The Ledes

Tuesday, October 8, 2024

The New York Times is live-updating developments Tuesday as powerful Hurricane Milton moves through the Gulf of Mexico toward Central Florida.

New York Times: “Cissy Houston, a Grammy Award-winning soul and gospel star who helped shepherd her daughter Whitney Houston to superstardom, died on Monday at her home in Newark. She was 91.”

The Wires
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The Ledes

Monday, October 7, 2024

Weather Channel: “H​urricane Milton has rapidly intensified into a Category 3 and hurricane and storm surge watches are now posted along Florida's western Gulf Coast, where the storm poses threats of life-threatening storm surge, destructive winds and flooding rainfall by midweek. 'Milton will be a historic storm for the west coast of Florida,' the National Weather Service in Tampa Bay said in a briefing Monday morning.” ~~~

     ~~~ New York Times live updates are here for what is now a Cat 5 hurricane. 

CNN: “This year’s Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine has been awarded to Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for their work on the discovery of microRNA, a fundamental principle governing how gene activity is regulated. Their research revealed how genes give rise to different cells within the human body, a process known as gene regulation. Gene regulation by microRNA – a family of molecules that helps cells control the sort of proteins they make – ... was first revealed by Ambros and Ruvkun. The Nobel Prize committee announced the prestigious honor ... in Sweden on Monday.... Ambros, a professor of natural science at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, conducted the research that earned him the prize at Harvard University. Ruvkun conducted his research at Massachusetts General Hospital, and is a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School.”

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Public Service Announcement

Washington Post: "Americans can again order free rapid coronavirus tests by mail, the Biden administration announced Thursday. People can request four free at-home tests per household through covidtests.gov. They will begin shipping Monday. The move comes ahead of an expected winter wave of coronavirus cases. The September revival of the free testing program is in line with the Biden administration’s strategy to respond to the coronavirus as part of a broader public health campaign to protect Americans from respiratory viruses, including influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), that surge every fall and winter. But free tests were not mailed during the summer wave, which wastewater surveillance data shows is now receding."

Washington Post: “Comedy news outlet the Onion — reinvigorated by new ownership over this year — is bringing back its once-popular video parodies of cable news. But this time, there’s someone with real news anchor experience in the chair. When the first episodes appear online Monday, former WAMU and MSNBC host Joshua Johnson will be the face of the resurrected 'Onion News Network.' Playing an ONN anchor character named Dwight Richmond, Johnson says he’s bringing a real anchor’s sense of clarity — and self-importance — to the job. 'If ONN is anything, it’s a news organization that is so unaware of its own ridiculousness that it has the confidence of a serial killer,' says Johnson, 44.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'll be darned if I can figured out how to watch ONN. If anybody knows, do tell. Thanks.

Washington Post: “First came the surprising discovery that Earth’s atmosphere is leaking. But for roughly 60 years, the reason remained a mystery. Since the late 1960s, satellites over the poles detected an extremely fast flow of particles escaping into space — at speeds of 20 kilometers per second. Scientists suspected that gravity and the magnetic field alone could not fully explain the stream. There had to be another source creating this leaky faucet. It turns out the mysterious force is a previously undiscovered global electric field, a recent study found. The field is only about the strength of a watch battery — but it’s enough to thrust lighter ions from our atmosphere into space. It’s also generated unlike other electric fields on Earth. This newly discovered aspect of our planet provides clues about the evolution of our atmosphere, perhaps explaining why Earth is habitable. The electric field is 'an agent of chaos,' said Glyn Collinson, a NASA rocket scientist and lead author of the study. 'It undoes gravity.... Without it, Earth would be very different.'”

The New York Times lists Emmy winners. The AP has an overview story here.

New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~

     ~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”

New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”

Click on photo to enlarge.

~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI." 

Washington Post: “'Mary Cassatt at Work' is a large and mostly satisfying exhibition devoted to the career of the great American artist beloved for her sensitive and often sentimental views of family life. The 'at work' in the title of the Philadelphia Museum of Art show references the curators’ interest in Cassatt’s pioneering effort to establish herself as a professional artist within a male-dominated field. Throughout the show, which includes some 130 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings, the wall text and the art on view stresses Cassatt’s fixation on art as a career rather than a pastime.... Mary Cassatt at Work is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sept. 8. philamuseum.org”

New York Times: “Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at the age of 94, has been such a beloved giant of popular culture for so long that it’s easy to forget how unlikely it was that he became one of the founding fathers of stand-up comedy. Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album 'The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart' — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.... Bob Newhart holds up. In fact, it’s hard to think of a stand-up from that era who is a better argument against the commonplace idea that comedy does not age well.”

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Publisher & Editor: Marie Burns


Thursday
Oct172019

The Commentariat -- October 18, 2019

Late Morning Update:

Jennifer Bendery of The Huffington Post: "Senate Republicans voted Thursday to advance another of President Donald Trump’s judicial nominees, Justin Walker, who earned a rare and embarrassing 'not qualified' rating from the American Bar Association. Every Republican on the Judiciary Committee voted to advance Walker ... to the Senate floor for a confirmation vote. Every Democrat voted no.... 'Mr. Walker’s experience to date has a very substantial gap, namely the absence of any significant trial experience,' the ABA concluded. 'Mr. Walker has never tried a case as lead or co-counsel, whether civil or criminal.... In addition, based on review of his biographical information and conversations with Mr. Walker, it was challenging to determine how much of his ten years since graduation from law school has been spent in the practice of law.'" --s

Patrick Kingsley of the New York Times: "Shelling and gunfire continued in northern Syria on Friday morning, casting further doubt on the feasibility of a cease-fire announced a day before by Vice President Mike Pence between Turkish and Kurdish forces and raising questions about whether the Americans can even enforce it. The Kurdish leadership in northern Syria accused the Turkish military and its proxies of violating the terms of the truce. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan denied that any fighting was continuing."

He Was Not Amused. Borzou Daragahi of the U.K. Independent: "Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that Donald Trump's recent letter ... 'was not in line with diplomatic and political courtesy. We will not forget this lack of respect. This is not a priority for us. But when the time comes we would like it to be known that we will take the necessary steps.' The extraordinary missive warned the Turkish leader not to be a 'fool' over Turkish plans to start a military campaign in northern Syria.... It emerged on Thursday that Mr Erdogan reacted angrily to the letter, throwing it in the bin and commencing the military offensive, which has left dozens of civilians dead and displaced hundreds of thousands."

John Hudson, et al., of the Washington Post: “A career State Department official overseeing Ukraine policy told congressional investigators this week that he had raised concerns in early 2015 about then-Vice President Joe Biden’s son serving on the board of a Ukrainian energy company but was turned away by a Biden staffer, according to three people familiar with the testimony. George Kent, a deputy assistant secretary of state, testified Tuesday that he worried that Hunter Biden’s position at the firm Burisma Holdings would complicate efforts by U.S. diplomats to convey to Ukrainian officials the importance of avoiding conflicts of interest, said the people.... But when Kent raised the issue with Biden’s office, he was told the then-vice president didn’t have the 'bandwidth' to deal with the issue involving his son as his other son, Beau, was battling cancer, said the people familiar with his testimony. The testimony by Kent offers a reminder that as Democrats probe President Trump’s alleged actions in pressuring Ukraine to dig up compromising information on Biden, the impeachment inquiry also threatens to keep alive questions about the former vice president’s handling of his son’s foreign work at a precarious moment for his 2020 presidential campaign.”

Paul Brandus of USA Today: “... Donald Trump falls into every single sleazy category, squarely and shamelessly.... Meantime, finger-pointing at Hunter Biden diverts media attention — a time-honored Trump tactic — from his own children's brazen exploitation of their father’s office. As Bloomberg's Stephanie Baker notes, they 'have continued working with foreign business partners from Dubai to Indonesia and India while their father sits in the White House.' First daughter Ivanka and hubby Jared Kushner raked in an estimated $82 million in 2017 alone, records show. 'Time and again,' notes the Los Angeles Times, 'Trump’s children have blurred the lines of family, nation and business — essentially the charge the president makes against the Bidens.'”

Michelle Goldman of the New York Times wants to know how Gordon Sondland thought this was going to end. "... people sell their souls all the time — but why for something as small as a chance to serve a man whose depravity Sondland himself once recognized?... Sondland is desperately spinning to distance himself from this whole debacle, suggesting he knows he’s at the center of something reprehensible. What I can’t comprehend is how anyone could think that working for Trump would end up any other way.... While it may be a mistake to overestimate the acuity of Trump appointees, it’s probably safe to say that Sondland knew exactly what he was involved with.... That’s the thing about deals with the devil. You get what you want, and then it ruins you."

Igor Bobic of the Huffington Post: “Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) pushed back on the idea endorsed by the Trump administration this week that withholding foreign aid to other countries for political purposes is a routine and appropriate way of doing business. 'You don’t hold up foreign aid that we had previously appropriated for a political initiative,' Murkowski, a senior appropriator, told reporters on Capitol Hill Thursday afternoon. 'Period.'”

But for a Medium-Sized Spacesuit.... Hannah Devlin of the Guardian: "Two Nasa astronauts have embarked on the first all-female space walk in a historic first. Christina Koch and Jessica Meir floated feet-first out of the International Space Station’s Quest airlock on Friday lunchtime UK time, tasked with replacing a failed power control unit. The spacewalk, known as an extra-vehicular activity (EVA) in astronaut jargon, took place seven months after the original planned date for an all-female outing, which had to be scrapped because the ISS had only one medium-sized spacesuit on board. The agency sent up a second medium spacesuit in October." Mrs. McC: Ah, well. At long last, some good news. ~~~

     ~~~ Feel-Good Story Ruined. Morgan Chalfant of the Hill: “President Trump on Friday spoke to two female astronauts participating in the first all-female space walk, cheering them as 'very brave, brilliant women' and praising their work on a call at the White House.” Mrs. McC: I'm surprised he didn't tell them they looked hot in those tight-fitting spacesuits.

~~~~~~~~~~

Trump, Inc. -- The Corruption Confession

Did he also mention to me in the past the corruption related to the DNC server? Absolutely, no question about that. But that’s it, and that’s why we held up the money. -- Mick Mulvaney, on Trump's Ukraine quid pro quo

We have a confession. -- Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) ~~~

~~~ ** A Shakedown Is Legal if Trump Does It. Michael Shear & Katie Rogers of the New York Times: “Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, threw the Trump’s administration defense against impeachment into disarray on Thursday when he said that the White House withheld nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine to further President Trump’s political interests. Mr. Mulvaney told a room full of journalists in a White House briefing that was televised live that the aid was withheld in part until Ukraine investigated an unsubstantiated theory that Ukraine, not Russia, was responsible for hacking Democratic Party emails in 2016 — a theory that would show that Mr. Trump was elected without Russian help.... Mr. Mulvaney pointed to 'three issues' that explained why officials withheld the aid: corruption in Ukraine, frustration that European governments were not providing more money to Ukraine and the president’s demand that Kiev officials investigate the issue of the Democratic National Committee server.... Asked whether he had admitted to a quid pro quo, Mr. Mulvaney said, 'We do that all the time with foreign policy.'... The declaration by Mr. Mulvaney, which he took back later in the day, undercut Mr. Trump’s repeated denials of a quid pro quo that linked American military aid for Ukraine to an investigation that could help Mr. Trump politically.... Jay Sekulow, one of Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers, said Thursday, 'The president’s legal counsel was not involved in acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney’s press briefing.'... By day’s end, after Mr. Trump told aides to clean up the mess, Mr. Mulvaney issued a statement flatly denying what he had earlier said.... Democrats ridiculed the reversal.... Mr. Mulvaney blasted the current and former administration officials who have testified in the impeachment inquiry....” (This is a substantial update to a story linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ The Lie Falls Apart. John Hudson & Karoun Demirjian of the Washington Post: "Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney told reporters Thursday that President Trump blocked nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine in part to force the government in Kyiv to investigate his political rivals, a startling acknowledgment after the president’s repeated denials of a quid pro quo." CNN's story (which has been updated) is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Allan Smith of NBC News: "Mulvaney's admission angered and confused allies of Trump inside and outside the administration, according to two people familiar with the matter. One of them called Mulvaney’s comments in the White House briefing room 'an unmitigated disaster.'" Mulvaney claimed in the briefing that another reason for blocking Ukraine military aid was to make certain Ukrainians "'were cooperating in an ongoing investigation with our Department of Justice.' A senior Justice Department official said in response: 'If the White House was withholding aid from Ukraine with regard to any investigation by the Justice Department, that’s news to us.'"

     ~~~ The Times reprises the Q&A at the press briefing re: Ukraine & contrasts those remarks with Mulvaney's attempt to walk back his confession. Mrs. McC: Say, Mick, if you're going to confess to crimes & implicate your boss, maybe don't do it on national teevee.  ~~~

     ~~~ Jonathan Chait: "A few weeks ago, Republicans were still insisting that Donald Trump’s diplomatic posture toward Ukraine did not involve any quid pro quo — and if such a thing had happened, it would be bad. “There was no quid pro quo, you’d have to have that if there was going to be anything wrong,” said Senator Charles Grassley on September 25.... Mulvaney’s matter-of-fact manner [of endorsing Trump's abuse of the presidency] is merely a tonal shift announcing to his fellow partisans that they can stop denying Trump uses foreign policy to gin up overseas investigations of his domestic rivals and start defending it."

