Italy:
“What I’ve said over and over again is I was never aware of the allegations that there was some pressure campaign for investigations against the Bidens that was underway until those matters became public,” Pence said.
Asked whether Giuliani exercised good judgment in bringing Parnas into Trump’s orbit, Pence said, “I hold Rudy Giuliani in the highest regard.”
Not just ‘headaches’: 34 US troops diagnosed with brain injuries.
Schiff just pointed out to the Senators that, as they undoubtedly already know, Trump wouldn’t hesitate to order a sham investigation against any one of them if he thought it was in his interest.
New Court Documents Reveal Corruption at the Trump Inaugural Fund Went to the Very Top
The lawsuit could reveal the depths of chaos and waste in Trump’s introduction as president.
One of the benefits of this lawsuit, if it goes forward, is discovery of more malfeasance on the part of the Trump family.
Racism in America:
Link
Routine racism.
Can’t believe that Trump’s lawyer Jay Sekulow just told reporters that he intends to bring up conspiracy theories related to Fusion GPS as part of his defense of Trump.
Sekulow is actually planning to employ debunked and nonsensical conspiracy theories to argue, in so many words, that the Democrats colluded with Ukraine to influence the 2016 election.
First of all, that old crap is crap, and also, what does that have to do with Trump pressuring a foreign leader to interfere in the 2020 election? What does that have to do with Trump withholding military aid from Ukraine?
Followup to comment 300.
Sekulow also indicated that he was going to mention the Steele dossier in his defense of Trump.
“Inside chamber, senators sat silently as Schiff railed on ‘the most incredible propaganda coup’ of Trump ‘reciting Kremlin talking points’ and pushing a ‘kooky’ conspiracy theory.
Most GOP senators were in the chamber – I counted about 10 empty seats. And about 3 empty Dem seats.”
“This is where I point out that Val Demings is 62 and you will not look as good at 62 and it’s okay to cry about that.”
Holy shit!
Her outfit and necklace today are also perfect.
Followup to comments 300 and 301.
The debunked conspiracy theories that Sekulow touted to reporters today were earlier touted by Devin Nunes.
I should have noted in the earlier comment that Republicans, and Sekulow, were purporting collusion between Russia and the Democratic Party, and not just collusion between the Democrats and Ukraine.
Her is some of the fact-checking:
The above text is fact-checking provided by NBC News in July 2019.
Solid presentation from Rep. Garcia about how Trump instructed every part of the executive branch to refuse to comply entirely with congressional subpoenas. State and Defense had initially signaled that they would work and negotiate with congress, but that totally shut down after Cipollone’s October 8th letter.
Adam Schiff tweeted:
Trial video atl.
Garcia: “No documents, zero, goose egg, nada.”
Maddow: “Interesting line of argument from Manager Garcia here — a reminder that there were initial indications from both State and Defense that they would cooperate with the Impeachment Investigation and provide documents.
But then something happened to reverse their course.”
Now Lofgren is going through the subpoenaed witnesses and showing a graphic with a photo of each one in turn with “BLOCKED” stamped in red letters over their face.
LOL.
Tweets o’ the day.
Coming after Schiff’s remarks @ #306 and the warnings reported @ #258, Demings’ descriptions of Trump’s smears and threats against the whistleblower and his sources and career diplomatic staff who testified put into relief what a two-bit thug he is.
Oh – more re #309.
Speaking of thugs…update to #283 – “Wow. @NPR’s @NPRKelly just now on @npratc says @SecPompeo was furious about being questioned about Ukraine in her interview. Took her into his office, cursed at her, dropping f-bombs, made her point to Ukraine on an unmarked map (she did). It’s just…shocking.”
“NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly says the following happened after the interview in which she asked some tough questions to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.”
Transcribed from the image atl:
“I was taken to the Secretary’s private living room where he was waiting and where he shouted at me for about same amount of time as the interview itself.
He was not happy to have been questioned about Ukraine.
He asked, ‘do you think Americans care about Ukraine?’
He used the F-word in that sentence and many others. He asked if I could find Ukraine on a map. I said yes, and he called out for aides to bring us a map of the world with no writing. I pointed to Ukraine. He put the map away.
He said, ‘people will hear about this’.”
:).
“Parnas attorney, Joseph Bondy confirms to CNN he has turned over to the House Intel Committee an audio recording of Trump talking about Yovanovitch.”
Bondy is supposed to be on with Maddow tonight (assuming the trial ends by then, I guess, or maybe they’ll just air it at whatever time…?).
