Inflection Point?

The July Call:  Things really do feel different this time and not in a good way for Team Trump, or not.  Yesterday, the White House released what they are calling a transcript of his now infamous July phone call with Ukraine President Zelensky.  The so-called transcript was probably not complete but it was very damning. The weird thing is that because it didn’t include an explicit quid pro quo, Trump’s team thought it was exculpatory, at least that’s what they said in the talking points that they distributed to Republican members of the House and Senator, talking points that, in another act of incompetence, they inadvertently shared with all of the Democrats who immediately started tweet mocking their Republican colleagues using those “defense” points.  As detailed in the transcript, Trump began the July call by congratulating Zelensky for his election victory before going on to criticize European leaders for not doing enough for Ukraine. Zelensky, agreed with Trump, part of his effort to be collegial and fawning, knowing that’s what you are supposed to do when speaking with Trump. After a bit of small talk Zelensky then expressed appreciation for US aid adding that he was ready to buy more Javelin anti-tank missiles. In response Trump uttered a Mafia style version of a quid pro quo saying “I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it.”  He followed that up first by asking Zelensky to help figure out the situation with Crowdstrike, the technology company that the DNC retained after discovering their servers had been hacked during the 2016 election, a reference to a conspiracy theory pushed by Roger Stone, among others, that it was Ukrainians who hacked the DNC and have those 30,000 Hillary emails not Putin and his Russian trolls.  After that Trump asked Zelensky to cooperate with Attorney General Barr and that “highly respected” former Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani on an investigation into Joe Biden and his son Hunter.  While doing so Trump also managed to malign the former US Ambassador to Ukraine, the respected long term US diplomat who he recalled from Ukraine because she was a “bad news” woman.  Zelensky, obviously desperate to get more of those Javelins, agreed to everything.  Last night the NY Times reported that Trump’s fixation with Ukraine and his desire to get those “Hillary emails” as well as implicate Joe Biden traces back far further than the July phone call.  This mess is deep and to say the least very troubling.  So troubling that at last count Pelosi and her team now have the 218 votes they need for impeachment.  

Circular Firing Squad:  Yesterday, as planned Trump met with Zelensky. In a press conference that followed, Zelensky, who looked shell shocked remained appropriately fawning to Trump though he did manage to utter that he “did not want to get involved in US elections.” Too bad for him, he already is.  Later, in another press conference where he summarized all the great things that he accomplished during the UN meetings, Trump managed to throw VP Pence under the bus by telling the assorted press representatives that they “should ask for Vice President Pence’s conversations, because he had a couple of conversations also.”  So in case you’ve stopped counting, over the past few days Trump has implicated his VP, his Secretary of State, his good buddy/lawyer Giuliani, his Attorney General, his Chief of Staff and a few ambassadors in the Ukraine quid pro quo mess.  Of those only Giuliani seems happy about being implicated, though he too is pointing fingers at others. Tuesday night he told Fox’s Laura Ingraham that all his work with the Ukrainians had been done at the request of Pompeo’s State Department.  To prove that point, he held up his cell phone, claiming it was chock full of information documenting how he’d kept State fully in the loop about everything he’d done. Time to subpoena that phone, someone please.

Whistleblower Time:  Late yesterday, the White House provided copies of the Whistleblower complaint for members of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees to review in their respective super-secure SCIF facilities.  A number of them, including a few Republicans,  emerged looking dazed and troubled but given the rules of the road no one provided specific details.  However, we should learn more about the contents of the complaint today because last night the White House declassified all or part of the complaint to be released as soon as this morning. Additionally, the acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire, is scheduled to testify today before both the House and Senate Intel Committees.  According to some reports Maguire threatened to resign unless the White House okayed him speaking openly about the contents of the Whistleblower complaint so his testimony should be revealing. As to the complaint we learned yesterday that intelligence officials sent a related criminal referral to the Justice Department asking them to open an investigation into whether or not anyone implicated in it had committed  campaign finance violations.  Here’s a shocker, Barr’s Justice Department concluded that it was a nothing burger, just another problem for Barr who should recuse himself from this mess, but probably won’t. As to Barr, last May Senator Kamala Harris asked him if the Trump administration had requested the opening of any investigations into anyone for them.  He refused to answer, pretending not to understand the question.  Harris is now demanding he return to give that question another go, because the transcript of the Zelensky call certainly makes it look like he was asked to open an investigation into the Bidens.

Republican Response:  The usual Republican suspects are lining up behind Trump on all of this with Moscow Mitch saying it’s “laughable to think this is anywhere close to an impeachable offense” but a few cracks in the red wall, albeit really small ones, are starting to appear.  Mitt Romney finds all of this “deeply troubling,”  Ben Sasse, the Nebraska senator who is up for reelection in 2020  said “There are real troubling things here. Republicans ought not just circle the wagons and Democrats ought not be using words like 'impeach' before they knew anything about the actual substance,” and Mike Murphy,  a former aide to both Romney and McCain said he’s been told that 30 Republican Senators would vote for impeachment.  That’s probably not correct, but it sounds nice.  

Other News:  Israel’s President Rivlin has asked Bibi Netanyahu to try to form a government.  It’s not clear that he will be able to do so and allowing him to be asked first could be a strategy, albeit a risky one, by his opponent, Benny Gantz to prove that he can’t.  Then again Bibi keeps rising from the ashes, so who knows.  Domestically, the US Senate again voted to kill Trump’s national emergency declaration, the one he’s been using to justify the redirection of funds to his wall project, unfortunately the majority didn’t gain any new votes so Trump is expected to issue another veto and go on building.  And lying.