Captain Kangaroo?

The Soap Lathers:  At the end of the last episode of the twisted soap opera known as the Trump administration, I mentioned that Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland was due to be deposed by House staff on Tuesday.  Well, that didn’t happen.  Sondland who had flown to Washington from Brussels for the deposition spent some quality time with the White House legal team on Monday night.  When Trump and the team realized that, despite his affection for all things Trump, Sondland was planning to answer questions truthfully, they put the kibosh on his appearance and confiscated his “personal device,” the one full of implicating texts, for “safekeeping.”  Based on what was learned from former Ukraine Envoy Volker’s deposition and the huge volume of texts and other documents that Volker provided, it’s believed that Sondland, who has become one of Trump’s most reliable confidants, spoke with Trump shortly before Trump had the highly problematic “quid pro quo” conversation with Ukraine President Zelensky.  Additionally, it’s believed that Sondland chatted with Trump during the five hour delay between his texting conversation with career Ambassador Bill Taylor, the one where Taylor told him that holding back aid to Ukraine Zelensky until he committed to investigating the 2016 election and the Bidens was crazy, and Sondland’s delayed response back to Taylor.  It’s likely that the White House, was highly concerned that Sondland would talk about how Trump helped him “craft” that “cover you’re a-s” message, the one where he denied that there had been a quid pro quo, even though there was one.  Suffice it to say, House Democrats were less than pleased about the last minute cancellation of Sondland’s deposition.  They hadn’t previously issued a subpoena for Sondland because he had said he would appear voluntarily.  Now, calling the White House’s action another “abuse of power” they have subpoenaed both Sondland and his “personal device.” As of now House officials still expect ousted Ambassador to the Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, who is still a State Department employee, to appear for her scheduled deposition on Friday though it’s highly likely that the State Department will do something in an attempt to block or delay her appearance.  As to Trump’s July call with President Zelensky, according to the Whistleblower one of those White House officials who listened in on it called it “crazy,” frightening and was described as “shaken” after hearing what Trump said.  