     ~~~ Josh Marshall of TPM provides a good explanation of Mulvaney's assertion that Trump wanted Ukraine to get to the bottom of the “'corruption related to the DNC server.'... It is ... a reference to the Seth Rich/DNC Server conspiracy theory[:]... Not only did Donald Trump not collude with Russia during the 2016 campaign. Russia didn’t even interfere in the election at all. Both were framed by a conspiracy between Ukraine and the DNC. The server is the DNC server that the Russians hacked. It’s ‘missing’, so the conspiracy theory goes, because a cybersecurity firm called Crowdstrike was part of the conspiracy and they made it look like the Russians had hacked the servers when in fact it was an inside job by a disgruntled DNC employee. And which employee? Seth Rich.... That was why the White House held up military aid. And if there’s any question that this was an offhand remark by Mulvaney, remember: Trump explicitly invoked the “Crowdstrike server” in his call with Zelensky.” ~~~

     ~~~ Fortunately for Trump, Mulvaney, Giuliani & sundry conspiracy theorists, Devin Nunes is still around. Betsy Swan & Sam Brodey of the Daily Beast: During Sondland's hearing, “Nunes (R-CA) brought up ... the Steele dossier. The context, according to three sources familiar with the episode, was his effort to explain why President Trump might be 'upset' about Ukraine. Nunes ... said some of the dossier’s contents dealt with Ukraine, and that the Clintons paid for it. Some attendees said it seemed oddly divorced from the topic at hand -- namely, whether Trump pressured the Ukrainian government to investigate one of his political opponents. 'It was nutso,' said one person familiar with the exchange. 'It was awkward.'” Mrs. McC: Hey, it was Devin.

Nicholas Fandos & Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: “Gordon D. Sondland, the United States ambassador to the European Union, will tell House impeachment investigators on Thursday that President Trump essentially delegated American foreign policy on Ukraine to his personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, a directive that he will say he disagreed with but nonetheless followed. Mr. Sondland, a Trump campaign donor who has emerged as a central figure in the Ukraine scandal, will testify that he did not understand until later that Mr. Giuliani’s goal may have been an effort 'to involve Ukrainians, directly or indirectly in the president’s 2020 re-election campaign.' According to a copy of his opening statement obtained by the New York Times, Mr. Sondland will say that Mr. Trump refused to take the counsel of his top diplomats, who recommended to him that he meet with the new Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, without any preconditions. The president said that the diplomats needed to satisfy concerns both he and Mr. Giuliani had related corruption in Ukraine, Mr. Sondland will say.... Mr. Sondland arrived on Capitol Hill on Thursday morning to take his turn in the secure rooms of the House Intelligence Committee....” The NBC News story is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Sondland's opening statement is here, via NBC News. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Mulvaney's confession -- stories linked above -- was Mulvaney's idea of how to mop up after Sondland's opening statement, released this morning. ~~~

~~~ “Gordon Sondland’s Ukraine Alibi: I Was the Dumbest Diplomat Ever.” Jonathan Chait: “In his testimony, Sondland claims he 'did not understand, until much later, that Mr. Giuliani’s agenda might have also included an effort to prompt the Ukrainians to investigate Vice President Biden or his son,' and that such an investigation 'would be wrong.' To grasp how utterly absurd this excuse is, consider a few facts. On May 1, the New York Times ran a lengthy front-page story about Biden and Ukraine, describing and detailing Trump’s agenda of ginning up charges against his likely opponent. The word Burisma appears 36 times in that story. The Times also ran follow-ups on May 9 and May 11.... Generally speaking, professional diplomats tend to be aware of front-page New York Times stories about the president’s deep, personal interest in the country they are negotiating with.... If Sondland had boycotted all the mainstream news coverage..., he definitely caught the right-wing media’s even more thorough coverage, all of which made the connection with the Bidens extremely clear.” (Also linked yesterday.)

Maggie Haberman & Lisa Friedman of the New York Times: "Rick Perry, the energy secretary who has drawn scrutiny for his role in the controversy surrounding President Trump’s efforts to push Ukraine officials to investigate the son of a political rival, on Thursday told the president he would resign from the cabinet.... It is not known exactly when Mr. Perry will leave his post, but it is expected soon." The CNBC story is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ An occasion to give this old favorite one last whirl:

~~~~~~~~~~~

Mrs. McCrabbie: Last week, Akhilleus laid out the steps of a Trump Scandal Cycle. Akhilleus applied the steps to a scandal that is in progress (the Lev & Igor sideshow). Allow me to fill in the particulars re: the Trump-Zelensky shakedown, a cycle which now is complete:

Step One: Deny. It was a perfect phone call.

Step Two: Attack. The whistleblower is practically a traitor, and what he says is all second-hand lies.

Step Three: Tacit admission but accept no responsibility. Here's the transcript of the call. Ukraine corruption is terrible.

Step Four: Admission with CYA qualifications. There was no quid pro quo.

Step Five: Conspiracy time. Everyone's out to get me because I'm so great. Those wonderful gentlemen were just trying to help me against the deep state.... (by Akhilleus) Nancy Pelosi & Adam Schiff are traitors and should be impeached.

Step Six: Find someone else to blame. Deep state infiltrating White House (so cut down NSC staff & "investigate" to find scapegoat).

Step Seven: New scandal. Doral G-7 (see next linked stories).

~~~~~~~~~~~

Earlier in Mulvaney's confessional/press briefing ~~~

~~~ Self-Dealing Is Okay if Trump Does It. President* Trump Awards Businessman* Trump a Huge Government Contract. Toluse Olorunnipa & David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post: “President Trump has awarded the 2020 G-7 Summit of world leaders to his own private company, scheduling the summit for June at his Trump Doral golf resort outside Miami, the White House announced on Thursday. That decision is without precedent in modern American history: the president used his public office to direct a massive contract to himself.... Trump’s Doral resort — set among office parks near Miami International Airport — has been in sharp decline in recent years, according to the Trump Organization’s own records. Its net operating income fell 69 percent from 2015 to 2017; a Trump Organization representative testified last year that the reason was Trump’s damaged brand. Now, the G-7 summit will draw hundreds of diplomats, journalists and security personnel to the resort during one of its slowest months of the year, when Miami is hot and the hotel is often less than 40 percent full. It will also provide a worldwide spotlight for the club.... The administration examined 10 sites before choosing this one, according to Mulvaney, who then quoted an anonymous site selection official who he said told him, 'It’s almost like they built this facility to host this type of event.' Mulvaney did not say what other sites were vetted — just that they were all worse.... Mulvaney said the White House was not going to release information about the selection process. 'If you want to see our paper on how we did this, the answer is absolutely not,' he said.” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

Apparently, President Donald Trump no longer sees fit even to pretend that he is constrained by the law or the Constitution. He doesn’t care to disguise his contempt for the rule of law. -- Robert Weissman of Public Citizen

~~~ Katie Rogers & Eric Lipton of the New York Times: “Legal experts said hosting the Group of 7 summit at the Doral might violate the Constitution in two ways. First, the Constitution prohibits the president from accepting a gift or payment from a foreign government source, technically called a foreign emolument. And second, the president is prohibited from taking any kind of payment from the federal government that is beyond his salary.” ~~~

~~~ Toluse  Olorunnipa of the Washington Post: “In admitting that Trump had personally intervened to award a multimillion-dollar summit to his own company, and that the president had also used taxpayer money as leverage to push a Ukrainian investigation into Democrats, Mulvaney embraced a classic Trumpian tactic: saying the quiet — and potentially illegal — part out loud.... Mulvaney did not say what other sites were vetted. But he did say how Trump’s property got on the list of properties under consideration: Trump suggested it. 'We had the list, and he goes, “What about Doral?” Mulvaney said, recounting the president’s comments in the White House dining room. 'And it was like that’s — that’s not the craziest idea.'” ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: They chose the Doral in the White House dining room? What was the selection process? A drinking game? ~~~

~~~ Should you still be confused by any of this in-your-face corruption, Paul Campos, in LG&$ puts it simply: "This is the most unambiguous possible violation of the emoluments clause, short of sending the leaders of the G7 certified letters informing them that the president will consider their requests on a cash-only basis[.]... The point is to steal everything that isn’t nailed down, and to do it right out in the open, with total impunity, because this is basically a banana republic now.. . . All this is either a pure political smash & grab, or we’re not having real elections next year. Either interpretation seems fairly plausible right now."

Create a Crisis, Retreat, Declare Victory and Move On *

Bethan McKernan of the Guardian: "Fighting is continuing on the border between Syria and Turkey, according to witnesses, despite an announcement from the US vice-president, Mike Pence, that Ankara had agreed to a five-day ceasefire to allow the US supervision of the withdrawal of Kurdish forces from the area." ~~~

~~~ pence Displaces Kurdish People, Bows to Erdogan. Annie Karni, et al., of the New York Times: “Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday said Turkey had agreed to suspend its military operations in northeast Syria for five days while Syrian Kurdish fighters left the area, immediately raising questions about whether the agreement was a diplomatic breakthrough or a capitulation to the Turkish government. Emerging from close to five hours of deliberations with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Mr. Pence said that the American delegation had achieved the cease-fire it had hoped to broker in the hastily organized trip to Ankara, the Turkish capital. Hailing the agreement as a diplomatic victory for President Trump, he called it a ‘solution we believe will save lives.'... But Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, immediately countered that the agreement was not a cease-fire at all, but merely a 'pause for our operation.' He added that 'as a result of our president’s skillful leadership, we got what we wanted.' Mr. Cavusoglu also directly contradicted Mr. Pence’s announcement that Turkey had agreed to engage in no military action in Kobani, Syria. 'We did not make any promises about Kobani,' Mr. Cavusoglu said, adding that they would discuss Kobani with Russia going forward.... [The agreement] was in practice less of a cease-fire deal than an acknowledgement of the United States’ rapid loss of influence in Syria since the Turkish invasion began last Wednesday.” ~~~

     ~~~ USA Today has a story here. Chuck Todd says the U.S. is beating such a hasty retreat that we're bombing our bases so the Turks don't get 'em. Mrs. McC: Not only did Trumpence give the Kurds' region to Turkey, I haven't seen where we're not knocking ourselves out helping the displaced Kurds relocate. ~~~

I’m happy to report tremendous success with respect to Turkey. This is an amazing outcome. -- Donald Trump, Thursday afternoon ~~~

~~~ David Sanger & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "The cease-fire agreement reached with Turkey by Vice President Mike Pence amounts to a near-total victory for Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who gains territory, pays little in penalties and appears to have outmaneuvered President Trump.... The cost for Kurds, longtime American allies in the fight against the Islamic State, is severe: Even Pentagon officials were mystified about where tens of thousands of displaced Kurds would go, as they moved south from the Turkey-Syria border as required by the deal — if they agree to go at all. And the cost to American influence, while hard to quantify, could be frightfully high." Pence also said the Trump administration would lift sanctions against Turkey. Trump's cave to Turkey is also a win for Russia, Iran & Syria. "Several civilian and military officials complained that the broadly worded deal left large policy and logistical gaps to fill, with many questions about how to carry out commitments by the two sides that appeared to contradict the fast-moving situation on the ground." ~~~

