GOATS

The End is Near:  The impeachment saga took another bizarre twist yesterday when during the first day of the question and answer period, Alan Dershowitz, Trump’s defense attorney/Constitutional law expert asserted that a president could do virtually anything, including engaging in a quid pro quo for a purely political benefit, as long as it's in service of winning reelection.  He actually said that if a president says “I want to be elected. I think I’m a great president. I think I’m the greatest president there ever was. And if I’m not elected, the national interest will suffer greatly, that cannot be an impeachable offense.” Since Trump clearly thinks that he is the GOAT of presidents, Dershowitz’s view would give him carte blanche to continue breaking laws in order to stay in office for another four years, or longer as for the right price Dershowitz, who also acknowledged that some of his views on impeachment have changed since the Clinton days because he’s done more “reading” up on the subject, could probably come up with a suitable justification for converting the presidency into a Putinesque autocracy. The rest of the day went about as expected with House impeachment managers sticking to their message: that Trump is a president run amok, that the Ukraine qui pro quo had nothing to do with Trump fighting corruption but everything to do with tarnishing Joe Biden and that the White House has been engaging in an epic amount of obstruction.  Aided by some of the questions posed by Republican Senators, Trump’s lawyers pulled out every conspiracy theory possible, from the Crowdstrike fantasy on down to defend his actions, taking the position that seeking aid from a foreign government was and is totally copacetic and that he didn't do anything wrong but if he did it wasn't wrong.  Chief Justice Roberts spoke but, with one notable exception that involved his refusal to let Rand Paul call out the Whistleblower by name, he served merely as a moderator. 

Blocking Bolton: Former national security advisor/author John Bolton’s name came up often, with Trump’s team arguing that he shouldn’t be called to testify in front of the Senate while the Democratic impeachment managers answered many questions by virtually screaming that a witness such as JOHN BOLTON could shed further light on the facts of the case.  While the hearing was in process, the White House issued a formal threat to Bolton to keep him from publishing his book.  That threat came in the form of a letter from the National Security Council that asserted that his manuscript “appears to contain significant amounts of classified information,” a spurious assertion given that Bolton, the author of many books on national security, has been down this road before and knows what can and cannot be disclosed. Bolton’s lawyer shot back at the NSC essentially calling their claim out as bull.  Bolton’s The Room Where it Happened is still available for presale on Amazon, due to be released on March 17.  It’s looking highly unlikely that Bolton will be called into testify because though it’s hard to tell for sure, only three Republican Senators, Romney, Collins, and Murkowski, have expressed a strong interest in hearing witnesses. Of those three, Romney’s vote seems the most solid, the not so reliable Collins seems almost there and Murkowski appears to be in the “witness curious” category.  Notably Collins and Murkowski teamed up on one question, asking whether or not Trump had expressed any interest in combating corruption before Joe Biden started ascending in the polls.  Assuming the three Senators stay strong and are the only three to join the Democrats in voting for witnesses, a 50-50 tie could result.  Theoretically, Chief Justice Roberts could break that tie, but it’s not clear that he’d be willing to stick his neck out.  In any case, in the unlikely event that more Republicans move into the pro-witness camp, Trump’s team would likely sue to prevent any they don’t want to hear from testifying to throw more wrenches into the already wrought process.  To be clear that would mean that the same crowd that insists that the Democrats should have called more witnesses in the House when they had the chance, will do their best to continue impeding any witnesses or evidence from showing up. Though it’s not clear that Lev Parnas, the indicted Giuliani crony, is really on anyone’s witness list, he did show up yesterday.  However, he was unable to take a seat in the Senate’s viewing section because like phones, ankle monitors are not allowed into the chamber. The unfortunate bottom line, is that it’s highly likely that Trump will be “exonerated” in time for his Fox Super Bowl interview.

Et Cetera:  Another day and another Iowa poll, this one from Monmouth University shows Joe Biden gaining a little, taking over the lead from a slightly slipping Bernie Sanders.  Basically the Iowa race is in a statistical tie.  Trump held a signing tete-a-tete at the White House to celebrate the new-NAFTA, or as he’s renamed it the not so catchy USMCA.  Despite the bi-partisan effort to get the trade deal passed, he shunned the Democrats, inviting none of them to the attend the signing but apparently Robert Lighthizer, his trade representative, didn’t get the message.  He actually called Speaker Pelosi to thank her for her significant help in getting the pact to the finish line.  And though the details are still to be resolved, Brexit begins tomorrow.