“Confirmed: Lev Parnas attorney, Joseph Bondy, tells me he has turned over to the House Intel Committee an hour long recording of President Trump talking about firing former US Amb to the Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. Bondy said Parnas found the recording in his iCloud account.”
The story is that he found it after seeing the ABC report.
Ian Dunt at Politics.co.uk – “Brexit 2020: Everything you need to know about Boris Johnson’s trade deal nightmare.”
Adam Schiff is an incredibly impressive orator. If you’re not already watching his remarks, I recommend that you tune in.
“Schiff finally taking on the faux outrage over whatever and cutting through everything
Dude’s drawing gasps if not blood right now
Gloves off”
Thomas Paine!
That was one of the best speeches in US history.
I’m reminded of my earlier post quoting William James on civic courage in 1897.
Lynna @ #287:
Absolutely.
[existentialist rant] It also grants them irresponsibility for their choices. Nothing is forcing any Republican to vote in any way. Not fate, some supernatural force, the Republican Party or its base, donors, McConnell, Trump. They’re responsible for their choices. For the media to pretend there’s no decision involved absolves them of that responsibility. The media has to start treating them like adults who bear responsibility for their decisions and expecting them to explain those decisions. [/existentialist rant]
“Republicans are VERY angry about Schiff’s decision to reference that CBS ‘head on a pike’ report. Murkowski says ‘that’s where he lost me’. Barrasso says ‘whatever gains he may have made, he lost all of it — plus some — tonight’.”
Schiff’s citing a news report is now responsible for their decisions. I think fucking not, Murkowski and Barrasso. Your decision is all on you, and you know it.
Sen. Murphy:
SC @324, Right. And earlier today Chris Matthews said at least three times that Trump is not worried because he has already been acquitted.
[Schiff]: “I ask you. I implore you: Give America a fair trial. Give America a fair trial. She’s worth it.”
“They won’t listen.” = “They are choosing not to listen.”
Maddow is starting now.
Lynna @ #327, ARGH.
For Lindsey Graham.
Chris Hayes:
The responses are very funny.
“Some Republicans: I was on the verge of doing my duty as a Senator to support the Constitution but then Adam Schiff referenced a news report about something a White House source said so I am mad and now I won’t fulfill my constitutional responsibility.”
It’s farcical. I’m reading A Very Stable Genius. Almost all Trump does is nurse grievances; rage at his perceived enemies; and seek vengeance against people, organizations, states, countries,… He does it privately. He does it publicly. All the time. The House Managers showed a clip in the trial of Trump calling for the whistleblower and his sources to be executed, FFS.
So far Trump’s lawyers’ presentation is every bit as ridiculous as expected.
LOL.
It’s just bizarre that they’re putting so much emphasis on Trump’s claims that European countries weren’t “sharing the burden” of Ukraine aid – including saying to Zelenskyy that Germany does almost nothing for them. As the House Managers already pointed out, these claims are totally false.
Pompeo has issued an appalling statement about his tantrum.
Marc Polymeropoulos: “This absurd press release embarrasses the State Dept like nothing I’ve seen before in 26 years. My sincere sympathy to all my State friends. We know this is not u.”
Statement atl.
Sekulow’s presentation is sad. He’s just doing what the Republicans tried to do in the House hearings: pull a few snippets of testimony out of the entire context of information like no one knows the context. But the Senate just spent three days hearing all of the surrounding information. This can work for a soundbite on Fox or when speaking with reporters, but the snippets carry no weight when people have all of the other information. “They didn’t tell you about that” is only effective if that remains significant in light of all of the other evidence. Also, the House Managers methodically presented evidence for hours, and their ignoring it doesn’t make it go away.
The House Intelligence Committee is fact-checking the Trump lawyers in real time.
Everything about this Philbin presentation is pathetic.
Cipollone just said they’ll be done in a few minutes. They’re all speaking slowly and taking long pauses and they can’t even fill up three hours on the first day.
Now Cipollone wants people to believe that Zelenskyy could just like drop by the White House.
Adam Schiff:
SC @341, that’s a good summary from Adam Schiff.
Doesn’t really matter how many cherry-picked quotes that Trump’s lawyers present to claim that Trump was focused on ending corruption in general (apparently planet-wide), Trump still leveraged a White House meeting and military aid to pressure Ukraine to announce a bogus investigation into Biden and into debunked conspiracy theories about 2016 election interference.
“@SenJoniErnst: ‘Within two hours I thought that the White House Counsel and their team entirely shredded the case that has been presented by the house managers’.”
“The cherrypicking was hilariously obvious and it was even funnier because they kicked things off by playing a clip of Schiff paraphrasing Trump and calling if ‘fake’, but they forgot to cut the part of Schiff’s comments where he said, essentially, ‘the following is a paraphrase’.”