~~~ Julian Borger of the Guardian: "The deal agreed between the US and Turkey immediately achieved the priority objective of vice-president Mike Pence’s peace mission to Ankara: Donald Trump was able to claim victory on Twitter.... The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, also scored a quick win. The threat of US administration sanctions was suspended and his occupation of the Turkish-Syrian border zone was given an extra layer of respectability. Otherwise it was hard to pinpoint what the 13-point document produced in Ankara actually meant.... Washington had been in touch with the actual combatants on the ground, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), but appears to have sold them a completely different deal....[According to] Charles Lister, a Syria expert at the Middle East Institute[:] 'So everyone seems to be talking a different language, which can only spell more trouble.'" --s ~~~

~~~ Zeke Miller of the AP: “... Donald Trump framed the U.S.-brokered cease-fire deal with Turkey as 'a great day for civilization' but its effect was largely to mitigate a foreign policy crisis widely seen to be of his own making.... The cease-fire [agreement between pence & Erdogan] codifies nearly all of Turkey’s stated goals in the conflict.... In the negotiations, a senior U.S. official said, Pence and national security adviser Robert O’Brien expressed condolences to Erdogan and his military commanders over their dead and injured in the week-long campaign.... A senior U.S. official insisted that the agreement was negotiated in consultation with Kurdish forces and Pence said the U.S. would 'facilitate' the Kurds’ pullout, but he did not say if that would include the use of American troops.... Before the talks, the Kurds indicated they would object to any agreement along the lines of what was announced by Pence.” ~~~

I earned my spurs on the battlefield … and Donald Trump earned his spurs in a letter from a doctor. -- Former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, in response to Trump's calling him “the world’s most overrated general”

David Nexon, in the Atlantic, explains why Trump is incapable of handling: “... Trump’s primary interest lies in his own advancement. His information environment is dominated by Fox News and fever-swamp, right-wing conspiracy theories. He’s also all short-term tactics and no long-term strategy. Trump seems to be simply incapable of the kind of strategic thought required for foreign policy. In a devastating Atlantic article, Mark Bowden interviewed numerous U.S. generals who attest that Trump refuses to work through how other countries might respond to his actions. He just wants to make 'gut' decisions, which means that he neither anticipates nor plans for contingencies. This makes him fundamentally reactive.”

Now We Can Feel Safe & Secure. Vladimir Soldatkin of Reuters: "Russia and the United States are gradually starting to resume cooperation on cyber security, TASS news agency cited the head of Russia’s FSB Federal Security Service as saying on Thursday."

Jeff Toobin of the New Yorker: “William P. Barr just gave the worst speech by an Attorney General of the United States in modern history. Speaking at the University of Notre Dame last Friday, Barr took “religious liberty” as his subject, and he portrayed his fellow-believers as a beleaguered and oppressed minority. He was addressing, he said, 'the force, fervor, and comprehensiveness of the assault on religion we are experiencing today. This is not decay; this is organized destruction.' Historically illiterate, morally obtuse, and willfully misleading, the speech portrays religious people in the United States as beset by a hostile band of 'secularists.'... Barr claims the mantle of victimhood in order to press for a right-wing political agenda.”

* Mrs. McCrabbie: I borrow the "Create a Crisis/Declare Victory" headline from a July 2019 Japan Times article. The article had expired, so I don't know what it was about, but the author, whoever s/he may be, described it as "the Trump pattern" and cited an earlier instance in which Trump had used the same template. IOW, it is the Trump playbook.

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Wednesday
Oct162019

The Commentariat -- October 17, 2019

Morning/Afternoon Update:

"Adding Insult to Dishonor":

pence Displaces Kurdish People. Annie Karni, et al., of the New York Times: "Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday said Turkey had agreed to suspend its military operations in northeast Syria for five days while Syrian Kurdish fighters left the area, immediately raising questions about whether the agreement was a diplomatic breakthrough or a capitulation to the Turkish government. Emerging from close to five hours of deliberations with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Mr. Pence said that the American delegation had achieved the cease-fire it had hoped to broker in the hastily organized trip to Ankara, the Turkish capital. Hailing the agreement as a diplomatic victory for President Trump, he called it a 'solution we believe will save lives.'... But Turkey's foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, immediately countered that the agreement was not a cease-fire at all, but merely a 'pause for our operation.' He added that 'as a result of our president's skillful leadership, we got what we wanted.' Mr. Cavusoglu also directly contradicted Mr. Pence's announcement that Turkey had agreed to engage in no military action in Kobani, Syria. 'We did not make any promises about Kobani,' Mr. Cavusoglu said, adding that they would discuss Kobani with Russia going forward.... [The agreement] was in practice less of a cease-fire deal than an acknowledgement of the United States' rapid loss of influence in Syria since the Turkish invasion began last Wednesday." ~~~

     ~~~ USA Today has a story here. Chuck Todd says the U.S. is beating such a hasty retreat that we're bombing our bases so the Turks don't get 'em. Mrs. McC: Not only did Trumpence give the Kurds' region to Turkey, I haven't seen where we're not knocking ourselves out helping the displaced Kurds relocate.

Maggie Haberman & Lisa Friedman of the New York Times: "Rick Perry, the energy secretary who has drawn scrutiny for his role in the controversy surrounding President Trump's efforts to push Ukraine officials to investigate the son of a political rival, on Thursday told the president he would resign from the cabinet.... It is not known exactly when Mr. Perry will leave his post, but it is expected soon." The CNBC story is here.

I have news for everybody: get over it. There's going to be political influence in foreign policy. Elections do have consequences and they should, and your foreign policy is going to change ... there's no problem with that. -- Mick Mulvaney, endorsing open corruption ~~~

~~~ ** A Shakedown Is Legal if Trump Does It. New York Times: "Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, told reporters that the release of military aid to Ukraine this summer was linked in part to White House demands that Ukraine's government investigate what he called corruption by Democrats in the 2016 American presidential campaign. It was the first time a White House official has publicly acknowledged what a parade of current and former administration officials have told impeachment investigators on Capitol Hill. 'The look-back to what happened in 2016 certainly was part of the thing that he was worried about in corruption with that nation,' Mr. Mulvaney told reporters, referring to Mr. Trump. 'And that is absolutely appropriate.'... 'Did he [Trump] also mention to me in passing the corruption related to the D.N.C. server? Absolutely. No question about that, [Mulvaney] said. 'But that's it, and that's why we held up the money.' Mr. Mulvaney was referring to Mr. Trump's discredited idea that a server with Hillary Clinton's missing emails was being held by a company based in Ukraine. Mr. Mulvaney's comments undercut the president's repeated denials that there was a quid pro quo...." ~~~

     ~~~ The Lie Falls Apart. John Hudson & Karoun Demirjian of the Washington Post: "Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney told reporters Thursday that President Trump blocked nearly $400 million in military aid to Ukraine in part to force the government in Kyiv to investigate his political rivals, a startling acknowledgment after the president's repeated denials of a quid pro quo." CNN's story is here.~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: This is Trump-Mulvaney's idea of mopping up after Sondland's damning opening statement, released this morning. As I understand it (and I may be wrong), Mulvaney dropped both this load and the one that follows in the same press briefing. ~~~

~~~ Trump Announces Another Brazen Criminal Plan to Take Your Mind off His Other Brazen Criminal Enterprises. Self-Dealing Is Okay if Trump Does It. Toluse Olorunnipa & David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post: "President Trump has awarded the 2020 G-7 Summit of world leaders to his own private company, scheduling the summit for June at his Trump Doral golf resort outside Miami, the White House announced on Thursday. That decision is without precedent in modern American history: the president used his public office to direct a massive contract to himself. The G-7 Summit draws hundreds of diplomats, journalists and security personnel, and provides a worldwide spotlight." The resort is severely "underperforming."

Nicholas Fandos & Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "Gordon D. Sondland, the United States ambassador to the European Union, will tell House impeachment investigators on Thursday that President Trump essentially delegated American foreign policy on Ukraine to his personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, a directive that he will say he disagreed with but nonetheless followed. Mr. Sondland, a Trump campaign donor who has emerged as a central figure in the Ukraine scandal, will testify that he did not understand until later that Mr. Giuliani's goal may have been an effort 'to involve Ukrainians, directly or indirectly in the president's 2020 re-election campaign.' According to a copy of his opening statement obtained by the New York Times, Mr. Sondland will say that Mr. Trump refused to take the counsel of his top diplomats, who recommended to him that he meet with the new Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, without any preconditions. The president said that the diplomats needed to satisfy concerns both he and Mr. Giuliani had related corruption in Ukraine, Mr. Sondland will say.... Mr. Sondland arrived on Capitol Hill on Thursday morning to take his turn in the secure rooms of the House Intelligence Committee...."The NBC News story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Sondland's opening statement is here, via NBC News.

Washington Post @8:30 am ET: "A group of House Republicans postponed a news conference scheduled for Thursday morning at which they planned to demand greater 'transparency and inclusion' in the impeachment inquiry. A statement released by the office of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) said the decision was made following the death of [Elijah] Cummings, chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, one of the panels involved in the inquiry." ~~~

     ~~~ WashPo @ 9 am ET (same link as above): "Trump tweeted his condolences Thursday morning over the death of Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, which is involved in the impeachment inquiry. 'My warmest condolences to the family and many friends of Congressman Elijah Cummings,' Trump tweeted. 'I got to see first hand the strength, passion and wisdom of this highly respected political leader. His work and voice on so many fronts will be very hard, if not impossible, to replace!'... Twenty minutes after praising Cummings for his work, Trump returned to lashing out at the impeachment inquiry on Thursday...," (which, of course, was part of Cummings' work).

"Gordon Sondland's Ukraine Alibi: I Was the Dumbest Diplomat Ever." Jonathan Chait: "In his testimony, Sondland claims he 'did not understand, until much later, that Mr. Giuliani's agenda might have also included an effort to prompt the Ukrainians to investigate Vice President Biden or his son,' and that such an investigation 'would be wrong.' To grasp how utterly absurd this excuse is, consider a few facts. On May 1, the New York Times ran a lengthy front-page story about Biden and Ukraine, describing and detailing Trump's agenda of ginning up charges against his likely opponent. The word Burisma appears 36 times in that story. The Times also ran follow-ups on May 9 and May 11.... Generally speaking professional diplomats tend to be aware of front-page New York Times stories about the president's deep, personal interest in the country they are negotiating with.... If Sondland had boycotted all the mainstream news coverage..., he definitely caught the right-wing media's even more thorough coverage, all of which made the connection with the Bidens extremely clear."

Mrs. McCrabbie: Last week, Akhilleus laid out the steps of a Trump Scandal Cycle. Akhilleus applied the steps to a scandal that is in progress (the Lev & Igor sideshow). Allow me to fill in the particulars re: the Trump-Zelensky shakedown, a cycle which now is complete:

Step One: Deny. It was a perfect phone call.

Step Two: Attack. The whistleblower is practically a traitor, and what he says is all second-hand lies.

Step Three: Tacit admission but accept no responsibility. Here's the transcript of the call. Ukraine corruption is terrible.

Step Four: Admission with CYA qualifications. There was no quid pro quo.

Step Five: Conspiracy time. Everyone's out to get me because I'm so great. Those wonderful gentlemen were just trying to help me against the deep state.... (by Akhilleus) Nancy Pelosi & Adam Schiff are traitors and should be impeached.

Step Six: Find someone else to blame. Deep state infiltrating White House (so cut down NSC staff & "investigate" to find scapegoat).

Step Seven: New scandal. Doral.

