;)
The Commentariat -- November 5, 2019
My doctor is putting me in the hospital, and I'm not sure when I'll get out. I've opened up tomorrow's page, so you can comment. Only safari & Akhilleus know how to post actual entries, and I don't know that either of them will have time.
Today is Election Day in many state & local races. Vote! ~~~
~~~ New York Times on races to watch: "Tuesday's election results will offer insights on two crucial political dynamics heading into the 2020 campaign: the depth of President Trump's appeal with Republicans and how fully suburban voters have swung to the Democrats. The Republican candidates for governor in Kentucky and Mississippi have aggressively linked themselves to Mr. Trump and sought to tie their rivals to the national Democrats pursuing the impeachment inquiry against the president. Mr. Trump, who comfortably carried both states in 2016, has put his political capital on the line: He rallied voters in Mississippi on Friday and was in Kentucky on Monday night. The president has not appeared on the campaign trail in Virginia, where Democrats are hoping Mr. Trump's deep unpopularity in the suburbs is enough for them to flip control of both chambers of the state legislature." ~~~
~~~ Steven Shepard of Politico lists seven things to watch for in today's election results.
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
** Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "A critical witness in the impeachment inquiry offered Congress substantial new testimony this week, revealing that he told a top Ukrainian official that the country likely would not receive American military aid unless it publicly committed to investigations President Trump wanted. The disclosure from Gordon D. Sondland, the United States ambassador to the European Union, in four new pages of sworn testimony released on Tuesday, confirmed his involvement in essentially laying out a quid pro quo to Ukraine that he had previously not acknowledged. The testimony offered several major new details beyond the account he gave the inquiry in a 10-hour interview last month." The NBC News story is here.
Cristina Marcos of the Hill: "House Democrats want to hear testimony from acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney in their impeachment inquiry after he acknowledged Thursday that the administration held up military aid to Ukraine until Kiev launched a political investigation requested by President Trump. The three House committees running the impeachment inquiry -- Intelligence, Foreign Affairs and Oversight -- had issued a subpoena to Mulvaney earlier this month for documents. The deadline for the records is Friday."
House committees will soon release transcripts of the testimony of Ambassadors Gordon Sondland & Kurt Volker.
Josh Kovensky of TPM: "Even as the impeachment inquiry gains momentum, Ukrainians who stand to benefit from probes into discredited allegations about the Bidens and the 2016 election have not stopped pushing for investigations. Andrii Telizhenko, a former Ukrainian diplomat who has peddled allegations of Ukrainian interference in the 2016 elections to help the Democrats, met with Rudy Giuliani in New York City -- last week.... NBC reported on Monday that a group of parliamentarians in Ukraine are reviewing the possibility of creating an investigative commission to examine allegations, such as those peddled by Telizhenko, of Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election. One Ukrainian MP who is pushing for the commission's creation is Oleg Voloshyn, a former foreign ministry official who worked with Paul Manafort while he was a political consultant in the fledgling Eastern European nation." --safari: If Biden were ever elected, Benghaaaazi would dwarf in comparison to what the GOP is cooking up in Ukraine.
Lachlan Markey of The Daily Beast: "Allies of President Donald Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani are circulating opposition research on Steve Bannon after the former White House strategist questioned Giuliani's work for the president and suggested he should be replaced." --s
Sarah Burris of RawStory: "Over the weekend, President Donald Trump attended the UFC mixed martial arts match at Madison Square Garden where he brought several Republican leaders and members of his family. Like the World Series, Trump was booed there too, though not as loudly. Now the Washington Post is reporting that the Republican National Committee shelled out $60,000 for Trump to attend the event with his friends and family." --s
Juan Cole: "The semi-autonomous Kurdish region of northeast Syria today accused Turkish forces of conducting ethnic cleansing campaigns in the Kurdish region they have occupied between Tel Abyad and Ra's al-Ayn.... The Kurds called on the United Nations to intervene to stop the ethnic cleansing, and urged it not to fall for the Turkish ploy of bringing in its mercenaries and characterizing them as 'refugees.' Despite an agreement between Turkey and Russia that Ankara would halt its invasion, Foreign Policy reports that Turkey is attempting to go deeper into Syria than the 20 miles it had agreed upon, which will result in more Kurds being displaced." --s
Sean Naylor of Yahoo! News: "A U.S. withdrawal from Syria will strain the links that the U.S. intelligence community has painstakingly built with both Iraqi and Syrian Kurdish forces, according to current and former government officials with long experience in the Middle East.... A U.S. withdrawal from Syria would place the United States' ability to get ... intelligence at risk and could result in the compromise of some U.S. intelligence techniques, according to current and former government officials.... 'We could be blind, especially if we're not cultivating those relationships in eastern Syria,' said a former U.S. government official with close ties to the Kurds." --s
