High Crimes and Goldendoodles

Royal Tantrum:  Well, it looks like I spoke to soon.  Minutes after I sent out yesterday’s Q, Trump tossed the whole try to look presidential thing out the window by throwing a temper tantrum after discovering that the UK’s Johnson, Canada’s Trudeau and France’s Macron had been caught on camera mocking him. So it turns out that the guy who calls Adam Schiff a “very sick man” and a “deranged human being, and who calls Speaker Pelosi “nervous Nancy” and a “third rate politician,” among other things, has thin skin.  Who would have guessed?  Petulant Don called Trudeau “two faced” and then cancelled his afternoon schedule, skipped out on the rest of the NATO summit and boarded Air Force One for the flight home.  Later when asked about it, Trudeau did some clean-up saying he wasn’t really mocking Trump, that he was “just making reference to the fact that there was an unscheduled press conference before my meeting” with Trump. “I was happy to be part of it but it was certainly notable." In other words he was making fun of Trump but isn’t concerned about his comments impacting the US-Canadian relationship because who can hold a grudge against Canadians?  Let’s hope he’s right about that, a war with Canada would be truly bizarre and would limit those Canada Goose parka imports.

No King’s Here:  By getting out of London early Trump got to watch the House Judiciary hearings where four legal experts, three including Noah Feldman of Harvard University, Pamela Karlan of Stanford University, and Michael Gerhardt of the University of North Carolina, chosen by the Democrats and the fourth, Jonathan Turley of George Washington University, chosen by the Republicans, were giving their views on what constitutes impeachable offenses. The hearings went on all day, anyone watching deserves continuing education credits. Chairman Jerry Nadler clearly had taken some coaching from his colleague House Intel chair Adam Schiff.  He managed to tamp down most of the Republican’s efforts to be disruptive, though he couldn’t do anything to stop their endless demands for long form vote counts every time one of their time delaying motions was voted down by the Democratic majority.  For their part the three Democratic witnesses did a good job of explaining how and why impeachment was included in the Constitution in the first place. During his history overview Professor Feldman, who looked like a teenager rather than a full professor, noted that when the Constitution was being drafted two participants proposed leaving impeachment out but that it was kept in over concerns that without it an elected president could manipulate the system to insure his re-election.  How prescient.  As to Trump’s actions, the impressive and spunky Professor Karlan, who won the day when she snapped back at ranking member Doug Collins’ claim that none of the lawyers had read last week’s Intelligence Committee testimony by insuring him that she had and that she had given up making her own Thanksgiving Turkey to do so.  She said that “Everything I know tells me that when Trump invited, indeed, demanded foreign involvement in our upcoming election, he struck at the very heart of what makes the country the ‘republic’ to which we pledge allegiance.”  Karlan took some heat from a faux outraged Melania as well as a number of other Republicans when, while making the point that American presidents are not kings, she said that Trump “can name his son Barron but cannot make him a Baron.” I thought that was funny, Melania thought it was an invasion of Barron’s privacy.  Professor Feldman, said that Trump has committed impeachable high crimes and misdemeanors by corruptly abusing the office of the presidency.” Professor Gerhardt who testified during the Clinton impeachment hearings said that Trump’s “serious misconduct are worse than the misconduct of any prior president.” The Republican witness,  Professor Turley, who also testified during the Clinton hearings where he was all in on impeaching Clinton because lying about sex was a step too far but seeking help from a foreign government, not so much, prefaced his remarks by saying that he hadn’t voted for Trump and that he knew that everyone including his dog, a goldendoodle, was mad but that “you can oppose Trump’s policies or actions but still conclude that the current legal case for impeachment is not just woefully inadequate but in some respects dangerous.”  As many of you know I am a fan of goldendoodles but Turley’s arguments were disingenuous, first of all goldendoodles are never mad but more notably he actually criticized the Democrats for not taking the time to bring more witnesses in to testify, ignoring that those witnesses, taking direction from the obstructive White House, refuse to participate. Oddly enough given that he was selected by the Republicans, Turley said that the acts Trump is accused of are impeachable but, ignoring Trump’s “perfect transcript,” his chief of staff’s admission that a quid pro quo had happened and all of the other evidence, he’s just not convinced that enough evidence has been presented to prove that Trump  actually committed any of them.  I guess he missed that White House lawn press moment where Trump asked China to dig up dirt on the Bidens.  The bottom line, it’s unlikely that anything said yesterday changed any House votes but on balance it was a good day for the Democrats.  Also it doesn’t look like the Democrats plan to slow their process to get more evidence, even though Turley believes that it’s likely that they will ultimately prevail in the courts, because they believe that more time will only give Trump more opportunities to commit additional impeachable acts.       

Rudy, Rudy, Barr:  As to more bad acts, nothing seems to be to stop Rudy Giuliani who continues to be a one man crime wave.  The NY Times reports that he’s still trying to dig up Biden dirt.  To that end he’s been overseas,  spending some time in Budapest where he met with former Ukrainian prosecutor Lutsenko and in Kiev where he met with a few of the country’s other former, corrupt prosecutors for a documentary series intended to debunk the impeachment case.  It’s worth noting all of those prosecutors, including Lutsenko, were dismissed for not investigating any of that Ukrainian corruption that Trump claims to be so concerned about.  Back at home It appears that Attorney General Barr may not get what he wants from US Attorney John Durham, his handpicked investigator who is supposed to be scrutinizing how the US intelligence agencies investigated Trump’s campaign.  According to the Washington Post, as part of his investigation into the origins of the Russia investigation, Inspector General Horowitz contacted Durham to find out if he had come across any proof that the elusive Maltese Professor Mifsud, who fed Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos the info about the DNC emails, was actually a US intelligence agency asset.  Much to Barr’s dismay, Durham told Horowitz that he’s seen nothing to indicate that Mifsud was a US spy. It’s looking quite possible that the Durham report, when and if it is ever completed, could turnout to be another nothing burger. 

Hunger Games: To date Trump has spent twice as much subsidizing US farmers for losses incurred due to his tariff war than was spent on the 2008 auto company bailout program with a good portion of that money going to large corporations rather than mom and pop farmers.  But not to worry, it appears that Trump’s Agriculture Secretary has now found a way to recoup a portion of those funds.  Yesterday the USDA announced plans to cut SNAP food stamps for up to 700,000 Americans because what’s a little hunger anyway.  Notably, the Republican controlled Senate rejected those cutbacks earlier so even they aren’t on board. What a lovely holiday message, don’t you think?