Dragging the Net

Just the Facts:  The facts aren’t really in dispute anymore, Trump pressured Ukraine President Zelensky to publicly commit to investigate the Bidens and Ukrainian gas company Burisma  and to investigate “Crowdstrike,” codeword for the debunked allegation that certain Ukrainian oligarchs worked with Democrats against Trump in 2016, in exchange for an Oval Office meeting and the release of Congressionally authorized military aid as well as the right to purchase more Javelin anti-tank missiles. Though Republicans still continue to quibble about some of those details, they know they’re substantially true, so now they are arguing that Trump’s intentions and crimes don’t matter because the Ukrainians got their aid and, at least so far, neither the Bidens nor the Crowdstrike crap are being investigated by Ukrainians authorities.  And of course, because we are in the Trump era, the Republican defense also involves threatening and besmirching the witnesses who brought Trump’s efforts out from the shadows.

It was Sunny and Cold: Yesterday’s testimony started in the morning and went on into the dinner hour.  That’s a lot of TV time, but nothing to worry about there, Devin Nunes who, when he wasn’t attacking the main stream media for their “biased” coverage used his allotted time to assert that the Democratic charade was a ratings bust.  On a far more substantive level, Lt Col Vindman, the morning’s keynote testifier, opened his remarks with a nod to his father, who he thanked for moving him and his two brothers from the former Soviet Union to the US, assuring him not to worry about him, that here in America, dissent and speaking truth to power are, or at least, are supposed to be protected rights. Defending his colleagues, he also said that the “vile character attacks on these distinguished and honorable public servants is reprehensible.” Dressed in full military regalia, attire that some of the Republicans questioned, Vindman came off as a straight arrow who truly believes that Trump’s efforts to tie the delivery of aid to an important and vulnerable ally to a favor for his own political gain was both wrong and contrary to stated US policy.  He reported his concern to NSC lawyer John Eisenberg and, as part of his NSC job, shared information with at least one person at the CIA.  It’s not clear if that person ultimately became the Whistleblower, but, despite repeated efforts by Intel Committee Republicans, with the support of Committee Chair Schiff Vindman refused to reveal the name of his CIA contact. Republican counsel Steve Castor followed a line of questioning intended to suggest that Vindman had “dual loyalties” by harping on an offer, one that Vindman assumed was made in jest and that he never took seriously but did report to his higher ups, to become Ukraine’s Defense Minister. Vindman, who characterized himself as a “Never Partisan” rather than a Never Trumper, made it clear that he is a loyal American who has no interest in returning to his birthplace.  Republicans also tried to question his capability pointing to assertions by some of his coworkers, including Tim Morrison, who testified later in the day, that he didn’t always have the best judgment.  The bottom line, Vindman,  the multilingual, Harvard educated, Iraq veteran, is the kind of guy who might be a pain to work with largely because he’s a smarty pants who sees things as either right or wrong but he’s very competent and a patriot.  And here he saw lots of wrong and, unlike, others who also knew what was going on around them wasn’t kosher, he did something about it and, despite his assurances to his dad that he’ll be okay, it’s not clear that he will be.  His days detailed to the White House NSC team are about to be cut short and, in the face of continuing tweet attacks by Trump, smearing by right wing pundits and threats against his life, the Army is now monitoring his safety and making back-up plans to move him, his twin brother and their families to an Army base for their protection.

