The Ledes

Thursday, September 19, 2024

New York Times: “A body believed to be of the suspect in a Kentucky highway shooting that left five people seriously injured this month was found on Wednesday, the authorities said, ending a manhunt that stretched into a second week and set the local community on edge. The Kentucky State Police commissioner, Phillip Burnett Jr., said in a Wednesday night news conference that at approximately 3:30 p.m., two troopers and two civilians found an unidentified body in the brush behind the highway exit where the shooting occurred.... The police have identified the suspect of the shooting as Joseph A. Couch, 32. They said that on Sept. 7, Mr. Couch perched on a cliff overlooking Interstate 75 about eight miles north of London, Ky., and opened fire. One of the wounded was shot in the face, and another was shot in the chest. A dozen vehicles were riddled with gunfire.”

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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.”

Washington Post: “An early Titian masterpiece — once looted by Napolean’s troops and a part of royal collections for centuries — caused a stir when it was stolen from the home of a British marquess in 1995. Seven years later, it was found inside an unassuming white and blue plastic bag at a bus stop in southwest London by an art detective, and returned. This week, the oil painting 'The Rest on the Flight into Egypt' sold for more than $22 million at Christie’s. It was a record for the Renaissance artist, whom museums describe as the greatest painter of 16th-century Venice. Ahead of the sale in April, the auction house billed it as 'the most important work by Titian to come to the auction market in more than a generation.'”

Washington Post: The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., which houses the world's largest collection of Shakespeare material, has undergone a major renovation. "The change to the building is pervasive, both subtle and transformational."

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Publisher & Editor: Marie Burns


Wednesday
Dec182019

The Commentariat -- December 19, 2019

Afternoon Update:

Mike Lillis of the Hill: "House Democrats on Thursday are rallying behind Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) after she said she'll delay the deliver of impeachment articles to the Senate in an effort to ensure a fair trial. President Trump has urged a speedy trial in the upper chamber, and Pelosi's allies argue that delaying the delivery of the articles will put pressure on Senate GOP leaders to call witnesses and seek more evidence surrounding the president's dealings with Ukraine -- steps Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said he'll not take." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Last night a teevee pundit -- can't recall who -- noted that when the House passed Articles of Impeachment against Bill Clinton, House Judiciary Committee chairman Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) almost immediately marched the articles right over to the Senate.

Juliegrace Brufke & Scott Wong of the Hill: "House Republicans are strongly rebuking President Trump's attacks on the late Democratic Rep. John Dingell (Mich.) and his widow, Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), with numerous GOP lawmakers saying they believe the rhetoric was inappropriate." Mrs. McC: The story goes on to cite some House Republicans who are shocked and dismayed and all about Trump's remarks -- these would be Republicans who made up one excuse after the other as to why their Dear Leader should be able to abuse his office and ignore the Congress to which they belong.

Our So-Called Representative Democracy. Philip Bump of the Washington Post does the impeachment math: "Even if he were deeply unpopular, if Trump maintained support from senators in 17 states, he could keep his job. Meaning, in the most extreme scenario, that he could be impeached but not removed from office if senators from the 17 least-populous states -- representing about 7 percent of the population -- decided to stand by him."

Christopher Miller of BuzzFeed News: "Rudy Giuliani flew to Kyiv on a budget airline [WhizzAir] when he visited earlier this month -- but he left in style, on a private jet.... According to flight data, videos, and photographs..., and confirmed by a Giuliani associate who joined him, the former mayor of New York left on a flight from Kyiv to Vienna on the night of Dec. 6, aboard a Beechcraft Premier 1A light business aircraft.... Ukrainian media have reported that the company's owner is Alexander Rovt, a Ukrainian American.... Rovt has done business in the past with Dmytro Firtash, a Ukrainian oligarch with ties to organized crime and the Kremlin who is currently under house arrest in Vienna and is fighting extradition to the US, where he faces federal bribery charges.... [Rovt]'s also connected to a $3.5 million mortgage loan to former Trump campaign chair and convicted financial fraudster Paul Manafort, through a real estate investment firm founded by a former Trump business partner." --s

Sarah Blaskey, et al. of the Miami Herald: "A Chinese woman was arrested Wednesday for trespassing at Mar-a-Lago..., Donald Trump's private South Florida club and newly declared legal residence, the second such instance this year. Jing Lu, 56, was spotted on club grounds and asked to leave by staff, said Michael Ogrodnick, a spokesman for the Palm Beach Police Department. 'She returned and began to take photos, at which time the Palm Beach Police Department responded and took her into custody,' Ogrodnick said in a statement." --s

Racist in Chief. Rachana Pradhan of Politico: "Donald Trump intervened to cut the federal government's Medicaid funding for Puerto Rico as part of a larger government spending deal, according to four sources with knowledge of the discussions. The budget deal unveiled by lawmakers this week allocates up to $5.7 billion in Medicaid funds for the island over two years -- instead of $12 billion over four years that Republican and Democratic leaders on two key congressional committees had endorsed after months of negotiating a long-term financial path for Puerto Rico." --s

Sarah Okeson of Salon: "Trump's National Forest Service is using a refuted scientific theory to justify building roads in our country's largest national forest, what some call 'America's Amazon.' Loggers want to raze trees more than 1,000 years old. The Forest Service says guidelines from the United Nations' climate authority would be followed. Two scientists whose research was cited in the U.N. study says the Forest Service is espousing junk science." --s

James Laporta of Newsweek: "The Defense Department is seeking to stamp out leaks and limit media coverage of military operations at the U.S.-Mexico border by making what historically have been unclassified orders and daily briefings classified.... The policy shift to classify border documents came from Lieutenant General Laura J. Richardson of the U.S. Army in response to negative news coverage and leaks of border documents under U.S. Army North's previous commander, Lieutenant General Jeffrey S. Buchanan, who retired back in July, according to three Pentagon sources with direct knowledge of the matter." --s

Prez Hamburgers Approves. Sandra Lamotte of CNN: "If America does not collectively adopt healthier eating habits, over half of the nation will be obese within 10 years. Even worse, one in four Americans will be 'severely obese' with a body mass index over 35, which means they will be more than 100 pounds overweight. That alarming prediction, published Wednesday in NEJM, was the result of a study analyzing 26 years of self-reported body mass index (BMI) data from over six million American adults." --s

Christopher Mathias of Huffington Post: "A measure in the National Defense Authorization Act meant to keep white nationalists out of the U.S. military no longer mentions 'white nationalists' after Congress quietly altered the text [to 'extremist and gang-related activity'] after it initially passed the House. The change, which has not been previously reported, could water down a House-passed amendment meant to address the threat of white nationalists in the military.... Stripping the specific mention of 'white nationalists' from the legislation could leave the door open for more white nationalists to join the military and could leave the U.S. military off the hook for what many critics say are lackluster efforts to screen enlistees for white nationalist beliefs." --s

Wisconsin. White House-Bound? Elisha Fiedlstadt of NBC: "A Wisconsin deputy sheriff is accused of breaking into and burglarizing the homes of people whom she knew would be at funeral services after she scoured local obituaries. Jefferson County Deputy Sheriff Janelle Gericke allegedly carried out her scheme from February 2018 through June 2019, according to a criminal complaint filed Tuesday by the Wisconsin Department of Justice." --s

~~~~~~~~~~

Nicholas Fandos & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "The House of Representatives on Wednesday impeached President Trump for obstruction of Congress and abuse of power, making him the third president in history to be charged with committing high crimes and misdemeanors and face removal by the Senate. On a day of constitutional consequence and raging partisan tension, the votes on the two articles of impeachment fell largely along party lines, after a bitter debate that reflected the deep polarization gripping American politics in the Trump era. All but two Democrats supported the article on abuse of power, which accused Mr. Trump of corruptly using the levers of government to solicit election assistance from Ukraine in the form of investigations to discredit his Democratic political rivals. Republicans were united in opposition. It passed 230-197, with Speaker Nancy Pelosi gaveling the vote to a close from the House rostrum." ~~~

~~~ Philip Rucker, et al., of the Washington Post: "The House of Representatives voted late Wednesday to impeach President Trump on charges that he abused his office and obstructed Congress, with Democrats declaring him a threat to the nation and branding an indelible mark on the most turbulent presidency of modern times. After 11 hours of fierce argument on the House floor between Democrats and Republicans over Trump's conduct with Ukraine, lawmakers voted almost entirely along party lines to impeach him. Trump becomes the third president in U.S. history to face trial in the Senate -- a proceeding that will determine whether he is removed from office less than one year before he stands for reelection. On Trump's 1,062nd day in office, Congress brought a momentous reckoning to an unorthodox president who has tested America's institutions with an array of unrestrained actions, including some that a collection of his own appointees and other government witnesses testified were reckless and endangered national security." The NBC News story is here.

Kyle Cheney, et al., of Politico: "Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to commit Wednesday to delivering articles of impeachment to the Senate, citing concerns about an unfair trial on removing ... Donald Trump from office. 'So far we haven't seen anything that looks fair to us,' Pelosi told reporters at a press conference just moments after the House charged Trump with abuse of power and obstructing congressional investigations. 'That would've been our intention, but we'll see what happens over there.' Pelosi's comments, which echo suggestions raised by other Democrats throughout the day, inject new uncertainty into the impeachment timetable and send the House and Senate lurching toward a potential constitutional crisis. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has boasted that he has closely coordinated the planning of the trial with the White House and has repeatedly predicted Trump would be acquitted." Related stories linked below.

