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.