Brett Forrest of the Wall Street Journal: "Erik Prince, a private security contractor and informal adviser to President Trump, is in discussions to purchase a Ukrainian aerospace manufacturer that the U.S. is trying to prevent China from buying.... The Trump administration has approached Mr. Prince and at least one other potential buyer from the private sector about Motor Sich..., a leading maker of helicopter and airplane engines.... [T]he U.S. wants to scuttle its pending sale to a group of Chinese companies to keep Beijing from acquiring vital defense technology.... In recent weeks, Mr. Prince has discussed the company with Ukrainian officials and visited the company's main plant, according to people briefed on the matter.... Mr. Prince ... is the executive director and deputy chairman of Frontier Services Group, a Hong Kong- and Beijing-based private security contractor." Firewalled --s
Amy Knight of The Daily Beast: "Following a recent conference of foreign security and law enforcement agencies, the head of Russia's State Security Service, the FSB, made the surprising announcement that Russia and the United States have resumed cooperation on cybersecurity.... In response to queries about [Gen. Alexander] Bortnikov's statement, spokespersons for both the CIA and the DEA told The Daily Beast that they had no comment, and the FBI has not responded at all." --s
Ross Barkan of the Guardian: "For the millions who feel enraged and despondent over Trump's ennobling of white supremacists or his insidious environmental and immigration policies, trying to remain an informed citizen can amount to an exercise in psychic torture. It's not easy reading, every day, about the degradation of whatever democratic norms America has left.... What recourse, then, do citizens have against a deranged, all-powerful executive who can lay waste to the planet many times over? Election Day is still a full year away. In the absence of a vote, all that is left is protest. If it all feels, at times, irrelevant to Trump's band of Republican nihilists, there is still a necessity to taking action, to demonstrating mass resistance against such hate." --s
Hadas Gold & Donie O'Sullivan of CNN: "A controversial policy allowing politicians to run false ads on Facebook will extend to the United Kingdom as the country prepares to vote in a historic December election, Facebook confirmed to CNN Business. The policy is being championed by Facebook executive Nick Clegg, the former deputy prime minister of the United Kingdom who himself once complained about 'lies' spread during the 2016 Brexit referendum." --s
Florida. Where Not to Live. Antonia Farzan of the Washington Post: "The librarians of Citrus County, Fla., had what seemed like a modest wish: A digital subscription to the New York Times. For about $2,700 annually, they reasoned, they could offer their roughly 70,000 patrons an easy way to research and catch up on the news. But when their request came before the Citrus County commission last month, local officials literally laughed out loud. One commissioner, Scott Carnahan, declared the paper to be fake news.' 'I agree with President Trump,' he said. 'I will not be voting for this. I don't want the New York Times in this county.' In a move that is generating intense online backlash, all five members of the commission agreed to reject the library's request. The discussion took place Oct. 24, the same day the Trump administration announced plans to cancel federal agencies' subscriptions to the Times and The Washington Post. While there's no apparent connection -- the Citrus County meeting began several hours before the Wall Street Journal broke the news of the new edict -- the controversy unfolding in central Florida highlights how politicians nationwide are parroting the president's disparaging rhetoric about the media."
Great Britian. Dan Sabbagh & Luke Harding of the Guardian: "Boris Johnson was on Monday night accused of presiding over a cover-up after it emerged that No 10 refused to clear the publication of a potentially incendiary report examining Russian infiltration in British politics, including the Conservative party [before the coming elections, despite being approved for release]...Fresh evidence has also emerged of attempts by the Kremlin to infiltrate the Conservatives by a senior Russian diplomat suspected of espionage, who spent five years in London cultivating leading Tories including Johnson himself. It can now be revealed that Sergey Nalobin-- who once described the future prime minister as 'our good friend' -- lives in a Moscow apartment block known as the 'FSB house' because it houses so many employees from the Kremlin's main spy agency.... Committee members were ... briefed on an extraordinary -- and for a while an apparently successful -- attempt to penetrate Conservative circles by Nalobin, who instigated a pro-Kremlin parliamentary group, the Conservative Friends of Russia. Conservative Friends of Russia held its 2012 launch party in the Russian ambassador's Kensington garden, with about 250 Russian and British guests present, including Tories who went on to play a prominent role in the referendum campaign." --s
~~~~~~~~~~
U.S. v. Earth -- Yet Another Shameful Moment in American History. Lisa Friedman of the New York Times: "The Trump administration formally notified the United Nations on Monday that it would withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement on climate change, leaving global climate diplomats to plot a way forward without the cooperation of the world's largest economy. The action, which came on the first day possible under the accord's complex rules on withdrawal, begins a yearlong countdown to the United States exit and a concerted effort to preserve the Paris Agreement, under which nearly 200 nations have pledged to cut greenhouse emissions and to help poor countries cope with the worst effects of an already warming planet. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the notification on Twitter and issued a statement saying the accord would impose intolerable burdens on the American economy.... And diplomats fear that Mr. Trump, who has mocked climate science as a hoax, will begin actively working against global efforts to move away from planet-warming fossil fuels, like coal, oil and natural gas. Keeping up the pressure for the kinds of economic change necessary to stave off the worse effects of planetary warming will be much harder without the world's superpower." Here's the HuffPost story.