~~~~~~~~~~

~~~ Elijah Cumming, Democratic National Convention, 2016

** WUSA Washington, D.C.: "Congressman Elijah Cummings died on Thursday morning, according to an official from his office. Congressman Cummings passed away at Johns Hopkins hospital due to complications concerning longstanding health challenges. He has represented Maryland's 7th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1966 [Bobby Lee Correction: 1996]. Before then he served 14 years in the Maryland House of Delegates. During his tenure he made history as the first African American in Maryland to be named Speaker Pro Tem." Update: The Washington Post's obituary is here. ~~~

Update. New York Times: "Representative Elijah E. Cummings, a son of sharecroppers who rose to become one of the most powerful Democrats in Congress and a key figure in the impeachment investigation of President Trump, died on Thursday in Baltimore.... He was 68."

Everything Is Going Very Smoothly
Wednesday Was the 1,000th day of Donald Trump's Presidency*

Lone woman stands up to stupid. White House photo.

     ~~~ Update. Meagan Flynn of the Washington Post: "The image was meant to be an insult -- 'Nervous Nancy's unhinged meltdown!' Trump wrote as a caption. But instead, it ended up as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's Twitter cover photo."

The Guardian's lede, by Julian Borger, is a masterful summary: "A senior US delegation faces the mammoth task of pressuring Turkey to halt its offensive in north-east Syria or face sanctions, hours after Donald Trump said his country had no stake in defending Kurdish fighters who died by the thousands as the US's partners against Islamic State."

Peter Baker, et al., of the New York Times: "President Trump seemed to wash his hands of the conflict between Turkey and America's Kurdish allies in Syria on Wednesday, generating withering criticism from Republican allies, who rebuked him in a House vote. The day ended with a heated confrontation between Mr. Trump and Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the Oval Office.... Mr. Trump then engaged in a sharp exchange at the White House with Democratic congressional leaders, who walked out of a meeting, complaining that he had been more offensive to them than any president in modern times.... [Earlier in the day,] Mr. Trump insisted his handling of the matter had been 'strategically brilliant' and minimized concerns for the Kurds, implying that they allied with the United States only out of their own self-interest.... Echoing Mr. Erdogan's talking points, Mr. Trump compared one faction of the Kurds to the Islamic State and he asserted that Kurds intentionally freed some Islamic State prisoners to create a backlash for him. 'Probably the Kurds let [them] go to make a little bit stronger political impact,' he said. He dismissed concerns that his decision had opened the way for Russia, Iran, the Syrian government and the Islamic State to move into the abandoned territory and reassert their influence in the area. 'I wish them all a lot of luck,' Mr. Trump said of the Russians and Syrians." This is an update of a story linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Rebecca Kheel of the Hill: "President Trump had a 'meltdown' and called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) a 'third-rate politician' during a meeting Wednesday with congressional leaders on the situation in Syria, Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters after they left the meeting early. The White House had invited leadership and top committee members of both parties and chambers of Congress to discuss Trump's decision to withdraw U.S. troops from northern Syria.... Pelosi attributed Trump’s comments to being 'shaken' by the overwhelming nature of the House vote, where 129 Republicans sided with Democrats. 'That's why we couldn't continue in the meeting because he just wasn't relating to the reality of it,' Pelosi said. 'What we witnessed on the part of the president was a meltdown, sad to say,' she added later. Schumer added that Trump was 'insulting' to Pelosi. 'She kept her cool completely, but he called her a third-rate politician. He said that there are communists involved and you guys might like that. I mean, this was not a dialogue. It was sort of a diatribe, a nasty diatribe,' Schumer said." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ The President was measured, factual and decisive, while Speaker Pelosi's decision to walk out was baffling, but not surprising. She had no intention of listening or contributing to an important meeting on national security issues. While Democratic leadership chose to storm out and get in front of the cameras to whine, everyone else in the meeting chose to stay in the room and work on behalf of this country. -- Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham, in a statement Wednesday

     ~~~ Katie Rogers of the New York Times reconstructs how the meeting went down. And out. Lisa Mascaro of the AP does the same. ~~~

     ~~~ Marina Petofsky of the Hill: "Lawmakers and other social media users took to Twitter on Wednesday evening to praise House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) after President Trump tweeted a photo of her standing up at a contentious meeting with Democratic leaders in Congress and Trump about his decision to pull American troops from northern Syria.... David Lauter, Washington bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times, tweeted, 'This photo could be a Pelosi campaign poster -- the sole woman in the room, literally standing up to the President. Why he thinks this makes her look bad is a mystery.'"

First Trump Abandons the Kurds, Then He Insults Them. Morgan Chalfant & Brett Samuels of the Hill: "President Trump said Wednesday that Turkey's offensive against U.S.-allied Kurdish forces in northern Syria is 'not our problem,' defending his decision to withdraw U.S. troops from the region amid criticism.... Trump also downplayed the U.S. alliance with the Kurds.... 'The Kurds are much safer right now, but the Kurds know how to fight, and as I said, they're not angels. They're not angels. You take a look... but they fought with us. We paid a lot of money for them to fight with us, and that's OK,' Trump said. 'If Russia wants to get involved with Syria, that's really up to them. They have a problem with Turkey. They have a problem at a border. It's not our border, we shouldn't be losing lives over it,' Trump said later." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Quint Forgey of Politico: "'They're not angels, if you take a look. You have to go back and take a look. But they fought with us, and we paid a lot of money for them to fight with us, and that's OK,' [Trump said of the Kurds]. 'They did well when they fought with us. They didn't do so well when they didn't fight with us.' The incendiary comments marked perhaps the president's most dismissive defense of his widely condemned decision earlier this month to allow Turkey to invade Syria, and come just days after the Pentagon's announcement that Trump had directed the evacuation of the last U.S. troops still stationed in the West Asian nation." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: In his multiple insults of the Kurds -- our long-time allies who now face possible ethnic cleansing because Trump abandoned them -- Trump said Wednesday, "It's not our problem. They've got a lot of sand over there ... There's a lot of sand they can play with." At the same time, Trump has sent pence & Pompeo to Ankara -- tho it's not clear Erdogan will receive them -- to negotiate a ceasefire & relay Trump's message that he will "destroy the Turkish economy" if Erdogan doesn't stop attacking the Kurds. Even Lindsey Graham can see this makes no sense: "The statements by President Trump about Turkey's invasion being of no concern to us also completely undercut Vice President Pence and Secretary Pompeo's ability to end the conflict," Graham tweeted. IOW, a babbling, incoherent ignoramus is in charge of U.S. international policy. And nobody can guess what it is from moment to moment.

Caitlin Oprysko of Politico: "... Donald Trump on Wednesday lashed out at Sen. Lindsey Graham, marking the latest salvo in the pair's clash over Trump's sudden withdrawal of U.S. troops from northern Syria. 'Lindsey Graham would like to stay in the Middle East for the next thousand years with thousands of soldiers fighting other people's wars. I want to get out of the Middle East,' Trump charged during a news conference at the White House alongside Italian President Sergio Mattarella.... "I hope President Trump is right in his belief that Turkey's invasion of Syria is of no concern to us, abandoning the Kurds won't come back to haunt us, ISIS won't reemerge, and Iran will not fill the vacuum created by this decision,' Graham said Wednesday. 'However, I firmly believe that if President Trump continues to make such statements this will be a disaster worse than President Obama's decision to leave Iraq.'"

Jordain Carney of the Hill: "Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) lashed out at the Trump administration on Wednesday saying it paved the way for Turkey's invasion of northern Syria and that it was 'disingenuous' to be surprised by Ankara's actions. 'This was a decision by the administration which had the clearly observable result that we're seeing. To have the vice president and the secretary of State going to meet with Erdoğan and suggesting that somehow we're surprised by what's happening is disingenuous,' Romney told reporters on Wednesday."

Benjamin Hart of New York: "After President Trump gave Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan the green light to invade northern Syria last weekend, thus unleashing chaos in the region, Trump wrote him a very strange letter, obtained by Fox Business's Trish Regan. The message's theme --; that Erdogan should show military restraint -- was straightforward, but the prose style and phrasing ... are so surpassingly weird in a high-level diplomatic context that many wondered if the note was authentic. It is." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Update: On Wednesday, Trump actually boasted about this letter (dated Oct. 9): New York Times: "President Trump said on Wednesday that he did not give President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey a green light to move Turkish forces into northern Syria, adding that he'd written a 'very powerful letter' of warning in the days after announcing his decision to pull back American troops from the area." Mrs. McC: It would have been more powerful still in the original Crayola.

** Rebecca Kheel of the Hill: "The House on Wednesday approved a resolution formally rebuking President Trump over his decision to withdraw U.S. troops from northern Syria. The measure passed in a 354-60 vote, with four lawmakers voting present. All 60 votes against the resolution came from Republicans, with the present votes coming from three GOP lawmakers and Rep. Justin Amash (I-Mich.). The top three House Republicans supported the motion in a rare split from the president. The resolution -- which was sponsored by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) and the panel's top Republican, Rep. Michael McCaul (Texas) -- 'opposes the decision to end certain United States efforts to prevent Turkish military operations against Syrian Kurdish forces in Northeast Syria.' The measure also calls on Turkey to end its military action, calls on the United States to protect the Kurds and calls on the White House 'to present a clear and specific plan for the enduring defeat of ISIS.'" (Also linked yesterday.)

Elena Becatoros & Bassem Mroue of the AP: "Syrian forces on Wednesday night rolled into the strategic border town of Kobani, blocking one path for the Turkish military to establish a 'safe zone' free of Syrian Kurdish fighters along the frontier as part of its week-old offensive. The seizure of Kobani by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad also pointed to a dramatic shift in northeastern Syria: The town was where the United States military and Kurdish fighters first united to defeat the Islamic State group four years ago and holds powerful symbolism for Syrian Kurds and their ambitions of self-rule." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Ben Hubbard of the New York Times: "President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey on Wednesday called for Kurdish fighters battling his troops in northeastern Syria to lay down their weapons and withdraw from the border area 'this very night.' Resisting Western pressure to halt the operation, Mr. Erdogan also requested international support for his country's battle against Kurdish fighters whom Turkey considers terrorists but who had been allied with the United States against the Islamic State. Speaking to the Turkish Parliament, Mr. Erdogan said Turkey would not stop fighting until it had established a planned 'safe zone' in Syria roughly 20 miles deep, from the town of Manbij in the west to the Iraqi border in the east." (Also linked yesterday.)

The Impeachment of President* Trump, Ctd.

Here is your President*, despite being the victim of a witch hunt and winning a presidential election in the face of "corruption like you wouldn't believe," chatting as amiably as possible with his guest, President Sergio Mattarella of Italy:

~~~ ** Mrs. McCrabbie: I hope you get to listen to this unhinged plaint. If not, Dana Milbank of the Washington Post summarizes this bit & more: "... Trump acted the way he increasingly has lately: as if the walls are closing in. Trump lashed out, indiscriminately, in all directions. His unfocused rage was as cogent as a primal scream and as subtle as a column of Turkish tanks." After running down a long list of Trump's attacks, Milbank writes, "More revealing was who Trump didn't attack: Turkey and Russia. He said Turkey's invasion 'didn't surprise me.' He praised Turkey for being 'almost paid up' with NATO. He said Russia, Iran and Syria can be trusted to take over the fight against the Islamic State. Such incoherent rage, combined with confusion distinguishing between friend and foe, is uniquely disconcerting coming from the most powerful man in the world. Trump once worried that 'the world is laughing at us.' Now the world is staring at us, mouth agape."

A Meeting in the Basement. Josh Lederman of NBC News: "Lawmakers plan to grill Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland on Thursday about a private discussion he had with top Ukrainian officials in the White House in which he explicitly mentioned the Ukrainian gas company [Burisma Holdings] linked to Hunter Biden, amid negotiations over granting Ukraine&'s new president an audience with ... Donald Trump.... Sondland's meeting with the Ukrainians just steps away from the White House Situation Room came minutes after a larger West Wing meeting that included then-National Security Adviser John Bolton, who had been noncommittal about scheduling a meeting between Trump and new Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Sondland directly contradicted Bolton by telling the Ukrainians that in fact, Trump was committed to meeting with Zelenskiy on the condition he open a corruption investigation, two people told about the matter tell NBC News. Bolton abruptly ended the meeting.... Sondland then invited the Ukrainian officials to continue the conversation separately, escorting them to a private room in the White House basement, the individuals said. That's when Sondland was overheard discussing Burisma Holdings..., prompt[ing] Bolton to direct then-Trump Russia adviser Fiona Hill to report the situation to White House lawyers." ~~~

     ~~~ Screenwriters Alert: In this scene, the bumbling "diplomat" -- who bought his job with a million-dollar pay-for-play check to the president* -- ushers the group of confused Ukrainians to a dimly-lit secret room in the bowels of the White House basement. The "diplomat" tells the Ukrainians they have to get the goods on this kid, then finger his old man who wants to bring down the president*. If the Ukrainians don't come through, the "diplomat" warns, Russians might take over their country. But wait! The "diplomat" leaves the door ajar. Out in the hall, the sultry female former counterintelligence agent (yes, yes, she's wearing a short, clingy red dress) lurks. She overhears the "diplomat"'s threat! Disclaimer: Okay, maybe too corny for a movie, but not for real life.

~~~ The Idiot Abroad. Nicholas Fandos & Adam Goldman of the New York Times: "A former top White House foreign policy adviser told House impeachment investigators this week that she viewed Gordon D. Sondland, the United States ambassador to the European Union, as a potential national security risk because he was so unprepared for his job, according to two people familiar with her private testimony. The adviser, Fiona Hill, did not accuse Mr. Sondland of acting maliciously or intentionally putting the country at risk.... Ms. Hill, the former senior director for European and Russian affairs at the White House, also said that she raised her concerns with intelligence officials inside the White House, one of the people said.... She said Mr. Sondland extensively used a personal cellphone for official diplomatic business and repeatedly told foreign officials they were welcome to come to the White House whenever they liked.... Ms. Hill also testified that Mr. Sondland held himself out to foreign officials as someone who could deliver meetings at the White House while also providing the cellphone numbers of American officials to foreigners, the people said. Those actions created additional counterintelligence risks, she said." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ The Idiot at Home*. Michael Birnbaum, et al., of the Washington Post: "Gordon Sondland ... is overseeing a nearly $1 million renovation of his government-provided residence, paid for with taxpayer money, that current and former officials have criticized as extravagant and unnecessary. The work on the ambassador's home on the outskirts of Brussels includes more than $400,000 in kitchen renovations, nearly $30,000 for a new sound system and $95,000 for an outdoor 'living pod' with a pergola and electric heating, LED lighting strips and a remote-control system, government procurement records show. The State Department also has allocated more than $100,000 for an 'alternate' residence for Sondland for September and October, while work is performed.... The renovations at the E.U. ambassador's residence, which include $33,000 for handmade furniture from Italy, appeared driven by Sondland's lavish tastes rather than practical needs...." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: This is the best reason evah for Sondland's losing his job -- he won't get to stay in the "lavish" digs we paid for. If Sondland had a million bucks to donate to Donald Trump, he has a million bucks to donate to the refurbishment of the ambassador's residence. But Sondland is a cheapskate, a two-bit chiseling innkeeper like Trump. One reason to appoint the ultra-rich as ambassadors is that they can afford to keep up their temporary homes. In 1970, the publisher & U.S. Ambassador to the U.K., "Walter H. Annenberg ... spent $950,000 of his own money [that's almost $6MM in today's dollars] and $50,000 of the Government's to renovate" Winfield House, the ambassador's home in London. Then he decorated the walls "with works from his own collection and paintings by such artists as Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec and Monet." Winfield House itself came to be only because "Barbara Hutton, the American heiress to the Woolworth fortune..., donated the mansion to the United States Government...."

David Graham of the Atlantic: "From the start of his administration, the president demonized government employees, especially in foreign policy and intelligence. He attacked career officers as part of the 'deep state,' discarded their advice, and appointed Cabinet secretaries who alienated them. Now, as an impeachment inquiry rolls forward, Trump is harvesting wind from the ice he sowed. The White House's attempt at full obstruction of the inquiry has cracked because unlike Trump's loyalists, career officials and experts have been willing to defy invocations of executive privilege and testify to Congress."

Michael Shear & Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "A former top aide to Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, told impeachment investigators on Wednesday that he resigned because he was upset that the Trump administration had wrestled Ukraine policy away from career diplomats, according to three people familiar with his closed-door deposition to the House Intelligence Committee. In several hours of continuing testimony, Michael McKinley, who until last week was a senior adviser to Mr. Pompeo, described his mounting frustration with how politicized the State Department had become under President Trump.... He spoke of his frustration with Rex W. Tillerson, the former secretary of state, saying he had gutted the department, and praised Mr. Pompeo for his leadership. But Mr. McKinley said he was alarmed at how poorly diplomats were treated." (Also linked yesterday.)

MEANWHILE, Kurt Volker, who resigned as special envoy to Ukraine, also appeared on the Hill Wednesday for further testimony. (Also linked yesterday.)

Didn't Get the Memo. Heidi Przybyla & Leigh Ann Caldwell of NBC News: "Acting U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor left Kyiv, Ukraine on Wednesday for Washington D.C. after House Democrats requested he appear for a Tuesday deposition in the investigation into President Trump's alleged misconduct involving Ukraine, NBC News has confirmed. Taylor is a crucial eye witness to Trump&'s attempts to press Ukainian President for an investigation of Joe Biden's son Hunter, who sat on the board of Ukrainian energy company, Burisma."

Got the Memo. Lauren Egan & Courtney Kube of NBC News: "Defense Secretary Mark Esper will not comply with a subpoena from House Democrats related to their impeachment inquiry, according to a letter sent Tuesday to Democratic leadership from the Department of Defense.... This is a shift from just days ago when Esper indicated he was willing to work with Democrats on the inquiry." (Also linked yesterday.)

Evan Perez, et al., of CNN: "For months, investigators looking into Rudy Giuliani's business dealings in Ukraine have dug into everything from possible financial entanglements with alleged corrupt Ukrainian figures to counterintelligence concerns raised by some of those business ties, according to people briefed on the matter. The counterintelligence part of the investigation indicates that FBI and criminal prosecutors in Manhattan are looking at a broader set of issues related to Giuliani ... than has been previously reported.... The investigators in the Southern District of New York appear to have largely operated separately from what Trump's appointees at the Justice Department headquarters in Washington, DC, have pursued in recent months, and the investigation dates back far longer than what's been previously reported." ~~~