I don’t know what I was doing at the beginning of that hearing, but I’m not sure if I heard Schiff’s comments. Not only does he make it clear that he’s conveying the gist of the call (which is also much closer to the way Trump actually does speak than the more formal language he uses when he knows there will be an official record!) but he really accurately conveys the gist of the call. It’s incredible that there could have been any controversy about it at all.
“Imagine what Pompeo does to people in his orbit who don’t have a platform to tell their story to millions.”
Josh Marshall – “Shattering the Share Illusion”:
“I cannot stop thinking about @SecPompeo’s statement that is on official US State Department letterhead, disparaging an American journalist and American journalism. The State Department is first stop for American journalists taken hostage or in peril overseas.”
re SC @314: Pompouseo is such a great example of a fine christian man, isn’t he?
Guardian – “Prepping for a race war: documents reveal inner workings of neo-Nazi group”:
Guardian – “Several killed as Iraqi security forces raid protest site”:
“It seems like Trump’s lawyers inadvertently making the case for new witnesses and documents may be more of a misstep than quoting a line from a CBS story that no one has refuted, but what do I know.”
Tweet o’ the day.
“Sekulow has now raised the false flag of Ukraine interfering in the last election. Several witnesses and experts have called this theory as a concerted Russian disinformation campaign designed to undermine Ukraine and US. This is dangerous territory for the defense team.”
The lawyers also expressed contempt for the Mueller investigation/report and suggested that Trump was right to dismiss the findings of the intelligence community and go with “people he trusts” (presumably Putin, Giuliani, and Firtash’s lawyers).
BuzzFeed – “Mike Pompeo Sent Investigators To Ukraine Ahead Of His Visit To Look Into The Possible Surveillance Of Marie Yovanovitch”:
“Here’s @SenatorLankford tying himself in knots to justify his disinterest in seeing evidence of the president’s abuses of power…”
Video atl. Clown.
MoveOn tweeted:
The swarm is out in full force in the responses attacking MoveOn.
Here’s a link to the full 1.5-hour video (mostly audio) of the donor event at which Trump told people to get rid of Yovanovitch and asked how long Ukraine would last in the war with Russia without US support.
AP – “In recording Trump asks how long Ukraine can resist Russians”:
SC @343, OMG, too many Republicans have brains that do not work well. I wonder how much of that is confirmation bias.
Debunking some of Pompeo’s lies:
Link
From Ian Shapira:
See the map at the link.
https://twitter.com/ianshapira/status/1221105492451385344
Trump’s Legal Team Opened Their Impeachment Defense With a Blizzard of Lies
“The president did absolutely nothing wrong.”
Link
@ Lynna #359
I would bet that Ernst had that all typed up and ready to go before things even started today.
“NPR CEO tells @NPRMichel that Pompeo behavior went beyond usual tension between reporters and government officials to intimidation.
And we will not be intimidated, he said.”
Preet Bharara: “Anyone blindly supporting this President can just fully shut up about ‘decorum’.”
The Main Trump Super-PAC Is Covering Up Its Own Role in the Impeachment Scandal
A conspiracy theory, a chronology, and a con.
OMFG. This, my friends, is from the President of the United States:
In other news, tomh @362, I agree. She was just shopping for an excuse. It didn’t matter what the excuse was.
From Peter Baker:
From Chris Megerian:
From David Gura:
From Maggie Haberman:
Note, it was not an OTR (off the record) conversation, as already noted.
From General Michael Hayden:
From Wonkette:
The Atlantic – “Obama’s 2016 Warning: Trump Is a ‘Fascist’”:
(Jason Stanley’s How Fascism Works is worthwhile in this context.)
From Dana Milbank:
Washington Post link
Business Insider – “Democrats are having a field day after Trump’s lawyers accidentally made the strongest case to call witnesses in his impeachment trial”:
Quoted in Lynna’s #369:
I remain amazed at how they continue to talk about the Mueller investigation. The first volume didn’t cover only the question of whether there was a criminal conspiracy with the Trump campaign but the “sweeping and systematic” Russian interference in the 2016 election. All of Trump’s efforts to obstruct and shut down the investigation detailed in Volume 2 were efforts to sabotage the investigation of Putin’s actions as well. All of his attacks on the intelligence community worked and continue to work to Putin’s benefit as he continues to attack the US. The Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee, who reached the same conclusions as Mueller’s team and shared their view of the seriousness of the Kremlin’s actions, somehow have nothing to say about Trump’s lawyers dismissing Mueller’s work and spewing Kremlin propaganda on the Senate floor.