Adam Schiff's closing argument:

Madam Speaker. Paul Kane of the Washington Post: "In December 2018, President Trump mocked Rep. Nancy Pelosi's leadership skills in an Oval Office meeting, suggesting she needed help to secure enough votes to become the House speaker. The California Democrat sent a warning shot that set the table for their relationship going forward. 'Mr. President,' Pelosi interjected. 'Please don't characterize the strength that I bring to this meeting.' Over the next year, Pelosi firmly established herself as the president's most powerful political adversary, winning a showdown with him in January on the budget and regularly winning other one-on-one confrontations. A caucus filled with younger Democrats who questioned the 79-year-old's liberal bona fides now stands firmly behind her. All that culminated Wednesday night when, for only the third time in history, the House impeached a president. Pelosi presided over the chamber, wielding the gavel that Trump once doubted she could reclaim." ~~~

~~~ Heather Caygle, et al., of Politico: "... at age 79 and in her 17th term in the House, [Nancy] Pelosi has never been better, according to interviews with nearly two dozen Democrats. Her command of legislation, her control over her caucus, her ability to confront a historically hostile president and GOP-run Senate on equal terms are unparalleled. She's the one person in Washington who can beat Trump at his own game, though she never wanted to play it. Pelosi broke the marble ceiling a decade ago as the first female speaker of the House. And she was central to the legislative achievements of Barack Obama's presidency, including his signature health care law, the Affordable Care Act.... From the first weeks of [Trump's] presidency, Pelosi has been one of [his] most forceful opponents. In their very first meeting, the then-House minority leader was the only person in a roomful of congressional leaders to confront Trump when he inaccurately claimed widespread voting fraud in the 2016 election. Pelosi has also fought against Trump on his own turf, hitting back on Twitter, trolling him in made-for-TV moments, deriding him as 'an insecure imposter' and even threatening to cancel his State of the Union address in the middle of an ugly government shutdown." ~~~

~~~ Fashion Break. Vanessa Friedman of the New York Times: Nancy Pelosi wore "a lapelless black suit, almost military in design, with a high neck. Its somber color was a reflection of the darkness of the day.... Atop it, a dagger-like gold pin shone out over her heart like a beacon.... The pin ... represents the Mace of the United States House of Representatives: the long, blunt battle staff that has embodied the legislative branch's authority since 1789.... According to a website that catalogs the history of the House of Representatives, the mace is composed of 13 bundled rods, which look like a dagger from afar. They nod to the ancient Roman fasces, used to communicate strength through unity, and represent the original 13 states. The bundled rods are crowned by a globe -- i.e., the world -- atop which sits an American bald eagle, representing the obvious. The object itself, the site says, 'is usually placed atop a pedestal to the Speaker's right side' when the House is in session. If the House meets outside its traditional chamber, the mace follows." P.S. For $125, you can buy the pin, though they're on backorder.

It doesn't really feel like we're being impeached. The country is doing better than ever before. We did nothing wrong. We have tremendous support in the Republican Party like we've never had before. -- The Man Who Would Be King ~~~

~~~ Michael Crowley, et al., of the New York Times: "President Trump angrily responded to the impeachment he had long been dreading on Wednesday, lashing out at his Democratic accusers in a rambling two-hour speech.... In his mostly unscripted remarks, Mr. Trump claimed he was enjoying himself.... But more often he seemed embittered, mocking the physical appearance of his rivals, attacking the news media, calling a female protester a 'slob' and a 'disgusting person,' and suggesting that John D. Dingell Jr., a Democratic congressman from Michigan who died in February after serving 59 years in the House, had gone to hell. Above all, Mr. Trump insisted that the vote to impeach him -- which unfolded at what had been billed as a 'Merry Christmas' campaign rally -- was nothing more than a fabrication by Democrats who cannot tolerate his presidency.... Even by his own standards, the president's speech was discursive and sometimes strange, as when he digressed to complain that modern toilets lack adequate flushing power and that 'women' had informed him that dishwashers, too, have lost their historic oomph." ~~~

~~~ Kathleen Gray of the Detroit Free Press: "During his Merry Christmas rally at Kellogg Arena on Wednesday, ... Donald Trump singled out U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Michigan, after she voted for impeachment.... Trump was upset because he said that he gave her the 'A-plus treatment, not the B treatment or the C treatment' after her husband, longtime U.S. Rep. John Dingell, D-Michigan, died in February. He called for flags to be lowered and said he offered up the Capitol Rotunda for his memorial.... 'She called me up and said it was the nicest thing and John would have been so pleased,' Trump said, adding that Dingell said John would be happily looking down from heaven at the ceremony. 'Maybe he's looking up,' Trump said, intimating that Dingell ended up in hell, instead.... Trump seemed to say the word 'Rotunda,' as if he had something to do with John Dingell's lying in state at the U.S. Capitol. But Dingell didn't lie in state before a funeral in Washington and his burial at Arlington National Cemetery and, even if he had, control of the Rotunda belongs to the Congress, not to the president." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Well, it was a "Merry Christmas" rally, so Trump was moved by the spirit of the season. Normally, he would have mocked widows AND orphans. ~~~

~~~ Matt Stieb of New York has more lowlights of Trump's "Merry Christmas Rally," "his longest and strangest yet."

** Jonathan Chait: “... Trump's scheme to extort Ukraine for investigations of his domestic opponents became in the minds of his opposition both [an] example and a symbol of his boundless sense of Constitutional impunity.... Both the president's critics and his supporters have attributed this sort of behavior to his character.... But there is also a strong ideological cast to the president's position, a worldview that is shared by a widening circle of Republican figures who may not share, or even approve of, his temperament and personal style.... Trump's extraordinary refusal to acknowledge any oversight role for Congress whatsoever, his claim of an 'absolute right' to do something even his allies recently considered improper forced Democrats to accept that they had to impeach him simply to assert that his twisted authoritarian vision of the presidency is wrong.... There will never be a final victory over Trumpism, just the persistent work of democratic politics."

George Conway in the Atlantic: "... today's impeachment of Donald Trump ... was pretty much inevitable ... because of Trump himself, his very character, whose essential nature many who now support him have long understood.... Trump's exceptional narcissism defines him, and it's what makes him wholly unfit for his job.... In essence, Trump thinks everything should be about him, for him, for his benefit and glorification -- and he can't comprehend, and doesn't care about, anything that isn't.... Should they choose to violate their oaths, history will long remember them for having done so -- not simply because of the insurmountable evidence of what Trump has already done, but also because Trump, by his nature, will assuredly do it all again."

The House clerk reads the Articles of Impeachment:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi's opening statement:

One month before Christmas, I want you to keep this in mind. Pontius Pilate afforded more rights to Jesus than the Democrats have afforded this president. -- Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., debate on impeachment

Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: I don't know if all those Republican Congressmen are as thick-headed & oblivious to facts as they say they are or if they're just playing dolts on teevee. But they sure come across as numbskulls. ~~~

~~~ Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "Some Republicans have ... have set out to argue for an alternate reality: One in which it's not conceivable that Trump did something wrong, because the things that happened didn't actually happen. Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.) led the way last week by arguing that Trump hadn't even asked Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate his political rival in their July 25 phone call[.]... Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), was asked a similar question by CBS News on Tuesday, and he had another take: That Biden wasn't Trump's opponent.... On the House floor Wednesday, Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) maintained not just that military aid to Ukraine wasn't used as part of a quid pro quo but also that the aid wasn't withheld.... Even the White House has admitted the aid was withheld.... In the same comment, Cole also notably denied there was any quid pro quo, and others ... [including] Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.) ... [and] Rep. Jim Baird (R-Ind.) -- joined him in that Wednesday[.]"

Jill Colvin & Aamer Madhani of the AP: "An indignant and defiant ... Donald Trump stared down Wednesday's impending impeachment votes as he has every obstacle in his presidency: by broadcasting his grievances via tweet. The White House insisted Trump would be busy working rather than focused on the proceedings in the House, but Trump spent his morning tweeting and retweeting, expressing fury and disbelief. He has a campaign rally scheduled for Wednesday night in Battle Creek, Michigan. 'Can you believe that I will be impeached today by the Radical Left, Do Nothing Democrats, AND I DID NOTHING WRONG!' Trump wrote in one of 45 tweets posted before noon. He asked his followers to 'Say a PRAYER!' As members of the House debated the articles of impeachment, Trump's urgency appeared to escalate as he switched to all capital letters: 'SUCH ATROCIOUS LIES BY THE RADICAL LEFT, DO NOTHING DEMOCRATS. THIS IS AN ASSAULT ON AMERICA, AND AN ASSAULT ON THE REPUBLICAN PARTY!!!!' he wrote." ~~~

~~~ Meredith McGraw & Daniel Lippmann of Politico: "From the day he sent Sean Spicer out to harangue journalists over the crowd size at his inauguration, Trump has waged a three-year campaign to wear down any doubts about his right to occupy the Oval Office. He set up -- and then quietly abandoned -- a panel to investigate his specious claims that only voter fraud kept him from winning the popular vote in 2016. He publicly sowed doubts about Russia's election-year meddling. For White House visitors, reporters -- anyone really -- he constantly pulled out the red-saturated map detailing how districts voted in 2016.... 'Obsessed' is how one former White House official described Trump's mindset about how people will remember him. Trump, the ex-official said, has told people around him that impeachment would leave his presidency 'tainted.' 'His image is hugely important to him,' the former official said. 'He is going crazy over this because the legacy he is looking for is the greatest president -- even more so than Abraham Lincoln or George Washington.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: He really has no idea he's the worst, or one of the worst, president*s in U.S. history. Pathetic. ~~~

~~~ BUT. Justin McCarthy of Gallup: "... Donald Trump's job approval rating has inched up again and is now at 45%. The president's ratings have increased six percentage points since the House of Representatives opened an impeachment inquiry against him in the fall. Approval of the president's performance remains high among Republicans (89%) and low among Democrats (8%). Less than half of political independents approve, but the current 42% is up from 34% at the start of the impeachment hearings and matches their highest rating of Trump so far."

