Whistle While You Work
Drip, Drip, Drip: The saga of
the thwarted whistleblower complaint continues.
The day started with Trump issuing one of his non-denial, denials. Instead of forcefully saying that he hadn’t
had any inappropriate conversations nor made any illegal
promises to any foreign leaders he tweeted “Another Fake News story out there - It never ends! Virtually
anytime I speak on the phone to a foreign leader, I understand that there may
be many people listening from various U.S. agencies, not to mention those from
the other country itself. No problem! Knowing all of this, is anybody dumb enough to believe that I
would say something inappropriate with a foreign leader while on such a
potentially “heavily populated” call.”
Of course, the answer to that question is that virtually everyone who’s
been paying attention knows that he is dumb enough to say and devious enough to
do inappropriate things because we’ve heard him reveal top secret spy info to
the Russians, tweet out capability revealing satellite photos and, as recently
as Wednesday, he was on the verge of revealing secret information about border
technology.
Anyway, getting back to the whistleblower saga, with the aid of AG Barr’s Justice Department the White House is still doing its best to prevent the Inspector General and the acting Director of National Intelligence from revealing exactly what it was that freaked out the whistleblower enough for him or her to put his or her career on the line by reporting that Trump had “promised” something he shouldn’t have promised to a world leader. Despite the White House’s obstructive efforts, two sources informed the Washington Post that the whistleblower’s concerns were triggered not by a promise to Vladimir Putin but by a mid-July phone call between Trump and Ukraine’s new president Volodymyr Zelensky. Though details of the call have not yet “dripped” out yet, it looks likely that Trump engaged in some serious arm twisting with Zelensky, part of an effort to get the newly elected president and political neophyte to “cooperate” in an “investigation” of former VP Joe Biden and his son Hunter’s activities in Ukraine in exchange for the release of previously promised and authorized military aid. Because who doesn’t seek aid from foreign governments in the run up to an election? Congressional Democrats had already been investigating that call, questioning why they hadn’t received a full “read out” of what had been discussed. It’s probably not a coincidence that, claiming concerns about political corruption in Ukraine, the Trump administration sat on the aid in question until a few weeks ago, only agreeing to release the funds after being pressured to do so by a bipartisan group of senators. Yesterday, Michael Atkinson, the very frustrated Inspector General, a career government employee appointed by Trump to his current position, testified before a closed door session of an equally frustrated House Intelligence Committee. Atkinson confirmed that he continues to believe that the whistleblower’s report is both urgent and of utmost concern and that he disagrees with Joseph McGuire, the acting Director of National Intelligence’s questionable, White House dictated, conclusion that it isn’t as well as the acting DNI’s decision to keep the House and Senate Intel committees in the dark, but that he is prohibited by law from revealing the contents of the whistleblower’s report because that responsibility is outside of his job description. McGuire, the Acting DNI, who is not expected to be all that forthcoming, is scheduled to appear before the House Committee next week. To cap off the day, Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s crazy as a fox legal advisor who has traveled to Ukraine a few times on Trump’s behalf made an appearance on Chris Cuomo’s CNN program last night. During their conversation he first denied asking anyone in Ukraine’s government to dig up dirt on anyone before blurting “Of course I asked the Ukraine to look into Joe Biden related to his ‘massive bribery scandal.’” Going on to say that he was proud that he had. Giuliani seems to be taking a page from his and Trump’s Playmate/ Porn Star Playbook, the page where they first deny that Trump did anything wrong, then say if he did it wasn’t wrong, before admitting that he did it. Separately, another Washington Post correspondent, Robert Costa, reports that he was the assigned pool reporter who accompanied VP Pence during his recent trip to Poland, the one where Pence stood in as Trump’s last minute replacement while Trump stayed home playing golf and overseeing the hurricane that didn’t hit Alabama. During that meeting Pence had a somewhat tense meeting with President Zelensky that was also attended by then national security advisor Bolton and Energy Secretary Perry. After the meeting, Pence said something about standing with the people of Ukraine on their security while a pained, knee shaking Zelensky mumbled that his administration was poised to defeat corruption. Makes you wonder what Pence knows, how much he abetted the crime in question and whether he can be compelled to testify. And Bolton, this could be his opportunity to really stick it to Trump.