The Des Moines Register just endorsed Warren.
A word in remembrance to my former Congressman, Pete Stark, who died yesterday, the first, perhaps only, openly atheist member of Congress. Thirty years ago he was talking about the 1%, introducing bills for single payer health care, bills to ban LGBTQ discrimination, enacting family leave and many other things, now seen as progressive.
Being outspoken, he made a lot of enemies, on both sides of the aisle, and had to apologize more than once–for example he charged Bush with sending young soldiers to war in Iraq “to get their heads blown off for the president’s amusement.” But he added to his apology, “But I respect neither the commander in chief who keeps them in harm’s way nor the chicken-hawks in Congress who vote to deny children health care.”
He grew more crusty and grouchy after 20 terms in Congress, but in his prime he was a force to be reckoned with.
Some podcasts:
Slate Trumpcast: “A Historical Lens on Trump’s Authoritarianism: And what we can learn from earlier fear-based political structures?” – interview with Ruth Ben-Ghiat in which she discusses her forthcoming book Strongmen: How They Rise, Why They Succeed, How They Fall
Slate Trumpcast: “Why People Fall for Trump’s Political Cult: A cult expert weighs in on Trumpism.” – “Virginia Heffernan talks to Steven Hassan, author of The Cult of Trump, about why we fall for cults, Donald Trump’s brainwashing, and stories of his own deprogramming from a political cult in the 1970s.”
Yesterday’s Lovett or Leave It: “The Rural Jurors.” The discussion of the Fox wardrobe and the rant at the end about “gaygeism” are especially good.
Rubicon: “The Fix” – “What if the Senate completes an impeachment trial in a way that deprives the public of the fairness it demands, and plainly violates the oath senators take to do impartial justice? Noah Feldman, a Harvard Law Professor and host of the Deep Background podcast joins host Brian Beutler to discuss the opening of the trial of Donald Trump, and the legitimacy crisis we face if Republicans complete his coverup for him.”
From last night’s SNL – “Weekend Update: Melissa Villaseñor on Oscar Snubs.”
The usual suspects responded in the predictable way, and now the refrain is trending on Twitter.
Some responses.
“‘We command all satanic pregnancies to miscarry right now’ — Special Adviser to the White House Faith and Opportunity Initiative Paula White”
“…We come against the marine kingdom. We come against the animal kingdom….”
“Lev Parnas’s attorney, Joseph Bondy, tells @andersoncooper that his client is in possession of more recordings of President Trump, some of which they’ve sent to the House Intelligence Committee, and which they may release to the public.”
Trump is now openly threatening the lead House Manager. This is like a defendant publicly threatening the prosecutor.
Walter Dellinger: “Read the Nixon ‘smoking gun’ transcript and you will conclude that it would not even have been a speed bump for the crowd defending Trump. ‘Nothing there’ would have been endlessly and successfully repeated.”
Barb McQuade: “President Trump’s continued use of public intimidation and retaliation is a form of jury tampering. Imagine if a defendant could publicly denounce the prosecution and negatively influence career prospects of a juror.”
Heidi Przybyla at NBC – “Alan Dershowitz labeled Trump ‘destabilizing and unpredictable’ in 2016 book”:
Religion Clause:
President Proclaims National School Choice Week
Choice=Religious schools. Trump going all out for the Evangelicals.
SC @371, thanks for adding this:
re tomh @383: I very much doubt that The Orange Toddler-Tyrant wrote that proclamation. It actually has coherent sentence structure. Maybe Paula White and Betsy DeVos got together and wrote it for him.
Followup to comments 314, 360 and 367.
Oh, FFS. Now Trump is threatening to cut NPR’s funding. That’s his response to Pompeo melting down during and especially after an interview. Trump has threatened to cut NPR’s funding before. I think he just renewed his support for that idea because his good buddy and fellow small-minded misogynist Mike Pompeo was shown to be a dunderhead by NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly.
Link
More abjectly delusional comments from a Republican senator:
Link
@ #385
Of course he didn’t actually write it. What does that matter?
Not necessarily a political topic: Kobe Bryant has died in a helicopter crash.
johnson catman @385, I agree. And I think it’s good to note when others are ghost-writing Trump’s tweets.
In a way, the ghost-written tweets remind us that Trump is easily swayed by whomever is close to him — just like we saw in the recent recorded conversation in which Trump, without even knowing her name, orders the firing of the ambassador to Ukraine when a purported stranger, Lev Parnas, badmouths the ambassador.
Also, the ghost writing reminds us that Trump is not only a hypocrite, he is an ignorant hypocrite.