Aris Folley of the Hill: "Droves of protesters descended on the Capitol to voice support for President Trump's impeachment on Wednesday ahead of the full House's vote to impeach. According to The Washington Post, hundreds of protesters were demonstrating outside the Capitol, building on a string of similar protests calling on the president's impeachment that spread across the country the night before." (Also linked yesterday.)

The nature of foreign negotiations requires caution, and their success must often depend on secrecy. To admit, then, a right in the House of Representatives to demand and to have as a matter of course all the papers respecting a negotiation with a foreign power would be to establish a dangerous precedent. It does not occur that the inspection of the papers asked for can be relative to any purpose under the cognizance of the House of Representatives except that of an impeachment.... POTUS George Washington, letter to the House of Representatives, March 30, 1796

Except when an Impeachment is proposed & a formal enquiry instituted, I am of opinion that the House of Representatives has no right to demand papers relating to foreign negociations either pending or compleated. -- Oliver Wolcott, Secretary of the Treasury, letter to President Washington, March 26, 1796

Liberal House Democrats Push McCrabbie Move. Mike DeBonis of the Washington Post: "A group of House Democrats is pushing Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other leaders to withhold the articles of impeachment against President Trump that are expected to emerge on Wednesday, potentially delaying a Senate trial for months. The notion of impeaching Trump but holding the articles in the House has gained traction among some on the political left as a way of potentially forcing Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to conduct a trial on more favorable terms for Democrats. And if no agreement is reached, some have argued, the trial could be delayed indefinitely, denying Trump an expected acquittal." ~~~

~~~ Hoyer to Discuss McCrabbie Move. Kyle Cheney & John Bresnahan of Politico: "House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, the second-ranking lawmaker in the House, said Wednesday that Democrats must discuss a last-ditch gambit to delay sending articles of impeachment to the Senate and prevent the Republican controlled chamber from summarily discarding the case against ... Donald Trump. 'Some think it's a good idea. And we need to talk about it,' Hoyer said just as the House began debating articles of impeachment that charge Trump with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress." (Also linked yesterday.)

Linnaea Honl-Stuenkel & Lauren White of CREW: "In November, we noticed a mysterious spike in the price of available rooms at Trump's DC hotel for a Saturday night in December. The minimum cost was 13 times the average, but we couldn't identify a reason for the spike, until photos surfaced of the Trump Victory Committee's winter retreat at Trump's Hotel on that exact night, which appears to have sold out much of the venue. While the least expensive room for a one-night stay at the hotel was around $500 on surrounding days, the cheapest room on December 14 was a whopping $6,719.... The exorbitant cost is even more evidence that hosting fundraisers at the Trump International Hotel is one of the best ways to sell out the notoriously empty venue, sending donor money right into Trump's pocket. Lucky donors who managed to snag a room were also invited to the White House's holiday open house, meaning that the cost of a room at Trump's DC Hotel and donations towards his reelection included exclusive political access for the buyer."


The Biggest Elephant in the Committee Room. David Sanger of the New York Times: "As the House of Representatives began debating Wednesday whether to impeach President Trump for undercutting Ukraine in its fight with Russian aggressors, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee met ... to consider a bill that has been bubbling along all year with bipartisan support: S. 482, the 'Defending American Security from Kremlin Aggression Act of 2019.' The bill's lead author is Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who introduced it in February, long before he became the Senate's leading defender of Mr. Trump, and long before Mr. Trump decided to undercut his own administration's policy.... The trick for [Republicans now] is to bash Mr. Putin without impugning Mr. Trump.... After some arguments about whether the new sanctions might harm American companies..., the bill passed, 17 to 5. A vote in the full Senate would not come until next year, presumably after an impeachment trial." ~~~

~~~ MEANWHILE. Betsy Swan of the Daily Beast: "The Trump administration is quietly fighting a new package of sanctions on Russia.... A Trump State Department official sent a 22-page letter to a top Senate chairman on Tuesday making a wide-ranging case against a new sanctions bill. Sen. Lindsey Graham -- usually a staunch ally of the White House -- introduced the legislation earlier this year. It's designed to punish Russian individuals and companies over the Kremlin's targeting of Ukraine, as well as its 2016 election interference in the U.S., its activities in Syria, and its attacks on dissidents. The administration's letter says it 'strongly opposes' the bill unless it goes through a ton of changes."

Presidential Race 2020

Elena Moore of NPR: "The top seven Democratic presidential candidates will appear on stage in Los Angeles Thursday night in the sixth debate of the year.... The debate is set to begin at 8 p.m. ET and last around three hours. It is co-hosted by PBS NewsHour and Politico and will take place at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. The debate will be televised on PBS and CNN, livestreamed online at PBS.org, PBS NewsHour, Politico.com, and CNN.com, and available on many of the news organizations' social, mobile and live-TV streaming apps. You can also listen to the debate on SiriusXM channels 116, 454, and 795.... The debate comes on the heels of a newly settled labor dispute between the food-service workers at [Loyola] and their contracting company Sodexo, a fight that prompted all seven candidates to threaten to boycott the event in solidarity with the workers."

Congressional Race 2020. John Wagner, et al., of the Washington Post: "Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), one of President Trump's closest allies and staunchest defenders in Congress, announced Thursday that he would not seek reelection next year but would instead stay 'in the fight' with Trump in an unspecified role.... Meadows, a former chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus who has served in Congress since 2013, is the 25th House Republican to announce he will not seek reelection next year, according to a tally by the House Press Gallery." CNN's story is here.

** Paul Demko of Politico: "A federal appeals court on Wednesday struck down Obamacare's individual mandate in a decision that immediately thrusts the health care law to the forefront of the 2020 elections. However, the appeals court ruling largely ducked the central question of whether the rest of the Affordable Care Act remained valid after Congress removed the penalty for not having health insurance. The three-judge panel instead sent the case back to a Texas federal judge, who previously threw out the entire law, to reconsider how much of Obamacare could survive. The high-stakes ruling keeps the legal threat to Obamacare alive while reducing the likelihood the Supreme Court could render a final verdict on the law before the next elections. Still, the appeals court's decision could renew pressure on ... Donald Trump and Republicans to explain how they will preserve insurance protections for preexisting conditions after failing to agree on an Obamacare replacement for years." ~~~

~~~ Ian Millhiser of Vox: "When Texas v. United States, a lawsuit over Obamacare, was argued last summer, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit appeared determined to repeal the entire law root and branch. Instead, in their opinion Wednesday, they punted on the biggest question: whether the entire law should be repealed.... The plaintiffs argued the individual mandate -- or, at least, the shell that remains of it -- is unconstitutional. They then argued that the courts should repeal the entire Affordable Care Act because of this alleged defect in one provision of the law. The plaintiffs' legal reasoning in Texas isn't simply rejected by liberal and centrist legal experts -- it's even rejected by many lawyers who spent a good part of their career trying to convince federal courts to repeal Obamacare.... It's likely that the case will proceed on two tracks. While the Trump administration took the plaintiffs' side in this case, several states intervened to defend Obamacare. Those states are likely to ask the Supreme Court to kill this case once and for all."

Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post: "The government is entitled to any money former National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden makes from his memoir and paid speeches because he disclosed classified information without approval, a federal judge ruled Tuesday. Snowden has been charged with espionage since 2013, when he exposed top-secret surveillance documents in what may have been the biggest security breach in U.S. history.... Unable to put him on trial, the Justice Department this year moved to cut off his profits from the book he published, 'Permanent Record,' as well as from paid speeches. In a brief opinion in federal court in Alexandria, Judge Liam O'Grady ruled in the government's favor. 'The contractual language of the Secrecy Agreements is unambiguous,' he wrote.... Snowden's attorneys said they disagree with the court's decision and will review their options." A Law & Crime story is here.

The Plot Thickens. Stephen Brown of the New York Daily News: "Surveillance footage of the outside of Jeffrey Epstein's cell at the troubled Metropolitan Correctional Center during his suicide attempt has gone missing, prosecutors revealed Wednesday. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Swergold admitted nobody can find the footage of the outside of the cell the multimillionaire perv shared with accused quadruple murderer Nick Tartaglione during a hearing in White Plains District Court. Tartaglione, a former Briarcliff Manor cop, faces the death penalty for the alleged murders in a drug deal gone bad.... Tartaglione's attorneys filed a request for the footage to be retained two days after Epstein's unsuccessful suicide attempt on July 23, Barket said."

Way Beyond the Beltway

Amanda Coletta of the Washington Post: "Canada's top court is set to rule Thursday on whether the Ontario-born son of Russian spies whose arrest by the FBI nearly a decade ago inspired the FX series 'The Americans' is entitled to Canadian citizenship. Alexander Vavilov, 25, and his brother, Timofey, 29, were born in a Toronto hospital into what appeared to be an ordinary Canadian family.... Alexander's parents, Andrey Bezrukov and Elena Vavilova, were carrying out 'deep-cover' assignments for the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, a successor to the KGB. They arrived in Canada in the waning days of the Cold War, stole the identities of Donald Howard Heathfield and Tracey Lee Ann Foley -- Canadians who had died as infants decades earlier-- and began developing their 'legends,' or background stories. In 1995, the family moved from Canada, eventually settling in Cambridge, Mass., where 'Donald' completed graduate studies at Harvard University. The brothers, who were born Alexander and Timothy Foley, never lived in Canada again but visited frequently, Alexander said in court filings. It was in Massachusetts that Alexander's parents were busted in 2010 as part of Operation Ghost Stories, the decade-long FBI investigation that rounded up 10 Russian spies operating under aliases outside of diplomatic cover living in the United States."

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Tuesday
Dec172019

The Commentariat -- December 18, 2019

The New York Times is live-updating [link fixed] impeachment development. Washington Post live updates are here. The Guardian's liveblog is here. CNN is live-updating here.

The House clerk reads the Articles of Impeachment:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi's opening statement:

Aris Folley of the Hill: "Droves of protesters descended on the Capitol to voice support for President Trump’s impeachment on Wednesday ahead of the full House’s vote to impeach. According to The Washington Post, hundreds of protesters were demonstrating outside the Capitol, building on a string of similar protests calling on the president’s impeachment that spread across the country the night before."

The nature of foreign negotiations requires caution, and their success must often depend on secrecy. To admit, then, a right in the House of Representatives to demand and to have as a matter of course all the papers respecting a negotiation with a foreign power would be to establish a dangerous precedent. It does not occur that the inspection of the papers asked for can be relative to any purpose under the cognizance of the House of Representatives except that of an impeachment.... POTUS George Washington, letter to the House of Representatives, March 30, 1796

Except when an Impeachment is proposed & a formal enquiry instituted, I am of opinion that the House of Representatives has no right to demand papers relating to foreign negociations either pending or compleated. -- Oliver Wolcott, Secretary of the Treasury, letter to President Washington, March 26, 1796

Hoyer to Discuss McCrabbie Move. Kyle Cheney & John Bresnahan of Politico: “House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, the second-ranking lawmaker in the House, said Wednesday that Democrats must discuss a last-ditch gambit to delay sending articles of impeachment to the Senate and prevent the Republican controlled chamber from summarily discarding the case against ... Donald Trump. 'Some think it’s a good idea. And we need to talk about it,' Hoyer said just as the House began debating articles of impeachment that charge Trump with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.”

New York Times: "A majority of House members support the articles of impeachment against President Trump, ahead of a vote by the House of Representatives on Wednesday." The Washington Post agrees. ~~~

