Happy Halloween

    

Go Nats:  The Nationals won the first World Series, California is still burning and the impeachment inquiry continues to rev up.  Trump wasn’t at last night’s game because he’s heard enough booing for one week; he hasn’t mentioned the dire California fires because he’s mad that Governor Newsom hasn’t taken his “sweeping” advice and because it’s California; and things must be totally insane inside the White House because the Ukraine witch hunt continues to boil over and over with more and more implicating details emerging every day.  Well, it all looks implicating to Democrats, most Republicans, who can, continue to avoid questions and cameras. The few who are talking continue to either slam the legitimacy of the investigation with Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, the leader of the pizza insurrection, threatening to sue or like Ohio Senator Portman they say that while demanding dirt in exchange for aid is a bad thing, it’s just not an impeachable thing.  For his part, though he’s still tweeting, Trump appears to be taking Senate Leader McConnell’s advice, for this nanosecond he’s laying off publicly shaming Senators like Mitt Romney and instead has taken to tweeting out photoshopped pictures of his little hands draping a medal on last weekend’s hero dog.  So basically, nothing and everything is normal in Trumpland.   

The Cauldron:  The Ukraine story continues to overwhelm.  Since all of the testimony to date has been behind closed doors all the facts still aren’t public but those that have leaked out aren’t good for team Trump.  It’s fair to say that if anything exculpatory is being revealed, the Republicans are doing a really bad job of leaking. Yesterday two more career diplomats, Christopher Anderson and Catherine Croft, testified in the House SCIF.  Anderson, a foreign services office, said that Trump had a dark view of the Ukraine, one that was fed to him by Rudy Giuliani and his cohorts but that conflicted with the official State Department position.  He detailed how the State Department’s efforts to condemn Russia after it seized Ukrainian ships was blocked by the White House. Croft, who worked at the NSC as a Ukraine expert, introduced still another character to the Ukraine plot, relaying how former Louisiana Congressman/current lobbyist Robert Livingston called her several times to press for former Ambassador Yovanovitch, who he referred to as a “Obama holdover” and “George Soros associate,” to be fired.  Livingston, who appears to have earned big bucks from an unidentified source for pressing for Yovanovitch’s dismissal, may well have earned himself an invitation to testify.

More Skeletons:  A few more details about everyone’s favorite twin, Lt. Col Vindman’s testimony also surfaced.  After two contentious July 10 meetings in the White House in which EU Ambassador/Trump donor Gordon Sondland pushed two senior Ukrainian officials from President Zelensky’s newly elected government to investigate the Bidens and the Burisma gas company, Vindman made the first report of his concerns to NSC lawyer John Eisenberg.  Then national security advisor John Bolton was present for the first one of those meetings but didn’t attend the second because he didn’t want to have anything to do with that “drug” deal, a reference to what Sondland was pushing rather than to actual drugs.  After the now infamous Trump-Zelensky July 25 call, Vindman again went to Eisenberg who, in response to Vindman’s concerns, took the unusual step of hiding the call “transcript” in the super-secret White House server. 

Newts and Lizards: One bizarre aside, Trump apparently didn’t know that Vindman was his NSC Ukraine expert because he’d been getting Ukraine information and advice, all of it disparaging, from a former long-time Devon Nunes aide named Kashyap Patel who worked in the White House.  The wily Patel had convinced Trump that he, not Vindman, was his senior Ukraine expert.  Vindman became aware of this when he tried to update Trump about Zelensky’s inauguration when he was told by Bolton and Russia expert Fiona Hill not to bother, that Trump would be confused to learn that Vindman rather than Patel was his Ukraine expert.  Because why would anyone want to confuse Trump with the facts?

Future Goblins:   Tim Morrison who replaced Fiona Hill as the top Russia and Europe expert on the NSC is due to testify in the House SCIF today.  Perhaps to facilitate his testimony or maybe because he’d had enough with the White House, Morrison resigned his post last night.  Like Vindman, Morrison listened in on Trump’s July 25 call with Zelensky.  In really bigly news, it appears that John Bolton will be testifying on November 7, unless he changes his mind, people who know him say that he is unpredictable.  Last night Bolton’s lawyer kind of confirmed that he would appear by saying that he wouldn’t show up voluntarily but would be open to receiving a subpoena, lawyer speak for he’s coming but only if he can say that he has to.  NSC lawyer John Eisenberg and Michael Ellis, another former Devon Nunes aide, are also on next week’s schedule but it’s not clear that either plans to show up. It doesn’t appear that the Whistleblower will be  called in to testify, largely because despite Republican insistence that he should come forward so they can throw darts at him, everything he said in his letter has now been confirmed by others; however his name, or at least the name of someone that various right wingers have identified as his, is circulating on Twitter.   

Past and Present Ghosts:  One time national security advisor Michael Flynn is now telling his judge that he is innocent, the victim of a deep state plot.  George Papadopoulos whose drunken bragging about the purloined emails triggered the Russia investigation is running for the seat vacated by California Congresswoman Katie Hill who stepped down last week due to a sex scandal.  There could be more to that story because it appears that Papadopoulos knew about Hill’s problems before any of her hacked sex photos were released, leading some to surmise that the Russian’s are at it again.  And they are, Facebook has now taken down accounts linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin also known as Putin’s chef, the businessman behind Russia’s notorious troll factory.  Those accounts were actively seeking to influence the domestic politics of a range of African countries.  Though Facebook has no plans to ban political advertising, Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey has announced that  he is banning all political advertisements.  So far only Trump’s campaign manager Brad Parscale has complained, calling it a dumb decision.   

Extreme Red Flags

Little Odessan: Lt Col Alexander Vindman, the Harvard Educated Ukraine expert on the White House National Security council, who earned the Purple Heart, a Ranger tab and the Combat Infantryman Badge while serving in Iraq showed up for his testimony before Congress looking quite dapper in his full military dress uniform. Still an active member of the military, he began his ten hours on the stand by providing details of his family history, talking about how after his mother died, his father brought him, his twin brother, his older brother and his maternal grandmother to the US from the Ukraine, then part of the USSR.  They settled in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn’s Little Odessa, where at ten years old, Vindman and his identical twin brother Yevgeny (who had twins on their Bingo card?) together with their grandmother were featured in a Ken Burns Statue of Liberty documentary. All three of the Vindman brothers went on to join the military; Vindman’s twin is also on the National Security Council where he serves as an ethics lawyer. Vindman detailed how the now infamous call with Ukraine President Zelensky as well as other conversations that he witnessed and/or heard first hand alarmed him because he didn’t believe that withholding aid from Ukraine in order to obtain dirt on Joe Biden and help finding the DNC server had anything to do with national security and because he thought that involving Ukraine in US domestic disputes would, if anything, put the country at risk by jeopardizing their usual bipartisan support.  He discussed his concerns with his brother before taking them to the NSC’s legal advisor John Eisenberg, whose name has come up before since he was alerted by others concerned about what was happening. Eisenberg is the one who had the “transcript,” really just meeting notes since the meeting was not recorded, of Trump’s call with Zelensky hidden away in that super-secret White House server.  Last night, the NY Times revealed that Vindman also tried to make changes to that transcript, adding back in missing references to Joe Biden and Burisma Holdings but that his comments were not incorporated raising the possibility that those missing references account for the “ellipses” included in the version of the "perfect" transcript that Trump released to the public.  Vindman’s testimony confirmed much of what Russia expert Fiona Hall and acting Ambassador Bill Taylor told the committees during their earlier testimony but differed from some of the key things that Trump donor/EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland said during his testimony.  Sondland who probably wishes he had never joined the Trump train now has some serious ‘splaining to do.