House Intelligence Committee: Today, Rep. Adam Schiff, Chair of the House Intel Committee, Rep. Eliot Engel, Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Rep. Carolyn Maloney, Acting Chair of the House Oversight Committee, "released the transcripts of former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie 'Masha' Yovanovitch and former Senior Advisor to the Secretary of State Ambassador P. Michael McKinley.... The testimony of former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie 'Masha' Yovanovitch from October 11, 2019 can be found here. Key excerpts from Yovanovitch's testimony can be found here. The testimony of former Senior Advisor to the Secretary of State Ambassador P. Michael McKinley from October 16, 2019 can be found here. Key excerpts from McKinley's testimony can be found here." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Kiss Ass or Kiss Your Job Goodbye. Adam Edelman, et al., of NBC News: "Marie Yovanovitch, the ousted U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, told House impeachment investigators last month that U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland told her she should tweet out support or praise for ... Donald Trump if she wanted to save her job, according to a transcript of her testimony made public Monday.... According to the transcript, Yovanovitch [said] she asked Sondland for advice on how to handle an onslaught of criticism from conservative media and Donald Trump Jr. 'He said, "You know, you need to go big or go home. You need to, you know, tweet out there that you support the president, and that all these are lies and everything else,'" she told the committees. 'It was advice that I did not see how I could implement in my role as an ambassador, and as a Foreign Service officer.'... Yovanovitch testified to House investigators Oct. 11 that Trump had personally pressured the State Department to remove her, even though a top department official [John Sullivan] assured her that she had 'done nothing wrong.'" (Also linked yesterday.)
As the Worm Turns. Edward Wong & David Sanger of the New York Times: "As President Trump's first C.I.A. director, Mike Pompeo was briefed by agency officials on the extensive evidence ... showing that Russian hackers working for the government of Vladimir V. Putin had interfered in the 2016 American presidential campaign. In May 2017, Mr. Pompeo testified in a Senate hearing that he stood by that conclusion. Two and a half years later, Mr. Pompeo seems to have changed his mind. As Mr. Trump's second secretary of state, he now supports an investigation into a discredited, partisan theory that Ukraine, not Russia, attacked the Democratic National Committee, which Mr. Trump wants to use to make the case that he was elected without Moscow's help.... Mr. Pompeo's spreading of a false narrative at the heart of the Ukraine scandal is the most striking example of how he has fallen off the tightrope he has traversed for the past 18 months: demonstrating loyalty to the president while insisting to others he was pursuing a traditional, conservative foreign policy." Read on. Pompeo is in this up to his eyeballs. The idiot savant has ensured his place as one of the most malign forces in the nation. ~~~
~~~ Cody Fenwick of AlterNet: "Michael McKinley, a career diplomat and a former top adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, delivered a harsh indictment of his former boss's treatment of the civil service in testimony to the congressional impeachment inquiry, a new transcript revealed on Monday.... In his testimony, he made clear that his resignation was driven by the administration's treatment of former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch and the department's failure to defend her. His recounting of these events painted a craven and weak portrait of Pompeo, who refused to help Yovanovitch despite the attacks she has endured.... [McKinley] said he went to Pompeo directly and suggested that a statement be put out to support Yovanovitch as press attention became focused on the former ambassador. He said he ended up talking to Pompeo about the issue three times, but the secretary barely acknowledged the request. No statement of support was ever made.... Pompeo appears to have blatantly lied about these interactions. On ABC News in October, Pompeo said, 'From the time that Ambassador Yovanovitch departed Ukraine until the time that he [McKinley] came to tell me he was departing, I never heard him say a single thing about his concerns with respect to the decision that was made. Not once. Not once ... did Ambassador McKinley say something to me in that time period.'" ~~~
~~~ Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: Either Pompeo looked into the camera & lied to the public or McKinley lied in sworn testimony. I know whom I believe. Of course, as noted ethicist Cory Lewandowski testified before a Congressional committee, lying "to the media" is not against the law. ~~~
~~~ Julian Borger of the Guardian on Pompeo's suspicious trips to Kansas. Three of his four visits this year were supposedly on official State Department business; ergo, taxpayer-funded. Many surmise Pompeo is eyeing running for the open Kansas Senate seat. During one of his Kansas excursions, "he took time in Wichita to meet Charles Koch, his longstanding sponsor and a kingmaker on the right of Republican party.... Democrats have filed a complaint that he is violating federal laws prohibiting political activities while acting in an official capacity." He has until next June to decide whether or not to run for the seat.
Michael Schmidt & Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "The White House's top national security lawyer declined to appear for a scheduled deposition on Monday morning, saying he would wait to hear what a federal judge ruled on whether President Trump's closest advisers have to answer questions from congressional investigators. The lawyer, John A. Eisenberg, played a central role in dealing with the fallout at the White House from a July call between President Trump and the Ukrainian president.... The committee subpoenaed Mr. Eisenberg to appear on Monday morning for questioning, but the White House informed Mr. Eisenberg's lawyer in recent days that Mr. Trump would block his testimony by invoking 'constitutional immunity,' a sweeping form of executive privilege it has been claiming for officials who have the closest interactions with the president. Mr. Eisenberg's decision heightens the importance of an unusual lawsuit filed by Mr. Trump's former deputy national security adviser Charles M Kupperman, who faced the same situation as Mr. Eisenberg: a subpoena from the House and an instruction from Mr. Trump not to comply with it." (Also linked yesterday.)
Allan Smith of NBC News: "... Donald Trump said Monday that written answers from the whistleblower to Congress would be unacceptable -- although such answers were fine for the president when dealing with former special counsel Robert Mueller. 'The Whistleblower gave false information & dealt with corrupt politician Schiff,' Trump tweeted. 'He must be brought forward to testify. Written answers not acceptable! Where is the 2nd Whistleblower? He disappeared after I released the transcript. Does he even exist? Where is the informant? Con!'" (Also linked yesterday.)
