Don't Rain on My Parade

Sheer Perfection:  Last year Trump took heat for failing to go to Arlington Cemetery to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier so today he’s making up for it, not by being quietly respectful, but by attending the NYC Veterans Day where he’s scheduled to make opening remarks because what could be better than politicizing the Vets in New York, his now former home. Don’t be surprised if Trump once again asserts that his call with Ukraine’s President Zelensky was perfect.  That’s his position and he appears to be sticking with. He’s also been promising to release the transcript, or notes, from the earlier call he had with Zelensky, the one where he congratulated him on winning his election, to prove that he only ever said “perfect” things to Zelensky.  Unfortunately for Trump even his surrogates haven’t bought into the “perfect call” assertion, they still insist he did nothing impeachable but none of them think the call was all that perfect. Wisconsin’s Senator Ron Johnson insists that there was no “quid pro quo” but acknowledges that Trump didn’t want to release aid to Ukraine because of his concerns about corruption, adding that he never heard Trump refer to the Bidens but did hear him talk about how Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election, the debunked theory that Johnson continues to propagate.  Kentucky contrarian Senator Rand Paul, who is on record opposing almost all foreign aid, said that it’s “a big mistake” for Trump to continue denying the existence of a quid pro quo with Ukraine because in his view all US aid is conditional.  He went on to say that Trump’s efforts to “manipulate” Ukraine, though ugly, were par for the course in Washington, you know because everyone there is into extortion.  Then there’s former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, out hawking her new book, she said "it is not a good practice for us ever to ask a foreign country to investigate an American…. but, I don't see it as impeachable."  She did reveal that though she disagreed with Trump on a lot of things she refused to join with former Secretary of State Tillerson and former Chief of Staff Kelly when they “tried to undermine” Trump by trying to recruit her to join them in saving the country from Trump warning her that if they all didn’t do something “people would die” because she believed that they weren’t really worried about “a rogue president that was out of control” but just had policy differences with him.  No comment from Tillerson, who at least once referred to Trump as a moron, but Kelly responded “If by resistance and stalling she means putting a staff process in place ... to ensure that he (Trump) knew all the pros and cons of what policy decision he might be contemplating so he could make an informed decision, then guilty as charged," kind of an admission that Haley was right about what he tried to do but wrong for not helping.  Anyway, some pundits think that Haley’s book tour is all about positioning herself to step into Mike Pence’s shoes should Trump decide to kick him off the ticket, or better yet, step into Trump’s shoes if he gets kicked to the curb.  

If Someone Take’s a Spill:  In preparation for this week’s hearings additional testimony transcripts were released on Friday.  The bottom line is that nothing in any of them are good for Trump.  Notably both Lt. Col. Vindman who may, depending on who’s talking, be “transferred” out of his White House NSC perch, and Fiona Hill the former Russian expert, say the effort to get the Ukrainians to dig up dirt on the Bidens was directed by Acting Chief of Staff Mulvaney, something that moves the scandal directly into Trump’s realm and further exposes Mulvaney. They testified that US Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland, the Trump donor who Trump now says he doesn’t really know, told Ukrainian officials in meetings on July 10 that they would have to open the Biden investigation to secure the White House meeting, saying he was acting at the direction of Mulvaney,  As to Mulvaney, he failed to show up to testify last week and now his lawyers have now taken the unusual step of asking to join the suit already filed by John Bolton and his second Charles Kupperman to get the court to tell him whether to follow Trump’s instructions to obey the Omerta oath, or to comply with the House subpoena and testify. That’s particularly odd given how many people in Trump’s orbit have simply refused to comply with what Trump calls the impeachment witch hunt.  Mulvaney may have read one of those countless reports that say that he will be offered up as a sacrificial lamb and may be trying to do something, anything to give himself cover. No one really knows what John Bolton is up to, on Friday his lawyer said that he knows lots of stuff about meetings that the House investigators haven’t yet uncovered, implying that they really should wait for the court to rule on whether or not he can testify before moving forward with the impeachment. Over the weekend it was revealed that he had signed a book contract with a $2 million advance. Everyone expected him to sign that contract, the question is what can he say in a book that he couldn’t say in testimony and is he holding out for a, hopefully, liberating court decision for his book or to facilitate his testimony, or both.  In any case Bolton is no fan of the Democrats but he really, really dislikes Trump so whatever the reportedly copious note taker has to say, will probably contain zingers for both sides, though the ones for Trump might well be dipped in some really noxious stuff. Talking about people about to be thrown under the bus, Rudy Giuliani’s life got a little more complicated this weekend. Lev Parnass, the now cooperating half of the Lev and Oleg show, says through his lawyer that under Giuliani’s direction he told a high-ranking representative from the newly elected Ukrainian government that failing to announce an investigation into the Bidens wouldn’t just cost them Pence’s attendance at the inauguration, it would also mean a freeze in US aid.  Lev who appears in many pictures with Trump is another guy that Trump now says he doesn’t know.  If Lev’s telling the truth, his is the earliest report of the Ukraine extortion scheme.

Don’t Rain on My Parade:  Congressman Jim “Gym” Jordan is now officially on the House Intelligence Committee.  He’s been put there to disrupt the upcoming hearings as much as possible out of concern that Ranking Committee member Devin Nunes, who’s been overly occupied suing a cow, isn’t up for the task.  And yes Nunes really is suing a cow, or at least the person who mocks him on twitter under the @DevinCow account name.  Nunes and Jordan, who was named last week in a lawsuit for ignoring reports about the Ohio State doctor who molested more than 43 victims, provided Chairman Adam Schiff with a list of witnesses that includes such notables as the Whistleblower, Hunter and Joe Biden, Nellie Ohr, Alexandra Chalupa and three of the more Trump friendly officials who already testified behind closed doors including Kurt Volker,  David Hale and Tim Morrison.  Nellie Ohr whose husband works at the Justice Department, was a researcher at Fusion GPS, the firm that employed British former spy Christopher Steele of dossier fame. Her inclusion on the Republican list, as well as the inclusion of former DNC employee Chalupa is part of the Republican’s strategy to taint the Russia investigation and this Ukraine investigation in one fell swoop. Schiff has no plans to honor most of those requests so there will be no Bidens and no Whistleblower testifying at least in the House and there will be no focus on the 2016 election nonsense, at least none that Jordan and team don’t manage to throw into their questioning and they will, because apparently they did during the behind closed door testimony. The public hearings which Trump previously called for but is now against for obvious reasons begin on Wednesday.

At Least I Didn’t Fake It:  Nothing big at the Roger Stone trial unless you count Steve Bannon, Trump’s former and still sometime strategist, testifying that Stone was the Trump campaign’s contact point for communication with Julian Assange and WikiLeaks about the DNC emails.  The ones that were hacked by Russians, not Ukrainians, that all of the Trumpsters were trying hard to get and that were strategically released to dim Hillary’s chances of winning.  

Appreciation and thanks to all Veterans.