~~~ Matthew Choi of Politico: "The whole House will gather to begin debating on two articles of impeachment at 9 a.m.... Members will have six hours to debate, and the final vote is predicted to take place between 6:30 and 7:30 p.m."

Neil Vigdor of the New York Times: “From Boston Common to the French Quarter in New Orleans, a series of protests reverberated across the country on Tuesday evening to call for President Trump’s removal from office, a prelude to momentous impeachment votes set for Wednesday in the House of Representatives. In Center City Philadelphia, a group of demonstrators held up signs with LED lights spelling out IMPEACH at the base of a bronze statute called 'Government of the People,' while Times Square in New York teemed with protesters chanting, 'No one’s above the law.'” Mrs. McC: According to an NBC News report, there were demonstrations in every state.

More due process was afforded to those accused in the Salem Witch Trials. -- Donald Trump, letter to Nancy Pelosi, today ~~~

... Learn some history: 1) Salem 1692 = absence of evidence+powerless, innocent victims were hanged or pressed to death 2)#Ukrainegate 2019 = ample evidence, admissions of wrongdoing+perpetrators are among the most powerful+privileged -- Kim Driscoll, Mayor of Salem, Mass., in a tweet ~~~

~~~ Michael Shear of the New York Times: “President Trump on Tuesday denounced what he called a 'partisan impeachment crusade' being waged against him by Democrats, calling the effort to remove him an unconstitutional abuse of power and an 'attempted coup' that would come back to haunt them at the ballot box next year. 'I have no doubt the American people will hold you and the Democrats fully responsible in the upcoming 2020 election,' Mr. Trump wrote in a rambling, six-page letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent on the eve of House votes to impeach him on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. 'They will not soon forgive your perversion of justice and abuse of power.'... The president angrily disputed both impeachment charges against him in the letter, saying he had done nothing wrong and asserting that Ms. Pelosi and her allies were using the Constitution to attack him for the successful policies he had implemented.” This is an update of a story about McConnell's refusal to accede to Schumer's request for witnesses, linked below. The Hill's story is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)  ~~~

     ~~~ An Extended Tweet on White House Letterhead. Trump's letter, via the Hill, is here. Mrs. McC: Recommended reading. It's kind of a Unabomber manifesto. You can tell the parts Trump wrote & the parts where his lawyers stepped in & added some "legal terminology" & other multi-syllable words. ~~~ 

~~~ Aaron Blake of the Washington Post has annotated Trump's screed with many corrections to the lies & misstatements in the letter. The New York Times also fact-checks Trump's letter & finds many false, misleading or exaggerated claims. Mrs. McC: I found the "mechanics" of the Times' fact-check more accessible than the Post's. ~~~

~~~ Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post: "Reading President Trump’s impeachment-eve letter to the House speaker seemed very familiar to The Fact Checker. It’s like a written version of his campaign rallies, replete with false claims we have fact-checked many times before either in individual fact checks or in our database of false or misleading Trump claims. This letter will add a couple dozen new entries to our database, but here are some of the lowlights." ~~~

~~~ Daniel Dale & Tara Subramaniam of CNN run down some of the false & misleading claims in the letter. ~~~

~~~ Philip Bump of the Washington Post: "Every point [Trump] makes [in his letter to Pelosi] is one that has appeared before, in 280 characters on his favorite social media website." Bump illustrates by comparing portions of the letter with Trump's previous tweets & retweets. ~~~

~~~ Jonathan Chait: "Trump’s letter strengthens the case for impeachment in two important ways. First..., he repeatedly denies that the House has any constitutional right to undertake impeachment at all.... [Second,] the letter makes it perfectly clear that Trump himself is in agony, to the extent where his mental health is very much in question. If a juror in Trump’s coming impeachment trial had no other evidence except this letter, it would provide ample grounds for impeachment. Trump openly denies the Congress’s constitutional prerogative, and makes plain his mental unfitness for the job." ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: How the letter proves the necessity of impeachment, in my mind, is that it demonstrates anew that Trump thinks he did nothing wrong. In the letter, Trump describes his phone call with President Zelensky as "perfect" twice and declares that his remarks were "totally appropriate." If this call were so perfect that he readily shared it with the public, what kind of a deal did he cut with Vladimir Putin in that hour-plus-long conversation they had, the one where Trump confiscated the translator's notes and ate them? As Greg Miller of the Washington Post wrote in January 2019, "... U.S. officials said there is no detailed record, even in classified files, of Trump’s face-to-face interactions with the Russian leader at five locations over the past two years. Such a gap would be unusual in any presidency, let alone one that Russia sought to install through what U.S. intelligence agencies have described as an unprecedented campaign of election interference." Adam Taylor of the WashPo wrote in early October 2018, "President Trump has spoken privately with Russia’s Vladimir Putin at least 16 times since he entered office in 2017." Especially since we know that Trump revealed highly-classified information to Putin's deputies at a White House meeting in 2017, I'm thinking those conversations with Putin himself were neither perfect nor totally appropriate. ~~~

~~~ Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post: “It is difficult to capture how bizarre and frightening the letter is simply by counting the utter falsehoods (e.g., repeating the debunked accusation that Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin was fired for investigating Burisma; claiming Congress is obstructing justice; arguing he was afforded no rights in the process), or by quoting from the invective dripping from his pen. What is most striking is the spectacle of the letter itself — a president so unhinged as to issue such an harangue; a White House entirely unable to stop him; a party so subservient to him that it would not trigger a search for a new nominee; a right-wing media bubble that will herald Trump for being Trump and excoriate Democrats for driving the president to this point; and a mainstream media not quite able to address a public temper-tantrum (resorting instead to euphemisms such as 'scorching,' 'searing,' etc.).... To say the process is 'partisan,' or that the two sides are 'unable to agree,' misleads average Americans who think there is some shared responsibility for the result of one party’s willingness to subvert the truth and the Constitution.”

We present you not just with high crimes and misdemeanors but a constitutional crime in progress up to this very minute. -- Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), testimony to House Rules Committee, yesterday

I look at this as a crime in progress, and we’re trying to stop the president from rigging the next election. -- Rep. Jim McGovern (Mass.), Rules Committee chair, yesterday ~~~