Anita Kumar of Politico: "In 2006, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump traveled to Ukraine to meet with government officials about building a multimillion dollar hotel and golf course in the country. Two years later, Trump Jr. was back to meet with developers. The Trumps were looking to erect luxury resorts across the former Soviet republics.... But doing so meant navigating a landscape that had long struggled with corruption.... Now, a decade after his company's efforts floundered..., Donald Trump is arguing that it's the son of his political rival Joe Biden, not him, who wanted to benefit from what he calls a 'very corrupt' Ukraine. The president's critics say it's a now-familiar Trumpian contradiction, one that raises further doubts about the president's claim he merely wanted to root out corruption when he pressured Ukrainian officials to investigate the Biden.... The overtures [the Trumps made in Ukraine] offer another example of the complications of a businessman-turned-president making foreign policy decisions in places where he has had -- or tried to have -- significant financial interests.... House and Senate committees appear to be unaware of the Trump Organization's prior Ukraine connections, according to more than half a dozen lawmakers and staffers." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Kumar's reporting helps explain this WashPo story by Greg Jaffe & Josh Dawsey (Nov. 2): "'They are horrible, corrupt people,' Trump [said of Ukrainians to top advisors].... One theme that runs through almost all [House witness] accounts is Trump's unyielding loathing of Ukraine, which dates to his earliest days in the White House. 'We could never quite understand it,' a former senior White House official said of Trump's view of the former Soviet republic, also saying that much of it stemmed from the president's embrace of conspiracy theories. 'There were accusations that they had somehow worked with the Clinton campaign. There were accusations they'd hurt him. He just hated Ukraine.'... Trump's animosity to Ukraine ran so deep and was so resistant to the typical foreign policy entreaties about the need to stand by allies that senior officials involved in Ukraine policy concluded that the only way to overcome it was to set up an Oval Office meeting with Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky." My guess is that what irks Trump is not corruption per se, but that he failed to cut a deal with (former) officials to build his resort. It's all about Trump, Trump, Trump. ~~~
~~~ Mark Mazzetti, et al., of the New York Times: "Long before a telephone call with Ukraine's president that prompted an impeachment inquiry, President Trump was exchanging political favors with a different Ukrainian leader, who desperately sought American help for his country's struggle against Russian aggression. Petro O. Poroshenko, Ukraine's president until May, waged an elaborate campaign to win over Mr. Trump at a time when advisers had convinced Mr. Trump that Ukraine was a nest of Hillary Clinton supporters. Mr. Poroshenko' campaign included trade deals that were politically expedient for Mr. Trump, meetings with Rudolph W. Giuliani, the freezing of potentially damaging criminal cases and attempts to use the former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort as a back channel.... Now, impeachment investigators are examining the two years of interactions between Mr. Trump and Mr. Poroshenko, according to a congressional Democrat." (Also linked yesterday.)
Aram Roston of Reuters: "Lev Parnas, an indicted Ukrainian-American businessman who has ties to ... Donald Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, is now prepared to comply with requests for records and testimony from congressional impeachment investigators, his lawyer told Reuters on Monday. Parnas, who helped Giuliani look for dirt on Trump's political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, is a key figure in the impeachment inquiry that is examining whether Trump abused his office for personal political gain. His apparent decision to work with the congressional committees represents a change of heart. Parnas rebuffed a request from three House of Representatives committees last month to provide documents and testimony. 'We will honor and not avoid the committee's requests to the extent they are legally proper, while scrupulously protecting Mr. Parnas' privileges including that of the Fifth Amendment,' said the lawyer, Joseph Bondy...." ~~~
~~~ Update. Ben Protess, et al., of the New York Times: Lev Parnas has "open[ed] a dialogue with congressional impeachment investigators and accus[ed] the president of falsely denying their relationship.... Parnas had previously resisted speaking with investigators for the Democrat-led impeachment proceedings.... A former lawyer for Mr. Trump [-- John Dowd --] was then representing Mr. Parnas. But since then, Mr. Parnas has hired new lawyers who contacted the congressional investigators last week ... [who] signaled on Monday that Mr. Parnas, who was arrested last month on campaign finance charges, is prepared to comply with a congressional subpoena for his documents and testimony.... 'Mr. Parnas was very upset by President Trump's plainly false statement that he did not know him,' said [new attorney Joseph] Bondy, whose client has maintained that he has had extensive dealings with the president.... Mr. Trump signed off on [Parnas'] hiring of Mr. Dowd, according to an Oct. 2 email reviewed by The New York Times. '... The president consents to allowing your representation of Mr. Parnas and Mr. Furman,' Jay Sekulow, another lawyer for Mr. Trump, wrote to Mr. Dowd, misspelling Mr. Fruman's surname. Mr. Dowd said in an interview that Mr. Trump's approval was sought 'simply as a courtesy to the president'...." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie Note to Donnie: As a general rule, it's not a good idea to diss people who may have something on you. You hurt Lev's feelings when you told reporters who asked about Igor & him, "'I don't know them. I don't know about them. I don/t know what they do ... Maybe they were clients of Rudy. You'd have to ask Rudy.'... Of the numerous photographs of them together, Mr. Trump said, 'I have a picture with everybody.'" And here I thought an expert on the art of the deal, not to mention what-all happened when you snubbed Michael Cohen, would know this. ~~~
~~~ "When Your Joint Defense Agreement with the Russian Mob Blows up." Marcy Wheeler: "Last month, I argued that the John Dowd letter mapping out what amounted to a Joint Defense Agreement between the President, Rudy Giuliani, Lev Parnas, Igor Fruman, and Dmitry Firtash (with Victoria Toensing, Joe DiGenova, and Dowd himself as the glue holding this orgy of corruption together) would one day go in a museum to memorialize how crazy things are. Right alongside that -- I think after reading [the NYT story linked above] -- will go Trump's written waiver of privilege as obtained by Jay Sekulow.... Dowd claims ... there was no tie between his representation of Trump and the magical selection of a bunch of grifters involved in Trump's efforts to coerce electoral advantage from foreign countries.... [Parnas has] put the pieces into place to ensure he could take others down with him. And his marks were very easy marks. Plus, given he can claim both attorney-client and Fifth Amendment privileges, he may be able to neatly tailor what information he wants to release."