There are now four cases of the new coronavirus in the USA.
In other news, we are seeing increased activity at some of North Korea’s missile research centers.
Link
More details regarding Kobe Bryant’s death:
Link
Followup to SC @377.
From Wonkette:
From Wonkette:
re Lynna @392: Kobe
I think whoever wrote the story missed some proofreading.
Followup to comments 358 and 378.
From Washington Post writer, Philip Bump:
I reread the the conversation about Javelin missiles, and the following paragraphs. It certainly sounds to me like Trump was ignorant, not “steadfast,” when it came to military support for Ukraine.
These cartoons, sketches from the Senate impeachment trial, are excellent.
Washington Post link
Quoted in Lynna’s #392:
MSNBC is now reporting that his daughter Gianna, her teammate, and her teammate’s parent were killed in the crash along with him and the pilot.
Oh god this is so sad.
Frank Figliuzzi: “Think about this; a US congressman will need even more security because of a tweet from a President. In a real trial, the judge would warn the defendant’s lawyers about implied calls to harm the prosecutor, and would eventually gag the defendant.”
SC @398, thanks for that update. Yes, Kobe Bryant’s 13-year-old daughter also died in that crash.
SC, I don’t expect that the judge will put a gag order on Trump, but, man, think about what an excellent idea that is!
From Barack Obama:
From Max Boot, writing for The Washington Post:
From John Cassidy, writing for The New Yorker:
The LA sheriff in a press conference just said there were 9 people in the crash, which had no survivors.
Lynna, thanks for the Wonkette link @ #393.
I can generally make sense of what people are trying to say, but I honestly have no idea what she’s talking about. Is she high? What on earth is she talking about?
Also, a miscarriage of a desired pregnancy is often devastating. It’s despicable for her to be wishing that suffering on people.
“NEW: Trump directly tied the Ukraine aid freeze to investigations, John Bolton’s book says. This could upend the impeachment witness debate…”
NYT link atl. I don’t have access.
“I know it’s an outrageous outrage to suggest Republican senators are engaged in a cover-up but… if they don’t call Bolton after this, they are most definitely engaged in a cover-up.”
Ryan Goodman:
Erica Orden:
Sen Schatz: “The NYT is breaking a very big story that under normal circumstances would cause Senators to unanimously request to hear from those with first hand knowledge of what the President did.”
Neal Katyal:
Yahoo – “Three rockets hit US embassy in protest-hit Iraqi capital”:
Video of the protests described @ #413, with brief translation of what they’re singing.
“NEW stmt from impeachment managers: ‘Senators should insist that Mr. Bolton be called as a witness, and provide his notes and other relevant documents…There is no defensible reason to wait until his book is published, when the information he has to offer is critical’ to Senate
‘There can be no doubt now that Mr. Bolton directly contradicts the heart of the President’s defense and therefore must be called as a witness at the impeachment trial of President Trump’, their stmt continues, calling it an ‘explosive’ revelation.”
I’ve seen several suggestions that they subpoena the book draft from Simon & Schuster.
“Pompeo lied. Again. — Emails support NPR host after Pompeo calls her a liar in setting up contentious interview…”
WaPo link atl.
Reuters – “Salvadoran general admits army carried out infamous 1981 massacre”:
At the time and later, Reagan officials, particularly Elliott Abrams, called reporting on the massacre and the Salvadoran army’s responsibility leftist propaganda.
From Wikipedia:
War criminal and war-crime apologist Abrams was appointed a year ago by Trump as the US Special Representative for Venezuela. Of course.
Here’s a short video of Ilhan Omar grilling Abrams, including about the El Mozote massacre, last February. Naturally, she was criticized for it.
Biden surrogate Dave Harden tweeted at Omar: “I was a career FSO and later Obama appointee, Elliott Abrams was a kind, thoughtful, non partisan mentor. Let’s try to see the best – rather than the worst – in people.”
David Cay Johnston: “At long last, vindication for @RayBonner1 & other journalists whose truthful 1981 El Mozote massacre reporting was denounced by Reagan Admin officials.
Bonner got yanked back from El Salvador to NYC by @nytimes editors. Other journalists also wronged.”
Intercept – “Interim Bolivian Government Taps the Same Lobby Firm Hired to Sell the Coup in Honduras”:
AAAAAAAAAAARGH! You have to fix this and other errors, Intercept! This is inexcusable! This was not what the referendum was on! And Zelaya was leaving office in the same election in which the referendum was to take place! It didn’t “look like” any such thing! Aaaaaaaargh this drives me nuts! There are so many lies about Latin America in US media – it is totally unacceptable and irresponsible for a leftwing publication to lazily repeat them.
