Morton's Salt

When it Rains it Pours:  In the first line of his complaint, the Whistleblower said that his report about Trump pressuring Ukraine’s President Zelensky to cough up dirt about Joe Biden and blame 2016 election meddling on collusion between Ukraine and the Democrats in exchange for previously promised military equipment was based on information provided to him by a number of other concerned officials. Now at least one of those other officials, another intelligence officer, has come forward.  Apparently he (or she) is working with the lawyers representing Whistleblower One who report that they are now representing “multiple whistleblowers.”  Though most elected Republican officials  are still insisting that Trump pressuring the Ukrainians for Biden dirt is not a bigly problem and are trying to normalize his follow-up act, the one where he stood on the White House lawn and asked the Chinese to do the same, a few have spoken out.  Most notably, Mitt Romney, the Utah Senator and one time and possibly future presidential wannabee tweeted “by all appearances, the President's brazen and unprecedented appeal to China and to Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden is wrong and appalling” adding “’When the only American citizen Trump singles out for China's investigation is his political opponent in the midst of the Democratic nomination process, it strains credulity to suggest that it is anything other than politically motivated.”  The pearl clutching Senator Susan Collins of Maine finally spoke out as well, saying “I thought the president made a big mistake by asking China to get involved in investigating a political opponent, it’s completely inappropriate.”  Notably, back in the 1950s Margaret Chase Smith, who was then a Maine Senator was the first to speak out against Joe McCarthy. It’s probably a stretch to think that Collins is ready to follow in her footsteps, but at least she’s starting to make teeny baby steps in the right direction.  As to Romney, Trump rewarded him for his  criticism by calling for the impeachment of that “pompous ass,” the “fool” who everyone in Utah now regrets voting for.  He also called for Speaker Pelosi to be impeached and for House Intelligence Chairman Schiff to be tried for treason but, at least so far, he’s left Collins alone but it’s early. 

Though the White House played possum this weekend, refusing requests from all of the Sunday talk shows for the appearance of any of its official spokespeople, a number of elected Republican officials did step forward to support Trump.  In an effort to redeem himself with Trump after the Wall Street Journal reported that he’d winced after being told by EU Ambassador Sondland that the administration was holding back aid to Ukraine until Zelensky cooperated with demands for that Biden dirt, Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson appeared on Meet the Press. He defended Trump, saying that he denied that whole dirt for arms thing when he confronted him about it. Then when he tried to pivot away from Trump’s quid pro quo mess by attacking host Chuck Todd for showing bias by refusing to question the origins of the Mueller Russia investigation, throwing in a reference to FBI agent Peter Strzok and lawyer Lisa Page’s texts, Todd shut him down saying ““What does this have to do with Ukraine?  I have no idea why a Fox News conspiracy propaganda stuff is popping up on here.”  Johnson is on a streak now, two weeks in a row of looking absolutely moronic on national TV, is nothing to sneeze at but he’s not alone.  A number of others, including Congressman Jim “Gym” Jordan, Senators Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio went with the “Trump was only kidding when he called for China to join Ukraine in digging up dirt” excuse.  That Trump he’s so funny.  And Senate Leader Mitch McConnell was out fundraising, promising donors that he’ll make sure that the Republican party will emerge victorious if only he’s kept in charge of the Senate.  Moving back to Trump, he didn’t play golf this weekend, an indication that he was hunkering down in the White House trying to develop a strategy for how best to deal with this crisis. Reports are that son-in-law Jared Kushner, who earlier advised him to fire FBI Director Comey, is taking a break from all that Middle East peacemaking to be in charge of anti-impeachment strategy development.  Axios reports that though Trump is convinced that impeachment proceedings will benefit his campaign and acting Chief of Staff Mulvaney believes it will lead to a 2020 Republican landslide, Trump’s upset that being impeached will ruin his “resume;” how Wharton of him. As to strategy, it appears that Trump has decided that implicating more members of his administration in the mess will  help him so now, in addition to muddying VP Pence, he’s pointing fingers at Energy Secretary Rick Perry, saying that the Ukraine stuff was all his idea, part of his effort to influence Ukrainian natural gas contracting.  There is irony in that, given that the Energy Department is one of those departments that Perry once said that he wanted to eliminate. It’s now reported that Perry plans to step down by November, no doubt he wants to remove himself from getting further tarnished, sadly for him, that tanker has already sailed, unless, of course, he wants to come clean with Congress.  As to natural gas, last night the Associated Press reported that a group of people closely allied with Trump and lawyer/fixer Rudy Giuliani have been pushing their business interests in Ukraine, attempting to pressure Naftogaz, Ukraine’s multibillion-dollar national oil and gas company to alter its senior management to include some of Giuliani’s associates.  So Trump who is accusing Biden of using his power to influence Ukrainian officials to benefit his son has been using his position to help his cronies.  Shocking? Not so much.  Lastly, one Republican who usually remains silent has had a few things to say.  Former Secretary of State/General Colin Powell  called for the Republican Party to get a grip and stand up to Trump.  He added that foreign policy is now in a shambles and that they need to stop being terrified about losing their next primary and instead remember that it’s “we the people, not we the president.” 

Impeachment Front: Gordon Sondland, the Trump donor/EU Ambassador who shouldn’t have been involved in the Ukraine mess because Ukraine is not an EU country but was is due to testify tomorrow. It’s not clear how he will spin his involvement in the quid pro quo fiasco or how he will explain why he kept jumping to the phone whenever he didn’t like the trail that texts were leaving about all that Trump initiated arm twisting but he will surely be asked about the five hour gap between the time that career diplomat Bill Taylor texted him that holding off on Ukraine aid until President Zelensky agreed to do the digging for Biden dirt that Trump wanted was crazy and Sondland’s “official” response. The question is who told Sondland, who’d been trying to avoid leaving a text trail, to respond to Taylor with a conveniently exculpatory text, the one that claimed there was no quid pro quo even though there clearly was one.  Former Ambassador to the Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch is due to testify at the end of the week and may have lots to say about how Giuliani influenced Trump to have her fired for refusing to help dig up Biden dirt and manufacture “evidence” of Democratic meddling in the 2016 election.  Also, everyone including VP Pence and Secretary of State Pompeo has received either information requests or subpoenas that they all appear to be ignoring because that’s the Trump way.  On the Democratic front, all but eight Congresspeople are now on board for the impeachment inquiry and Joe Biden appears to be slipping a bit in the polls while Elizabeth Warren keeps climbing which probably means that Trump’s strategy is working because he’s rather run against Warren.  And it turns out that Bernie Sanders little heart stent problem was caused by a myocardial infarction as in a heart attack but it took three days for him to admit that.   

The Shambles:  Late last night, over the objections of the Pentagon and the State Department, Trump announced that the US will no longer be standing up for our previous allies, the Kurdish forces who took the lead in the fight against ISIS. Instead Trump tweet announced that we will stand by silently as President Erdogan and his Turkish army force the Kurds away from the Syrian border.  In other words, the US will move aside and watch our former allies get slaughtered, seek help from Russia or shift allegiance to Syria or all of the above.  The Supreme Court is back in session today.  Among other things they will be considering cases related to restrictions on abortion services, whether or anti-discrimination laws apply to gay and transgender people and the legality of gun restrictions.  What could go wrong?