Spies, Intrigue, Extortion, Club Mafia Rave! Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: "The heart of the Ukraine scandal ... is simple. Trump used congressionally appropriated aid to Ukraine, as well as the promise of a White House visit, to try to extort Ukraine's president to announce investigations that would benefit Trump politically. But there's a broader story that's still murky, because in this scandal Trump is both the perpetrator and the mark. Trump used the power of his office to try to force Ukraine to substantiate conspiracy theories. But the president was fed those conspiracy theories by people with their own agendas, who surely understood that he is insecure about Russia's role in his election, and he will believe whatever serves his ego in the moment." Goldberg weaves together what is known about the ways Ukrainian oligarch & Russian asset Dmitry Firtash -- who seems to be the guy bankrolling Lev Parnas & Igor Fruman, along with Paul Manafort, Rudy Giuliani & a few other "sinister forces" have manipulated Trump. ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Goldberg doesn't mention it, but it's now easier to understand the dynamic behind Giuliani's consultations with the caged bird Manafort. As the WashPo explained in early October, Giuliani business with Manafort was part of a fantasy-findng mission to gather info/contacts "on a theory that Manafort's team was promoting as early as 2017: that the Ukrainian government separately interfered in the 2016 campaign on behalf of Clinton through the activities of a Ukrainian American contract worker for the DNC." Journalists are revealing the connections between the plot points of the grand scheme in a manner very similar to the way the hero/investigator in a well-wrought European murder mystery discovers whodunit.
Polina Ivanova & Ilya Zhegulev of Reuters: "Ukraine plans to fire the prosecutor who led investigations into the firm where Joe Biden's son served on the board..., a source told Reuters. Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani has acknowledged meeting the prosecutor, Kostiantyn Kulyk, to discuss accusations against the Bidens. The decision to sideline someone who played an important role in Giuliani's efforts to find out damaging information about the Bidens comes as Ukraine has tried to avoid getting drawn into a partisan fight in Washington.... The source said a decision had been taken to fire Kulyk for failing to show up for an exam that all employees of the General Prosecutor's Office have been ordered to pass to keep their jobs during a clean-up of the prosecution service. Prosecutor General Ruslan Ryaboshapka has already fired more than 400 prosecutors, or around a third of all staff."
Harper Neidig of the Hill: "A federal appeals court on Monday ruled that President Trump can't block the Manhattan district attorney's office from subpoenaing his accounting firm for financial records. A three-judge panel on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals said that 'presidential immunity does not bar the enforcement of a state grand jury subpoena directing a third party to produce non-privileged material, even when the subject matter under investigation pertains to the President.' But the court noted they were not ruling on all of the sweeping claims of immunity that the president's lawyers claim." Includes ScribD copy of ruling. (An early version of this story was linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ The New York Times story, by Benjamin Weiser, is here. "A federal appeals panel said on Monday that President Trump's accounting firm must turn over eight years of his personal and corporate tax returns to Manhattan prosecutors, a setback for the president's attempt to keep his financial records private. The three-judge appeals panel did not take a position on the president's biggest argument -- that he was immune from all criminal investigations. A lower court had called that argument 'repugnant to the nation's governmental structure and constitutional values.' Instead, the appeals court said the president's accounting firm, not Mr. Trump himself, was subpoenaed for the documents, so it did not matter whether presidents have immunity." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Pete Williams of NBC News: "... Donald Trump will face strong headwinds in asking the Supreme Court to stop prosecutors in New York from getting his tax returns. Past Supreme Court rulings have upheld subpoenas directed at presidents, and this time the local prosecutors are seeking documents from the Trump Organization and Trump's accountants -- not directly from the president himself. For those reasons, among others, the Supreme Court might simply decline to hear the president's appeal, which would leave the appeals court ruling intact and require the tax returns to be turned over. The Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance, is investigating whether any state laws were broken in the payment of hush money to two women who claimed they had a sexual relationship with Trump, allegations he has denied. The prosecutors are also looking into the claim by Michael Cohen, the former Trump lawyer and confidante, that Trump sometimes misstated his financial situation in order to pay lower taxes. Trump's lawyers have fought back, arguing that because a sitting president cannot be indicted, he likewise cannot be subject to any steps in a criminal investigation.... The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York [rejected that claim].... No court has ever ruled that a sitting president cannot be charged with a crime, but that has been the consistent position of the Justice Department under both Republican and Democratic administrations. The logic behind that position can be summarized simply: The president can't run the country from jail."
Next on Tap. Ashraf Khalil of the AP: "Roger Stone, a longtime Republican provocateur and former confidant of ... Donald Trump, is going on trial over charges related to his alleged efforts to exploit the Russian-hacked Hillary Clinton emails for political gain. The trial in Washington, which begins Tuesday, promises to revive the specter of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation as the impeachment inquiry against Trump proceeds in the House."