~~~ When the Criminals Return to the Scene of the Crime. Again and Again and Again. ~~~

~~~ Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: “It was as if an accused white-collar criminal, during jury selection for his bribery trial, had offered the judge a briefcase full of unmarked bills.... Even as the House on Tuesday worked out the rules of the debate that will almost certainly see President Trump impeached by Wednesday night, Trump and his team continued to commit the very offenses for which he is being punished. As the Rules Committee moved to the floor an impeachment article alleging Trump had abused his office by soliciting foreign help for his reelection campaign..., Rudy Giuliani boasted to CNN that Trump is 'very supportive' of Giuliani’s ongoing efforts to dig up political dirt in Ukraine that would help with Trump’s reelection campaign.... 'He does this out of love, believe me,' the president said of Giuliani on Monday.”

Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: The House Rules Committee met Tuesday to set parameters for the House debate on impeachment. I tuned into it for a few minutes, and it was sort of hilarious. There was Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) making cogent, off-the-cuff answers (he was filling in for Judiciary Committee chair Jerry Nadler who was called away by a family emergency) to questions posed by Rules chair Jim McGovern, & Judiciary ranking member Doug Collins, spouting nonsense half-sentences and even half-words; e.g., "Constitu." Here's a brief example:

Collins reminded me of Porky Pig, if Porky came from Georgia:

~~~ Much Later That Same Day. Jeremy Herb of CNN: "The House Rules Committee just approved six hours of debate on the House floor Wednesday on the resolution to impeach President Trump. The panel announced the parameters of the debate after voting to approve the rule on the impeachment articles along party lines. The six hours of floor time will be divided equally by Democrats and Republicans and will be led by the House Judiciary Committee leaders. The House will also have one hour of debate before taking the procedural vote to approve the rule governing the debate." Mrs. McC: I myself will spend the day shoveling the driveway, going to the recycling center. Christmas shopping, delivering gifts & whatever else I can think of to avoid the blowhards. Maybe I'll learn a new carol:

Michael Shear of the New York Times: “Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, on Tuesday rejected demands by Democrats to call four White House officials as witnesses during President Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate. On the eve of a House vote on Wednesday that is all but certain to result in Mr. Trump’s impeachment on two charges, Mr. McConnell said he would not agree to call the witnesses — all of whom have firsthand knowledge of Mr. Trump’s dealings with Ukraine — including Mick Mulvaney, the White House chief of staff, and John R. Bolton, the former national security adviser. The White House blocked them from appearing during the House impeachment inquiry.... 'If House Democrats’ case is this deficient, this thin, the answer is not for the judge and jury to cure it here in the Senate,' [McConnell said on the Senate floor]. 'The answer is that the House should not impeach on this basis in the first place.' Mr. Schumer responded moments later, saying that holding a trial without witnesses 'would be an aberration' and vowing to demand votes by senators on whether to call witnesses and subpoena documents during the trial.” (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) 

If the Supplemental Submission accurately describes your September 18 conversation with President Zelensky . . . it would mean that the representation of your communications with President Zelensky, as described in your office’s December 11 letter, may be purposefully misleading. -- Adam Schiff in a letter to mike pence ~~~

~~~ Elise Viebeck of the Washington Post: “Vice President Pence has refused to declassify testimony that is 'directly relevant' to the impeachment debate, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) wrote Tuesday in a letter that raised further questions about what Pence said in a September phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. In a letter to Pence, Schiff wrote that classified witness testimony gathered during the impeachment inquiry 'raises profound questions about your knowledge of the President’s scheme to solicit Ukraine’s interference in the 2020 U.S. presidential election.'... The testimony from Jennifer Williams, Pence’s Russia adviser, was provided as a supplemental written submission to the Intelligence Committee through her lawyer Nov. 26. Ten days later, Schiff asked Pence to declassify it. But ... Schiff wrote that in a letter last week, Pence’s office refused to declassify Williams’s testimony.... 'Without prompting, the letter volunteers that "the Vice President never raised the Bidens, Burisma, or Crowdstrike in his conversations with President Zelensky,’” Schiff’s letter stated. 'The Committee neither asserted that, nor asked whether, you specifically used those words.' Schiff called the letter from Pence’s office 'deeply troubling,' writing that if Williams’s testimony is true, it suggests the vice president had knowledge about the efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate Trump’s political opponents.”

Aaron Rupar of Vox: “On Monday’s edition of Fox News’s The Ingraham Angle, [Rudy] Giuliani admitted he played a leading role in last spring’s ouster of Marie Yovanovitch, the former US ambassador to Ukraine. Yovanovitch’s removal set the stage for the Trump administration’s efforts over the summer to leverage Ukrainian diplomacy into investigations of Joe and Hunter Biden that stood to benefit the president. 'I forced her out because she’s corrupt,' Giuliani said, before alluding to sketchily sourced information he dredged up during his just-completed trip to Ukraine and adding, 'I came back with a document that will show unequivocally that she committed perjury when she said that she turned down the visa for [Viktor] Shokin because of corruption .... there’s no question that she was acting corruptly in that position, and had to be removed. She should have been fired, if the State Department weren’t part of the deep state.'... As Will Saletan of Slate pointed out in response to a tweet in which Giuliani made the same claim, the House Republicans’ impeachment report characterizes Giuliani’s effort to obtain a visa for Shokin, as 'potential impropriety' that the Trump White House 'shut down.'” (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

~~~ Rudy (Ergo Trump) Gets His Disinformation from Russian Propagandists. Isaac Stanley-Becker of the Washington Post: “... a social media analysis firm, Graphika, has traced ... posts [by John Solomon that appeared in the Hill] to a Russian disinformation campaign — in the first evidence that a network of accounts involved in spreading disinformation before the 2016 presidential election also participated in circulating the false claims about [U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie] Yovanovitch that earlier this year led to her recall from the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv.... [Solomon claimed that Yovanovitch] had given a 'list of people whom we should not prosecute' to Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Yuri Lutsenko.... An image of that purported list appeared in a post on the website Medium and on some other self-publishing platforms....” But the image was doctored, and the story was false. 

Erica Orden of CNN: "A federal judge declined Tuesday to revoke bail for Lev Parnas, rejecting prosecutors' claims that the indicted Rudy Giuliani associate posed an 'extraordinary risk of flight' due to his association with a 'foreign benefactor' identified in court as Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash. US District Court Judge Paul Oetken also questioned prosecutors' assertions that Parnas had misstated information about his assets and income. The judge said that while the information Parnas provided 'might have violated the spirit' of disclosure requests, 'I don't know that it rises to the level of intentional misstatements warranting the revocation of bail.'... Tuesday's bail hearing provided additional information about Parnas' ties to Firtash, who is living in Austria while fighting bribery charges in the US. Prosecutors disclosed that an attorney for Firtash paid $1 million to Parnas' wife, Svetlana, in September, a transaction that Assistant US Attorney Rebekah Donaleski described as suspicious. 'It is an unsecured, undocumented loan to a housewife,' Donaleski said. 'That makes no sense, your honor.'"

Lara Jakes of the New York Times: "William B. Taylor Jr., the top American diplomat in Ukraine who described for Congress and the public what he saw as President Trump’s efforts to pressure Kyiv to go after political rivals, said on Tuesday that he was stepping down from his post. In a brief email to The New York Times, Mr. Taylor said he would leave in early January because his temporary appointment to Ukraine last June is set to expire. Under the Vacancies Act, political appointees in an acting position can hold office only for about 200 days." The NBC News story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Conor Finnegan of ABC News: Taylor "will be gone just ahead of Pompeo's first trip to Ukraine in early January, according to the official -- and after being attacked by Trump and Giuliani as a 'Never Trumper.' Just last month, Giuliani accused Taylor of personally blocking visas for Ukrainians who have 'direct evidence of Democrat criminal conspiracy with Ukrainians to prevent Donald J. Trump from being President,' he said in a letter to Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham. With Taylor gone, Pompeo avoids being seen with him in meetings in Kyiv, potentially angering Trump.... But it also leaves a leadership gap at a critical time in Ukraine.... Despite [Giuliani's making] false allegations [about former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch], Pompeo never issued a statement of support for Yovanovitch and, amid similar allegations now by Giuliani against Taylor, has remained quiet on Taylor, too." ~~~

     ~~~ John Hudson of the Washington Post: “The top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee accused Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday of 'unceremoniously recalling' the acting ambassador to Ukraine, William B. Taylor Jr., a key witness in the House impeachment inquiry who criticized the White House’s decision to withhold aid to the country. 'I am extremely concerned that this suspect decision furthers the president’s inappropriate and unacceptable linking of U.S. policy to Ukraine to his personal and political benefit, and potentially your own,' Sen. Robert Menendez (N.J.) wrote in a letter to Pompeo.... Taylor ... has been criticized by the president as a 'Never Trumper.' The White House also has attacked witnesses broadly as 'radical unelected bureaucrats.'”

Simon Shuster of Time: "This summer, the Ukrainian government awarded the rights to develop a huge complex of oil and gas fields in the country to an American company that is co-owned by a former campaign donor [Michael Bleyzer] to then-Energy Secretary Rick Perry. The decision annoyed the heads of the state-owned Naftogaz conglomerate, which had competed and lost the bidding for the contract. Now, Naftogaz has filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn the deal, two sources familiar with the matter tell Time, casting a spotlight on Perry’s role in Ukraine’s oil and gas industry. The suit was filed on Friday afternoon in the District Administrative Court of Kyiv[.]" --s

Martin Pengelly of the Guardian: "More than 700 American historians have called for the impeachment and removal of Donald Trump.” The statement, published in Medium, is here, along with the names of the signers. (Also linked yesterday.) 

Devan Cole of CNN: "Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Monday weighed in on ... Donald Trump's assertion that the impeachment proceedings against him should stop, saying he 'is not a lawyer.' The remarks from the 86-year-old justice came at an event in New York where she was awarded the Berggruen Institute Prize for Philosophy and Culture. She plans to donate the $1 million prize to a number of organizations that promote opportunities for women."

Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "A secretive federal court accused the F.B.I. on Tuesday of misleading judges about the rationale for wiretapping a former Trump campaign adviser and ordered the bureau to propose changes in how investigators seek their permission for national security surveillance targeting Americans. In an extraordinary public order, the presiding judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, Rosemary M. Collyer, gave the F.B.I. a Jan. 10 deadline to come up with a proposal. It was the first public response from the court to the scathing findings released last week by the Justice Department’s independent inspector general about the wiretapping of the former Trump adviser, Carter Page, as part of the Russia investigation." The NBC News story is here.

Katelyn Polantz of CNN: "Rick Gates, one of the most significant former Trump campaign advisers who flipped on ... Donald Trump in the Mueller investigation, was sentenced to 45 days in jail and three years probation by a federal judge Tuesday morning. Gates, a longtime deputy to 2016 Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort who shared searing details about Trump's efforts in 2016 with special counsel Robert Mueller, admitted to helping Manafort conceal $75 million in foreign bank accounts from their years of Ukraine lobbying work.He agreed to plead guilty to related charges of conspiracy and lying to investigators in February 2018. He also signed up to cooperate, giving Mueller's team key insights into Manafort and Trump's actions in 2016 during the height of the Russia investigations. 'I accept complete responsibility for my actions,' Gates told Judge Amy Berman Jackson on Tuesday." Thanks to Ken W. for the link. The Washington Post report is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~ 

 Politics don’t corrupt people. People corrupt politics. -- Judge Amy Berman Jackson, during Rick Gates' sentencing hearing, in the best example of a chiasmus I've heard since Charlie the Tuna learned the meaning of good taste ~~~

~~~ Darren Samuelsohn & Josh Gerstein of Politico: “Just a week after Attorney General Bill Barr declared the Mueller investigation was based on a 'completely bogus narrative,' [Judge] Jackson used her perch on Tuesday to deliver what sounded like a pointed, public rebuttal, saying there was 'an ample basis' for an aggressive inquiry into the Trump campaign aides’ connections and actions. 'Gates’ information alone warranted, indeed demanded, further investigation from the standpoint of our national security, the integrity of our elections and the enforcement of our criminal laws,' Jackson declared.”


BBC: "The Trump administration has said it does not consider the mass killings of Armenians in 1915 to be a genocide, contradicting a unanimous vote by the US Senate. The historic vote last week incensed Turkey, which has always denied that the killings amounted to a genocide. Turkey's foreign ministry on Friday summoned the US ambassador to express its anger over the vote, accusing the US of 'politicising history'. Armenia says 1.5 million were killed in an effort to wipe out the ethnic group. The killings took place in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire, the forerunner of modern-day Turkey. 'The position of the administration has not changed,' said State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus in a statement on Tuesday. 'Our views are reflected in the president's definitive statement on this issue from last April,' she said. In a statement last April on the anniversary of the killings, Mr Trump said the US paid tribute to the victims of 'one of the worst mass atrocities of the 20th century', but he did not use the word genocide."

Katie Shepherd of the Washington Post: “On the 75th anniversary of Adolf Hitler’s final major push in World War II, a U.S. Army unit shared a tribute to the 'greatest battle in American history' — a detailed portrait of a worried military commander fretting over the plan that would ultimately secure an Allied victory over the Nazis. 'The fate of his beloved nation rested on his ability to lead his men,' the XVIII Airborne Corps wrote on a Monday Facebook post featuring the striking photo. But the description ... celebrated the strategic mind-set of Nazi war criminal Joachim Peiper, an infamous German commander who ordered the massacre of 84 U.S. prisoners of war during the Battle of the Bulge. The ... glamorous, colorized photo of Peiper ... was also shared on the Facebook pages for the Defense Department and the Army’s 10th Mountain Division. The backlash was swift.... Shortly after a public affairs officer for the Army criticized the posts on Twitter, the photos disappeared. The Defense Department and 10th Mountain Division deleted their posts, and the XVIII Airborne Corps removed the photo of Peiper from its lengthy narrative.” An NBC News story is here.

Tucker Doherty & Tanya Snyder of Politico: "The $67.4 million grant application for Boone County[, Kentucky] — a rapidly growing suburban district of political importance to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the husband of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao — was initially flagged by professional staff as incomplete.... [Yet the] Boone County project and 41 other applicants received [an] extra chance to fill in holes in their submissions when another 55 incomplete applications fell out of the running.... Chao chose it as one of 26 grant winners out of an initial pool of 258 applicants.... [E]mails obtained by Politico show that Boone County officials were in contact with Chao’s aide Todd Inman, a former McConnell campaign staffer known to offer extra guidance to Kentuckians with business before the secretary.... Chao’s alleged favoritism toward Kentucky has become a focus of scrutiny following revelations that she had designated Inman as a special point-of-contact for Kentucky officials.... No other state enjoyed such access to the office of the secretary.... House Democrats asked DOT’s inspector general to investigate the matter, and the office of the inspector general has confirmed ... that it has opened a review." --s

Presidential Race 2020

AFP: "Joe Biden is healthy and fit to be president of the United States, his physician said in a letter released Tuesday by his election campaign. The 77-year-old Democrat and former vice president is the current frontrunner in the race to challenge President Donald Trump in the November 2020 election. Earlier this year Biden had pledged to release his medical records before the Iowa caucuses in February, the first vote in the nomination race, after a challenger made allusions to his age. His campaign released a summary of his medical history from Kevin O'Connor, Biden's physician when he was vice president. Biden 'is a healthy, vigorous, 77-year-old male, who is fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency,' O'Connor, currently director of executive medicine at The GW Medical Faculty Associates, said in a three-page letter. He said Biden is being treated for non-valvular atrial fibrillation (A-fib), hyperlipidemia, gastro-esophageal reflux and seasonal allergies."

Pete's Wine Cave.~~~ Mary Papenfuss of the Huffington Post: “The wits in the Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) campaign are trolling Democratic presidential rival Pete Buttigieg and his tony wine-cave fundraiser with the purchase of the URL domain 'peteswinecave.com.' The curious who click on the link are led to a fundraising site for Sanders. The stunt ... was a dig at Buttigieg’s fundraiser Sunday in the cellars of a Napa Valley winery. The event was hosted by the winery’s billionaire owners, reported The Associated Press.” ~~~

     ~~~ Or, as Stephen Colbert said, "In case you were wondering if the wealthy gather in underground bunkers to plot the fate of the working class -- yeah." ~~~

~~~ Mary Severns of Politico: "Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaign omitted more than 20 high-level fundraisers from a list of top bundlers it disclosed last week. The public list of bundlers, featuring more than 100 people who have raised at least $25,000 for Buttigieg, was meant to bring a close to more than a week of feuding between Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren over campaign transparency. But the list left off a number of people the Buttigieg campaign had previously touted as top donors in an internal campaign fundraising report obtained by Politico.

Mrs. McCrabbie: Sadly, I missed this fine work of performance art posted on Twitter late last week:

     ~~~ Move Like Bloomberg. Megh Wright of Vulture: “When Brad Evans and Nick Ciarelli took the stage at the Upright Citizens Brigade in Los Angeles last Thursday..., they intended to ... create a very silly comedy bit [and] share the video on Twitter.... But ... [their] 23-second parody of the corny and relentlessly mocked Pete Buttigieg campaign dance video, only this time for candidate Mike Bloomberg and set to Maroon 5’s' Moves Like Jagger' — had gone viral... and igniting a wildfire of confusion and assumptions about whether or not the people in the video were, or were not, real Bloomberg supporters.”

Steve Peoples of the AP: “A small group of ... Donald Trump’s fiercest conservative critics, including the husband of the president’s own chief adviser, is launching a super PAC designed to fight Trump’s reelection and punish congressional Republicans deemed his 'enablers.' The new organization, known as the Lincoln Project, represents a formal step forward for the so-called Never Trump movement, which has been limited largely to social media commentary and cable news attacks through the first three years of Trump’s presidency.” (Also linked yesterday.)  ~~~

     ~~~ Here's a New York Times op-ed by George Conway, Steve Schmidt, John Weaver & Rick Wilson announcing the Lincoln Project. (Also linked yesterday.) 

Leo Shane of the Military Times: "Half of active-duty military personnel contacted in [a Military Times survey] held an unfavorable view of President Trump, showing a continued decline in his approval rating since he was elected in 2016.... But the latest numbers still leave Trump with a higher approval rating than former President Barack Obama when he left office in January 2017."

Senate Race 2020. David Sharp of the AP: “Republican Sen. Susan Collins officially launched her bid for reelection Wednesday, setting up an expensive and closely watched battle that’s starting against the backdrop of impeachment proceedings against ... Donald Trump. Collins made her formal announcement in an email to supporters, saying her 'bipartisan commonsense approach' has been key to many legislative successes and will be important in an era of bitter partisanship.... Democrats have targeted Collins for her votes for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and the GOP tax cut. They have also sought to link her to Trump and his brand of brash, divisive politics, and have accused her of failing to do enough to stand up to him. Trump is reviled by many in the state’s populous south, anchored by liberal Portland, but cheered in the rural north. Collins, who says she didn’t vote for Trump in 2016, is likely to face a dramatic vote on whether to convict the president in an impeachment trial in the Senate, a decision that will anger either Democrats or Republicans.”