~~~ Perry Fingers Giuliani. Sanjana Karanth of the Huffington Post: "Energy Secretary Rick Perry reportedly called ... Rudy Giuliani earlier this year to address the president's concerns about alleged corruption in Ukraine. Perry told The Wall Street Journal, in an interview published Wednesday, that [Donald] Trump directed him this spring to seek out Giuliani, who pushed debunked conspiracy theories about Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.... Perry said he contacted Giuliani as a way to set the stage for a meeting between Trump and newly elected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, according to the Journal. The energy secretary's meeting adds to a growing picture of Giuliani working with Cabinet officials to push Ukraine to launch investigations.... Perry's phone call with Giuliani reportedly came after a White House meeting in May after Zelensky's inauguration, according to the Journal. Officials at the meeting, including Perry and then-U.S. envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker, encouraged Trump to meet the new president, but Trump said that they needed to work with Giuliani to resolve the lawyer's concerns about Ukraine. Perry reportedly understood those concerns to be related to Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.... Perry told the Journal that some of the conspiracy theories that Giuliani related in their call included that Ukraine was responsible for a dossier on Trump's alleged ties to Russia, that Ukraine had Clinton's email server and that the country&'s government made up false evidence to send former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort to jail.

Joe Valiquette of NBC News: "A Florida man wanted in a campaign finance case involving associates of Rudy Giuliani is in federal custody. Spokespersons for the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan and the FBI confirm that David Correia was arrested after flying Wednesday to JFK Airport in New York City to turn himself in. Correia, 44, was named in an indictment with two Giuliani associates and another man arrested last week on charges they made illegal contributions to a congressman and a political action committee supporting ... Donald Trump. The two associates were arrested last week. Andrey Kukushkin, a Ukrainian-born U.S. citizen, was also charged in the case. Kukushkin was arrested last week in San Francisco." (Also linked yesterday.)

Greg Miller & others at the Washington Post take a look at Mick Mulvaney's part in the Ukraine scandal. "... current and former officials ... said Mulvaney contributed substantially to the unfolding political crisis.... U.S. officials said Mulvaney met frequently with [U.S. Ambassador to the E.U. Gordon] Sondland and that details of their discussions were kept from then-National Security Adviser John Bolton and other officials who were raising internal concerns about the hidden Ukraine agenda. Mulvaney also tolerated meetings between [Donald] Trump and [Rudy] Giuliani at a time when Giuliani was brazenly declaring in interviews his intent to enlist Kiev in efforts to substantiate conspiracy theories about the 2016 election and ... [damage] Joe Biden. Perhaps most significantly, Mulvaney -- at the direction of the president -- placed a hold on nearly $400 million in aid to Ukraine in the weeks before Trump used a July 25 phone call to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to pursue Giuliani's agenda." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Greg Sargent of the Washington Post digs deeper: "Mulvaney's private admission that the freeze in military aid was tied directly to Trump's demand for an investigation of 'corruption' becomes a lot more important. Because Mulvaney surely knew what 'investigate corruption' really meant, it strongly suggests Mulvaney knew that for Trump, the military aid -- which Mulvaney himself froze -- also turned on whether Zelensky carried out those investigations Trump wanted[; that is, the "investigations" of the 2016 election & the Bidens.]." Mrs. McC: This is exactly the language Jonathan Chait 'decoded" a couple of weeks ago, wherein "corruption" to the Trump Gang meant "2016 election & Bidens." (Also linked yesterday.)

Daniel Lippman of Politico profiles NSC attorney John Eisenberg. Trump calls him "Mike": "John Eisenberg, the attorney who is emerging as a central figure in the Ukraine scandal, is a quiet and unassuming presence in a White House dominated by more colorful personalities.... As one of the longest-serving senior White House officials, and as the National Security Council's top legal adviser, Eisenberg has been privy to many of the Trump administration's most sensitive secrets.... It was Eisenberg to whom several alarmed White House officials turned when Trump urged Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter. It was Eisenberg who then helped order the record of that call into a system used for ultra-secret classified information. And it was Eisenberg who .... consulted with political appointees at the Justice Department on how to handle a whistleblower's complaint about the Ukraine call.... Eisenberg's conduct is coming under scrutiny in the wake of [the whistleblower's] report...."

Burgess Everett of Politico: "Senate Republicans are preparing for a speedy impeachment trial that concludes before the end of the year. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told Senate Republicans on Wednesday that he expects Speaker Nancy Pelosi to approve articles of impeachment as early as Thanksgiving, according to five people familiar with Wednesday's party lunch. McConnell then surmised that the Senate could deal with the trial by Christmas, concluding the impeachment proceedings before the Democratic presidential primaries begin.... McConnell's comments and PowerPoint presentation on Wednesday were in part an acknowledgment that impeachment is exceedingly likely to come to the Senate, and much of the discussion centered on the ins and outs of Senate procedure. McConnell told senators they would be unable to speak during the trial and that only the chief justice of the Supreme Court, the president's defenders and the House managers could talk, said one person familiar with the meeting."

Impeachable Trump. Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "New data from Gallup released on Wednesday shows Trump's approval rating -- 39 percent -- is about where Nixon's was in the middle of 1973. The level of support for impeaching him and removing him from office, though -- 52 percent -- is essentially where Nixon's would have been right before he resigned in August of the following year.... The only time Americans have ever told Gallup they more strongly support impeaching and removing a president from office -- on Aug. 5, 1974 -- that president was gone four days later. Which is ... why it's so odd for Trump to be openly fighting with Republicans on Capitol Hill.... The one backstop Trump has against that happening is the support of Senate Republicans -- a group that is frustrated by his actions on Turkey and that Trump plans to keep loyal through threats."

A president with the power to obstruct his own impeachment through capacious grants of absolute immunity would be a president who is above the law. -- House of Representatives, in a court filing ~~~

~~~ Andrew Desiderio & Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Lawyers for the House of Representatives on Wednesday accused ... Donald Trump of trying to 'obstruct his own impeachment' by claiming the authority to block his advisers from cooperating with congressional investigations. The allegation came in a stinging 66-page court filing as part of the House Judiciary Committee's bid to secure testimony from former White House Counsel Don McGahn, whom Democrats consider to be the star witness in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation."


Jennifer Hassen of the Washington Post now has a story on Trump's ambush of grieving British parents Charlotte Charles & Tim Dunn. See also Reuters story linked yesterday. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Donnie Falsely Blames Boris for Jerry Springer Surprise. Harriet Alexander of the (U.K.) Telegraph: "Donald Trump claimed [Wednesday] that he tried to broker a meeting between Harry Dunn's grieving parents and the American woman who killed him, Anne Sacoolas, because Boris Johnson suggested he do so. Mr Dunn's parents, Charlotte Charles and Tim Dunn, arrived at the White House on Tuesday night to be told that Mrs Sacoolas was in the room next door. The couple refused to meet her.... Mr Trump later said..., 'I spoke with Boris he asked me if I'd do that, and I did it.'... Downing Street ... downplayed the idea they had suggested the encounter. A spokesperson noted that Mr Trump and Mr Johnson last spoke eight days ago, before the family had announced their intention to travel to the US. 'The Prime Minister asked the President to do all he could to help resolve this tragic issue. The President agreed to work on trying to find a way forward,' the spokesperson said.... The New York Times revealed today that the White House press corps had been assembled to capture the distraught parents' encounter with Mrs Sacoolas in a Jerry Springer-style 'reveal'." (Also linked yesterday.)

AP: "Former New Jersey Gov. Christie Whitman says she stands by a tweet she deleted in which she compared ... Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler. The Republican tweeted Hitler 'has nothing on' Trump. Whitman's tweet was in response to reports that a violent parody video depicting a likeness of Trump shooting and stabbing opponents and members of the media was played during a conference at his Miami golf resort."

Donald Trump, Serial Tax Cheat. Heather Vogell of ProPublica: "Documents obtained by ProPublica show stark differences in how Donald Trump's businesses reported some expenses, profits and occupancy figures for two Manhattan buildings, giving a lender different figures than they provided to New York City tax authorities. The discrepancies made the buildings appear more profitable to the lender -- and less profitable to the officials who set the buildings' property tax. For instance, Trump told the lender that he took in twice as much rent from one building as he reported to tax authorities during the same year, 2017. He also gave conflicting occupancy figures for one of his signature skyscrapers, located at 40 Wall Street.... A dozen real estate professionals told ProPublica they saw no clear explanation for multiple inconsistencies in the documents. The discrepancies are 'versions of fraud,' said Nancy Wallace [of] the University of California-Berkeley. This kind of stuff is not OK.'" Thanks to unwashed for the link. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: It's probably a little unfair of me to call Trump a tax cheat, when he most likely also attempted to defraud lenders by exaggerating the values of the same properties. ~~~

~~~ William D. Cohan of Vanity Fair: Donald Trump is definitely manipulating the markets. The question is whether or not his friends are the guys cashing in -- to the tune of more than a billion dollars in a couple of instances -- on his tall tales. A "single Trump lie briefly inflated domestic markets by hundreds of billions of dollars. 'What this describes is, quite literally, market manipulation that constitutes criminal violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934,' commented George Conway, the conservative attorney and Trump critic. Whether Conway is right or wrong is a matter of legal opinion, but given how fishy and coincidental the trading in e-minis seems to be these days, the SEC or CFTC would be doing a great service (and their job) for the American people by investigating who is behind these lucrative trades, and what they knew before they placed them. At the moment, what we're getting from them is an indifferent shrug."

Michael Wayland of CNBC: "General Motors and union leaders have reached a tentative deal on a new labor contract that could end the United Auto Workers' month-long strike against the automaker, the UAW said Wednesday. Details of the proposed deal were not immediately available. However, the union's roughly 48,000 members with GM are expected to receive raises and bonuses as part of the accord. The company's shares jumped by about 2.5% in morning trading." (Also linked yesterday.)

Presidential Race 2020

Tommy Christopher of Mediaite: "Joe Biden went off on Elizabeth Warren's 'ridiculous' healthcare plan, and accused the Massachusetts senator -- as well as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) -- of 'playing Trump's game and trying to con the American people.' During a gaggle with reporters in Columbus, Ohio Wednesday afternoon, Biden spent a chunk of time slamming Warren on foreign policy, but he really ramped up the attacks when he was asked about Warren's continued refusal to explicitly acknowledge the tax implications of 'Medicare for All,' which was a big topic of Tuesday night's debate. Asked if he planned to 'press' Warren on the issue, Biden launched into several minutes of scathing comments."

Frank Rich: "... the shape of the Democratic field now seems crystal clear. Tuesday night seemed like a death knell for seven of the dozen candidacies on stage, including Joe Biden's. It's time for the actual contenders to go at it on a less cluttered field. Among the seven also-rans, the low-hanging losers are Beto O'Rourke, Julián Castro, Andrew Yang, Tulsi Gabbard, and Tom Steyer (we hardly knew ye), the billionaire vanity candidate whose main attribute is that at least he is not Howard Schultz.

Democrats Who Might Lose to Trump Because of Voter Suppression Never Mention Voter Suppression. Matt Ford of the New Republic: "The candidates spent much of their time debating manufacturing and automation, trade policy, the opioid crisis, and other issues that would imact how Ohioans vote next year. But they devoted no attention to whether Ohioans would be able to vote at all. Moderators from CNN and The New York Times, who jointly moderated Tuesday's debate, didn't ask the candidates about the national surge in voter suppression and their plans to stop it. That marks the fourth consecutive debate where the topic went undiscussed. It's impossible to expect that the moderators and candidates can give appropriate attention to every policy area, of course. Climate change, for example, is still perennially under-discussed in the debates given its importance. But the omission of voter suppression still stands out precisely because of the direct impact it could have on the 2020 election. The issue is particularly salient in Ohio."