Brian Stelter of CNN: "The Justice Department is going on the offensive against the anonymous author of 'A Warning,' telling them in a letter obtained by CNN Business that he or she may be violating 'one or more nondisclosure agreements' by writing the anti-Trump book.The author's publisher is rejecting the argument and saying the book will be released as scheduled. And the author's agents are accusing the government of trying to unmask the author.... A Justice Department official said that the letter, from the head of the agency's civil division, was part of a fact-gathering process and that other similar requests had gone out to authors who'd worked for the government. The letter was not necessarily indicative of a looming lawsuit, the official said, just one step in a routine procedure." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "The Justice Department is trying to unearth the identity of the Trump administration official who denounced the president in a New York Times Op-Ed last year under the byline Anonymous, according to a letter from a senior law enforcement official on Monday. In the letter, Assistant Attorney General Joseph H. Hunt asked the publisher of a forthcoming book by the writer and the author's book agents for proof that the official never signed a nondisclosure agreement and had no access to classified information or, absent that, for information about where the person worked in the government, and when..... Mr. Trump, people close to him said, has long been troubled by the existence of Anonymous, whose Op-Ed condemned him as essentially unfit for office and described a 'resistance' within the administration trying to keep the government on course.... Mr. Trump said last year that he wanted the Justice Department to investigate the essay, declaring its writing an act of treason. Prosecutors said at the time that such an inquiry would be inappropriate because it was likely that no laws were broken." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Huh. When Trump became president* & started demanding White House employees sign nondisclosure agreements, various expert attorneys said that NDAs were unenforceable against federal employees. If so, how come the so-called Justice Department is trying to determine whether or not Anonymous signed one? If those experts were right, then DOJ is continuing to act as Trump's private attorney rather than as ours.
Jan Ransom of the New York Times: "E. Jean Carroll publicly shared a secret in June that she had kept largely to herself for more than two decades: Donald J. Trump, she said, had raped her in the dressing room of an upscale department store in New York City. President Trump vehemently denied the allegations. He called Ms. Carroll a liar, intent on selling a new book. He said he had never met her, despite a photo of the two of them together in the 1980s. He told reporters that he would not have assaulted Ms. Carroll because 'she's not my type.' Now Ms. Carroll, a journalist and columnist for Elle Magazine, has sued Mr. Trump for defamation, saying in a lawsuit filed in state court on Monday that Mr. Trump had damaged her reputation and her career when he denied her allegation in June." Anna North of Vox has the story here. ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: As North points out, "she's not my type" is "a response he's employed several times to denigrate women who accuse him of sexual misconduct." Whether or not Carroll is Trump's "type," who's stupid enough to think men assault only women whom they find super-attractive? If anything, the opposite could be true: they might assault women they're not interested in, but try to charm women whom they find most appealing. I hope Trump tries the "not my type" argument in court. And I hope the judge is a woman.
The Trump Team Has a Plan to Wreck the National Parks. Rebecca Beitsch of the Hill: "A committee that reports to the National Park Service (NPS) is recommending privatizing campgrounds within national parks, limiting benefits for senior visitors and allowing food trucks as a way to bring more money into the system. The panel that shared the ideas was formed under former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, part of the Outdoor Recreation Advisory Committee designed to 'advise the Secretary of the Interior on public-private partnerships across all public lands.' The memo prepared by the Subcommittee on Recreation Enhancement Through Reorganization highlights privatization and an increase in contracts with private companies as a way to offer services such as Wi-Fi, food and equipment rentals to draw more visitors to parks.... The memo argues that the 50 percent discount for seniors should apply only to base campsite fees and encourages NPS to introduce 'new senior fee blackout periods during peak season periods.'" Mrs. McC: Yay! Theme parks for the wealthy. Coming soon: amusement park rides in wilderness areas with automated grizzly bear & bobcat replicas popping up at every turn.
Presidential Race 2020
Democrats Decide to Self-destruct. Hanna Trudo & Sam Stein of the Daily Beast: "The same day that the head of the Democratic National Committee told a group of Iowans that the party's 'unity is our greatest strength,' the top-ranking Democrat in Congress ripped apart a chief policy proposal of two leading 2020 presidential candidates. The dichotomy between the feel-good vibes of DNC Chair Tom Perez and the cold water dousing delivered by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on the push for Medicare for All portended what appears to be one of the more trying weeks for Democrats to date. At a time when President Trump is on the precipice of impeachment, the opposition party finds itself in an increasingly dour state, with a renewed sense of fright about the prospects of the president's re-election and infighting between the primary candidates heating up in uncomfortable ways." And so forth. ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: As I said this past weekend, to some dissent, the candidates bickering among themselves about the form universal health coverage should take is remarkably stupid. For one thing, it leads to op-eds like one from Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post, titled, "When it comes to Medicare for all, listen to Nancy Pelosi." I didn't read a word of the text of Marcus's tut-tutting. I seldom do.