Patriot Bashing:  Following Trump’s lead, during the day a number of Republicans, including Rudy Giuliani and members of the Trump echo chamber on Fox and CNN slammed Vindman, suggesting that because he’d been born in Kiev and spoke Russian and Ukrainian that his loyalties and therefore his testimony was suspect.  Those statements were so offensive that by the end of the day, a number of members of Republican leadership, including Congresswoman Liz Cheney walked them back saying that it was “shameful’ to attack a patriot like Vindman, of course she did that while still slamming the Democrats and the impeachment inquiry.  A number of CNN talking heads, including Jake Tapper, slammed their newbie colleague former Republican Congressman Sean Duffy, for participating in the attack on Vindman, but sadly CNN head Jeff Zucker defended Duffy, who earlier endorsed the need to find that DNC server to prove that the Ukrainians rather than the Russians had hacked the DNC emails, saying that it was important to hear voices from both sides of the aisle even if those voices are full of sh-t. Charming to say the least. For her part, MSNBC’s Nicole Wallace, one of those never Trump Republicans, the people that Trump calls scum, was so angry that, sticking with the day’s theme, she lost it, calling Vindman critics Laura Ingraham, Sean Duffy and John Yoo, the former DOJ official who approved Bush’s torture program, “chicken sh-t” for their Vindman slams, pointing out that Vindman, unlike Ivanka and Jared, had a top security clearance, one that he’d earned.  She got mostly positive feedback for that as did acting Ambassador Bill Taylor, who was cheered by crowds during an event back in Ukraine. Wonder if Trump knows that Taylor is still on the payroll.

Though the Republicans like to complain about not being allowed to participate in any of the impeachment inquiry hearings, members of the relevant committees are welcome.  Yesterday, a few of them including no one’s favorite wrestling coach Jim “Gym” Jordan tried very hard to get Vindman to identify the Whistleblower whose letter triggered the investigation into all things Ukraine.  Vindman testified that he doesn’t know the identity of the Whistleblower, but Jordan and his cronies persisted, trying to get him to detail the names of everyone he had spoken with about his concerns, hoping to suss out the Whistleblower’s identity by process of elimination. Intel Committee Chair Adam Schiff cut them off, causing a bit of a dust up within the SCIF chambers, one that continued to rear its ugly head after both sides complained to the press.  The Daily Beast reports that one of Intel Ranking Member Devon Nunes’s aides has also been working to out the Whistleblower.

Next Steps:  Speaker Pelosi released the proposed rules for the next part of the impeachment process. The inquiry will remain in the hands of the Intelligence Committee for now but will be passed over to the Judiciary Committee at some future date where the final grounds for impeachment will be written.  The rules authorize the release of transcripts of much of the testimony that has taken place to date and provide for public hearings. The new rules which will be put up for a floor vote on Thursday, will allow Trump’s lawyers to put up a defense, will allow Republicans to propose witnesses and will allow for questioning by committee lawyers.  However, as expected Republicans are already complaining primarily because that’s what they do about everything especially all things related to impeachment and because, to the extent that he thinks that their witness requests are ridiculous, Committee Chair Schiff will be able to call a committee vote to squash them.  Also, Trump’s lawyers will only get to defend him if the White House starts cooperating on things like requests for documents and witness testimony.  Though a number of officials are still expected to testify before closed doors this week, if all goes according to plan public hearings will begin after Veteran’s Day.      

Golden State:  While impeachment stuff is hot, California is really burning.  Parts of the State are now under a rare “extreme red flag” warning due to the combination of lethal fires and strong Santa Ana winds, conditions that "have not been seen in recent memory." To all of those affected by the fires, hope you are safe and as far away from danger as possible.  

Belgian Malinois

Second City:  Trump headed to Chicago yesterday, his first visit to Obama’s hometown since he took office.  Speaking in front of the International Association of Chiefs of Police Conference, he slammed "crime ridden" Chicago, slammed its mayor and its Superintendent of Police who, though he hosted the conference, boycotted Trump’s speech.  And of course Trump bragged endlessly about the raid that eliminated ISIS head Al Baghdadi, saying others had wanted him dead but only, he, Trump, could get the deed done.  While Trump was bragging, no one in the military would confirm that Baghdadi had “whimpered” but just about everyone agreed that the raid had been put in jeopardy by Trump’s rash decision to withdraw from Syria and that the Kurd’s were the source of valuable intelligence. Trump doubled down on keeping the third in line for the presidency Speaker Pelosi and others in Democratic leadership in the dark about the mission, saying that they are all known leakers, though neither he nor Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley offered up any example of Pelosi, who was on the House Intelligence Committee before ascending to her leadership position, leaking.  Trump, who is generally no fan of canines, did celebrate the hero dog, a Belgian Malinois, whose picture was declassified and released during the day, promising to invite him to the White House when the time was right, which for the dog’s sake, should be never.         

Impeachment Inquiry: All the raid and dog talk provided Trump with much needed distractions from the continuing barrage of news on the impeachment front.  Though, as expected, former deputy national security adviser Charles Kupperman defied a congressional subpoena Monday by failing to appear for his closed-door deposition, late yesterday it was revealed that  Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the National Security Council's top Ukraine expert, a Ukraine born US citizen and a decorated Iraq war veteran, does plan to testify today.  He will say that he conveyed concerns internally to officials after listening to Trump's July 25 phone call. Vindman, will be the first official from the White House testifying who actually  listened to the call between Trump and Ukraine President Zelensky, the one where they discussed the Bidens. In his introductory remarks, a draft of which was circulating last night, he says that he “did not think it was proper to demand that a foreign government investigate a US citizen,” and that he “was worried about the implications for the US government’s support of Ukraine."  Vindman’s testimony is expected to track the Whistleblower’s report, so much so that some on the right are claiming that  he is the Whistleblower.  He’s not, however Trump and his supporters are very concerned about his testimony, so much so that a few on Fox are now suggesting that Vindman must be a double agent. He’s not that either, as he says, he’s a patriot who believes it is his “sacred duty and honor to advance and defend our country irrespective of party or politics.”  Separately, NBC reports that Fiona Hill, then the national security council’s Russia expert, grew concerned as early as May that Rudy Giuliani and EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland, together with Rudy’s buddies Lev and Igor, were “rattling” Zelensky, a concern that she shared with John Bolton at that time. As to Sondland, he’s been laying low, missing some meetings related to his EU position, however, he did show up on Capitol Hill yesterday to review a transcript of his testimony, possibly to “correct” some of his misstatements because a lot of what he said has been contradicted by others and will be further proven wrong during today’s VIndman testimony.

Also on the impeachment front, Speaker Pelosi plans to have the House vote on a resolution on Thursday that will formalize procedures for the next phase of the impeachment inquiry. Pelosi says that the vote will “eliminate any doubt as to whether the Trump administration may withhold documents, prevent witness testimony, disregard duly authorized subpoenas, or continue obstructing the House of Representatives."  It will also pave the way for the release of testimony transcripts and for public hearings.  No doubt Trump and his supporters who’ve been arguing that the current impeachment inquiry is unconstitutional because it hasn't been voted on by the full House won’t be satisfied and will come with another excuse to obstruct.

Revolving Door:  Former Alabama Senator/Attorney General Sessions is exploring running for his old Alabama Senate seat which won’t make Trump who is hardly one of his fans all that happy.  In any case Sessions will first have to survive a crowded Republican primary, one that includes former candidate Judge Roy Moore, the pedophile who lost to vulnerable Democrat Doug Jones during the special election for the seat that he vacated to become Attorney General. Congressman Greg Walden, the sole remaining Republican in the Oregon delegation, announced that he will not be running for reelection in 2020.  He is now the nineteenth Republican making an exit.  Also exiting, but for far different reasons is Katie Hill.  The freshman Democrat is stepping down in response to accusations that she had an inappropriate relationship with a staffer.  Though she denies that she had a relationship with a congressional staffer, something that is an ethics violation, she does admit to having had one with one of her campaign staffers.  She asserts that she is the victim of a revenge porn campaign initiated by her soon to be abusive, ex-husband, and then exploited by right wing media.  While commending Hill for acknowledging her errors in judgment, Speaker Pelosi said that her continued service as a member is untenable. We must ensure a climate of integrity and dignity in the Congress, and in all workplaces.”  Nancy has no time for distractions right now, she’s busy doing other things!