Way Beyond the Beltway

Daniel Boffey & Rowena Mason of the Guardian: "Boris Johnson and Jean-Claude Juncker have jointly announced agreement on a new Brexit deal despite the refusal of the Democratic Unionist party to give its backing. After weeks of negotiations that went deep into the early hours of Thursday morning and with mounting pressure to have legal text ready for EU leaders to read before a summit, the two leaders said an agreement was ready. The prime minister tweeted: 'We've got a great new deal that takes back control -- now parliament should get Brexit done on Saturday so we can move on to other priorities like the cost of living, the NHS, violent crime and our environment.'"

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Tuesday
Oct152019

The Commentariat -- October 16, 2019

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

Everything Is Going Very Well. Benjamin Hart of New York: "After President Trump gave Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan the green light to invade northern Syria last weekend, thus unleashing chaos in the region, Trump wrote him a very strange letter, obtained by Fox Business's Trish Regan. The message's theme -- that Erdogan should show military restraint -- was straightforward, but the prose style and phrasing ... are so surpassingly weird in a high-level diplomatic context that many wondered if the note was authentic. It is." ~~~

Apparently Democratic leaders had to leave the White House because Trump had a "meltdown" & became so rude they couldn't maintain a conversation. We'll see how written reports characterize what happened. ~~~

~~~ Rebecca Kheel of the Hill: "President Trump had a 'meltdown' and called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) a 'third-rate politician' during a meeting Wednesday with congressional leaders on the situation in Syria, Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters after they left the meeting early. The White House had invited leadership and top committee members of both parties and chambers of Congress to discuss Trump's decision to withdraw U.S. troops from northern Syria.... Pelosi attributed Trump's comments to being 'shaken' by the overwhelming nature of the House vote, where 129 Republicans sided with Democrats. 'That's why we couldn't continue in the meeting because he just wasn't relating to the reality of it,' Pelosi said. 'What we witnessed on the part of the president was a meltdown, sad to say,' she added later. Schumer added that Trump was 'insulting' to Pelosi. 'She kept her cool completely, but he called her a third-rate politician. He said that there are communists involved and you guys might like that. I mean, this was not a dialogue. It was sort of a diatribe, a nasty diatribe,' Schumer said."

Donnie Falsely Blames Boris for Jerry Springer Surprise. Harriet Alexander of the (U.K.) Telegraph: "Donald Trump claimed [Wednesday] that he tried to broker a meeting between Harry Dunn's grieving parents and the American woman who killed him, Anne Sacoolas, because Boris Johnson suggested he do so. Mr Dunn's parents, Charlotte Charles and Tim Dunn, arrived at the White House on Tuesday night to be told that Mrs Sacoolas was in the room next door. The couple refused to meet her.... Mr Trump later said..., 'I spoke with Boris he asked me if I'd do that, and I did it.'... Downing Street ... downplayed the idea they had suggested the encounter. A spokesperson noted that Mr Trump and Mr Johnson last spoke eight days ago, before the family had announced their intention to travel to the US. 'The Prime Minister asked the President to do all he could to help resolve this tragic issue. The President agreed to work on trying to find a way forward,' the spokesperson said.... The New York Times revealed today that the White House press corps had been assembled to capture the distraught parents' encounter with Mrs Sacoolas in a Jerry Springer-style 'reveal'."

Nicholas Fandos & Adam Goldman of the New York Times: "A former top White House foreign policy adviser told House impeachment investigators this week that she viewed Gordon D. Sondland, the United States ambassador to the European Union, as a potential national security risk because he was so unprepared for his job, according to two people familiar with her private testimony. The adviser, Fiona Hill, did not accuse Mr. Sondland of acting maliciously or intentionally putting the country at risk.... Ms. Hill, the former senior director for European and Russian affairs at the White House, also said that she raised her concerns with intelligence officials inside the White House, one of the people said.... She said Mr. Sondland extensively used a personal cellphone for official diplomatic business and repeatedly told foreign officials they were welcome to come to the White House whenever they liked.... Ms. Hill also testified that Mr. Sondland held himself out to foreign officials as someone who could deliver meetings at the White House while also providing the cellphone numbers of American officials to foreigners, the people said. Those actions created additional counterintelligence risks, she said."

Michael Shear & Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "A former top aide to Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, told impeachment investigators on Wednesday that he resigned because he was upset that the Trump administration had wrestled Ukraine policy away from career diplomats, according to three people familiar with his closed-door deposition to the House Intelligence Committee. In several hours of continuing testimony, Michael McKinley, who until last week was a senior adviser to Mr. Pompeo, described his mounting frustration with how politicized the State Department had become under President Trump.... He spoke of his frustration with Rex W. Tillerson, the former secretary of state, saying he had gutted the department, and praised Mr. Pompeo for his leadership. But Mr. McKinley said he was alarmed at how poorly diplomats were treated."

Rebecca Kheel of the Hill: "The House on Wednesday approved a resolution formally rebuking President Trump over his decision to withdraw U.S. troops from northern Syria. The measure passed in a 354-60 vote, with four lawmakers voting present. All 60 votes against the resolution came from Republicans, with the present votes coming from three GOP lawmakers and Rep. Justin Amash (I-Mich.). The top three House Republicans supported the motion in a rare split from the president. The resolution -- which was sponsored by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) and the panel's top Republican, Rep. Michael McCaul (Texas) -- 'opposes the decision to end certain United States efforts to prevent Turkish military operations against Syrian Kurdish forces in Northeast Syria.' The measure also calls on Turkey to end its military action, calls on the United States to protect the Kurds and calls on the White House 'to present a clear and specific plan for the enduring defeat of ISIS.'"

Elena Becatoros & Bassem Mroue of the AP: "Syrian forces on Wednesday night rolled into the strategic border town of Kobani, blocking one path for the Turkish military to establish a 'safe zone' free of Syrian Kurdish fighters along the frontier as part of its week-old offensive. The seizure of Kobani by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad also pointed to a dramatic shift in northeastern Syria: The town was where the United States military and Kurdish fighters first united to defeat the Islamic State group four years ago and holds powerful symbolism for Syrian Kurds and their ambitions of self-rule." ~~~

~~~ Ben Hubbard of the New York Times: "President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey on Wednesday called for Kurdish fighters battling his troops in northeastern Syria to lay down their weapons and withdraw from the border area 'this very night.' Resisting Western pressure to halt the operation, Mr. Erdogan also requested international support for his country's battle against Kurdish fighters whom Turkey considers terrorists but who had been allied with the United States against the Islamic State. Speaking to the Turkish Parliament, Mr. Erdogan said Turkey would not stop fighting until it had established a planned 'safe zone' in Syria roughly 20 miles deep, from the town of Manbij in the west to the Iraqi border in the east."

Trump went on a long rant about crooked Obama & crooked Comey and the server & all the stuff Rudy is uncovering & so forth. I have to go out for a few minutes but I'll get something up ASAP. And I might be wrong, but I thought I heard Trump call Italian President Sergio Mattarella "President Mozzarella." ~~~

~~~ Here is your President* chatting amiably with his guest President Mozzarella. One of them is delusional:

~~~ First Trump Abandons the Kurds, Then He Insults Them. Morgan Chalfant & Brett Samuels of the Hill: "President Trump said Wednesday that Turkey's offensive against U.S.-allied Kurdish forces in northern Syria is 'not our problem,' defending his decision to withdraw U.S. troops from the region amid criticism.... Trump also downplayed the U.S. alliance with the Kurds.... 'The Kurds are much safer right now, but the Kurds know how to fight, and as I said, they're not angels. They're not angels. You take a look... but they fought with us. We paid a lot of money for them to fight with us, and that's OK,' Trump said. 'If Russia wants to get involved with Syria, that's really up to them. They have a problem with Turkey. They have a problem at a border. It's not our border, we shouldn't be losing lives over it,' Trump said later." ~~~

~~~ Quint Forgey of Politico: "'They're not angels, if you take a look. You have to go back and take a look. But they fought with us, and we paid a lot of money for them to fight with us, and that's OK,' [Trump said of the Kurds]. 'They did well when they fought with us. They didn't do so well when they didn't fight with us.' The incendiary comments marked perhaps the president's most dismissive defense of his widely condemned decision earlier this month to allow Turkey to invade Syria, and come just days after the Pentagon's announcement that Trump had directed the evacuation of the last U.S. troops still stationed in the West Asian nation." ~~~

~~~ Peter Baker & others have the New York Times story: "Mr. Trump insisted his handling of the matter had been 'strategically brilliant' and minimized concerns for the Kurds, implying that they allied with the United States only out of their own self-interest.... Echoing Mr. Erdogan's talking points, Mr. Trump compared one faction of the Kurds to the Islamic State and he asserted that Kurds intentionally freed some Islamic State prisoners to create a backlash for him. 'Probably the Kurds let [them] go to make a little bit stronger political impact,' he said. He dismissed concerns that his decision had opened the way for Russia, Iran, the Syrian government and the Islamic State to move into the abandoned territory and reassert their influence in the area. 'I wish them all a lot of luck,' Mr. Trump said of the Russians and Syrians."

Joe Valiquette of NBC News: "A Florida man wanted in a campaign finance case involving associates of Rudy Giuliani is in federal custody. Spokespersons for the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan and the FBI confirm that David Correia was arrested after flying Wednesday to JFK Airport in New York City to turn himself in. Correia, 44, was named in an indictment with two Giuliani associates and another man arrested last week on charges they made illegal contributions to a congressman and a political action committee supporting ... Donald Trump. The two associates were arrested last week. Andrey Kukushkin, a Ukrainian-born U.S. citizen, was also charged in the case. Kukushkin was arrested last week in San Francisco."

Michael Wayland of CNBC: "General Motors and union leaders have reached a tentative deal on a new labor contract that could end the United Auto Workers' month-long strike against the automaker, the UAW said Wednesday. Details of the proposed deal were not immediately available. However, the union's roughly 48,000 members with GM are expected to receive raises and bonuses as part of the accord. The company's shares jumped by about 2.5% in morning trading."

Got the Memo. Lauren Egan & Courtney Kube of NBC News: "Defense Secretary Mark Esper will not comply with a subpoena from House Democrats related to their impeachment inquiry, according to a letter sent Tuesday to Democratic leadership from the Department of Defense.... This is a shift from just days ago when Esper indicated he was willing to work with Democrats on the inquiry." ~~~

~~~ MEANWHILE, Michael MicKinley, who resigned last week as Mike Pompeo's top advisor, has appeared on the Hill, & so has Kurt Volker, who resigned as special envoy to Ukraine. This is the second appearance for Volker.

Greg Miller & others at the Washington Post take a look at Mick Mulvaney's part in the Ukraine scandal. "... current and former officials ... said Mulvaney contributed substantially to the unfolding political crisis.... U.S. officials said Mulvaney met frequently with [U.S. Ambassador to the E.U. Gordon] Sondland and that details of their discussions were kept from then-National Security Adviser John Bolton and other officials who were raising internal concerns about the hidden Ukraine agenda. Mulvaney also tolerated meetings between [Donald] Trump and [Rudy] Giuliani at a time when Giuliani was brazenly declaring in interviews his intent to enlist Kiev in efforts to substantiate conspiracy theories about the 2016 election and ... [damage] Joe Biden. Perhaps most significantly, Mulvaney -- at the direction of the president -- placed a hold on nearly $400 million in aid to Ukraine in the weeks before Trump used a July 25 phone call to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to pursue Giuliani's agenda." ~~~

~~~ Greg Sargent of the Washington Post digs deeper: "Mulvaney's private admission that the freeze in military aid was tied directly to Trump's demand for an investigation of 'corruption' becomes a lot more important. Because Mulvaney surely knew what 'investigate corruption' really meant, it strongly suggests Mulvaney knew that for Trump, the military aid -- which Mulvaney himself froze -- also turned on whether Zelensky carried out those investigations Trump wanted[; that is, the "investigations" of the 2016 election & the Bidens.]." Mrs. McC: This is exactly the language Jonathan Chait 'decoded" a couple of weeks ago, wherein "corruption" to the Trump Gang meant "2016 election & Bidens."

Update. Jennifer Hassen of the Washington Post now has a story on Trump's ambush of grieving British parents Charlotte Charles & Tim Dunn. Reuters stories linked near the bottom of the page.