Jamie Lovegrove of the Charleston, S.C. Post & Courier: "A South Carolina aide for Tom Steyer's 2020 presidential campaign stole valuable volunteer data collected by Kamala Harris' campaign using an account from when he worked with the S.C. Democratic Party, according to multiple state and national party officials. The Steyer campaign said that it does not have possession of the data and that Democratic officials were only aware of the download, which they said was inadvertent, because they proactively notified them. Both the Democratic National Committee and S.C. Democratic Party denied that. The Democratic National Committee said they quickly caught the attempt on Friday by Steyer's deputy S.C. state director Dwane Sims to export Harris' data, which contained thousands of volunteer contacts collected over the course of the campaign in this critical early-voting primary state. The party sent a cease-and-desist letter and has since received certification from Sims that he destroyed the stolen data, S.C. Democratic Party chairman Trav Robertson told The Post and Courier.... Sims was placed on administrative leave over the weekend while the Steyer campaign conducts an internal investigation, Steyer campaign spokesman Alberto Lammers said." ~~~
~~~ According to a new Nevada Independent poll, Steyer is beating Harris in Nevada, 4 percent to 3 percent, well within the 4-point margin of error.
Beyond the Beltway
Colorado. CBS Denver: "The FBI says it has prevented what it believes was an attempt to commit a major hate crime in Colorado. A known white supremacist named Richard Holzer arrested late Friday night in an alleged plot to blow up Temple Emanuel in Pueblo, according to newly unsealed federal court documents.... In the affidavit, FBI investigators said Holzer, who lives in Pueblo, used several Facebook accounts 'to promote white supremacy ideology and acts of violence.'" Holzer met with FBI undercover agents & laid out his plans to "get that place [-- the synagogue --] off the map." "Holzer was arrested and allegedly admitted planning to blow up the synagogue."
News Ledes
NBC News: "At least nine U.S. citizens, including six children, were killed in a massacre in the Mexican border state of Sonora Monday, a relative to many of the victims told NBC News. The dead included 8-month-old twins, said the family member, Kendra Lee Miller. Some of the eight survivors, all of whom are children, sustained serious injuries. Miller said a 9-month-old child was shot in the chest and a 4-year-old was shot in the back. The attack was described by local media as a highway ambush. Willie Jessop, who is related to one victim, told NBC News by phone from Utah that the attack occurred on a motorcade consisting of several families, and that survivors at the scene told him that three cars were shot at and one was set on fire."
Guardian: "Yvette Lundy, a heroine of the French resistance who survived detention in German concentration camps, has died aged 103. The schoolteacher supplied fake papers to Jewish people and others being rounded up by the Gestapo and sent them to hide at her older brother Georges' farm. She and her brother were arrested and sent to concentration camps, where Georges died. Lundy spent most of the rest of her life relating the horrors of Nazi Germany to schoolchildren and was made a grand officer of the Légion d’honneur in 2017."
Share Article
Reader Comments (12)
Election Day here in Va. As I have done for several years now, am serving as the election chief in my NoVa precinct. Control of the state legislature is on the table, and the GOP is fighting hard to keep it. They are running ads to the effect that “Virginia as we know it is at stake.” And they’re right - if the Democrats take all, the backwater state that we have now will be traded in for a 21st century one that actually works for the majority of its people. The horror!
A Florida county has denied funds to its library system for a digital NYT subscription. Tampa Bay Times and others report Citrus county commissioners said the paper prints "fake news".
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/465416-committee-pushes-national-park-service-to-privatize-camp-grounds
This one, linked above, is particularly disturbing. We have long made use of our geezer passes at national parks, most recently at the Grand Canyon's north rim, but the commission's recommendations about limitations on such passes is not the article's most disturbing element.
Why could the report (or the nitwits submitting it?) not recognize two obvious economic truths?
The national parks have a maintenance backlog because they have been starved for adequate funding, while due to population growth and demographics changes their use has greatly increased.
Privatization doesn't save money. Private health insurance vs. Medicare, anyone? Because privatization must generate a profit, it always costs more, so how will it provide the funds our parks need?
Nor do we need to gussy up our park facilities to attract visitors. The Grand Canyon's north rim campgroud was full in the middle of last month despite night time temperatures in the twenties. And a week later, there was no campground space at Capitol Reef. People apparently like the campgrounds the way they are.
Such magical thinking from those blinded by gold's glitter is way beyond tiresome.
If the relative unpopularity of my comment on yesterday's NYTimes article about former governor Gary Locke’s (a Chinese American) support of affirmative action is any indication, that initiative here in WA ST is in trouble.
A comment on "In a Liberal State, Ambivalence About Lifting a Ban on Affirmative Action" (NYTimes).
"Good for former governor Locke.
Of course, affirmative action is controversial and understandably gives rise to seemingly difficult questions. Its history tells us that.
But most of the questions it raises are fundamentally simple.
Are some races and ethnic groups discriminated against because of their race? Of couse, they were and still are. Though we may pretend discrimination doesn't exist, that pretence has no effect on the harsh reality experienced by thousands of its victims.
Given that such discrimination does exist, do phrases like Justice Robert's dictum, roughly quoted by Mr. Liang in the article when he rhetorically asks if you can fix discrimination with more discrimination, get to the heart of the matter?
No, they don't. They avoid it. They merely make people (and Supreme Courts?) feel better about continuing along the same discriminatory path.
In fact, affirmative action did not cause racial or ethnic discrimination. When intelligently applied, it has gone a long way to alleviate its dire social effects. Mr. Locke's story is only one of many cases in point.
The other real question about to be answered is: do Washington State voters care?
We'll find out."
(I checked this AM. The article garnered only thirty comments or so, most negative and most of those negatives directed at blacks. Interesting.)