Butt Dialing

Bye, Bye Baghdadi:  Well, in case you missed it, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi is dead.  He died on Saturday, taking three of his children with him by triggering his suicide vest during a US raid on his hiding place in Syria near the Turkish border.  This was Trump’s Osama bin Laden moment and he tried hard to make the most of it: on Saturday he sent out two tease tweets, one devoid of words but with a few …., that was mocked on SNL’s Weekend Update segment, and another teasing a major Sunday morning press conference.  During the news conference that was clearly timed to disrupt the Sunday morning news shows and their all impeachment all the time narrative, Trump rambled on for almost one hour, saying that Al Baghdadi had died a sniveling death while thanking Russia for all their help, leaving his mention of the key intelligence provided by the Syrian Kurds to the end of his credit list as an after thought even though their contribution had been vital to the success of the mission.  In fact, as noted by the NY Times, the Kurds’ involvement was so important that Trump’s impetuous and controversial decision to withdraw US troops, ceding the Kurdish area of Syria to Turkey and Russia, put the long planned mission in jeopardy, making it more dangerous for US special forces.   While finally acknowledging the Kurds, Trump pointed out that those “difficult” people had become easier to deal with since they’d been beaten up by the Turks because nothing leads to cooperation more than a little ethnic cleansing.  While acknowledging that he’d spoken with Russia, Trump managed to diss the Democrats, making it clear that he hadn’t looped in Speaker Pelosi on the mission calling all Democrats out as untrustworthy leakers.  He also said that eliminating Al Baghdadi had been far more important than getting rid of Osama bin Laden, because bin Laden had “only” killed 3000 while Al Baghdadi was responsible for creating a whole caliphate.  Trump added that he had been way ahead of the curve on Bin Laden,  identifying him as a major threat in one of his many brilliant ghost written books way before 9.11, another one of his demonstrable lies.  He talked a lot about oil, about how US troops would now be protecting the Syrian oil fields to make sure that they don’t fall into enemy hands, a good idea if it keeps revenues away from ISIS, but one that he then devalued by saying that he might hand the field over to Exxon, his and Putin’s favorite US oil company.  The bottom line, ramblings aside Al Baghdadi’s elimination is a good thing and since it happened on Trump’s watch, he gets the credit.  It also provides him with some much needed distraction on the impeachment front, though it’s not at all clear that it will do much to alter the ultimate outcome whatever it may be.

A Little Shade:  On Friday, Washington DC District Court Judge Beryl Howard ordered the Justice Department to give the House secret grand jury testimony from special counsel Mueller’s Russia investigation.  In addition to providing a view of much that has been kept secret until now, the judge’s decision is important because her ruling also affirms the legality of the impeachment inquiry.  The administration has until October 30 to either turn over the requested testimony or appeal to a higher court. Ukraine related testimony was put on hold on Friday while almost everyone except Trump attended Congressman Elijah Cummings’ Baltimore funeral service.  Though the focus of the various tribute speeches was on Cummings life and impressive accomplishments a lot of shade was thrown Trump’s way. Hillary Clinton went biblical saying that “Like that Old Testament prophet” Cummings “stood against corrupt leadership of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel,” two characters who were ultimately punished for their transgressions,  while President Obama pointed out that “being a strong man includes being kind. That there is nothing weak about kindness and compassion. There is nothing weak about looking out for others. There is nothing weak about being honorable. You are not a sucker to have integrity and to treat others with respect.”

Inquiring Minds:  Making up for the work shortened week, the House continued hearing some more of that behind closed door testimony on Saturday.  Philip Reeker, the acting assistant secretary of State for European and Eurasian affairs, who assumed his role in March, just weeks before Trump recalled Marie Yovanovitch, the maligned Ambassador to Ukraine, testified. Reeker discussed how he had to deal with the aftermath of her dismissal, and how it upset senior American diplomats who viewed the move as politically motivated and how his efforts to release a “proactive statement” in support of Yovanovitch, were stymied by higher ups.  More testimony is planned for this week, but it appears that Charles Kupperman who served as a deputy to former national security advisor John Bolton will not show up even though he’s been subpoenaed.  On Friday, his lawyer, who also represents Bolton, filed a lawsuit asking a federal judge to resolve conflicting orders from Congress and the White House, which is now declaring constitutional privilege, described as executive privilege on steroids, in its attempt to prevent his testimony. There have also been reports that Bolton, whose testimony would be a bigly deal and not in a good way for Trump, was talking to Congress about testifying, however the Kupperman lawsuit probably puts his testimony on hold, at least for now.  In other investigation related news, Senator Lindsey Graham’s non-binding resolution condemning the House’s impeachment inquiry procedures gained a few more supporters after he watered it down to make it more palatable to some of his reluctant Republican cronies. He now has fifty supporters with only Senators Romney, Murkowski and Collins refusing to jump on board.  And then there’s Rudy Giuliani, on Friday we learned that he still hasn’t mastered the art of locking his cell phone.  Apparently he butt dialed the same NBC reporter twice, leaving unintentional voice messages where he discussed Bahrain, Turkey, being dissed for his work getting dirt on a prominent politician, no doubt Biden, and his need for getting a $100,000 or more, because someone has to pay all those expenses that he’s incurring while working for Trump for free. Giuliani has got to be relieved that the Al Baghdadi raid took his name off the front pages, at least for a day or two.

Other News:  The US Federal Deficit is up to almost $1 trillion because it turns out that those Trump tax cuts didn’t result in the promised offsetting economic gains.  Treasury Secretary Mnuchin’s answer is budget cuts rather than the re-imposition of any taxes on his friends. We all know that Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon and the owner of the Washington Post is on Trump’s enemies list so the Pentagon’s newly announced decision to award a $10 billion military cloud computer services contract deal to Microsoft over Amazon is probably not all that surprising but likely to face a lot of additional scrutiny.  And the newest deadline for Brexit is now January 31, for the moment.

Free Press

Farewell to an Icon:  The House’s less than secure SCIF remained quiet yesterday, no testimony and no marauding Republican frat boys, as many members of Congress were otherwise occupied paying tribute to the departed Congressman Elijah Cummings, the first African American lawmaker to lie in state at the Capitol.  Though a parade of leaders and members of both parties spoke about his life and accomplishments, Trump was no where to be seen, probably a good thing given his August attack of Cummings and his “rat infested” home town of Baltimore, particularly ironic remarks given that Jared Kushner’s family is now being sued by the Maryland Attorney General for the substandard conditions at their housing units some of which are located in Baltimore.  Former Presidents Obama and Clinton are scheduled to speak today at Cummings’ Baltimore funeral.  Hillary Clinton, Speaker Pelosi and former NAACP head and current Congressman Kweise Mfumi are also on the schedule.

Republican Pushback:  Though there was no testimony yesterday, there was plenty of activity and a few more revelations.  Senator Lindsey Graham who continues to cement his position as Trump’s most avid fan for all things not related to troop withdrawals, introduced a resolution in the Senate condemning the impeachment inquiry, calling on the House to vote to open a formal inquiry and provide Trump with "fundamental constitutional protections.” In all, 44 Senators, all Republicans of course, signed on as co-sponsors, an impressive show of fealty to Trump, who had made it clear that he wasn’t happy that the Senate wasn’t waging war against the House’s impeachment related activities  As of yesterday afternoon, 9 Senators including Mitt Romney (Utah), Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), Cory Gardner (Colorado), Lamar Alexander (Tennessee), Mike Enzi (Wyoming), Johnny Isakson (Georgia), Dan Sullivan (Maine) and Rob Portman (Ohio) had not signed on. Not surprisingly, that list includes a few of those Senators up for reelection in purple states, a few who are retiring and a very few with principle.  For the record, despite Graham’s efforts to paint the Democratic impeachment inquiry closed hearing process as unprecedented, Fox legal expert Judge Andrew Napolitano surprised the hosts of Fox and Friends yesterday by telling them that the Democrats are just “following the rules,” rules written by Republicans when John Boehner was the Speaker of the House.  In any case, public hearings are expected to start soon.

Inquiring Minds: As to the impeachment inquiry, the Republicans are pushing back against process because the facts continue to be troubling, very troubling.  Yesterday the Washington Post reported that in late August, around the same time that military aid was being withheld from Ukraine, White House officials delayed a key trade agreement with Kiev. That decision came after John Bolton who was still national security advisor, warned Trump’s Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer that there was no point in pushing forward with the agreement because Trump would oppose it. To be clear, Bolton didn’t support holding up the agreement, he was just the messenger.  Also, remember when Trump stood on the White House lawn and called for China to come forward with Biden “dirt,” well yesterday, during an interview with CNN’s Jim Sciutto, White House trade advisor Peter Navarro, refused to answer any direct questions about whether or not Biden’s name came up during Trump’s trade negotiations with China telling Sciutto that “You don’t have a right to know what happens behind closed doors in the administration.”  It’s fairly obvious that if the answer was no, Navarro would have said so. On the testimony front, closed-door interviews are tentatively scheduled for next week with Charles Kupperman, a deputy to former national security adviser John Bolton, and Tim Morrison, NSC’s Russia and Europe director. Kupperman has left the White House but Morrison who is a current NSC staff member has retained a lawyer who confirms that he plans to testify despite White House objections. Notably, Morrison will be the first person who actually listened in on Trump’s infamous phone call with Ukraine President Zelensky to testify. In other news, Trump has issued an edict, telling all government agencies to drop their Washington Post and NY Times subscriptions because that’s what wannabee dictators do. Anyway, WaPo provides free digital access for government employees with valid ID numbers and the NY Times currently provides a 50% discount, one that will probably grow to 100% soon, so it’s unlikely that Trump’s ban will do much to limit readership.

