As The Country Spins

Crazy Times:  A lot has happened over the past few days.  Before the weekend, the House subpoenaed Secretary of State Pompeo’s records; Kurt Volker, the US Envoy to Ukraine resigned; we learned that in addition to stashing details of Trump’s “find dirt on Biden and Hillary’s emails if you want missiles” phone call with Ukraine President Zelensky, access to calls with such notables as Putin and Mohammed bin Salman have also been unusually restricted; that Trump told then Russian Ambassador Kislyak and Foreign Minister Lavrov that he was unconcerned about Russian interference in the 2016 election during the same Oval Office meeting where he shared super top secret Israeli intelligence; that Trump met with NRA head Wayne LaPierre last week to discuss obtaining NRA funding for his impeachment defense in exchange for giving up a push to strengthen backgrounds checks, the policy that he wasn’t really planning to do anyway; and finally, that until the press caught on to it, Rudy Giuliani had planned to travel to Armenia to deliver a paid speech at a pro-Kremlin Russian funded conference on a panel with sanctioned oligarchs and with Putin in attendance.  And that was all before the weekend.    

Over the Weekend: There have been quite a few reports that the Trump White House hasn’t developed a coherent anti-impeachment message.  That could be true, or it might just be that it’s hard for anyone to defend the indefensible, especially with a team made up of characters like “I never met an immigrant I like” Stephen Miller, “Bat Sh-t or Crazy as a Fox” Rudy Giuliani, “Deny and Lie” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and “Alternative Facts” Kellyanne Conway.  After the far from charming Miller tried to deflect Trump’s questionable call and Ukraine policy by pointing the finger at the deep state and at the Biden family for their “crimes,” Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace called him out saying "With all due respect, this is an exercise in obfuscation.” On the same show Wallace revealed that two frequent Fox contributors, Washington lawyers Joe diGenova and his wife Victoria Toensing, two fierce critics of the Mueller investigation and everything that the Democrats in Congress do had been detailed by Trump to work with Giuliani to source Ukrainian opposition research on Biden and Hillary’s “missing emails” a “scoop” that had been noted by the NY Times a few months ago but that had gotten lost in the tangled news weeds. For his part, Kevin McCarthy appeared on 60 Minutes where he described Trump’s call with Ukraine’s Zelensky as a lovefest between two leaders who mutually admired each other.  After host Scott Pelley read McCarthy what Trump actually said to Zelensky, a “shocked” McCarthy questioned Pelley’s accuracy, leaving the distinct impression that he was either a moron, a bad liar or both.  Rudy Giuliani spent the weekend destroying the few remaining strands of his reputation, to the extent that any remained, waiving his cell phone and deflecting blame on everyone else for his devious activities.  And Kellyanne appeared on the White House lawn to assert that Speaker Pelosi had changed her mind on impeachment only because the men around her forced her to.  Has she ever even met Pelosi?  One former official did speak some truth over the weekend, Tom Bossert, who served  as Trump’s first homeland security adviser, reported that he’d told Trump several times that there was no basis to the right wing loony tune theory that Ukraine, not Russia, intervened in the 2016 election and did so on behalf of the Democrats. He added that he was “deeply disturbed” that Trump “nonetheless tried to get Ukraine’s president to produce damaging information about Democrats.” For his part, except when he was playing golf with Senator Lindsey Graham, who continues to be one of his staunchest defenders,  Trump tweeted furiously all weekend, attacking the treasonous, highly partisan Whistleblower, the equally treasonous House Intelligence Chief Adam Schiff, the socialist Democrats and the folly of impeachment.  And then before hitting the sack for a few zzz’s he retweeted a warning from the extreme right wing evangelist pastor Robert Jeffress that there would be “a Civil War like fracture in this Nation” should he be removed from office because why not threaten civil unrest when all else fails?

Yesterday:  While Trump continued his twitter rage, his world continued to unravel.  Yesterday, House Democrats issued more subpoenas, scheduled more witness appearances with people including the now former Ambassador Volker and possibly even the Whistleblower, who Trump continues to threaten while demanding his unmasking.  Giuliani, who received one of those subpoenas, claimed it was invalid because it was signed only by Democratic chairmen, a spurious assertion since he knows that only chairman get to sign subpoenas.  If he has any questions about that he can contact Hillary Clinton who would be happy to share the ones she got from former Congressman Trey Gowdy when she was commanded to come testify about Benghazi.   Speaking of Hillary, we also learned that Secretary Pompeo’s State Department has reupped the investigation into her email correspondence, targeting 130 former and current State Department professionals for sending emails to her server.  They’ve recategorized those emails as “classified,” part of an attempt to punish and possibly purge some long term State Department employees from the government.  As to Pompeo, yesterday the WSJ reported that though he pretended to know nothing about Trump’s call with Ukraine’s President Zelensky, he actually listened in on the call and therefore was completely aware of Trump’s not so veiled threat, the threat that the increasingly garrulous former national security advisor John Bolton, who points out that he was not on the call, says he spoke out against.  Last night Pompeo was seen boarding a plane with one time White House denizen and full time Nazi sympathizer Sebastian Gorka.  Though it would be nice to think that the two are defecting to  Siberia, they are reported to be traveling to Italy, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Greece.  Just a reminder, Gorka was banished from the White House during former Chief of Staff Kelly’s reign in part because he couldn’t obtain a security clearance.  Italy appears to be a big destination for Trump cabinet members, Attorney General Barr’s been there too.  Apparently he visited to seek assistance from the Italian government on the investigation into the origins of the investigation into Trump and the Russians because he and Trump are doing their best to prove that the whole investigation was inappropriately originated by those deep state FBI and CIA agents who were so out to get Trump that, before the 2016 election, they talked endlessly about Hillary Clinton and her email server but forgot to go public with their investigation into the Trump team’s Russian canoodling?  Speaking of that investigation, we also learned yesterday that Trump called Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison to press him to cooperate with Barr.  That’s just another one of those calls with foreign leaders that Trump’s aiders and abettors hid somewhere far away from prying eyes.

Republicans:  Senate Majority Leader McConnell says that if the House impeaches Trump he will move forward with a hearing because “that’s what would be required.”  He didn’t provide any assurances that he would hold a real hearing, just that he would hold “a” hearing.  Former Senator Jeff Flake, who fashions himself as a Republican with a conscience and by Republican standards he does actually have one, published an op-ed in the Washington Post telling his former colleagues to step up because they “can go elsewhere for a job but can’t go elsewhere for a soul.”  Republican Congressman Adam Kizinger, a former Air Force officer, who unlike his colleagues frequently speaks his mind slammed Trump’s Civil War threat tweeting:  “I have visited nations ravaged by civil war. @realdonaldtrump I have never imagined such a quote to be repeated by a President. This is beyond repugnant.”  And the results of the most recent CBS poll indicate that “more than half of Americans (55%), and an overwhelming number of Democrats, say they approve of the fact that Congress has opened an impeachment inquiry” into Trump.  That is a major uptick from just two weeks ago and though the percentage of Republicans in the pro-inquiry camp is only 23% that’s the beginning of a trend that could be, maybe, a bigly problem for Trump.  Emphasis on the maybe.