SC, I only know a couple of words in Babbletongue, but here’s a fellow on Twitter who seems to have some background in it who offers a short thread of explanation. Submitted for your consideration.
Tweet o’ the day.
Kip T.W. @ #422, thank you so much (as usual :))!
From the link:
Not only does this explain it in the way that makes the most sense to me, it’s significant in terms of my current research, so I’m bookmarking it (so thanks for that, too!). These sorts of beliefs about the natural world are incredibly tragic and dangerous. Wild that a hostility toward “marine spirits” would be common even among neo-charismatics in Florida of all places.
I’m not as convinced as he is about the pregnancy/miscarriage references being purely metaphorical (she’s claiming this, too, unconvincingly). The language is just too concrete. (It’s quite strange that she would choose this language even metaphorically. It seems possible that she wanted to try to turn around reproductive rights arguments and use them against reproductive rights proponents, but if so it wasn’t very well thought through.)
Extremely interesting.
Nancy Pelosi:
@ SC #408
NYT:
Trump Tied Ukraine Aid to Inquiries He Sought, Bolton Book Says
By Maggie Haberman and Michael S. Schmidt
Jan. 26, 2020 Updated 9:12 p.m. ET
“Just to recap: The president’s personal lawyer contradicted his press secretary, implying that his client’s relationship with Parnas and Fruman—made manifest by Fruman’s video—predates his own…. which also contradicts his client’s prior denial that any such relationship exists.”
from tomh @426 re Orange’s thoughts on John Bolton testifying:
That would be every leader that has been an ally of the US in the past. It would exclude any dictators, who are admired and revered by The Orange Toddler-Tyrant.
Thanks, tomh @ #426! It’s even more explosive than I thought!
Hahahahahaha.
“This is Fox News basically telling Bolton ‘stop snitching’…”
Video atl.
“Wow. Bill Taylor, who Pompeo picked to lead US embassy Kyiv after Amb. Yovanovitch was recalled & before having him depart this month, writes in NYTimes: ‘Yes, Secretary Pompeo, Americans Should Care About Ukraine’.
[NYT link atl]
This follows Pompeo telling NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly in a tirade Friday, do you think Americans care about Ukraine.
Was told by a former US official that the US embassy has indicated that they don’t want Pompeo to do a town hall when he travels to Ukraine later this week.”
Rep. Nadler: “Read my statement on missing part of the Senate Impeachment Trial on Monday because of a family health matter:…”
Statement atl. His wife has pancreatic cancer. Get well soon.
Chuck Schumer:
SC @399:
Rich dude dies in helicopter crash.
(So sad! So politically mad!)
STFU John.
The Athletic – “Remembering Gigi Bryant (2006-2020)”:
Update to #58 – thank you, Sardines! BBC – “Italy’s far-right Salvini fails to gain foothold in key regional election”:
W.T.F.
“‘They were inspired by what he did on the field, what he meant off the field’ — Pete Buttigieg on Kobe Bryant, who played basketball.”
Laurence Tribe: “A horrible connection if it pans out: On Dec. 30, Trump learned what Bolton’s book would say. Bolton has been pushing war with Iran for years. Iran’s General Soleimani was in US sights for years. Trump suddenly ordered his assassination on Jan. 3, four days after seeing the book.”
Maggie Haberman: “Per sources, some GOP senators privately pushing White House for information on who at administration had visibility into the manuscript over the last month. Senators feel blindsided.”
“Brian Kilmeade’s takeaway from the Bolton news is that the president ‘has to do a better job vetting his staff’.
Before joining the White House, Bolton spent a decade as Kilmeade’s Fox colleague.”
Video clip atl. Later this week, Trump could muse about investigating/imprisoning Bolton and the F&F gang would get behind it. In a few months, Trump could turn on one of them for whatever reason and the other two would go along.
Julian Sanchez re #441: “It’s amazing how they haven’t processed that inculpatory evidence is going to keep coming out. It’s like after every embarrassing disclosure they exhale and think: ‘Well, at least THAT’s surely the last of it…'”
Giuliani is under investigation by the SDNY, FFS!
This is outstanding.
“Notes…memos…tapes…
Adam Schiff this morning on CNN said that he is more interested in Bolton’s notes than the manuscript: ‘These notes took place while the events were happening,while they were fresh in his mind. Those in many respects are more important than the manuscript’.”
Yes, it is not only Trump’s lawyer, Jay Sekulow, who seems to believe bonkers conspiracy theories. Many Republican senators believe the same discredited conspiracy theories.