Investigating the Investigators:  Banning of news is bad but opening up criminal investigations into former and current government employees for political reasons is horrible, yet that’s where we. Last night the NY Times, one of Trump’s banned newspapers, reported that Attorney General Barr’s Justice Department has shifted the investigation of the of the Russia investigation being undertaken by federal attorney John Durham into a criminal inquiry giving Durham, the power to subpoena witness testimony and documents, to convene a grand jury and to file criminal charges.  It’s hard to believe that it’s a coincidence that Barr is ramping up his Trump mandated war against the “Deep State” at the same time that the impeachment inquiry is uncovering so much about Trump’s abuse of power.  It’s not clear what Barr and Durham are onto or if they are onto anything, but if they have found something, it doesn’t come from Italy.  Barr has traveled there twice in search of dirt but  Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte says his country’s intelligence services have informed him that they played no role in the events leading to the Russia investigation.  Though he hasn’t been contacted yet, former CIA Director John Brennan who has been an outspoken critic of Trump expects that he is one of Barr’s targets, he doesn’t appear intimidated.  In other news, the FBI Inspector General’s report on FISA warrant “abuses” is due out shortly, everyone on Fox keeps talking about it, insisting that it will be very bad news for the FBI but it’s not clear what it will say.

2020:  Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan who hadn’t gained much traction is no longer running for president.  Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard is no longer running for reelection to the House, instead focusing all her attention on her presidential campaign.  That effort appears to involve multiple appearances on Fox TV, ramping up her attack of the “warmonger” Hillary Clinton and a shift of her views on the impeachment inquiry.  She’s now siding with the Republicans, criticizing all things related to the process being undertaken by her Democratic colleagues.  As to the polls, depending on the pollster and the day, Biden’s lead has either increased dramatically or dropped precipitously.  CNN shows him with his widest margin over his nearest competitors, Senators Warren and Sanders, while Quinnipiac shows him down 7 points with Senator Warren in the lead.  We will get to hear all three of them, and at least six others including Buttigieg, Harris, Yang, Steyer, Booker and Klobuchar, who qualified yesterday, on the November debate stage.  

The World:  Nothing good to say about Syria.  Trump’s newest advice to the Kurds is that they should move closer to the Syrian oil fields where he is now sending more US troops. Unfortunately those fields are nowhere near where the Kurds currently reside but then again Trump thinks that Colorado borders Mexico so his cluelessness, as well as his disregard for their lives, is sad but hardly shocking.  Brexit remains out of reach so UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is now trying to get Parliament to vote for new elections to take place in December.  And NRA honey/spy Maria Butina’s time in jail is up, she’s being deported back to Russia where she will either be welcomed as a hero, have an unfortunate accident or both.

Toga!

Animal House: Earlier this week Trump complained that Congressional Republicans weren’t doing enough to protect his interests so a group of about 25 House Republicans reviewed their options and decided that acting out a scene from Animal House was the best way to defend Trump’s presidency.  Led by Florida’s Matt Gaetz, a Trump mini me who has become one of Trump’s most ardent defenders, the crowd, including Louisiana Congressman Steve Scalise, the second most senior member of Republican leadership,  forced their way into the House SCIF, the security facility where all that incriminating testimony about Trump and his Ukraine Quid Pro Quo is taking place.  As if storming the facility wasn’t enough, the crowd also brought in their cell phones because given the choice between violating the SCIF ban on electronic equipment and taking selfies, the crowd determined that documentation of their invasion was far more important, and it probably was to Trump who knew about their sophomoric act in advance.  Upon arrival, the crowd ordered pizzas, leaving boxes and crusts strewn about the facility because who has time to clean up when leading an insurrection against Democracy? Though the purported reason for their disruptive action was to protest Democratic leadership’s lack of transparency, about 130 or ¼ of the House, those who make up the committees conducting the impeachment inquiry, are allowed to sit in on the testimony taking place in the SKIF and around twelve of the “demonstrators” didn’t need to storm the SKIF as they are members of those committees. Notably back when Republican’s controlled the House, then Congressman Darrel Issa, a Republican, was prevented from attending a Benghazi related hearing taking place in the SKIF by his Republican colleague Trey Gowdy because he wasn’t a member of one of the hosting committees, but everyone knows that precedent doesn’t count now because the Democrats are in charge.  It’s no coincidence that the invasion took place while Speaker Pelosi was out of pocket, attending her brother’s funeral where she was busy delivering a eulogy.  Despite the invading hordes best efforts, Laura Cooper the Pentagon official responsible for overseeing Ukraine policy was not deterred.  She stuck around, testified for three hours and detailed how the process related to the hold up of aid to Ukraine deviated from normal practice. Her willingness to testify was notable because like the various State Department employees who have stepped up to share what they know about the Ukraine affair, she had been instructed by her bosses at the Pentagon to stay away.  For his part Trump made it clear that he’s less than pleased about those who are testifying, he called them a bunch of “never Trumper Republicans” who are nothing more than “human scum,” going on to tweet that it would be really great if the people within his administration, could stop hiring those never Trumpers who he further slammed as “worse than the Do Nothing Democrats” because “nothing good will ever come from them.”  Later in the day, during a speech at a Shale Insight Conference in Pittsburgh, the increasingly panicked Trump bragged about building his wall in Colorado because he’s either crazy, geographically ignorant, or thinks that Coloradans need to be protected from the invading hordes crossing from their border state, New Mexico.      

Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine:  Trump has reasons to panic as more and more of his defenses are falling away.  He and his spokespeople have been claiming that because the Ukrainians didn’t know that their aid was being held up at the time that they were being pressured to investigate “corruption,” there was no “Quo” in the Quid Pro Quo, whatever that means.  However, that argument has now fallen by the wayside as the NY Times reports that Ukrainian officials were aware that Trump was withholding nearly $400 million in military aid by August, when they were told to reach out to acting White House Chief of Staff Mulvaney about it.  In other words the “Quo” has been there for some time.  Also, the AP reports that Ukrainian President Zelensky was well aware of what Trump wanted him to do for longer than was previously known.  Apparently he met with his advisers on May 7, after his election but before he was inaugurated,  to discuss how to “navigate” requests from Trump and Rudy Giuliani that would “push Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 presidential elections.”  Additionally, it’s now reported that Trump had still another Ukraine whisperer named Kash Patel.  Patel, who previously helped Congressman Devon Nunes disrupt the Russia investigation, filled Trump’s ear with so much anti-Ukraine fodder that Trump thought that he was the National Security Council person responsible for all things Ukraine even though he wasn’t.   

The Legal Front:  While arguing before a federal appeals court against Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance who has subpoenaed Trump’s tax returns from accounting firm Mazars, Trump’s lawyer William Consovoy claimed that that as president Trump has “temporary presidential immunity” so that even if he shot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue, New York authorities could not punish him while he is in office.  When the presiding judge asked if his position was that “Local authorities couldn’t investigate? They couldn’t do anything about it?” Consovoy replied, “That is correct.” This claim is the legal version of Trump’s now infamous assertion that his political support was so strong he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody” and not “lose any voters.”  In other legal news Trump lawyer and sometime surrogate Secretary of State Rudy Giuliani, who ended his relationship with his last lawyer sometime last week, is now shopping around for a lawyer because he really needs one.  Giuliani’s buddies Lev Parnass and Igor Fruman pleaded not guilty yesterday with Lev’s lawyer, Ed MacMahon, asserting executive immunity for Parnass since he  "worked for Giuliani and Giuliani worked for him" while also working for Trump.  As crazy as that sounds, federal prosecutors appear to have anticipated the request, they told the judge that they already have a filter team in place to independently review  and sort evidence.  The implication of this can’t be good for Trump who has been trying to distance himself from the Lev and Igor show.