Strategery:  The White House has now formalized its strategy for dealing with impeachment.  Late Tuesday White House counsel Pat Cipollone sent House Democratic leaders a letter saying that because their inquiry had “violated precedent” and denied Trump’s “due process rights in such an “egregious way” that neither Trump nor the rest of the executive branch would willingly provide testimony or documents.  The letter which isn’t really based on much in the way of  established legal precedent but is chock full of political rhetoric is a statement of war, one that’s reinforces Trump’s stated view that the House is giving him “kangaroo court” treatment, a view repeated  by his most moronic and avid Congressional fanboys Suffolk County Representative Lee Zeldin and Florida Representative Matt Gaetz who likened House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff to a malicious Captain Kangaroo because Gaetz, not known for his intellect or charm, has no idea that the Captain Kangaroo program wasn’t a twisted version of court TV but  a much loved children’s show and that the Captain was a gentle host rather than a frightening prosecutor.  As to Trump, he and another one of his avid supporters, Senator Lindsey Graham, insist that he should have the right to interview and cross examine any of his “accusers” especially the Whistleblowers.  Trump may well be extraordinarily ignorant about how impeachment proceedings work, but Graham, a lawyer and former Air Force prosecutor knows better; he knows that impeachment proceedings are like grand jury proceedings and impeachments are akin to indictments.  The trial, to the extent that there is one, will take place in the Senate.  Trump’s demand to “interview” witnesses and his efforts to obstruct the investigation may play well with his base, but they don’t appear to be going over all that well with the rest of the country.  A recent Fox poll indicates that 51% of voters want Trump impeached and removed from office.  Moreover, the Fox pollsters report that since July, support for impeachment has “increased among voters of all stripes: up 11 points among Democrats, 5 points among Republicans and 3 among independents. Support also went up among some of Trump’s key constituencies, including white evangelical Christians (+5 points), white men without a college degree (+8), and rural whites (+10).”  Joe Biden is now among those all in on impeachment.  The former Vice President who had previously refused to opine on the subject has finally had it with Trump and all his family smearing attacks.  Yesterday, he said “President Trump has decided that we don't have the power or the political will to hold him accountable. He's not just testing us — he's laughing at us. We must prove him wrong. He must be impeached,” adding he’s not just shooting someone on Fifth Avenue, he’s destroying the Constitution. Trump responded by calling him Sleepy Joe and again repeating the false allegations against Biden and his son Hunter because that’s what he does.  Getting back to strategy, before the Ukraine fiasco erupted, there was the Mueller investigation into things Russian. It looks like the House may finally get to see some of the Grand Jury testimony that they haven’t been able to see so far despite Attorney General Barr’s Justice Department efforts to keep that testimony undercover.  A Federal Judge seemed rather stunned when a Justice Department lawyer argued that the House should be denied access to the Mueller grand jury materials by insisting that rulings made during the impeachment inquiry into then President Nixon were wrong.  Beryl Howell, the Chief US District Judge of Washington responded “Wow, okay. As I said the department is taking extraordinary positions in this case,” her way of politely saying WTF!  Judge Howell ordered the Justice Department to come back on Friday with some more information.  It’s likely that a lot of the desired grand jury information will be shared with the House.  One more strategery thing,  Trump has now retained former South Carolina Congressman Trey Gowdy to join his impeachment team, among other things Gowdy, who had been working part time as a Fox commentator, is expected to take over Rudy Giuliani’s spokesperson role.   How fitting that Gowdy, who together with Secretary of State Pompeo who was then a Congressman, and Representative Jim “Gym” Jordan led the fight  for maximum White House transparency and cooperation during the Benghazi hearings as they endlessly investigated and lambasted Hillary Clinton and President Obama, are now arguing that transparency and cooperation are not required.  Hypocrisy much?  Speaking of Rudy, last night Bloomberg News reported that he once asked Trump for help scrapping a criminal case against one his clients, a Turkish-Iranian gold trader and that Trump then asked Secretary of State Tillerson to do it.  Tillerson said he couldn’t do that citing its illegality and then apparently filled then Chief of Staff Kelly on the ask.  It’s not clear who is leaking now but someone apparently feels that silence is no longer golden.   

Tough Turkeys: Although Trump continues to insist that he didn’t tell Turkish President Erdogan that he could go ahead and start bombing and obliterating Kurdish areas in Syria, that appears to be the message that Erdogan received so yesterday, in cooperation with the Russians, Erdogan’s forces started their onslaught.  Although Trump previously threatened to destroy Turkey’s economy if Erdogan wiped out the Kurds, he seems to have backed off that threat.  He’s now invited Erdogan to come visit him in Washington and is defending the abandonment of the Kurds, our allies, by saying that they didn’t support the invasion of Normandy during WW II so maybe they aren’t worth saving. I’m guessing that Trump doesn’t know that Turkey wasn’t on team USA during WW II either, but whatever.  As to those 10,000 plus ISIS prisoners who the Kurds will stop incarcerating as they prioritize saving their own lives first, Trump said not to worry because most of them are from Europe and they’re likely to cause havoc and destruction there, not on US soil, so their imminent escape is not a bigly problem for him.  While continuing to support Trump on the impeachment front and calling for Speaker Pelosi to stop her pointless impeachment push, Senator Lindsey Graham appears to be losing it over Turkey.  He’s tweet screeching about the travesty of abandoning the Kurds and warning about the imminent release of the ISIS prisoner, Trump remains unmoved.  So much for Graham’s role as Trump’s foreign policy conscience.  In other international news, recent attempts to reinvigorate denuclearization talks with North Korea aren’t working out and the on again, off again, Chinese trade talks aren’t going all that well either.  The Nobel Peace Prize gets announced soon.  Guess who won’t be getting one.