Judiciary's Turn

The Band Marches On:  Welcome back, assuming you’ve made it back from your Thanksgiving destinations. A few things happened before and while we were chowing down, shopping and watching football.  First, more details of the FBI Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s Report were “leaked” out. In case you are confused the Horowitz/IG report is the one that was ordered by former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, as opposed to the other report that is being done by US Attorney John Durham at the direction of Attorney General Barr.  The Horowitz/IG Report examined the intelligence community’s use of wiretaps and informants and whether any political bias against Trump influenced investigative decisions.  Though Trump and a number of Fox pundits have been asserting for months that the report would prove widespread bias against Trump, it doesn’t. Though some criminally sloppy work by some low level FBI lawyers is cited, word is that the IG concluded that there was no bias and that despite the low level screw ups the FISA warrants were all justifiable. In addition, the IG report says that Maltese Professor Joseph Mifsud who told George Papadopoulos about the Russian’s having Hillary/DNC emails was not, as various Trumpsters claim, a deep state FBI agent.  That must be keenly disappointing for AG Barr who spent some time in Italy this fall searching for the elusive Maltese academic in an attempt to prove otherwise.  One person who has eagerly been awaiting the release of the report is Lisa Page, she was the senior FBI lawyer whose sexts with FBI Agent Peter Strzok continue to get an undue amount of attention in the Trump universe.  After months of silence she has started speaking out, in an interview with the Daily Beast, Page, who is still married to her husband, talks about how being regularly attacked by Trump and his minions was and is traumatic, that although she regrets her affair with Strzok, she always knew that she hadn’t violated any laws by occasionally expressing political views in her texts. It looks like she was right about that so though the Trump team will no doubt harp on the process snafus cited in the report and continue to call for her to be tried for treason, ignoring any of that exoneration stuff, expect to see them shift their focus to the still in process Durham report which is supposed to be taking a wider look into the origins of the Russia investigation because it is a whole lot easier to make hay out of something not yet done than a real report with conclusions that don’t validate your accusations.  As to facts that don’t validate accusations Republican Senator John Kennedy was back on TV this weekend, sounding like the buffoon he is and, ignoring Russia expert Fiona Hill’s stern admonition against doing so, he again stuck with Putin’s talking point that there was serious Ukraine interference in the 2016 election.  Shame on NBC’s Chuck Todd for even giving him air time.

Rudy, Rudy, Sondland: Before the holiday began we also learned more about Rudy Giuliani’s nefarious activities.  Rudy, who according to his lawyer privately reassured Trump that he really doesn’t have a secret “insurance” file to protect himself from anything Trump might do to harm him, probably does have such a file, one that goes back decades.  And he’ll need it.  It turns out that while he was in Ukraine seeking dirt on the Bidens and besmirching former US Ambassador Yovanovitch, he was also pursuing multiple six-figure deals with Ukrainian officials including one that involved Ukraine’s former top prosecutor Lutsenko, the guy he had been pushing to investigate the Bidens and who he had cited as a source of a lot of his “Biden dirt.” And because that wasn’t enough news for what was supposed to be a quiet holiday week, a number of news outlets are now reporting that Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland’s claim about a second call with Trump, the September 9 call in which he says that Trump told him there was no Ukraine quid pro quo, may never have taken place, since there are no records that the two even spoke on that date.  It may be time for Sondland to revise his testimony, again.