Donald Trump, Serial Tax Cheat. Heather Vogell of ProPublica: “Documents obtained by ProPublica show stark differences in how Donald Trump's businesses reported some expenses, profits and occupancy figures for two Manhattan buildings, giving a lender different figures than they provided to New York City tax authorities. The discrepancies made the buildings appear more profitable to the lender -- and less profitable to the officials who set the buildings' property tax. For instance, Trump told the lender that he took in twice as much rent from one building as he reported to tax authorities during the same year, 2017. He also gave conflicting occupancy figures for one of his signature skyscrapers, located at 40 Wall Street.... A dozen real estate professionals told ProPublica they saw no clear explanation for multiple inconsistencies in the documents. The discrepancies are 'versions of fraud,' said Nancy Wallace [of] the University of California-Berkeley. This kind of stuff is not OK.'" Thanks to unwashed for the link.

~~~~~~~~~~

Presidential Race 2020

Democrats Squabbling. Alexander Burns & Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts faced a sustained barrage of criticism from her Democratic rivals at a presidential debate in Ohio on Tuesday, tangling with a group of underdog moderates who assailed her liberal economic proposals, while former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. appeared to fade from the fray after parrying President Trump's attacks on his family. The debate confirmed that the primary race had entered a new phase, defined by Ms. Warren's apparent strength and the increasing willingness of other Democrats to challenge her.... Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., insistently charged Ms. Warren with evading a 'yes-or-no' question on how she would pay for a 'Medicare for all' health care system, while Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota cast parts of Ms. Warren's platform as a 'pipe dream.' Former Representative Beto O'Rourke of Texas branded Ms. Warren's worldview as overly 'punitive.'"

Marc Caputo & Nolan McCaskill of Politico: "The frontrunners -- Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders -- tangled over healthcare, while other candidates looking to make their mark went after Elizabeth Warren. Pete Buttigieg and Beto O'Rourke clashed over guns. The one issue that united all the candidates was impeachment. Here are the key moments of Tuesday's debate.... Biden, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Andrew Yang, Tulsi Gabbard and O'Rourke all went after Warren in the first half of the debate on issues ranging from her support to Medicare for All, trade deals and automation, a wealth tax and foreign policy. Warren held her own, notably speaking nearly twice as much as the next candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders, in the first hour of the debate. But she also got some assistance from Sen. Cory Booker, who warned that the attacks were only benefiting Trump's reelection campaign. 'We've got one shot to make Donald Trump a one-term president, and how we talk about each other in this debate actually really matters,' Booker said. 'I've had the privilege of working with or being friends with everybody on this stage, and tearing each other down because we have a different plan, to me, is unacceptable. I have seen this script before,' he added. 'It didn't work in 2016, and it will be disaster for us in 2020.'"

Eric Levitz of New York: "At the Democratic debate in Westerville, Ohio -- his first major campaign event since taking ill -- Bernie wasn't just his old, bizarrely sharp and energetic-for-a-septuagenarian self. He was better, crisper, and funnier than before. The hoarse voice that plagued Sanders on the last episode of this (wretched) TV show was gone. A new perspective on the fragility of this life -- and the preciousness of every opportunity to mitigate the suffering of other human beings -- had, presumably, taken its place. Or maybe Bernie just got a good night's sleep Monday. Either way, he turned in his finest debate performance of the cycle thus far."

A good place to get a gauge of debate reactions is to scroll down New York's Daily Intelligencer. Mrs. McC: As far as I can tell, there no way to capture the moment, so if it interests you, look at it now, as it will slowly disappear behind newer stuff.

This President* is caging kids on the border and letting ISIS run free. -- Julian Castro, during the debate

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Okay, I'm voting for Elizabeth Warren. She just said, during the debate, so more-or-less ad-lib, "The data show...." ~~~

~~~ The New York Times is liveblogging the debate here. The page has a live video feed of the debate.

Ryan Lizza in Politico Magazine: "The Democratic National Committee sent an urgent alert on Monday to every presidential campaign aimed at avoiding a repeat of the cybersecurity fiasco the party suffered at the hands of Russia and WikiLeaks in 2016.... The full archive of DNC Tech's missives to the presidential campaigns ... reveal a party struggling to combat the continued onslaught of the twin threats faced by the Democratic Party: cyber penetration from state actors abroad and the spread of disinformation about its top presidential candidates by Donald Trump and his allies at home.... During Tuesday's debate, the DNC will use a software tool called Trendolizer to track trending disinformation."

Jeff Cox of CNBC: "... Donald Trump looks likely to cruise to reelection next year under three different economic models Moody's Analytics employed to gauge the 2020 race. Barring anything unusual happening, the president's Electoral College victory could easily surpass his 2016 win over Democrat Hillary Clinton, which came by a 304-227 count. Moody's based its projections on how consumers feel about their own financial situation, the gains the stock market has achieved during Trump's tenure and the prospects for unemployment, which has fallen to a 50-year low. Should those variables hold up, the president looks set to get another four-year term. The modeling has been highly accurate going back to the 1980 election, missing only once."

Trump, Inc. -- Fall of the Consigliere

Kyle Cheney & Andrew Desiderio of Politico: "Donald Trump's impeachment blockade has collapsed. The president's former top Russia adviser, Fiona Hill -- the first White House official to cooperate in Democrats' investigation of the Ukraine scandal -- has sketched for lawmakers a trail of alleged corruption that extends from Kiev to the West Wing. In dramatic testimony on Monday, she roped in some of Trump's top advisers as witnesses to the unfolding controversy. And on Tuesday, a senior State Department official, George Kent, appeared on Capitol Hill to testify about his knowledge of the episode.... As lawmakers return to Capitol Hill on Tuesday, a growing number of witnesses this week will describe their own role in the controversy, even as the White House has vowed not to engage with House Democrats'" illegitimate' impeachment effort.... Despite the series of breakthroughs, Democrats will still face resistance from the White House to some of their high-level requests. When asked whether Trump's budget office planned to comply with a Tuesday subpoena deadline for documents, a senior administration official did not say, instead pointing to a White House letter last week that deemed the House impeachment probe 'unconstitutional.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Nicholas Fandos & Ken Vogel of the New York Times: "The procession of high-ranking witnesses to the House's impeachment inquiry continued apace on Tuesday, as George P. Kent, the deputy assistant secretary of state in charge of Ukraine policy, arrived on Capitol Hill to face questions from investigators about his knowledge of the widening Ukraine scandal. Mr. Kent, who appeared behind closed doors despite the State Department directing him not to do so, raised concerns to colleagues early this year about the pressure being directed at Ukraine by Mr. Trump and his private lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, to pursue investigations into Mr. Trump's political rivals, according to people familiar with Mr. Kent's warnings. As far back as March, they said, Mr. Kent was pointing to Mr. Giuliani's role in what he called a 'disinformation' campaign intended to use a Ukrainian prosecutor to smear targets of the president.... Mr. Kent's appearance followed an emerging pattern. According to officials familiar with the investigation, the State Department directed Mr. Kent not to appear and sought to limit his testimony. The House Intelligence Committee then issued a last-minute subpoena ordering him to appear, and he complied." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ ** Paul Kane, et al., of the Washington Post: "Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney organized a meeting this spring in which officials determined to take Ukraine policy out of the traditional channels, putting Energy Secretary Rick Perry, U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland and special U.S. envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker in charge instead, a top State Department official told lawmakers Tuesday. George Kent, the deputy assistant secretary of state responsible for Ukraine, told House investigators that he was instructed to 'lay low,' focus on the five other countries in his portfolio, and defer to Volker, Sondland and Perry -- who called themselves the 'three amigos' -- on matter related to Ukraine, Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.) told reporters Tuesday. The meeting, which Kent told lawmakers took place on May 23, according to Connolly, was just days after the administration recalled Marie Yovanovitch from her post as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine.... [Rudy] Giuliani [has] accused Yovanovitch and Kent, formerly the No. 2 ranking diplomat at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, of trying to protect the Bidens from an investigation by Ukrainian prosecutors.... Giuliani and a columnist for the news outlet the Hill had alleged earlier this year that Yovanovitch provided a 'do not prosecute list' to Ukrainian officials to protect the Bidens and other allies. But Kent, according to the documents, told his colleagues that the list was phony, pointing to incorrect name spellings that longtime officials like Yovanovitch and himself would never have gotten wrong, he said." ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Trump is reportedly unhappy with Mulvaney because Mulvaney has not managed the pushback to the impeachment inquiry to Trump's satisfaction. But we can see why Trump has not fired Mulvaney: Mick is at the center of the scandal, and you can bet he ran the Ukraine scam at Trump's direction. ~~~

~~~ Jeremy Herb & Manu Raju of CNN: "State Department Deputy Assistant Secretary George Kent told lawmakers on Tuesday that he had been told by a supervisor to lie low after he raised complaints about Rudy Giuliani's efforts in Ukraine undermining US foreign policy, according to Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly, a senior member of the House Oversight Committee." The CNN report echoes the WashPo report linked above. ~~~

~~~ BUT Dese Guys Are Still Tough Guys:

~~~ Leigh Caldwell of NBC News: "Vice President Mike Pence's office said Tuesday it will not comply with a request from the House to turn over documents related to ... Donald Trump's July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. In a letter to the chairmen of the House Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight committees, Pence counsel Matthew Morgan called the request part of a 'self-proclaimed impeachment inquiry,' noting that the House of Representatives has not yet taken a vote to open the inquiry and asserting that the request was part of a process that 'calls into question your commitment to fundamental fairness and due process rights.'" ~~~

~~~ Michael Warren & Evan Perez of CNN: "The Office of Management and Budget also does not plan to turn over the documents that impeachment committees subpoenaed, a spokeswoman said, pointing to a letter earlier this month from White House counsel Pat Cipollone saying it speaks for OMB as well. The White House letter slammed the impeachment investigation as 'constitutionally illegitimate' and made clear the administration does not plan to cooperate." ~~~

~~~ Allan Smith, et al., of NBC News: "Rudy Giuliani won't comply with a congressional subpoena as part of the House impeachment inquiry into ... Donald Trump, an attorney for Giuliani told House investigators in a letter on Tuesday.... Jon Sale, Giuliani's attorney for the subpoena, wrote that the former New York City mayor 'will not participate because this appears to be an unconstitutional, baseless and illegitimate "impeachment inquiry.'" Sale called the subpoena 'overbroad, unduly burdensome, and seeks documents beyond the scope of legitimate inquiry.'" ~~~

~~~ Chris Sommerfeldt of the New York Daily News: "Rudy Giuliani dared House Democrats to take him to court Tuesday, declaring he won't comply in their 'abomination' of an impeachment inquiry despite facing a subpoena over his shady campaign to find political dirt on Joe Biden in Ukraine. Having decided to not cooperate, the ex-mayor said he has parted ways with his attorney, Jon Sale, for the time being, claiming it would be 'silly to have a lawyer when I don't need one.' However, Giuliani said he may rehire Sale if Democrats hold him in contempt over his refusal to cooperate with the subpoena, which requests documents and testimony on his Trump-endorsed attempts to strong-arm Ukrainian officials into investigating unfounded corruption claims about Biden's family before the 2020 election."

~~~ Bob Brigham of the Raw Story: "Former Republican Congressman Pete Sessions of Texas has been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. 'A grand jury has issued a subpoena related to Manhattan federal prosecutors' investigation into Rudy Giuliani, seeking documents from former Rep. Pete Sessions about his dealings with President Trump's personal lawyer and associates, according to people familiar with the matter,' the newspaper reported. 'The subpoena seeks documents related to Mr. Giuliani's business dealings with Ukraine and his involvement in efforts to oust the U.S. ambassador in Kyiv, as well as any interactions between Mr. Sessions, Mr. Giuliani and four of Mr. Giuliani's associates who were indicted last week on campaign-finance and conspiracy accounts, the people said,' The Journal explained." ~~~

~~~ ** "Primary Focus." Scott Lemiuex of LG&$ points to this from the WSJ report: "Mr. Giuliani is the primary focus of the subpoena, the people said. Mr. Giuliani has denied wrongdoing and said he has had no indication his actions are being investigated by prosecutors."

Mrs. McCrabbie: Surely Trump is about to dump Giuliani. Giuliani is the focus of a grand jury subpoena. He's intimately involved with the comically inept international fraudsters (and current jailbirds) Lev & Igor, even to the point of taking $500K from them, probably in laundered money. The whistleblower and three State Department officials all have fingering him as the prime driver of the Ukraine conspiracy. He's the perfect fall guy. Indeed, it isn't even implausible for Trump to "blame Rudy." I mean, the guy did it.

Rudy Brought Lev to State Funeral. Matt Berman of BuzzFeed News: "Rudy Giuliani was photographed with his now-indicted Ukrainian associate Lev Parnas at former president George H.W. Bush's state funeral service at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC, last December, a high-profile event that drew former presidents and world leaders. Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor and George H.W. Bush's son, said the Bush family didn't intend for Parnas to be there. Parnas 'was not invited,' Bush told BuzzFeed News in an email. 'Rudy was and it is likely that he was Rudy's guest. Disappointing.'" ~~~

~~~ Carol Leonnig, et al., of the Washington Post: "Rudolph W. Giuliani privately urged President Trump in 2017 to extradite a Turkish cleric living in exile in the United States, a top priority of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, according to multiple former administration officials.... Giuliani, a Trump ally who later became the president's personal attorney, repeatedly argued to Trump that the U.S. government should eject Fethullah Gulen from the country, according to the former officials, who spoke on the condition on anonymity.... [Giuliani's] earlier attempts to persuade the president to turn over the Turkish cleric represent another instance in which he appears to have been pushing a shadow foreign policy from his perch outside government.... Trump appeared receptive to the idea, pressing his advisers about Gulen's status, the people said. One former senior administration official recalled that Trump asked frequently about why Gulen couldn't be turned over to Turkey, referring to Erdogan as 'my friend.' Administration officials were overwhelmingly opposed to the idea...." The New York Times story is here. ~~~

~~~ Matthew Chapman of the Raw Story: "On Tuesday, federal prosecutors from the Southern District of New York announced charges against a Turkish bank for fraud, money laundering, and a scheme to circumvent U.S. sanctions on Iran. 'As alleged in today's indictment, Halkbank's systemic participation in the illicit movement of billions of dollars' worth of Iranian oil revenue was designed and executed by senior bank officials,' said U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman. 'The bank's audacious conduct was supported and protected by high-ranking Turkish government officials, some of whom received millions of dollars in bribes to promote and protect the scheme....' These charges come as new scrutiny falls on Reza Zarrab, the Turkish-Iranian gold trader who was convicted of bribery as part of the Halkbank scheme. Rudy Giuliani previously acted as counsel for Zarrab and, at his urging in 2017..., Donald Trump tried to get then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to relay to the Justice Department not to pursue the case. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has also leaned on both Trump and former President Barack Obama to drop the Halkbank investigation."