He Wears the Medals: Jennifer Williams, an aide to VP Pence, shared Vindman’s morning testimony slot.  Though she didn’t report her concern about the content of the July 25^th Zelensky-Trump call to her higher ups, largely because her boss, Keith Kellogg, was also listening in on the call, she did find it to be inappropriate. Republicans seemed very focused on trying to get her to say that Trump’s decision to cancel VP Pence’s plans to travel to Zelensky’s inauguration had more to do with logistics than any warning to Zelensky that he’d better cooperate or face the consequences.  Williams, who started her career as a political appointee in the Bush administration, is clearly a Republican, nevertheless by showing up to testify she has now put her career at risk and she too had to assert that she is no Never Trumper.  During the afternoon it was Trump’s former special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker and former NSC official Tim Morrison’s time on the hot seat.  Both were invited to testify at the request of the Republican members of the Intel Committee.  Volker, one of the Three Amigos, who made it clear that he rejects that moniker and doesn’t consider himself part of the so-called triad, revised his earlier deposition to say that he now sees that others in the Trump administration sought an investigation into the Biden family and that they told Ukraine's government that military aid depended on it, a shift in his account that he attributed to new information he'd only recently learned, legal speak for he didn’t tell the whole truth last time around.  He probably didn’t please any of the Committee Republicans or Trump when he said that he had nothing but utmost respect for Joe Biden and was confident that the former Vice President would never have committed any corrupt acts. That said, his testimony wasn’t all good news for Democrats, he appeared to be working really hard to thread the needle, he refused to say that he’d seen much that was horribly wrong.  He continuously asserted that everything was fixable, and that was what he was trying to do, fix things so that the Ukrainians got their aid and if convincing them to cooperate with some announcements to make Trump happy required some shady stuff, that was okay with him.   For his part Tim Morrison, another longtime Republican, came off as kind of snooty, he admitted that he too was concerned about the Zelensky-Trump phone call.  In fact he also reported it to NSC lawyer John Eisenberg, but not because he thought that asking for a favor was necessarily illegal but because he thought that if the fact that Trump had done so leaked out it would be a bad thing.  He says that as far as he knows the transcript of the Zelensky-Trump call was put into the super-duper secret server by accident, that it only was supposed to be placed in the regular server with some extra restrictions as to who could see it.  Michael McFaul, the former Ambassador to Russia who also worked in the Obama White House doesn’t buy Morrison’s assertion, he says that it’s impossible to “accidentally” put anything into the super-duper secret server.

The two best “shade” moments of the day included Lt Col Vindman’s snap back at Devin Nunes that when he’s in military garb Nunes should address him as Lt Col rather than Mr. and Democratic Congressman Himes diss of lawyer Castor for his attempt to paint Vindman with the dual loyalty trope saying that “They're trying to convince you that Lt Col Vindman, who wears a Springfield rifle on a sea of blue, with a purple heart is not loyal to our country. Just because it's cloaked in a Brooks Brothers suit and parliamentary language doesn't make it any more defensible.”   

Crawling Out From Rocks: A lot of yesterday’s testimony concerned that Third Amigo, Trump donor/EU Ambassador Sondland who is due to testify this morning.  Even if you haven’t watched anything else, tune in at 9 ET.  It’s going to be very interesting to hear how he digs himself out of the hole he’s put himself in, whether he pleads the Fifth and if he does, whether he’s granted immunity.  Trump, who insists reports that he had a cardiac episode over the weekend are false and that he has the “good” cholesterol test results to prove it, as if cholesterol test results are an indication of whether or not you’ve had a heart attack, may find his heart pushed to its limits this morning.  Assuming the morning round ever ends, later in the day, Defense Department official Laura Cooper and undersecretary of state for political affairs David Hale, one of the Republican’s invitees, are scheduled to testify. 

This is the City: As if impeachment inquiry testimony isn’t enough politics for one very long day, tonight the Democratic candidates are scheduled to go at it in another one of the DNC’s endless series of debates.  Tonight’s Atlanta debate will feature the first all women moderating team including MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow,  MSNBC and NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, NBC’s Kristen Walker and the Washington Post’s Ashley Parker. The 10 candidates that made the cut are: Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Andrew Yang, Tom Steyer, Amy Klobuchar, and Tulsi Gabbard.  Given recent poll results, Mayor Pete may find himself the designated punching bag.  As to those poll results yesterday a New Hampshire poll showed Mayor Pete with 25% of likely Democratic voters, way ahead of Warren and Biden with 15% each and Sanders with 9%. The poll sampled a relatively small number of voters, was skewed towards more highly educated respondents and New Hampshire is another one of those relatively homogenous states so it’s not clear that it is indicative of much but if you’re Mayor Pete it’s a good thing.  One last note, reports are that Secretary of State Pompeo, who is knee deep in the Ukraine mess, Sondland says he kept him fully in the loop, and who isn’t doing much to support his State Department diplomats is looking for an exit so that he can run for Senator in Kansas.  He of course continues to deny that, but who wouldn’t want to disembark from the Trump ship right about now?