See You at the Trial!

London Bridges:  Trump is still in London.  He’s acting marginally more presidential than usual but that’s not saying much.  Yesterday during their joint press conference France’s Macron made it clear that their bromance has not survived the test of time.  When Trump responded to his comment that ISIS remains a problem by offering to send some ISIS fighters back to France, Macron glared at him, sending visual daggers.  And still smarting over Trump’s abrupt withdrawal from Syria and betrayal of Kurdish forces, Macron fact checked a number of Trump’s more egregious lies. Most notably when Trump claimed that it was Obama’s refusal to sell Turkey US air defense equipment that pushed Turkey’s Erdogan to purchase the equipment from Russia, a violation of NATO rules, Macron retorted that Turkey had other options as France had offered to sell the Turks equipment.  For the record, Obama held back on the sale over concern that Turkey would transfer key technology to Russia, a concern that has been born out by Erdogan’s recent Putin bonding.  The bottom line, Macron has had it with Trump and is no longer pretending to enjoy his “charm.”  When asked by a reporter if he supported Iranians protesting against their government, Trump said he did not which was particularly peculiar since Secretary of State Pompeo had just spoken out in their support and Trump’s own harsh sanction policy is the driving force behind the gas price hikes that led to those protests and the increasingly violent government response, part of Trump’s effort to push regime change.  At some point one or more of Trump’s aides must have reminded him that “his” policy is to support the “good” Iranian citizens as they fight to overthrow their “evil” government so during still another presser, this one with Canada’s Trudeau, he changed course saying  “A question was asked just a little while ago about supporting the people of Iran, and they are going through a very tough period — we do support them totally and have supported them from the beginning.”  His grasp of policy is so not impressive.  Trump also bragged about his great relationship with little rocket man Kim Jong un who has warned that he’s preparing a really special Christmas gift for all of us and by present think missiles rather than quaint ugly Christmas sweaters handknitted by North Korean slave laborers. While embracing Kim, Trump distanced himself from Prince Andrew, saying he didn’t know him despite all those pictures of him together with Melania, the Prince, the not so dearly departed Jeffrey Epstein and his facilitator Ghislaine Maxwell.   

Impeachment Front: On the impeachment front, as expected the House Intelligence Committee released it’s report, the official one, not the Republican “see no evil” one.  The report, which was voted out of committee last night with no Republican support, is now in the hands of the Judiciary Committee.  It included all that was expected plus a really significant kicker.  First the expected:  the report accuses Trump of trying to enlist Ukraine to help him in the 2020 presidential election and obstructing the congressional inquiry by trying to cover it up.  It concludes that Trump and his cronies Mike Pompeo, Rudy Giuliani, Mick Mulvaney and Rick Perry, among others, orchestrated a “scheme” to pressure Ukraine to announce investigations into the Bidens and those DNC server stashing Democrats, while withholding nearly $400 million in military assistance and a much coveted and oft promised White House meeting. It goes on to say that Trump denied documents to Congress and tried to block State Department diplomats and White House officials from testifying, damaging our system of checks and balances.  Every good crime saga has a few twists and turns, so we shouldn’t be surprised that the House Intelligence Committee report has one too.  The report included previously undisclosed Verizon and ATT call records that detail a series of calls between Rudy Giuliani, Devin Nunes, the Office of Management and Budget, the White House, Giuliani crony Lev Parnas and The Hill “journalist” John Solomon,  who was a key player in the campaign to smear the reputation of former US Ambassador to Ukraine Maria Yovanovitch.  Notably, the calls largely took place during two time periods: April when the Yovanovitch smear campaign was being launched and August when the military aid hold up was getting more scrutiny.  Notably in April, on the day that Yovanovitch was recalled Giuliani spoke with one or more people in the White House eleven times. Nunes’ involvement in this fiasco shouldn’t be surprising, he played a similar nefarious role in the Russia drama, and was actually “semi–recused” from serving as Chairman of the Intelligence Committee at that time when the Republicans controlled the House.  Still, it’s particularly ironic that Nunes has been hammering current Chairman Adam Schiff, alleging that he coordinated with the Whistleblower, something Schiff did not do, when it turns out that he, Nunes, was in on the Ukraine scheme from the start.  As to some of those calls to the White House, a few of them show up as a call to the mysterious truncated number 1.  That’s notable because the Roger Stone call records also reveal conversations to the same mysterious 1 and he’s now been convicted for lying about his calls. The assumption is that “1” is the number that appears on call records to Trump. Lev Parnas’ lawyer asserts that if only he was given the opportunity, Parnas could provided more details as to what was said on some of those calls that trace back to his number and no doubt he could but the Democrats are anxious to move forward and don’t believe that they have enough time to wait around for the Southern District of NY prosecutors to make Parnas and his call records, possibly even tapes, available.  That said, the report is clear in saying that the Intelligence Committee isn’t finished yet, they are prepared to continue investigating and sharing, they just don’t want to run out the clock.  As to clocks, Trump’s tax clock appears to be running out.  Yesterday,  a federal appeals court ruled that Deutsche Bank and Capital One must hand over years of Trump’s financial records in compliance with House subpoenas. Of course, we won’t be seeing those records just yet as the case is likely on its way to the Supreme Court, joining two other lower court decisions requiring the disclosure of Trump’s financial records.  Tune in this morning at 10 AM ET, the Impeachment series moves to the Judiciary Committee where we will all get educated about what constitutes impeachable crimes.  The master class will be taught by three professors chosen by the Democratic majority and one by the Republican minority.  

                     

Campaign Fever:  Yesterday California Senator Kamala Harris pulled out of the race.  Given recent reports about the state of her campaign, her withdrawal wasn’t shocking, still it was surprising to see someone who had been viewed as a real contender drop out while others like Tom Steyer and Tulsi Gabbard remain in the race.  Harris attributed her reluctant withdrawal to fundraising challenges and while that was part of the problem, it’s fair to say that her inability to clearly articulate her positions hurt her considerably.  Anyway, she’s relatively young, particularly as compared to the current crop of septuagenarians,  and very talented so she’s not going to disappear altogether.  After Trump snidely tweeted “"Too bad. We will miss you Kamala!," Harris quickly fired back "Don't worry, Mr. President I'll see you at your trial."  And who knows, after the impeachment trial she could end up on the Democratic ticket in the VP slot.  As to those other Democrats, yesterday a Hill Harris poll national showed Biden maintaining his lead, up 1 pt to 31%,  Sanders down 3 pts to 15%, Warren down 5 pts to 10%, Buttigieg up 2 pts to 9% and newbie Bloomberg at 3%.  The now withdrawn Harris had slipped to 2%.  At least for the moment Buttigieg is leading in Iowa, Sanders in his neighboring state of New Hampshire, and Biden in the more diverse South Carolina.