TPM link
Re 443. The Rethugs remind me of the guy who falls from the 99th floor of the Empire State Building and is heard as he passes the 50th floor, “So Far, so good.”
From Dana Milbank, writer for The Washington Post:
From the Associated Press: AP FACT CHECK: Trump misstates the record on John Bolton
More at the link.
Matthew Miller: “It’s easy to get cynical and join the Nothing Matters crowd, but you can see the ground shifting today. Not because the GOP wants to do the right thing, but because public opinion might force them to. Keep calling and fighting.”
From Mitt Romney:
The Executive Privilege Claims on Bolton Are Totally Fake
This is an essay by Josh Marshall:
From Joan McCarter:
What Mitch McConnell said earlier:
Jason Stanley, whose book about fascism I mentioned @ #368 above, has a piece in today’s Guardian (today is the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz) – “I have lived my life in the shadow of Auschwitz. This is what it has meant.”:
Rudi Giuliani, proven liar, obvious trumpian lickspittle, and conspiracy theorist extraordinaire, tried to insult John Bolton:
From Nancy Pelosi:
This speech by Ken Starr is one of the weirdest things I’ve ever witnessed.
Ari Melber: “Ken Starr opens by arguing impeachment has become too common in the modern era. I rarely use caps but that is BEYOND RICH coming from him.”
“Normalized? Seriously, Ken Starr? In the past 20 years, the House has impeached a grand total of three people: two judges, and @realDonaldTrump.”
It’s just…I’m speechless.
“‘That well intention[ed] if misguided effort, was allowed to die a quiet death’. — Starr.
Quiet? DUDE YOU KILLED IT! Your MISUSE of the independent counsel power IS WHY they rewrote the thing.
ASK @neal_katyal WHO WROTE THE NEW THING!”
“Ken Starr in his book, ‘Contempt: A Memoir of the Clinton Investigation’, on Abuse of Power:
‘The reaction of the abuse-of-power skeptics –including Republican members of the House-surprised me. This wasn’t an obscure legal doctrine. This is what had brought Nixon down’.”
“BREAKING: On 5-4 vote, Supreme Court lets Trump administration start enforcing new immigrant wealth test, designed to screen out green card applicants seen as being at risk of becoming ‘public charges’.”
“The hypocrisy, y’all. The hypocrisy.
Starr says, even if we read impeachment out of the constitution, congressional oversight will still prevent Presidents from becoming King.
IT IS THAT OVERSIGHT THAT TRUMP IS BEING IMPEACHED FOR OBSTRUCTING!!!! GGAAHHHHHHH!”
“Senior level White House sources tell @ABC the president’s legal team is preparing for the possibility of witnesses in the impeachment trial. Sources tell @jonkarl @KFaulders & me legal team preparing aggressive, drawn out legal fight to block testimony of potential witnesses.”
Starr is one of those pompous white men who delivers his weak and banal (and considering the partisan hack of a source here, insanely hypocritical) statements as if they’re profound and weighty and due special consideration. People granting this bullshit the respect it doesn’t deserve is how we got here.
OMG the pens.
“Whoa, sparks fly on Fox News: Chris Wallace tells @KatiePavlich, ‘Get your facts straight!’
@BretBaier then says, ‘Let’s tone it down’.”
Video atl.
“Starr’s claim that all House subpoenas issued before the House passed Res. 660 were void is legally wrong and is irrelevant to Impeachment Article 2, which focuses not on disobeying particular subpoenas but on directing unprecedented refusal to provide any and all information.”
They keep saying Trump didn’t go to Warsaw so he could “manage the response” to Hurricane Dorian. He golfed.
“Jay Sekulow and Mike Purpura are arguing the ‘facts’ as though the Bolton bombshell hadn’t exploded. This displays incomprehensible argumentative ineptitude. Adapting to radically changed circumstances is the least that respect for one’s audience demands.”
JFC we have the chains of text messages in which they’re going back and forth on the precise content of the announcement of the investigations in exchange for getting a date set for an Oval Office meeting.
“Over and over again, the Supreme Court has not only ruled in favor of Trump’s immoral policies, but actively intervened to ensure those policies are implemented while cases are pending. That isn’t calling balls and strikes. It is choosing to exercise its discretion to do this.”
Purpura is now outright mischaracterizing the evidence about US policy towards Ukraine by cherrypicking quotes and spinning them into a characterization that isn’t what the witnesses said.
“WH lawyers still not uttered ‘Giuliani’, and been misleading about the testimony of Sondland, Fiona Hill, Laura Cooper, and others.”
Ari Melber is calling is calling Ken Starr’s speech a “legal, moral, and Constitutional disaster for the Republicans.”