I know it's dangerous to throw around heavy words like "treason", especially after Fats McDrumstick wrings it of its true meaning and uses it to smear everyone who dares contest the stability of his genius, but can we all agree that Paul Manafort deserves to be tarred and feathered every day for the rest of his despicable, wretched life for being one of the most despicable traitors this nation has ever produced? Benedict Arnold. Paul Manafort. Same fucking category of treason.
He absolutely and unquestionably "aided and abetted" our enemy, Russia, hand off polling data directly to his Russian agent Konstantine Kilimnik, even leaving through different doors because he knew he was being a fucking traitor at that very moment. Now we learn he's the genesis of spiralling our country down into Ukraine-gate again in service of his Russian paymasters and trying his best Soviet tricks to hide his treachery and treason in the fog of disinformation, while knee-capping Democracy at home and abroad.
Even worse, the asshole was brazen enough to live high on the hog within our borders on the Kremlin's payroll for much of this time, wadling around DC in his yuppy ostrich skins and scheming daily how to fuck up and bring down our democracy to the level of the swamps bogs of Eastern Europe.
Whenever he gets pardoned on Dotard's last day, you know he's going to empty the jails of his associate criminals the day he leaves and the GOP and its base will applaud, he needs to be relentlessly dragged as a traitor to the nation until he takes the plane and lives in exile in Siberia.
@safari: Your comment reminds me that one good reason to remove Trump from office via impeachment is that he might not get to pardon his criminal friends. It's so unlikely Trump would be thinking about Manafort, et al. while senators were voting. I think he would no longer be president* the minute the chief justice pounds the gavel to announce the vote count, tho it might not be till the veep is sworn in, something that could happen almost immediately, because presumably the veep would be in the Senate chamber for the count.
Safari,
Even if the traitor Manafort was pardoned by the Orange Menace and moved to Russia, an unheated hut in the Siberian wasteland might be the best he could hope for (I’m pretty sure there aren’t many five star hotels in Norilsk). I’m betting that Daddy Vlad, like his puppet Trumpskyev, “like[s] people who didn’t get captured”.
Regarding op-eds about the democrats "bed wetting period" while they test bold and potentially disruptive policy ideas: they (pundits) need this attribute of the democratic party process like Steven Colbert needs Trump to be in office for joke material. What would they write about if the republicans had a presidential challenger (wait... they do, and nothing gets written)? The next tax cut? the national debt? More defense spending? The next regulatory rollback? Who is a true conservative and who isn't?
I don't think this is anything new. We always test bold ideas at the beginning of an election cycle, then walk them back to middle ground by the first or second super-primary. Warren is taking a huge risk by fleshing out her Medicare for all plan because it will be nearly impossible to compromise and change course once cost estimates get written down in hard numbers. But this is how the we and the media get to decide whether the idea is even feasible. Maybe Warren and the Medicare for all idea will fail and never be heard of again - but we will know why.
Take Inslee's run on a one issue platform plank - climate change. Aspirational idea with few details. Nothing solid to test. Who could not be for curbing climate change? Yet Inslee left early, now nobody is writing about democratic policy positions on climate change, while several candidates claim that it is the most important issue.
IMHO It's kind of crazy for the media to criticize the democrats for not being unified at this stage. When have we ever?
Methinks Pete Williams (linked above) is operating under a vastly anachronistic thought process when he suggests that this Supreme Court will not save Trump because of outmoded things like law and precedence. This is the non-precedence court. If there’s a precedence that’s been honored since John Marshall was banging the gavel and it impinges even a treensy bit on the ongoing confederate power grab, that sucker is gone. Precedence? What precedence? What? That old thing? Fuggedaboutit.
Johhny and the Dwarfs may ultimately decide not to step in on this one but it won’t be because of anything as silly as decades of former rulings.
I usually don't have the TV tuned to MSNBC when Craig Melvin is on, but I did this morning. Aargh! He led the show with a discussion with two reporters/commentators from the right-wing Washington Examiner, and let them get away with all their right-wing talking points. My favorite: we do quid pro quos with foreign countries all the time, so Trump didn't do anything wrong. That argument is so easy to shoot down that you could explain it to a five-year-old. But apparently not Craig. Craig just let it go and went on to set up the wingers' next talking point.
See, Craig, it's okay to ask another kid to share his lunch with a child who didn't have lunch money so would go hungry, but it's not okay to ask another kid to share his lunch money with you after you've finished your own lunch.
@Periscope
All those articles by the MSM make my head hurt after pounding it on my desk after reading the title. For sanity's sake, I've decided to forego every one of the "what do Democrats stand for?" Or " how are they going to pay for x?" articles until I read one laying out Republicans' answer to Obamacare that they've been promising is so good for about a decade now but haven't provided a shred of evidence. Why they aren't hounded on this issue day in and day out, especially since they're right now in this very moment trying to blow up Obamacare through the courts, shows the embarrassing double standards in journalism today. And, of course, advantage goes to the group of whiny fuxking white men.
Safari: you betcha. I would be almost in sympathy with the library in FL wanting a NYT subscription and not getting it, if I didn't about lose my mind every day when another BothSider writes crap in that rag about Democrats. Or one of the MSNBC hosts feels noble about bringing on idiots to "debate" about this Dem or that...Well, we don't want to be irresponsible and too harsh on the other side...leaving them to go on wreaking havoc every minute of every day. I am with you-- won't listen to it/read about it anymore.