Afghanistan or Bust: With all things impeachment efforts moving at a rapid pace, or at least a rapid pace for Washington, Trump is kind of trying to look presidential.  To that end, after years of dithering he flew off to Afghanistan to spend some Turkey time with the troops.  Preparations for the trip were kept very secret, which must have been tough for Trump who has a hard time remembering what’s secret and what’s not.  Though early reports said that Melania accompanied him, she didn’t, instead his squad included Press Secretary Grisham, Acting Chief of Staff Mulvaney, NSA Adviser O’Brien, Deputy Press Secretary Deere, and Wyoming Senator Barrasso.  Before boarding Air Force One, everyone including  tweet-happy Trump, was forced to turn over their cell phones.  Though there are no reports that Trump considered leaving Mulvaney in Afghanistan to fend for himself, you have to believe that he thought about it which is fine because the rest of us probably were thinking something else along those lines.  For the most part the Afghan trip went off without a hitch, Trump got to look reasonably presidential and got those all-important photo-ops that he likes so much.  Unfortunately, while he was there he teased progress in negotiations with the Taliban, claiming that he would be getting a cease fire in exchange for talks which was news to the Taliban who had no idea what he was talking about. So much for the perfect trip.

Impeachment Update: Back on the impeachment front, focus shifts this week from the tightly controlled Adam Schiff chaired Intelligence Committee to the more free wielding Jerry Nadler chaired Judiciary Committee.  To  that end Republican Congressman Doug Collins, the ranking member of the Judiciary committee, spent some  time on Fox this weekend spewing word spaghetti about how he couldn’t comment on any of the charges against Trump because as far as he’s concerned they are all trumped up nonsense by those socialist Democrats. Most of what he said was intentionally unintelligible in part because he’s doing his best to impress Trump who has been exerting enormous pressure on newbie Georgia Governor Kemp, the guy who edged out Democrat wonder woman Stacey Abrams, to appoint him to replace the too ill to remain in the Senate Johnny Isakson.  Kemp wants to appoint businesswoman Kelly Loeffler who is opposed by all of the anti-abortion groups which probably means that she is too normal for the Trump crowd.  Anyway, moving back to impeachment proceedings, late last night White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, one of the people who probably wanted Trump to leave Mulvaney in Afghanistan, informed Judiciary Chair Nadler that neither Trump nor the White House would be participating in this week’s hearings even though they have been invited to do so.  Cipollone called this week’s planned hearings which are supposed to be exploring the “historical and constitutional basis of impeachment” unfair saying an “academic discussion cannot retroactively fix an irretrievably broken process." He went on to say that Trump  would be too busy anyway attending this week’s NATO meetings in London.  Some say that Trump might actually behave better than usual while at the NATO meetings, part of his effort to look presidential  in the face of impeachment but UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson isn’t so sure.  He’s trying to avoid meeting with Trump over concerns that anything he might say could negatively impact the upcoming UK elections.

Democrats:  Pete Buttigieg who is currently having his moment, or at least a moment with white voters, spent his weekend trying to find some minority support.  Biden who has lots of Black support seems to be holding his own despite all the attacks or maybe because of all of the attacks being levied against him by the Trump crowd.  Senator Amy Klobuchar continues to be frustrated that Mayor Pete and Biden are getting all the attention and that no one’s paying attention to her despite her experience.  But at the very least she has to be happier than Kamala Harris who was the subject of one of those women killing NY Times articles about her unraveling campaign or Cory Booker whose super PAC has just disbanded because it was having a hard time raising any money and who seems really frustrated that Mayor Pete keeps getting accolades for being a Rhodes Scholar when he is one too. Though Elizabeth Warren shouldn’t be ignored, she’s been sinking in the polls, a result of her not well thought out push into Medicare for All land, a strategy that works well for Bernie but one that doesn’t work as well for her because people expect Warren’s plans to have meat on them while Bernie’s loyal base is more into philosophy than details.  Bloomberg, who doesn’t care what anyone says, is plowing ahead with his multi-million dollar ad campaign and though his poll numbers are still anemic, he actually shows up in the polls which is more than can be said for either Montana Governor Steve Bullock or former Congressman Joe Sestak, who no one even knew was running.  Both men are now out of the race.  Iowa is around the corner, it gets worse from here.

And lastly, Homeland Security had no plans and no system to track all those children separated from their parents but went along with doing so anyway.  Not surprising, but still enormously depressing.