Melber: “Constitutionally, we watched Ken Starr punch himself in the face and walk of the floor.”
Sekulow just brought up Giuliani.
Jane Raskin is now talking about Giuliani. She’s already mischaracterizing the evidence the House Managers presented. I can’t imagine that she plans to ignore that Trump told Zelenskyy to talk to Giuliani in the call record.
She’s misrepresenting the House Managers’ arguments again – they didn’t claim that Giuliani had one single motive; in fact, they explicitly discussed the complex motives. She’s gonna put this on Giuliani.
It’s over. It was just confusing and addressed nothing substantive.
Hahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Philbin just repeated the false and stupid “due process” arguments. He’s still droning on. Repetitive, no rhyme or reason, just stretching out time, evading reality. They came in talking about how they were going to show that Trump “did nothing wrong.”
“That was fascinating. Jane Raskin offered a full-throated defense of Rudy Giuliani, saying he wasn’t on ‘a political errand’ but just being a good defense attorney. ‘It turns out, Rudy was spot on’, she told the Senate. The president’s allies have largely avoided defending him.”
It still didn’t seem to me that they were really defending him so much as trying to push more of this onto him and distance Trump from him while not angering him.
Followup to SC @465.
You noted how irritating, and wrong, Ken Starr is/was.
Other people agree. This is from Steve Benen:
LInk
Debunking The GOP Argument That It Was The House’s Job To Call Witnesses
Shimon Prokupecz agrees with me. :)
Followup to SC @483.
While I was listening to that, I thought that they were trying to throw Giuliani under the bus without him noticing. It was bizarre.
“This is going so well for the White House, Fox News has cut away to discuss the tanking stock market.”
They keep arguing that if the Senate gathers any evidence or subpoenas any witnesses, it will be terrible because that will be the “new normal.” But it’s the old normal. It happened in every case in the past. They also keep talking about executive privilege, which Trump has not invoked.
New York Can Subpoena Ukraine Witnesses and Documents
If the Senate won’t act, Cy Vance must investigate.
More at the link.
From Steve Benen:
Yes. If Ken Starr is looking for a “consensus,” we have one: the Senate should call new witnesses.
Now Pam Bondi on Biden. I don’t know how much of this intellectual dishonesty I can take.
“Reminder: when Pam Bondi was the AG of Florida, Trump U was under investigation for fraud there. After she sought—and received—a donation from Trump, the investigation against him & his conjob of an online university was magically dropped.”
SC @492, yeah, Pam Bondi is convicting Hunter Biden. It’s another bizarre moment. This has nothing to do with the articles of impeachment against Trump.
Still, Bondi is free to refer her case against Hunter Biden to law enforcement officials, if she so chooses.
“This Pam Bondi presentation about Hunter Biden is the Trump team achieving in a Senate trial what Trump couldn’t get Ukraine to do: publicly smear the Bidens.”
“The Trump team is never going to get the chance to deliver this Hunter Biden message in a lofty venue like this again. They chose to have the Florida Attorney General who took money from Donald Trump while her office was investigating his fraudulent university carry it.”
Now she’s fully into the conspiracy theory, which all of the witnesses debunked. Complete with references to some unnamed consultant and the false claim that Shokin was investigating Burisma corruption. The Senate has already seen the evidence about this, and how Shokin wasn’t investigating, how he was corrupt, how firing him was US policy, how it was US’ allies’ policy, and how this made it more likely that the investigation of Burisma would be carried out.
“Bondi is reading to the Senate a reporting email that Ken Vogel sent to the State Dept like it’s an established fact, even though as she says Vogel never ran a story with the claims in the email.
If you FOIA a given reporter’s emails to a government agency, you’re going to find a lot of assertions that didn’t check out.”
It was really nauseating.
Now the next guy is telling the same lie about the House Managers presenting no evidence that the Biden allegations had been debunked. They presented extensive evidence of this. Oh jesus, he’s going to start the “Ukraine interfered in the 2016 elections.” Lying about the findings of the Mueller report. Off to a disgusting start.
Tweet o’ the day.
I can’t believe they’re talking about this like Trump and his kids aren’t a bunch of professional grifters siphoning public money to line their pockets every second of every day. His daughter and son-in-law, who are totally unqualified and couldn’t get security clearances, work in the fucking White House. His sons continue to do overseas deals. He’s facing multiple emoluments suits. He’s illegally blocking turning over his tax returns. His chief of staff announced, during a press conference in which he admitted the impeachable quid pro quo, that the G-7 would be at one of his shitty failing properties. I could go on.