Straps and Stents

Frenetic and Furious:  Trump held another one of his insane, off the rails press conferences yesterday, this time with Finland’s President Saali Niinesto by his side.  To put it mildly, Trump’s not handling the impeachment thing all that well. He called the inquiry bullshit, venting at  Speaker Pelosi and House Intelligence Chief Adam Schiff, replacing his old “Pencil Necked Schiff” nickname with a new one: “Shifty Schiff.”  He called for “Shifty” to resign in disgrace taking House Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler “and all of them,” with him, adding “it’s a disgrace what’s going on.”  Trump’s anger was partially driven by remarks made by Pelosi and Schiff earlier in the day at their joint press conference where Pelosi strategically talked first about all the legislation passed in her House this year as well as the Democratic party’s desire to work with Trump on the passage of gun legislation, the reining in of drug prices and the finalization of the terms of the important new NAFTA trade agreement before moving on to the impeachment inquiry which she called necessary but immensely sad for all involved.  She then turned to Schiff who detailed the steps that were being taken by the various Congressional committees including that absent cooperation from the White House on the release of requested Ukraine related documents, more subpoenas would be issued early next week. Trump who clearly has no interest in cooperating attacked Pelosi for issuing subpoenas “like cookies,” reserving his strongest remarks for Schiff who he insists should be tried for treason citing his “collusion” with the Whistleblower, an accusation based on a NY Times article where it was revealed that after the Whistleblower grew alarmed that his first attempt at getting his concerns aired wasn’t being taken seriously enough he contacted a member of the House Intelligence Committee’s staff who, following normal procedure, procedure that Senate Richard Burr, the Republican head of the Senate Intelligence Committee confirmed was regular practice, advised the Whistleblower to  contact a lawyer and file an official complaint. Schiff was aware  of those events but did not interact directly with the Whistleblower, didn’t know the extent of his concerns, and contrary to Trump’s assertions did not collude with or write the Whistleblower’s complaint.  Schiff, a Harvard law school educated former prosecutor who speaks deliberately and forcefully, has been a Trump target for some time, but now has moved to the top of Trump’s enemies list, passing such notables as FBI men Comey and McCabe.  For the record as far as Trump is concerned, Schiff isn’t worthy of carrying that other Harvard Law School grad Secretary of State Pompeo’s jockstrap.  He said that with President Niinesto by his side, though Trump used the term “blank strap” telling the viewing audience to use their imagination as to what he really meant. Because he can’t leave a press outing without accidentally confessing more incriminating information, Trump also referred to there being a complete, stenographer scribed transcript of his implicating call with Ukraine President Zelensky, notable because to date only summary notes of that call have been publicly released.  When the press conference was opened up to questions,  Trump berated a Reuters reporter for having the nerve to repeatedly ask a question about what he really wanted to get from Zelensky in exchange for those anti-tank missiles while a Finnish reporter was awarded with a collective gasp and some laughs when she asked her president what favors Trump had asked him to deliver.  The Finish President didn’t respond directly to that question but did throw some subtle shade Trump’s way by saying to Trump “You have a great democracy, keep it going.”  Snap! 

The Pee Men:  Yesterday Secretary of State Pompeo, the guy with the too heavy for Schiff jockstrap, finally admitted what everyone already knew, that he had listened in on Trump’s phone call with Ukraine’s Zelensky.  He made that admission in much the way he had earlier denied knowledge of the call, by mumbling some unintelligible words about how he’d been Secretary of State for sometime now and that’s what he does.  We also learned yesterday more about what had triggered the State Department’s Inspector General to request an “urgent” meeting with staff and members of various Congressional committees.  Apparently, he had been handed a file full of scurrilous accusations and debunked conspiracy theories about the Bidens and their “alleged” misdeeds.  The file also contained a number of career killing untrue factoids about Marie Yovanovitch, the former US Ambassador to the Ukraine who was recalled by Pompeo as a result of that smear campaign, a campaign triggered by her failure to tow the Trump/Giuliani line. The chain of ownership of the file is murky, but it appears to have been routed to Pompeo’s office last March.  In light of current events, the State Department’s acting attorney passed the “hot potato” file off to the department’s Inspector General who figured it would be best for him to get it off his hands before it burned a hole in his career.  The file wasn’t just full of sh-t, to borrow one of Trump’s favorite phrases, it was also oddly written and packaged, with some of it written on Trump hotel stationery and all of it sealed with strange looking, homemade White House seals.  Later in the evening, the story took another strange turn into bizarro land after Rudy Giuliani took credit for it saying that he had been the one who prepared it and delivered it to Pompeo’s office, an effort that apparently also involved him getting help from Paul Manafort, part of an effort to show that the “innocent” Manafort was set up by some nefarious Democrats working with deep state FBI agents.  The full implications of this newest story arc are still unknown but it hardly paints Pompeo in a good light. It’s fair to assume that former Ambassador Yovanovitch will be asked about the smear campaign that derailed her career when she testifies next week.  Yesterday, we also learned some incriminating information about Trump’s other Pee buddy, Vice President Pence. It turned out that Pence knew far more about the Ukraine situation and the Zelensky call than he’s been letting on.  In an article that appears to be sourced by a mix of Pence supporters and Pence detractors, the Washington Post reported yesterday that Pence was a willing party to Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukraine’s president to cut down on “corruption” in exchange for more missiles.  Remember when the Trump family said that the meeting in Trump Tower with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya was about “adoption,” when it was really about getting Hillary dirt, well “corruption” is now the code word being used to cover the efforts to get Biden dirt.  Though Pence wasn’t on the incriminating Trump-Zelensky call, one of his aides did listen in and shortly after the call took place Pence traveled to a meeting in Poland with Zelensky where he says they discussed all that “corruption,” he claims that he was so busy on the long flight that he missed the pages in his briefing book that mentioned the “whole give me dirt on Biden or no missiles for you thing.”  Anyway, it’s quite possible that Trump is behind the talk about Pence’s involvement, his effort to muddy up Pence because though a number of House and Senate Republicans wouldn’t mind seeing Pence take over the presidency from Trump, they’d die before allowing a President Pelosi and if Pence turns out to be as dirty as Trump, they’ll stick with Trump to the end, no matter what.  Also, on the Ukraine front, as part of his effort to prove that the FBI and CIA were out to get him and that the Russians never weighed in on his side Trump has enlisted the UK’s Boris Johnson to help him investigate the origins of the Russian investigation because with the sword of Brexit hanging over Boris’ head he has nothing better to do?   

Other News:  Senator Bernie Sanders is off the campaign trail this week. He’s recuperating from emergency heart surgery. It turns out the pain in his chest wasn’t related to Trump induced heartburn or fears of being overtaken by Senator Elizabeth Warren, but was instead due to a blockage.  He and his two new stents are expected back on the campaign trail in a week or so.