Anyway, getting back to the whistleblower saga, with the aid of AG Barr’s Justice Department the White House is still doing its best to prevent the Inspector General and the acting Director of National Intelligence from revealing exactly what it was that freaked out the whistleblower enough for him or her to put his or her career on the line by reporting that Trump had “promised” something he shouldn’t have promised to a world leader. Despite the White House’s obstructive efforts, two sources informed the Washington Post that the whistleblower’s concerns were triggered not by a promise to Vladimir Putin but by a mid-July phone call between Trump and Ukraine’s new president Volodymyr Zelensky. Though details of the call have not yet “dripped” out yet, it looks likely that Trump engaged in some serious arm twisting with Zelensky, part of an effort to get the newly elected president and political neophyte to “cooperate” in an “investigation” of former VP Joe Biden and his son Hunter’s activities in Ukraine in exchange for the release of previously promised and authorized military aid. Because who doesn’t seek aid from foreign governments in the run up to an election? Congressional Democrats had already been investigating that call, questioning why they hadn’t received a full “read out” of what had been discussed. It’s probably not a coincidence that, claiming concerns about political corruption in Ukraine, the Trump administration sat on the aid in question until a few weeks ago, only agreeing to release the funds after being pressured to do so by a bipartisan group of senators. Yesterday, Michael Atkinson, the very frustrated Inspector General, a career government employee appointed by Trump to his current position, testified before a closed door session of an equally frustrated House Intelligence Committee. Atkinson confirmed that he continues to believe that the whistleblower’s report is both urgent and of utmost concern and that he disagrees with Joseph McGuire, the acting Director of National Intelligence’s questionable, White House dictated, conclusion that it isn’t as well as the acting DNI’s decision to keep the House and Senate Intel committees in the dark, but that he is prohibited by law from revealing the contents of the whistleblower’s report because that responsibility is outside of his job description. McGuire, the Acting DNI, who is not expected to be all that forthcoming, is scheduled to appear before the House Committee next week. To cap off the day, Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s crazy as a fox legal advisor who has traveled to Ukraine a few times on Trump’s behalf made an appearance on Chris Cuomo’s CNN program last night. During their conversation he first denied asking anyone in Ukraine’s government to dig up dirt on anyone before blurting “Of course I asked the Ukraine to look into Joe Biden related to his ‘massive bribery scandal.’” Going on to say that he was proud that he had. Giuliani seems to be taking a page from his and Trump’s Playmate/ Porn Star Playbook, the page where they first deny that Trump did anything wrong, then say if he did it wasn’t wrong, before admitting that he did it. Separately, another Washington Post correspondent, Robert Costa, reports that he was the assigned pool reporter who accompanied VP Pence during his recent trip to Poland, the one where Pence stood in as Trump’s last minute replacement while Trump stayed home playing golf and overseeing the hurricane that didn’t hit Alabama. During that meeting Pence had a somewhat tense meeting with President Zelensky that was also attended by then national security advisor Bolton and Energy Secretary Perry. After the meeting, Pence said something about standing with the people of Ukraine on their security while a pained, knee shaking Zelensky mumbled that his administration was poised to defeat corruption. Makes you wonder what Pence knows, how much he abetted the crime in question and whether he can be compelled to testify. And Bolton, this could be his opportunity to really stick it to Trump.
Guns
and Taxes: Trump is now suing New York in an attempt to block
the subpoena seeking his tax returns. His
lawyers are taking the position, one that they acknowledge has not been tested,
that the “Constitution
effectively makes sitting presidents immune from all criminal inquiries until
they leave the White House.” In other news, a California federal judge granted the Trump campaign’s request to
block the new California law that requires presidential and gubernatorial
candidates to release five years of tax returns to run in the state’s
primary elections. On the election front, that #MoscowMitch moniker must really
be sticking in the Senate Majority Leader’s craw. Yesterday he finally agreed to back
legislation providing the states with $250 million of funding for election
security. It’s time to go viral with the NRAMitch hashtag because so far
nothing is happening on the gun front although Colt has suspended production of
the version of the AR 15 assault rifle that they produce for civilians, not
because they believe that it’s an inappropriate product but because demand is
down as the market is currently saturated.
What a comforting feeling knowing that all those “good guys with a gun”
who want AR 15s ready have them.
Out: And NY
Mayor Bill De Blasio is no longer running for president possibly because he was
polling somewhere around 0% or less.
No comments:
Post a Comment