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Monday
Dec162019

The Commentariat -- December 17, 2019

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

More due process was afforded to those accused in the Salem Witch Trials. -- Donald Trump, letter to Nancy Pelosi, today ~~~

~~~ Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Trump on Tuesday denounced what he called a 'partisan impeachment crusade' being waged against him by Democrats, calling the effort to remove him an unconstitutional abuse of power and an 'attempted coup' that would come back to haunt them at the ballot box next year. 'I have no doubt the American people will hold you and the Democrats fully responsible in the upcoming 2020 election,' Mr. Trump wrote in a rambling six-page letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent on the eve of House votes to impeach him on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. 'They will not soon forgive your perversion of justice and abuse of power.'... The president angrily disputed both impeachment charges against him in the letter, saying he had done nothing wrong and asserting that Ms. Pelosi and her allies were using the Constitution to attack him for the successful policies he had implemented." This is an update of a story about McConnell's refusal to accede to Schumer's request for witnesses, linked below. The Hill's story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Trump's letter, via the Hill, is here. Mrs. McC: Recommended reading. It's kind of a Unabomber manifesto. You can tell the parts Trump wrote & the parts where his lawyers stepped in & added some "legal terminology" & other multi-syllable words.

Mrs. McCrabbie: The House Rules Committee met this morning to set parameters for the House debate on impeachment. I tuned into it for a few minutes, and it was sort of hilarious. There was Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) making cogent, off-the-cuff answers (he was filling in for Judiciary Committee chair Jerry Nadler who was called away by a family emergency) to questions by either a member of the committee or a committee lawyer & Judiciary Committee ranking member Doug Collins, spouting nonsense half-sentences and even half-words; e.g., "Constitu." Here's a brief example:

Collins reminded me of Porky Pig, if Porky came from Georgia:

Michael Shear of the New York Times: “Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, on Tuesday rejected demands by Democrats to call four White House officials as witnesses during President Trump's impeachment trial in the Senate. On the eve of a House vote on Wednesday that is all but certain to result in Mr. Trump's impeachment on two charges, Mr. McConnell said he would not agree to call the witnesses -- all of whom have firsthand knowledge of Mr. Trump's dealings with Ukraine -- including Mick Mulvaney, the White House chief of staff, and John R. Bolton, the former national security adviser. The White House blocked them from appearing during the House impeachment inquiry.... 'If House Democrats' case is this deficient, this thin, the answer is not for the judge and jury to cure it here in the Senate,' [McConnell said on the Senate floor]. 'The answer is that the House should not impeach on this basis in the first place.' Mr. Schumer responded moments later, saying that holding a trial without witnesses 'would be an aberration' and vowing to demand votes by senators on whether to call witnesses and subpoena documents during the trial."

Brendan Pierson of Reuters: "U.S. prosecutors said in court on Tuesday that Lev Parnas, an associate of ... Donald Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, received a $1 million payment from Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash."

Aaron Rupar of Vox: “On Monday's edition of Fox News's The Ingraham Angle, [Rudy] Giuliani admitted he played a leading role in last spring's ouster of Marie Yovanovitch, the former US ambassador to Ukraine. Yovanovitch's removal set the stage for the Trump administration's efforts over the summer to leverage Ukrainian diplomacy into investigations of Joe and Hunter Biden that stood to benefit the president. 'I forced her out because she's corrupt,' Giuliani said, before alluding to sketchily sourced information he dredged up during his just-completed trip to Ukraine and adding, 'I came back with a document that will show unequivocally that she committed perjury when she said that she turned down the visa for [Viktor] Shokin because of corruption .... there's no question that she was acting corruptly in that position, and had to be removed. She should have been fired, if the State Department weren't part of the deep state.'... As Will Saletan of Slate pointed out in response to a tweet in which Giuliani made the same claim, the House Republicans' impeachment report characterizes Giuliani’s effort to obtain a visa for Shokin, as 'potential impropriety' that the Trump White House 'shut down.'"

Katelyn Polantz of CNN: "Rick Gates, one of the most significant former Trump campaign advisers who flipped on ... Donald Trump in the Mueller investigation, was sentenced to 45 days in jail and three years probation by a federal judge Tuesday morning. Gates, a longtime deputy to 2016 Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort who shared searing details about Trump's efforts in 2016 with special counsel Robert Mueller, admitted to helping Manafort conceal $75 million in foreign bank accounts from their years of Ukraine lobbying work. He agreed to plead guilty to related charges of conspiracy and lying to investigators in February 2018. He also signed up to cooperate, giving Mueller's team key insights into Manafort and Trump's actions in 2016 during the height of the Russia investigations. 'I accept complete responsibility for my actions,' Gates told Judge Amy Berman Jackson on Tuesday." Thanks to Ken W. for the link. The Washington Post report is here.

Martin Pengelly of the Guardian: "More than 700 American historians have called for the impeachment and removal of Donald Trump." The statement, published in Medium,is here, along with the names of the signers.

Steve Peoples of the AP: "A small group of ... Donald Trump's fiercest conservative critics, including the husband of the president's own chief adviser, is launching a super PAC designed to fight Trump's reelection and punish congressional Republicans deemed his 'enablers.' The new organization, known as the Lincoln Project, represents a formal step forward for the so-called Never Trump movement, which has been limited largely to social media commentary and cable news attacks through the first three years of Trump's presidency." ~~~

     ~~~ Here's a New York Times op-ed by George Conway, Steve Schmidt, John Weaver & Rick Wilson announcing the Lincoln Project.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: "Over 550 protests calling for the impeachment and removal of Trump are planned [for Tuesday evening], sponsored by a coalition of progressive groups including Public Citizen, Indivisible, the Service Employees International Union and the Sierra Club. There will be at least one protest in every state. If you are disgusted by Trump's behavior, and by the way elected Republicans have built an impenetrable wall of lies to protect him, you should go." Goldberg links to the Impeach & Remove page, which has an easy search function to help you find an event near your home. Sponsors of each event include handy instructions on the when & where, plus relevant advice.

Profiles in Courage. Michael Shear of the New York Times: "Democratic lawmakers representing conservative-leaning districts announced one by one on Monday that they would cast votes this week to impeach President Trump, signaling that a critical bloc of the most politically vulnerable Democrats is pulling together behind the party’s effort to seek his removal from office." ~~~

     ~~~ Here's the New York Times' list of where members of Congress have (so far) said how they will vote on articles of impeachment.

Kyle Cheney & Andrew Desiderio of Politico: "... Donald Trump committed criminal bribery and wire fraud, the House Judiciary Committee alleges in a report that will accompany articles of impeachment this week. The report, a 169-page assessment of the case for Trump's removal from office, contends that Trump committed 'multiple federal crimes' -- ones that Democrats addressed under the broad umbrella of 'abuse of power,' the first article of impeachment against the president. 'Although President Trump's actions need not rise to the level of a criminal violation to justify impeachment, his conduct here was criminal,' the panel's Democrats argue, labeling Trump's behavior 'both constitutional and criminal in character' and contending that the president 'betrayed the people of this nation' and should be removed from office.... The panel's Democrats cite his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani's trip to Ukraine just last week as evidence that Trump intends to continue the alleged scheme. Trump's lack of remorse over the Ukraine allegations, Democrats claim, is evidence that he poses a 'continuing threat if left in office.'... The staff report, which was filed to the House Rules Committee just after midnight Monday, argues that Trump directed a months-long scheme to solicit foreign interference in the 2020 election, the allegation that forms the core of the two articles of impeachment -- abuse of power and obstruction of Congress -- approved by the Judiciary Committee last week.... The Judiciary Committee's report presents the panel's most thorough analysis yet of why Democrats believe the accusations against Trump are worthy of immediate impeachment and a recommendation that the Senate remove Trump from office. It comes a day before the Rules Committee formally considers the articles of impeachment, ahead of a likely Wednesday vote on the House floor." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ The full report, via NPR, is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Michael Shear of the New York Times: "The House Judiciary Committee formally presented its case for impeaching President Trump in a 658-page report published online early Monday morning, arguing just days before a final vote in the House that he 'betrayed the nation by abusing his high office.' The report, which echoes similar documents produced after the committee's approval of impeachment articles for Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Bill Clinton, contains no new allegations or evidence against Mr. Trump. But it offers a detailed road map for the two articles of impeachment the committee approved,.... The report includes a scathing 20-page dissent from Representative Doug Collins of Georgia, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, who accuses Democrats on the panel of conducting an unfair process in a partisan attempt to drive Mr. Trump from office because of their dislike of him and his policies." (Also linked yesterday.)

It Ain't Over Till the Fat Bastard Goes. Andrew Desiderio & Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Lawyers for the House told a federal court on Monday that lawmakers will continue their impeachment investigation even after the House votes later this week to impeach ... Donald Trump. In a filing to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, House General Counsel Douglas Letter argued that the House's demands for grand jury materials connected to former special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation were still urgent because such evidence might become relevant to the Senate's expected impeachment trial next month. But Letter went further to note that even apart from the Senate trial, the House Judiciary Committee intends to continue its impeachment investigation arising from the Mueller probe on its own merit. That investigation began earlier this year."

Laurence Tribe in a Washington Post op-ed endorses the McCrabbie Move: “Now that President Trump's impeachment is inevitable, and now that failing to formally impeach him would invite foreign intervention in the 2020 election and set a dangerous precedent, another option seems vital to consider: voting for articles of impeachment but holding off for the time being on transmitting them to the Senate. This option needs to be taken seriously now that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has announced his intention to conduct not a real trial but a whitewash.... The House, whose historical role is to prosecute articles of impeachment in the Senate after exercising its 'sole' power to impeach, is under no affirmative constitutional obligation to do so instantly."

William Webster, former director of the FBI & the CIA in a New York Times op-ed: "Today, the integrity of the institutions that protect our civil order is, tragically, under assault from too many people whose job it should be to protect them.... The president's thinly veiled suggestion that the director, Christopher Wray, like his banished predecessor, James Comey, could be on the chopping block, disturbs me greatly. The independence of both the F.B.I. and its director is critical and should be fiercely protected by each branch of government.... The aspersions cast upon [the men and women of the F.B.I.] by the president and my longtime friend, Attorney General William P. Barr, are troubling in the extreme. Calling F.B.I. professionals 'scum,' as the president did, is a slur against people who risk their lives to keep us safe. Mr. Barr's charges of bias within the F.B.I., made without providing any evidence and in direct dispute of the findings of the nonpartisan inspector general, risk inflicting enduring damage on this critically important institution.... I'm profoundly disappointed in another longtime, respected friend, Rudy Giuliani.... His activities of late concerning Ukraine have, at a minimum, failed the smell test of propriety."

PolitiFact's 2019 Lie of the Year. Katie Sanders of PolitiFact: "Since the Sept. 26 release of the whistleblower complaint about his call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump has insisted more than 80 times that the whistleblower's account is fake, fraudulent, incorrect, 'total fiction,' 'made up,' and 'sooo wrong.'... On Oct. 5 he tweeted that the 'second hand information "Whistleblower" got my phone conversation almost completely wrong.'... Despite what Trump claims, the whistleblower got the call 'almost completely' right.... The whistleblower's account is verified by the same set of facts supplied by [Alexander] Vindman, [Jennifer] Williams and [Tim] Morrison, and others who were in the know. And one more source: Trump.... The Lie of the Year -- the only time PolitiFact uses the word 'lie' -- speaks to a falsehood that proves to be of real consequence and gets repeated in a virtual campaign to undermine an accurate narrative."

Sergey Lavrov, the Power Behind the Trump Throne. Julia Davis of the Daily Beast: "As Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov returned home from his visit with ... Donald Trump in the Oval Office last week, Russian state media was gloating over the spectacle. TV channel Rossiya 1 aired a segment entitled 'Puppet Master and "Agent" -- How to Understand Lavrov's Meeting With Trump.' Vesti Nedeli, a Sunday news show on the same network, pointed out that it was Trump, personally, who asked Lavrov to pose standing near as Trump sat at his desk. It's almost the literal image of a power behind the throne.... State-television news shows use every opportunity to demoralize the Ukrainians with a set of talking points based on the U.S. president's distaste for their beleaguered country." Mrs. McC: This is a demotion for Trump: he used to be Putin's Puppet; now Putin gets the help to pull Trump's strings.

Rudy Speaks! Again. Ken Vogel of the New York Times: "Rudolph W. Giuliani said on Monday that he provided President Trump with detailed information this year about how the United States ambassador to Ukraine was, in Mr. Giuliani's view, impeding investigations that could benefit Mr. Trump, setting in motion the ambassador's recall from her post. In an interview, Mr. Giuliani, the president's personal lawyer, described how he passed along to Mr. Trump 'a couple of times' accounts about how the ambassador, Marie L. Yovanovitch, had frustrated efforts that could be politically helpful to Mr. Trump. They included investigations involving former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Ukrainians who disseminated documents that damaged Mr. Trump's 2016 campaign. The president in turn connected Mr. Giuliani with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who asked for more information, Mr. Giuliani said. Within weeks, Ms. Yovanovitch was recalled as ambassador at the end of April and was told that Mr. Trump had lost trust in her.... Mr. Giuliani's account, in an interview with The New York Times on Monday evening, provided additional detail about the president's knowledge of and involvement in one element of a pressure campaign against Ukraine. 'There's a lot of reasons to move her,' Mr. Giuliani said, asserting that his briefings of Mr. Trump and Mr. Pompeo most likely played a role in their decision to recall Ms. Yovanovitch." ~~~