Sayonara Syria:  Trump took to the podium yesterday to brag about his unqualified success in Syria.  Saying that he had extricated the US, leaving it to someone else to “fight over” that “bloodstained land.”  He cancelled the sanctions that he had promised to levy against Turkey because they’ve promised, wink wink, to treat the Kurds well going forward, although everyone knows he doesn’t believe or care about that because the Kurds are so yesterday. When asked about this, Texas Senator John Cornyn responded well, if Turkey was planning to do some ethnic cleansing, it’s good that we got our troops out of harm’s way.  Cornyn’s view is not widely shared by his Republican cohorts, most of whom recognize that just the presence of US troops in the region served as a valuable deterrent.  As to those US troops, some of them are being redeployed to protect Syrian oil fields from ISIS attacks.  The US soldiers will be doing that alongside Kurdish forces, because there’s now so much trust among those two groups?  As to ISIS, it appears that so far somewhere north of 100 of their fighters have escaped captivity.  Trump claims that there is nothing to worry about since they’ve all been recaptured.  However, the Defense Department says that they’ve disappeared into the wind.  Clearly, Trump who also takes personal credit for totally destroying ISIS and who is busy building a wall along the Colorado border knows better.  Right?

Alarming Circumstances

The Distraction: Trump started the day by comparing the impeachment inquiry to a lynching and for a moment his attempt to distract from the impeachment inquiry worked.  Democrats immediately attacked him for once again injecting racism into an already fraught atmosphere and Michael Steele the former RNC Chair/current MSNBC pundit tweeted out a truly horrific picture of a lynching to drive home the point that Trump’s comparison, while not unprecedented, was out of line.  Lindsey Graham, the Senator from South Carolina, a state where many of those lynchings took place, defended Trump because that’s what he does but a number of other Republicans expressed frustration with Trump’s race baiting distraction including Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski who appears to be inching into Mitt Romney territory.  Even Senate Majority Leader McConnell said that he wouldn’t have used the lynching word while also denying that he’d ever told Trump that his call with Ukraine President Zelensky had been perfect, problematic for Trump because he keeps asserting that McConnell did say that. Anyway, as noted, this was all just a distraction.  While not sidling over to Romney land, he did refuse to bring up election protection legislation again yesterday, McConnell is exerting some independence these days.  Last week he penned an op-ed slamming Trump’s Syria policy though he never mentioned Trump by name.   

The Testimony: The real story of the day was the testimony provided to Congress by the current Acting Ambassador to the Ukraine Bill Taylor, a West Point graduate, Viet Nam vet and “model” long term diplomat who among his other impressive positions had previously served as Ambassador to Ukraine during the George W Bush administration.  In June, Secretary of State Pompeo asked him to rejoin the government to assume the Ukraine position being vacated by former Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, who was fired after her reputation was trashed at the hands of Rudy Giuliani and his cohorts. Taylor, who has an affinity for Ukraine, was aware of the way that Yovanovitch was treated so he accepted the position only after being reassured by Pompeo that their views on the importance of Ukraine as a US ally and as key to the continued stability of Europe in the face of Putin’s greater Russia ambitions were simpatico.  It didn’t take him long for him to realize that something nefarious was going on, that with Trump’s approval Rudy Giuliani was conducting parallel diplomacy, pushing Ukraine’s new President Zelensky to publicly announce that he was directing an investigation into the Bidens’ involvement with the Burisma gas company and faux Ukraine-Democratic party collusion in the 2016 election.  Following the Comey model, Taylor detailed his concerns in a series of contemporaneous notes, notes that included  EU Ambassador/Three Amigo/Trump contributor Gordon Sondland justifying Trump’s Zelensky quid pro quo demand as something that businessmen like Trump do because “when a businessman is about to sign a check to someone who owes him something, the businessman asks that person to pay up before signing the check.”  When possible Taylor also documented events and conversations with implicating texts including his now famous one to Sondland, that it would be “crazy to withhold security money for help with a political campaign.” Though Taylor’s ten hours of testimony was provided behind closed doors, his fifteen pages of introductory remarks were leaked to the press yesterday afternoon. Based on those remarks and the comments uttered by the few members of Congress, all Democrats, who spoke after the very long session, it appears that Taylor’s testimony was enormously devastating for Trump and not so good for Sondland who will probably be invited back to “clean up” some of the things that he said last week, including those that now appear to be provable lies. Though as of this morning, Taylor is still the acting Ambassador to Ukraine, its hard to imagine that Trump will allow him to continue on the job and even if he still has his job, given the thuggish crowd that Giuliani hangs with, it probably would be better for him if he stays away from Kiev.  He may even want to consider requesting protective custody.  Assuming she actually shows up, Laura Cooper the deputy assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia is due to testify today about the decision to “temporarily” withhold Ukraine military aid.  

The Reaction:  Trump’s usually loquacious Congressional contingent had little to say about the substance of Taylor’s testimony so instead they continued to attack Speaker Pelosi and House Intel Chair Adam Schiff for their process, mostly complaining that the hearings are still being held behind closed doors. True that they are still behind closed doors, but the public hearings are on the horizon, and that shouldn’t please Trump’s team because even with their usual shenanigans, those hearings will be devastating for Trump. The White House appears to be scrambling to come up with a coherent plan of attack so don’t be surprised if you start hearing that Taylor beats his wife while dropping kittens from high balconies.  For now the best they could muster was Press Secretary Grisham’s evening statement that Trump “has done nothing wrong, this is a coordinated smear campaign from far left lawmakers and radical unelected bureaucrats waging war on the Constitution” and so on.  As to smear campaigns, we also learned this week that both right wing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Vladimir Putin not so subtly fed Trump’s hatred for all things Ukraine, warning him that no Ukrainian, especially the new reform minded Zelensky, could be trusted and that former national security advisor John Bolton had been so concerned about Orban’s “malign influence” that he had tried to prevent the two from even meeting.

Shady Web:  Federal prosecutors in Chicago have told their New York counterparts that Rudy Guliani’s associates Lev Parnass and Igor Fruman are involved in their case against Ukrainian gas tycoon Dmytro Firtash, the oligarch currently fighting extradition to the US while under house arrest in Vienna, Austria. It’s thought that Lev and Igor had been on their way to Vienna to meet with Firtash when they were nabbed by US law enforcement.  Firtash who may or may not be a source of funding for Rudy and his guys is currently represented by the husband wife legal team of Victoria Toensing and Joseph diGenova, the two uber conservative lawyers who at one point had been asked to formally join Trump’s legal team but didn’t due to other conflicts though their son does work for Barr’s Justice Department.  For now Lev and Igor have been busy shuffling their legal teams, Igor recently retained one of Paul Manfort’s lawyers, the two had previously retained Trump’s one time lawyer John Dowd for issues related to congressional subpoenaes however the usually quick to talk to anyone with a camera Rudy hasn’t appeared on TV at all this week, an indication that even he knows that he’s in bigly trouble.  Also worth noting, Lev’s Instagram account includes photos of him with lots of Trumpkins, flying around with Giuliani, and one of him with Trump’s other lawyer Jay Sekulow and Rudy “celebrating” the release of the “no collusion, no obstruction” Mueller report.    

Other News:  Ordinarily, events in Syria would dominate but given yesterday’s shattering testimony they’ve slipped from the front burner, just a little.  In a nutshell, Russia and Turkey have teamed up, making what they describe as a “historic” deal, one intended to drive Kurdish forces away from the Syria-Turkey border while enhancing Russia’s increasintly dominant role in the region.  Bottom line, if you are a Syria Kurd, you are screwed.  And though it’s not clear why the Christian aid group Frontier Alliance International thought that hosting their “A Night of Prayer for the Kurds” event at Trump’s Washington DC hotel was a good idea, it’s been cancelled by hotel management for fairly obvious reasons.  Also for obvious reasons, the Trump organization is in the process of removing the Trump name from both its Central Park ice skating rinks.  In other news apparently a number of Democratic donors are now entering the freak out zone, concerned that none of the many Democratic candidates are up to the task of unseating Trump.  They may be right, but they may also be very wrong.  Few thought that a one term African American Senator with a funny name could ever go the distance. And who’s to say that Trump will still be the Republican candidate come 2020?

