Everyone Knew Redux
Impeach, Impeach, Impeach: Yesterday Speaker Pelosi appointed her house
managers and, after a vote and a couple of speechlets from both the usual Democratic
and Republican suspects, formally carried the Articles of Impeachment over to
the Senate. As expected the House team
will be headed up by House Intel Chair Adam Schiff, though the less articulate House
Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler will also have a senior position. The rest of the team includes messaging guru
NY’s Hakeem Jeffries, Colorado’s Jason Crow, Florida’s Val Demings, Texas’ Sylvia
Garcia and California’s Zoe Lofgren. With the exception of Demings, Orlando’s
former chief of police, the team is comprised of lawyers, two of whom, Nadler
and Lofgren have prior impeachment experience. The team is intentionally diverse, regionally
and ethnically with all coming from safe districts. Though Senate Leader Mitch McConnell keeps
citing the Clinton impeachment process as his model, using it to justify his
decision not to agree to any witnesses before the cases are presented, that’s
mostly bunk. At the time of the Clinton
impeachment, there was bipartisan unanimity on the final rules package, this
time around McConnell won’t even talk to his counterpart Chuck Schumer. As to witnesses, there’s a good chance there
will be some, but it’s not a done deal and Senate oddball Rand Paul says that
he will do everything he can to make things difficult for any of his Republican
colleagues who join with the Democrats in voting for anyone like John Bolton to
appear. And of course Ted Cruz just
wants to hear from the Bidens. The trial
begins on Tuesday.
Parnas Parses: Lev Parnas, the Giuliani associate, who is
now spilling his guts to anyone who will listen, and lots are listening, including
the NY Times and MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow.
Parnas, who is actually a lot more articulate than I expected given his
thuggish career path, says that everyone knew what he was up to. Last night, with his lawyer Joseph Bondy by
his side, Parnas told Rachel Maddow that Ukrainian officials knew that Trump
cared little about corruption, that he just wanted dirt on the Bidens and that
before the Zelensky quid pro quo came to light there was another one with then
Ukraine prosecutor Lutsenko: dirt on the Bidens from Lutsenko in exchange for Trump
firing Ambassador Yovanovitch and a visa for Lutsenko to travel to the US. Like
EU Ambassador/Trump donor Gordon Sondland, Parnas implicates everyone, he says
that John Bolton, VP Pence, Secretary of
State Pompeo, and even Attorney General Barr were “in the loop,” well aware of what
he and Giuliani were doing on Trump’s behalf.
He says that though he met with Trump a few times, he didn’t discuss his
activities with him but that he’s confident that Giuliani did which makes sense
because that’s the way that Trump rolls. As to the alleged threat against Ambassador
Yovanovitch by Robert Hyde, the Connecticut Republican/lawn doctor, Parnas said
that he didn’t take it seriously because Hyde was always drunk and made things
up to make himself seem more important. Hyde
appears to have been quite a character, yesterday it was reported that he was
once picked up and put on psych hold after showing up at Mar a Lago
uninvited. Still he was in the Trump orbit
and Trump did suggest to Ukraine President Zelensky that Yovanovitch was going
to experience “bad” things so the threat warrants further investigation by
appropriate authorities, at least that’s the position that many State Department
civil servants, those not named Mike Pompeo, are taking. Pompeo has remained silent on the threat, he
even cancelled a previously scheduled press conference. And then there’s House Intel Ranking member
Devin Nunes, he previously said that he never had any contact with Parnas, but
now faced with hard evidence that he did, he admits that the two spoke about “odd
random things.” Parnas says that Nunes
knows full well that they spoke about more than that. Under ordinary
circumstances, a guy like Parnas wouldn’t have much credibility, however,
unfortunately for Trump and his team, much of what Parnas is saying is backed
up by texts, WhatsApps and other hard evidence, more of which was released
yesterday, including proof that Parnas had regular communications with two top Republican
fundraisers, Tom Hicks Jr, a donor and Trump family friend, and Joseph Ahearn,
who raised money for pro-Trump political groups. Parnas says that he regularly discussed
Ukraine matters with both of them. As to all this Parnas stuff, when asked
about it yesterday, Senator Susan Collins testily asked why if it was so
important didn’t the Democrats bring it up sooner. Collins, who always finds ways to ignore
facts that don’t fit her narrative, appears to be trying to ignore that the release
of the Parnas evidence trove was just approved by the courts. Anyone counting on her to do the right thing is
likely to be keenly disappointed.
Et Cetera: Trump signed a rather tepid First Phase trade
deal with China yesterday, one that leaves tariffs in place. During the signing, which coincided with the House
vote to send the Articles over to the Senate, he called the impeachment a hoax and
complained about rules prohibiting fireworks over Mt Rushmore and about sneakers
he found on eBay. Those last two points make sense when you consider that a new
book, A Very Stable Genius, by Washington Post writers Philip Rucker and Carol
Leonnig details that Trump didn’t know that India bordered China, wanted to
award himself a Medal of Honor, is ignorant of the history around Pearl Harbor,
and wants to make it legal for American companies to bribe foreign officials,
among other things. One of those other
things is that while interviewing a Secretary of State candidate, Trump asked if
he could get a meeting with Putin before his inauguration because as Speaker
Pelosi says, it always comes back to Russia.
And on the Russian front, it appears that Putin is on the verge of
becoming a Czar, yesterday his whole government resigned, paving the way for
him to further solidify his position.
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