Julian Barnes, et al., of the New York Times: White House lawyers have begun "a fact-finding review ... seeking to understand White House officials' actions around Mr. Trump's July 25 call with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.... The lawyers' inquiry centers on why ... deputy White House counsel John A. Eisenberg placed a rough transcript of the call in a computer system typically reserved for the country's most closely guarded secrets.... Mr. Eisenberg has said he limited access to the transcript over concerns about leaks.... Mick Mulvaney, has encouraged [the review].... The existence of the review also threatens Mr. Trump's narrative that his call with Mr. Zelensky was 'perfect.' Instead, the review underscores the evidence that he bent foreign policy to his personal advantage by pressing Mr. Zelensky to open investigations that could damage his political opponents." Mrs. McC: A supposed "fact-finding review" inside this White House seems less like a fool's errand than like some kind of ruse to cover up some kind of wrongdoing in an environment where wrongdoing is the modus operandi. ~~~

~~~ Update: The Hill has a summary of the NYT story here.

Manu Raju, et al., of CNN: "Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Tuesday she will not hold a full House vote for now to authorize a formal impeachment inquiry into ... Donald Trump, a step Republicans and defenders of the President have demanded. 'There's no requirement that we have a vote so at this time we will not be having a vote and I'm very pleased with the thoughtfulness of our caucus with the path that we are on,' Pelosi said in news conference Tuesday evening, following a meeting with her caucus. Pelosi is not fully ruling out such a vote, a congressional aide confirmed to CNN, leaving her with the option to do so in the future, but she is not moving on it right now. She delivered this message to her caucus in their ongoing closed-door meeting Tuesday before speaking to reporters. 'We're not here to call bluffs. We're here to find the truth, to uphold the Constitution of the United States,' she added Tuesday. 'This is not a game for us. This is deadly serious, and we're on a path that is getting us to a path to truth and timetable that respects our Constitution.'" ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: To my mind, holding such a vote is making an unnecessary & ill-advised concession to a mobster. Such a vote would not make Trump & Cippolone suddenly decide that impeachment proceedings are no longer "unconstitutional" & they then bend over backwards providing documents & sending the Mulveneys & Pompeos & Giuianis to the Hill to testify their black little hearts out. But if the House must hold a vote for some other reason, why not a voice vote?

Two Plots with the Same Aim:

Trump's Russia-First Agenda. Anne Gearan of the Washington Post: "Whether by chance or by design, the foreign policy crises involving Syria and Ukraine ... have a common element. In each case, President Trump has taken action that has had the effect of helping the authoritarian leader of Russia.... Russian forces are now operating between the Turkish and Syrian militaries, helping to fulfill Moscow's main aim of shoring up its alliance with Syria and the Russian military port housed there -- an outcome Russian President Vladimir Putin has sought for years. And without lifting a finger, Putin was able to extend leverage over Ukraine, the fragile democratic neighbor he would like to control more directly, as a result of Trump's treatment of the country's popular new leader. Trump's actions in Syria and Ukraine add to the list of policy moves and public statements that have boosted Russia during his presidency.... Trump has publicly questioned the usefulness of NATO ... as well as the utility of the European Union, a political and economic alliance Putin would love to weaken. He recently advocated that Moscow be allowed to rejoin the Group of Seven, a few years after it was kicked out of the group of leading world economies following its invasion of Crimea. Trump has also disputed, at times, the U.S. intelligence community's conclusion that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to boost his candidacy, and he only reluctantly signed a bill imposing sanctions on Russia for the transgression after weeks of resisting the measure, which he called 'seriously flawed.'" ~~~

~~~ Jonathan Chait elaborates on how Trump carried off the Ukraine leg of his scheme to help Russia: "Trump had to turn over his Ukraine policy to an outside, Russian-paid lawyer because it repelled almost the entirety of his own administration's foreign-policy staff. Trump's refusal to support Kiev and release the military aid voted by Congress appalled and alarmed numerous White House advisers, many of whom saw the extortion play as not only misguided but outright criminal.... It hardly requires a nefarious conspiracy to explain why Trump has done something stupid. That outcome is, as a social scientist would put it, overdetermined. Still, the juxtaposition is quite striking. Trump is currently enduring a domestic crisis (the Ukraine scandal) and a foreign one (the Syria debacle). One of these crises -- green-lighting a Turkish invasion of Syria -- had no plausible connection to his own political self-interest. Both have transpired because Trump took reckless and self-destructive actions that happened to follow the course of action Russia desired." ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Chait says that greenlighting the Turkish attach on the Kurds had no political upside. But I think Chait is underestimating Trump's Russia-First obsession & how it fits into his re-election scheme: "bringing the troops home" would be a 2016 campaign promise he can claim he is fulfilling. Obviously, the more Trump turns his back on the world & undermines the U.S.'s influence, the better it is for Putin. Putin might as well have written Trump's campaign platform & "administrative" agenda.

This Is Not Going Well, Ctd.

Tuvan Gumrukcu of Reuters: "President Tayyip Erdogan told ... Donald Trump that Turkey will never declare a ceasefire in northeastern Syria and that it will not negotiate with Kurdish forces it is fighting in its offensive into the region.... Speaking to reporters on a flight back from Baku, Erdogan said the offensive would continue until it reaches its aims, and added that he was not worried about sanctions.... On Monday, Trump announced sanctions on Turkey to punish it for the offensive. On Tuesday, a senior U.S. official said Washington would threaten more sanctions to persuade Turkey to reach a ceasefire and halt its offensive.... The White House said on Tuesday that Vice President Mike Pence will meet with Erdogan in Ankara on Thursday.... Turkey pressed ahead with its offensive against the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia in northern Syria on Tuesday despite U.S. sanctions and calls for it to stop, while Syria's Russia-backed army moved on the key city of Manbij that was abandoned by U.S. forces. ~~~

~~~ Update. Jonathan Swan & Rashaan Ayesh in Axios: "Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told Sky News Wednesday that he will not meet with Vice President Mike Pence, who is currently leading a delegation with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Turkey to discuss a ceasefire in northern Syria.... Erdoğan, who told the outlet that he will only meet with President Trump, is facing increasing international pressure over his decision to launch an offensive strike against U.S.-allied Kurdish fighters in northern Syria."

Americans Beat a Hasty Retreat. Thomas Gibbons-Neff & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "... American troops are making a hasty withdrawal from Syria -- under pressure from encroaching Turkish proxy forces, Russian aircraft and columns armored by the Syrian government. This means the Pentagon will have to disassemble combat bases and other infrastructure that were built to stay for a mission that was supposed to last, all while protecting the troops as they withdraw amid a chaotic battlefield.... As the troops withdraw, they first will collapse inward by abandoning the outposts closest to the line of advancing foreign troops, in this case the Turkish military and its ill-disciplined Syrian militia proxies, along with Russian and Syrian government forces. That strategy was made clear in a video posted online Tuesday, showing a Russian journalist standing in an abandoned American outpost west of Manbij and closest to Syrian government troops."

Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post: "U.S. veterans have supported Trump in part because of his often-repeated promises to extricate the U.S. military from a generation at war, numerous polls have found. But the calamity on the ground in Syria has wrought angry reactions from service members like few other recent foreign policy decisions.... At least eight U.S. service members who served with Kurdish forces in Syria and Iraq expressed disgust in interviews with The Washington Post about the rapid U.S. changes and the lack of a clear plan to prevent a crisis. Many of them, speaking on the condition of anonymity..., doubted that Turkish forces would have launched an assault into northern Syria if the White House had not said it would stand aside."

Carlotta Gall & Patrick Kingsley of the New York Times: "Russia said on Tuesday that its military units were patrolling territory in northern Syria vacated by the Americans following the withdrawal ordered by President Trump, underscoring the sudden loss of United States influence in the eight-year-old Syria war."

Yuliya Talmazan, et al., of NBC News: "The Turkish military incursion into northeast Syria is compounding an already dire humanitarian situation and forcing tens of thousands of people from their homes, according to human rights monitors. According to U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, at least 160,000 civilians have been displaced since the Turkish offensive began on Oct. 9. The agency said they continue to receive additional reports of people on the move, so the actual number of displaced could be higher. The Kurdish-led authority said Tuesday more than 275,000 people have been displaced, Reuters reported."


Ann Marimow of the Washington Post: "A federal appeals court on Tuesday revived a lawsuit claiming that President Trump is illegally profiting from foreign and state government visitors at his hotel in downtown Washington. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit agreed to rehear the lawsuit, brought by the attorneys general of Maryland and the District, which was dismissed over the summer by a three-judge panel of the court. The brief order set oral arguments before a full panel of judges for Dec. 12 and essentially gives the novel lawsuit, which tests the anti-corruption emoluments provisions of the Constitution, a second chance."

The Trumpeefenokee Swamp. David Mora of Columbia Journalism Investigations in ProPublica: "At the halfway mark of ... Donald Trump's first term, his administration has hired a lobbyist for every 14 political appointments made, welcoming a total of 281 lobbyists on board, a ProPublica and Columbia Journalism Investigations analysis shows. With a combination of weakened rules and loose enforcement easing the transition to government and back to K Street, Trump's swamp is anything but drained. The number of lobbyists who have served in government jobs is four times more than the Obama administration had six years into office. And former lobbyists serving Trump are often involved in regulating the industries they worked for."

Paul Krugman didn't much care for Bill Barr's speech, delivered at Notre Dame Law School last week, on the evils of secularism. "It seems almost beside the point to note that Barr's claim that secularism is responsible for violence happens to be empirically verifiable nonsense.... William Barr -- again, the nation's chief law enforcement officer, responsible for defending the Constitution -- is sounding remarkably like America's most unhinged religious zealots.... I seriously doubt that Barr, whose boss must be the least godly man ever to occupy the White House, has suddenly realized to his horror that America is becoming more secular. No, this outburst of God-talk is surely a response to the way the walls are closing in on Trump.... Trump is ... taking shelter behind bigotry -- racial, of course, but now religious as well."

Taking Voodoo Economics to a Whole New Level. Dion Rabouin of Axios: "Top Trump administration economic adviser Peter Navarro made up an economist he has quoted regularly in his books named Ron Vara, Tom Bartlett writes in The Chronicle of Higher Education.... Navarro similarly quoted Leslie LeBon when writing about the dangers of China, who a Google book search revealed is his wife." ~~~

~~~ Julia Arciga of the Daily Beast: "In a statement, Navarro fessed up to Vara being fictional.... One of Navarro's co-authors, Columbia professor Glenn Hubbard [-- Mrs. McC: another right-wing economist --] said he did not know Vara was a fictional individual and said he was not okay with Vara being in the book that he and Navarro wrote."

He [Trump] said he was sorry about Harry and then he sprung the surprise that Mrs Sacoolas was in another room in the building and whether we want to meet her there and then. -- Tim Dunn, father of homicide victim Harry Dunn ~~~

~~~ This Is Almost Unbelievable. Michael Holden of Reuters: "Donald Trump's national security adviser heaped pain and grief on the parents of a British teenager [Harry Dunn] killed in a car crash by trying to hold a meeting at the White House between them and a U.S. diplomat's wife who was involved, the parents' lawyer said. Charlotte Charles and Tim Dunn were invited to a surprise meeting with the U.S. president at his office on Wednesday where they were further shocked to learn that Anne Sacoolas, the American woman involved in the fatal crash, was in the building. Mark Stephens, the lawyer for Charles and Dunn, said national security adviser Robert O'Brien had the idea of overseeing a coming together of the families before they would then hug in front of an assembled media.... Trump and O'Brien had ruled out Sacoolas returning to Britain...." ~~~

~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: I say "almost" unbelievable because it is conceivable that Trump & the gang could try to wrench a photo-op from the parents of the victim of a vehicular homicide, one perpetrated by an American who will likely go unpunished because Trump won't waive her questionable diplomatic immunity. Next up: photos of Kurds on the run, yet happily giving the thumbs-up to the Turkish invasion.

BBC News: "David Connors, 30, and his wife Eileen, 24, say they are being held in Pennsylvania with their three-month-old baby and are 'traumatised'. They say they were driving with family members on 3 October when, to avoid an animal, they veered onto a small road. A police officer then pulled them over, told them they were in the US state of Washington and arrested them." The Washington Post story is here. Mrs. McC: Yes, our taxpayer dollars are being spent to send these dangerous animal-lovers across the country & locking them up for nearly two weeks. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

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