Abuse of Power

Frazzled and Furious:  Well, it’s fair to say that Trump is handling his impending impeachment about as well as could be expected.  To state the obvious, compartmentalizing isn’t in his DNA.  Yesterday, after a cabinet meeting, one that opened with a prayer led by HUD Secretary Ben Carson who thanked the lord for Trump  who “exhibits great courage in face of constant criticism,” Trump held one of his off the rails press conferences during which he spewed more than his usual quota of lies and insults.  In no particular order, he called all Democrats lowlifes and suggested that House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff was the “whistleblower,” or the spy, whatever.  At the same time he did say that he admired how those corrupt Democrats stick together unlike his Republicans who have to endure the traitorous utterances of Senator Mitt Romney A/K/A Pierre Delecto.  He also said that the Kurds loved him for all that he’s been doing for them suggesting that even they know that a little suffering, his word for annihilation, is a good thing.  Adding that no one ever suggested that we would stick by them forever because they aren’t nice people and besides there’s no Trump Tower in their part of Syria, or the part of Syria that used to be theirs. Proving that Acting for now Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney’s Sunday morning statement that president or not, Trump “still considers himself to be in the hospitality business” was spot on, Trump again bragged about his beautiful, well situated Doral Golf Resort, bemoaning that because of that “phony” emoluments clause in the Constitution he’s been forced to cancel plans to host the G7 summit there. He added that not only wasn’t he planning to profit on the summit, but that he’d planned to host it for free taking a huge loss because he’s so rich he could do that.  For the record, he’d never suggested hosting for free.  He also said that being president has already cost him $2 to $4 billion promising that we’ll all see how rich and successful he is when he releases his financials, something he plans to do at the appropriate time.  LOL.  He slammed his predecessor, claiming that President Obama had also violated the emoluments clause by negotiating a book deal and lucrative, but very recent Netflix deal that he, Trump, clearly covets, while in office. And finally, because he hadn’t prevaricated enough for one hour, he claimed that, with the possible exception of George Washington, he was the only president to forego his presidential salary.  For the record both Hebert Hoover and John F Kennedy contributed their salaries to charity.  Later in the day, after 185 Republican members of Congress lost their vote to censure Adam Schiff for doing his job too well, it was revealed that the impeachment inquiry will focus on abuse of power, a high crime that Speaker Pelosi believes most will comprehend.

Revolving Door:   Neither of Trump’s two first choices to fill the Homeland Security Secretary job being vacated by current acting Secretary Kevin McAleenan at the end of the month are eligible to take over under the federal law dictating who can fill cabinet positions without Senate confirmation.  This is a bigly problem for Trump because he wants to fill the slot with a Stephen Miller approved hardliner and neither of his two choices, Acting US Citizen and Immigration head Ken Cuccinelli nor Customs and Border Protection head Mark Morgan have been in their positions long enough to qualify for a bump up to acting Secretary.  At least so far, none of the other “qualified” candidates are interested in the job.  Keep in mind that in addition to dealing with all those marauding migrants,  Homeland Security is also responsible for election security, not that protecting the integrity of the electoral process is much of a priority for Trump.  On the testimony front, though a number of the people called in to give depositions are following Trump’s mandate to stay away, there are still plenty of people on the schedule. Bill Taylor, the Acting Ambassador to the Ukraine, who I mistakenly said was due yesterday, is on the schedule for today and Congressional leaders now plan to work on Saturday to compensate for missing Thursday, the day that  the late Elijah Cummings will be lying in state in the Capitol’s Statutory Hall and Friday, the day of his funeral.  As to testimony it turns out that neither former White House Counsel Don McGahn nor Donald Trump Jr ever appeared before former Special Counsel Mueller’s Grand Jury.  In McGahn’s case it was determined that his appearance wasn’t necessary because he cooperated so well during the thirty hours he spent spilling his guts about obstruction to Mueller’s team.  In Trump Jr’s case, its thought to be because his lawyers advised Mueller that he was planning to Plead the Fifth.  That says a lot about Don Jr, doesn’t it?   

The World:  Although his party lost seats in yesterday’s Canadian elections, Justine Trudeau will continue to serve as Canada’s Prime Minister which is more than can be said for Israel’s Bibi Netanyahu.  Yesterday he admitted that he couldn’t form a new government. His rival Benny Gantz will now be given an opportunity to try to form one, a task that may not be possible.  If he fails, Israel will be forced to hold elections again.  That makes three times, if you’re counting but still way fewer than the number of times a UK Prime Minister has tried to get a Brexit bill passed through Parliament. Prime Minister Boris Johnson is still trying to get his plan approved but has also sent an unsigned photo copy request to the EU for an extension from Halloween to January 2020 just in case he fails.  Add Chile to the list of countries facing unrest.  Civilians in the nation’s capital Santiago are protesting extreme economic inequalities, while demonstrators in Beirut and Tripoli, Lebanon have been demonstrating against corruption and a recently imposed and then scrapped tax on WhatsApp calls.  Things remain turbulent in Hong Kong where protest against Chinese rule continues and all hell is likely to break out between the Turks and the Syrian Kurds momentarily once the five day ceasefire that wasn’t really a ceasefire ends.  But not to worry, because Trump says everything is fine and, despite evidence to the contrary, he insists that the Kurds really still love all things American.

Pierre Delecto

Pride and Prejudice:  After a period of self-reflection, Trump cancelled plans to hold the upcoming G7 meeting at his Doral Golf Resort.  Okay, I am only kidding, no one as psychologically demented as Kellyanne's husband George Conway writes that Trump is, would ever be capable of self-reflection, so there was no reflection, just plenty of pushback from Republican allies who told him that while they could deal with him caging kids, throwing Kurds to the curb and lots of obstruction, profiting from the G7 was too much to bear.  Of course, Trump announced his decision through his favorite medium, making sure to include another Doral commercial alongside a swipe at the media and the Democrats, tweeting “I thought I was doing something very good for our country by using Trump National Doral, in Miami, for hosting the G-7 leaders, but, as usual, the Hostile Media & their Democrat Partners went CRAZY!”

Trump wasn’t the only one engaging in clean up, Acting Chief of Staff Mulvaney, whose days in the White House may be nearing an end as Trump has been reaching out to new candidates/victims to assume his role, continued to try to take back that “quid pro quo” admission the one he made during the press briefing that had been scheduled to announce the Doral G7 summit that now isn’t.  It turns out that unwinding G7 plans is a whole lot easier than taking back admissions of impeachable offenses.  Mulvaney made his most recent attempt during an interview on Fox News Sunday but unfortunately for him host Chris Wallace, aided by ample video evidence, kept calling out his lies so when Mulvaney denied that he acknowledged a link between aid to Ukraine and an investigation into fictional Democratic-Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election, Wallace played back Mulvaney tying the two together.  Likewise when Mulvaney insisted that he had only given two reasons for holding up aid, Wallace played back his statement that there were three reasons, with the third being, what else, the investigation into Democratic-Ukrainian interference.  It’s not clear why anyone in the White House thinks that sending Mulvaney out in public is a good thing but then again little coming out of this White House makes sense.

Secretary of State Pompeo also failed to impress when he appeared on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Just back from his Middle East, where he and VP Pence conceded everything and more to Turkey and then tried to reassure Israel that they were still safe, he sounded more like the highly partisan Congressman he used to be than a Secretary of State.  He unsuccessfully tried to defend Trump’s “very wonderful” Syria policy. Unfortunately for him, he looked like he was being held hostage, his answers was peppered with long, awkward periods of silence because even he had to know that he was lying through his teeth.  Pompeo did however manage to throw most of the current and former members of the State Department’s career staff under the bus, particularly targeting former Ambassador Bill Burns, who served both Republican and Democratic administrations, for his piece in Foreign Affairs, the one that was titled “The Demolition of US Diplomacy” where he argued that not since Joe McCarthy has the State Department suffered such a devastating blow.  Pompeo also attacked House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff for conducting a Kangaroo Court and for prohibiting State Department lawyers from accompanying State Department staff while they testified.  Notably, none of those testifiers seem all that anxious to have Pompeo approved lawyers by their side.  Pompeo has got to be very freaked out that so many current and former members of his staff continue to show up over his objections.  For his part, in addition to reporting that the White House is conducting a new review of sites for the G7 summit, including the very wonderful Camp David that Mulvaney trashed as woefully unsatisfactory last week, Trump again bragged about his brilliant Syria policy, denied that the Turks had violated the ceasefire, then misnamed his own Defense Secretary Mark Esper, instead renaming him Mark Esperanto.  As to Esper/Esperanto he reported that the US soldiers being withdrawn from Syria are being reassigned to Iraq to fight against ISIS, contradicting Trump’s assertion that they are all coming home because the fight against ISIS was either over or no longer a US responsibility.  Trump also claimed that we now had all the oil fields in the region under control, a head scratching, baffling assertion as no one at State or Defense knows what he’s talking about.    

Persuasion:  Reports are that Attorney General Barr is spending his time wisely too.  At tax payer expense he is expanding his investigation into the origins of the Russia investigation, interviewing/interrogating FBI and CIA agents, in an effort to uncover how their bias against Trump impacted their inquiry.  If Pompeo and Mulvaney are to be believed he is also searching for the DNC server, the “holy grail” hidden away in a Kiev basement.  That said, the NY Times reports that the Justice Department is now distancing itself from Trump lawyer/fixer Rudy Giuliani, saying that the head of the department’s Criminal Division and lawyers from the division’s Fraud Section wouldn’t have met with Giuliani to discuss a bribery case in which he was representing the defendants if only they had known that attorneys in the Southern District of NY were investigating him and his cronies.  For the record, Attorney General Barr knew all of this but apparently failed to share.

As to that other investigation, the one that helped torpedo Hillary Clinton’s candidacy, the State Department reports that there was no “systemic, deliberate mishandling of classified information” by Clinton or her associates although they did say that 38 former and current State Department employees were culpable of violating security rules by communicating with her, though they found no malintent.  It’s not clear whether that finding will be used to purge any of those 38, particularly any who’ve managed to offend Pompeo’s and/or Trump’s sensibilities.  

Sense and Sensibility:  Regarding sensibility for some reason Hillary Clinton has decided it’s her job to alert us to the dangers of Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard’s candidacy.  Clinton is not alone in pointing a finger at the suspiciously odd support that Gabbard receives from Russian bots, far right conspiracy theorists and the neo-Nazi Richard Spencer, among others, but her criticism is counter-productive.  Gabbard, hardly an innocent, is raising money on Clinton’s criticism and may well earn herself a few more poll points and to the extent that she decides that threatening to boycott any of those future debates that she’s qualified for doesn’t suit her purposes, more air time to be disruptive.  Though she says she won’t run as a third party candidate, who knows, she might decide to follow the Jill Stein model. 

More sensibly, former Governor/presidential candidate John Kasich announced on Friday that he now supports the impeachment inquiry as did Florida Republican Congressman Francis Rooney, unfortunately he did that shortly before saying that he will not be seeking reelection.  Nancy Pelosi and a bipartisan Congressional delegation spent the weekend in Jordan and Afghanistan, comforting allies and trying to figure out what’s up with Taliban negotiations.  And Senator Mitt Romney, who appears to be enjoying his position as Trump’s biggest irritant admitted that the Pierre Delecto Twitter account belongs to him, because why shouldn’t he be able to tweet under an assumed name when he wants to, after all Devon Nune’s Cow and former FBI Director James Comey have both done the same.  

Lots more testimony on tap this week beginning today with Acting US Ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor, the writer of the “I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign” text.

Bloodstains

Thumbnail:  So yesterday, while Ambassador to the EU/Three Amigo Gordon Sondland was testifying about texts, Trump and Giuliani, Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney admitted that Trump had done the quid pro quo thing with Ukraine President Zelensky. Mulvaney made that admission shortly after announcing that, after a thorough review of every other resort in the US, Trump had concluded that only the Trump National Miami Doral Golf resort was suitable for the upcoming G7 summit because June in Miami is lovely and the resort needs to fill those rooms with someone. Trump then reported that VP Pence had negotiated a super terrific deal with Turkey President Erdogan, one that gives Turkey a large swath of northeastern Syria while giving its residents, our former allies, the Syrian Kurds five days to vamoose for parts unknown or into the hands of the unforgiving Bashar al Assad. And Energy Secretary Rick Perry formally turned in his resignation, sharing an appropriately brief video about his accomplishments and how much he’d loved his days on Team Trump or loved them until he got caught up in the quid pro quo mess.  As to Sondland, during ten hours of testimony he kind of threw Trump under the bus saying that Trump directed him to work through Rudy Giuliani, his de facto Secretary of State for things Ukraine and maybe also things Turkey, rather than any of those real diplomats and yeah there probably was a quid pro quo but he didn’t realize it at the time because how would he know after all he’s just a real estate guy not a trained diplomat.      

Mick’s Mess:  Mulvaney’s WTF moment came during the testy question and answer period that followed his announcement of the Doral decision.  Exuding his customary arrogance he shocked everyone with his admission that Trump had held up military aid to Ukraine by insisting that promised military funds would only be released when and if President Zelensky agreed to investigate that mythical Democratic interference in the 2016 election, searching for the DNC computer server, the one that only wackadoodle conspiracy theorists like Trump believe is hidden somewhere in Kiev. When asked if he meant what he had just said, Mulvaney responded “absolutely, no question about that,” adding it was absolutely appropriate because elections have consequences and we get to do what we want to do and anyway everyone does it. He also defended Trump’s decision to have Rudy Giuliani serve as his de facto ambassador for all things Ukraine saying it wasn’t illegal or impeachable telling, the gape-jawed assembled press corp and any members of the career diplomatic service watching his performance on TV to suck it up and get over it.  

Although Mulvaney had been careful to omit the “investigate the Bidens” part of the quid pro quo from his admission, his statement stunned  Attorney General Barr’s Justice Department which quickly released a statement saying "If the White House was withholding aid in regards to the cooperation of any investigation at the Department of Justice, that is news to us," we have no idea what Mulvaney is talking about. Trump attorney Jay Sekulow, followed up saying "the legal team was not involved in the acting chief of staff's press briefing." That’s when Mulvaney realized that he had screwed up bigly so he distanced himself from his own words too, as if that’s even possible, accusing the press of “misconstruing” his remarks “to advance a biased and political witch hunt against” Trump, adding ”Let me be clear, there was absolutely no quid pro quo between Ukrainian military aid and any investigation into the 2016 election.” As to Trump, it’s reported that he loved Mulvaney’s statement and his arrogant bearing, at least until someone explained to him that Mick had stepped in sh-t and taken him with him.  Rumors that Mulvaney will be fired shortly circulated on Twitter last night, but he’s probably okay for now.  Who wants his job anyway?  As to the G7 Summit taking place at Trump’s Doral resort, the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution clearly states that presidents are not allowed to accept any payments from foreign sovereigns but then again that only matters to presidents who believe that the Constitution pertains to them so apparently Trump is exempt or so he thinks. One more thing, Mulvaney confirmed that Trump is likely to invite his friend Putin to the summit because as Nancy Pelosi likes to say, and apparently did say during Wednesday’s contentious Oval Office meeting, all roads with Trump “lead to Russia.”

Syria:  Trump is really happy with the agreement that VP Pence and Secretary of State Pompeo say that they struck with Turkey’s Erdogan.  Unfortunately, Erdogan, who according to his aides trashed Trump’s adolescent dear Tayyip letter immediately upon getting it, is even happier and he should be as Trump has promised to cancel the sanctions that he promised would tank Turkey’s economy and Turkey now gets a “long coveted buffer zone” far beyond its border with Syria, somewhere to move the Arab refugees currently housed within it’s borders.  And the Kurds, they get nothing, unless you count being expelled from your home with no place to go as something.  Last night Trump celebrated the agreement saying it was good to let the Turks attack the Kurds because “Sometimes you have to let them fight like kids.  Then you pull them apart” while pretty much endorsing ethnic cleansing with his remark that the Turk’s are entitled to clean out the area where the Kurds currently reside.  Raise your hand if you think allowing your kids to kill each other, literally kill each other is ever a good thing.  Brian Schatz the Democratic Senator from Hawaii responded to Trump’s remarks by saying “Enough is enough. Republican silence is a historic travesty.”  

For what it’s worth Yesterday, Utah’s Mitt Romney, the self-appointed conscience of the Republican party did say something, he took to the Senate floor to call Trump’s betrayal of the Kurds “a bloodstain on the annals of American History.” A number of the usual hawks, like Lindsey Graham, are now lauding Trump and Pence for their progress with Turkey, kind of like congratulating an arsonist for putting out part of the fire that he started.  Last night at the annual Al Smith dinner, Former Defense Secretary General Mattis cracked a joke in response to Trump calling him an overrated general, saying that unlike Trump he’d earned his bone spurs on the battlefield.  Unfortunately Mattis remains unwilling to go public with what he knows about Trump’s dangerous incompetency but another military man has gone there.  In a NY Times op ed, Admiral McRaven who led the raid that took down Osama bin Laden wrote “ if this president doesn’t demonstrate the leadership that America needs, both domestically and abroad, then it is time for a new person in the Oval Office — Republican, Democrat or independent — the sooner, the better. The fate of our Republic depends upon it.” A remarkable statement from a military man. And though it only counts a little, Republican Lisa Murkowski, the Senator from Alaska who voted against repealing Obamacare and against Justice Kavanaugh’s nomination responded to a question about holding up aid to Ukraine in exchange for dirt by saying “ “You don’t hold up foreign aid that we had previously appropriated for a political initiative, Period.”  Another small crack in the red wall, maybe. On Wednesday Senate Majority Leader McConnell actually updated his crowd on impeachment trial procedure, alerting them to clear the schedule for at least one six day work week around Christmas time, supervised by Chief Justice Roberts.

TGIF, this week’s been exhausting

1000 Days and Counting

RIP: As I was writing this morning, news that House Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings, the son of sharecroppers who went on to be active in the civil rights movement before joining Congress passed away overnight. The 68 eight year old Cummings, who had his aortic valve replaced earlier this year, died from “complications concerning his long term health challenges.” Times like this call for more people like Elijah Cummings. He and his brilliant, balanced oratory will be sorely missed.

Back to the Saga:  We’ve reached the part in this extended mini-series from hell where the protagonist cracks; it’s happening in real time. Tuesday night Trump hosted the parents of a the teen age British motorcyclist who died after the wife of a US diplomat, driving in the wrong lane, crashed into him outside of a Royal Air Force base in  Northamptonshire, England.  Claiming diplomatic immunity, the woman subsequently flew back to the US.  The victim’s parents flew to Washington this week to pressure US officials, most importantly Trump, to send the driver back to the UK to face legal proceedings.  To their surprise Trump had them invited to the White House.  They report that their meeting started off well, that Trump said the right words and appeared to “feel their pain,” at least until he tried to ambush them by forcing them to meet the driver who he had stashed away in an adjoining room.  Apparently, reality show Don thought that the best way to treat the grieving parents was to pull a Jerry Springer moment on camera, perhaps seeking some video clips he could use to wow his fans and further prove his presidential prowess at tonight’s rally in Dallas.  The parents refused to meet with the driver and fled the White House.  That was the high point of the insane 24 hours that made up Trump’s one thousandth day in office.  During the day, Trump greeted Italian president Sergio Mattarella, holding one of those joint press conferences that we’ve sadly grown used to.  He screeched about how all those members of NATO aren’t paying their share of the organization’s budget, went off on a tangent about FBI “lovers” Lisa Page and Peter Strzok and blamed Obama for the 2016 election meddling, while everyone present stared at him in disbelief.  Among the stunned gapers was the Italian translator whose contorted face provided some diversionary amusement.  She had a hard time turning Trump’s incoherent English prattle into a sensible string of Italian, especially his claims about those promises that he alleges Turkey’s Erdogan made to him about how he wouldn’t attack the Kurds right before the Turks launched their assault. Did I mention that Trump complimented Turkey, saying that it was the one NATO member who had fully funded its defense, or should I say offense, obligations?

Oval Office Meltdown: Later in the day, Trump hosted Congressional leaders at the White House.  The stated purpose of the meeting which was set up at his request was to address the situation in Syria.  Trump began his speech by yelling at the bipartisan group of leaders for calling for the meeting that they didn’t call for and then shared the wacky, juvenile October 9th letter that he wrote Turkey’s Erdogan.  He genuinely thought that the letter which began with the words “Let’s make a deal” was proof that the series of horrible events occurring in Syria aren’t his fault because he had asked Erdogan to be nice to the Kurds or else face the consequences.  Suffice it to say, Erdogan ignored the letter, especially its ending note “let’s talk soon.” Speaker Pelosi than stood up and informed Trump that the House had just passed a bipartisan resolution condemning his “acquiescence to a Turkish assault against the Kurds,” our allies in the fight against ISIS.  All but 60 House Republicans voted for the resolution. That’s when things got nasty.  The irate Trump went postal, calling Pelosi out as a third rate politician, dumped on former Defense Secretary General Mattis, saying he was inept because he said it would take years to get rid of ISIS but that he, Trump had done it in just a few months.  Somehow or other, Trump gave no credit for that win to the Kurds who did all the fighting but, borrowing one of Erdogan’s talking points, he did manage to call them out as a band of terrorists far worse than even those despicable ISIS guys. Trump also failed to note that ISIS is once again gaining traction. The words continued to fly, with things getting so bad that Pelosi and a number of the other Democrats including Senate Minority Leader Schumer walked out after twenty minutes with Pelosi reporting that Trump was in a meltdown.  Trump then posted a picture of a standing Pelosi speaking in the meeting claiming she was the one having a meltdown.  Apparently, he thought that the picture proved that she was the nasty/crazy one.  Pelosi responded by making the picture, where for the record she looked like she was fully in control, the face of her Twitter page.  Score one for Nancy, negative a million for the rest of us.  Somewhere in the mix of all of this Trump said that he could care less about the Middle East because it’s 7000 miles away, a distance that didn’t prevent the World Trade Center attacks.  At some point in the day we bombed our own facility in Syria to prevent it from falling in to Turkish hands.  VP Pence is now off to Turkey to meet with Erdogan in an effort to stop the fighting and contrary to earlier reports Secretary of State Pompeo is with him.  It’s hard to believe that they’ll accomplish much in light of Trump’s last comment that he could care less about the region.  

Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine:  Yesterday during his five hours of testimony Pompeo’s former senior advisor Michael McKinley said that he quit his job last week out of concern about the mistreatment of career US diplomats and the “alarming allegations” related to efforts to pressure Ukraine’s president into investigating Trump’s political rivals because he “was disturbed by the implication that foreign governments were being approached to procure negative information on political opponents.” He added that his concerns “culminated” with the recall and treatment of former Ukraine Ambassador Yovanovitch, the respected diplomat whose reputation was trashed by Giuliani, his buddies Lev and Oleg, and the three amigos Treasury Secretary Rick Perry, Ambassador Gordon Sondland and Envoy Kurt Volker, who took over responsibility for Ukraine diplomacy and related mudslinging.  Today, Sondland, the billionaire real estate tycoon who is Trump’s Ambassador to the EU, is due to testify. Among other things he is expected to claim that he knew nothing about Trump’s efforts to muddy the Bidens, words that could get him into trouble because according to NBC News,  Fiona Hill, one of the earlier testifiers, asserted that she heard him talk about Hunter Biden’s role in Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company, during what was supposed to be a discrete “after” meeting with two of Ukraine President Zelensky’s senior aides.  It was her report about that conversation that caused former national security advisor John Bolton to tell her to report her concerns to the NSC’s lawyer. Hill also said that she believed that Sondland was a counterintelligence risk because he was in too deep and didn’t know what he was doing. In other news, the White House is now engaging in its own in- house investigation of the “Ukraine call” affair raising concerns that they are looking for a fall guy and for the moment, the winner of that contest could be the NSC lawyer John Eisenberg, because someone not named Trump has to be blamed.   

Rudy, Rudy, Rudy:  Rudy also may be a counterintelligence risk or at least that’s one of things that the US Attorneys from the Southern District of New York are looking into.  One of Rudy’s cohorts, a Florida man named David Correia,  another friend of Lev and Oleg, turned himself in to the FBI yesterday.  And Energy Secretary Perry, one of the aforementioned three amigos confirmed that he “sought out Rudy” this spring at Trump’s direction to talk about alleged Ukrainian corruption though he continues to insist that he didn’t know that corruption was Trump and Giuliani’s code word for “get dirt on the Bidens and find the DNC server.”  As if that’s not enough, its also reported that Giuliani, like former security advisor Mike Flynn before him, lobbied Trump to send Fethulah Gulen, the Turkish cleric who  Erdogan views as a state enemy, back home for “appropriate” treatment.

Other News: Both the EU and the UK’s Boris Johnson are now claiming that they’ve reached a “fair” deal on Brexit although it hasn’t been voted on so don’t assume anything is done until it is.