~~~ AND Again. Guardian impeachment liveblog at 13:44 ET Monday: "Rudy Giuliani ... said in a New Yorker interview that he wanted Maria Yovanovitch, the former US ambassador to Ukraine, 'out of the way' as he pushed for investigations into Joe Biden. 'I believed that I needed Yovanovitch out of the way,' Giuliani told the magazine last month, according to a newly published article. 'She was going to make the investigations difficult for everybody.' Democrats will likely point to Giuliani's comments as evidence that Trump abused his power by recalling Yovanovitch, a widely praised career diplomat whose reputation was smeared by some of the president's allies." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: It is awesome how delighted lawyer Rudy is to incriminate his "client." Most attorneys, on account of their code of ethics and all, try to get their clients off the hook even when all indications are that said clients did the crimes.

Brendan Pierson of Reuters: "An associate of ... Rudy Giuliani on Monday urged a judge to let him stay free on bail while he awaits trial, denying prosecutors' accusations that he lied about receiving a $1 million payment from Russia shortly before he was arrested. A lawyer for Lev Parnas, who is charged with campaign finance crimes, said the payment was a loan to Parnas' wife [Svetlana], and that it had been disclosed to authorities before his bail was set." Mrs. McC: Another thing dese guys think wives are for is to aid & abet them in nefarious schemes. (Also linked yesterday.)

Casey Michel of The New Republic: "Through the former New York City mayor [Rudy Giuliani]'s enabling, Donald Trump has ... open[ed] the floodgates for foreign operators to stick their paws in America's upcoming presidential election. And there's a world of heinous governments and criminal networks more than willing to take Giuliani and Donald Trump up on their global smear efforts.... Whatever antediluvian assurances Americans had about the sanctity of their elections, at least as pertained to keeping foreign hands off the vote, are gravely endangered, if not gone, displaced by the grotesquery of Trump's willingness to do whatever it takes to remain in power..... As the past few weeks have made clear, [Dmytro] Firtash is no longer the only Ukrainian oligarch racing down this path.... There is another [Ihor Kolomoisky], plying tales about Biden in order to erase what may well be the largest money-laundering case the U.S. has ever seen -- a man now embodying the way our collapsing electoral guardrails might help cement America's central role in global kleptocracy." --s

AND I linked this for the joke that begins at about 1:20 minutes in:

Adam Goldman of the New York Times: "A federal judge on Monday rebuffed accusations by President Trump's first national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, that F.B.I. agents and federal prosecutors engaged in misconduct in his criminal case, delivering a comprehensive rebuke to his 11th-hour claims. The 92-page ruling by Judge Emmet G. Sullivan also effectively ended Mr. Flynn's hopes that the judge would toss his conviction as prosecutors consider whether to ask for prison time for Mr. Flynn. It was also a blow to supporters of Mr. Flynn, who have amplified a false narrative that he was framed in a plot by the so-called deep state to sabotage Mr. Trump. Judge Sullivan set sentencing for Jan. 28." ~~~

     ~~~ Tom Winter & Rich Schapiro of NBC News: "Flynn's attorneys filed court papers in August accusing prosecutors of suppressing exculpatory evidence and alleging that he was targeted by federal investigators for 'concocted and political purposes.'... [Judge] Sullivan also cited 'ethical concerns' in Flynn's brief, saying his legal team 'lifted verbatim portions from a source without attribution.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Flynn fired his original defense team & in June 2019 hired Sidney Powell as his top lawyer. Todd Gillman of the Dallas Morning News wrote of Powell at the time, "A conservative commentator and former federal prosecutor in Texas and Virginia, she describes [Robert] Mueller and others involved in investigating Russian election interference as 'creeps on a mission -- to destabilize and destroy this President.'" And to think such a nice lady plagiarized her court filing.

Glenn Kessler, et al., of the Washington Post: "In 2017, President Trump made nearly 1,999 false or misleading claims. In 2018, he added another 5,689, for a total of 7,688. Now, with a few weeks still left in 2019, the president already has more than doubled the total number of false or misleading claims in just a single year. As of Dec. 10, his 1,055th day in office, Trump had made 15,413 false or misleading claims, according to the Fact Checker's database that analyzes, categorizes and tracks every suspect statement he has uttered. That's an average of more than 32 claims a day since our last update 62 days ago." (Also linked yesterday.)

David Nather & Jonathan Swan of Axios: "Some officials treat Trump's frequent venting sessions as a storm that just needs to blow over -- or in some cases, be contained.... Others, like [OMB acting director Russell] Vought and his team, take the approach that Trump is the president and he has the right to get what he wants -- if there's any legal way to get it done. And in their view, there usually is.... Throughout his nearly three years as president, aides say Trump has often complained about his White House lawyers being too 'conservative' and always telling him 'no' when he asks for things. In that context, the budget office has become an island of 'yes' in Trump's government." --safari: Problem is, it's not always done legally. See Ukraine.

Sharay Angulo of Reuters (Dec. 14): "Mexico's deputy foreign minister, Jesus Seade, said on Saturday he sent a letter to the top U.S. trade official expressing surprise and concern over a labor enforcement provision proposed by a U.S. congressional committee in the new North American trade deal.... An annex for the implementation of the treaty that was presented on Friday in the U.S. House of Representatives proposes the designation of up to five U.S. experts who would monitor compliance with local labor reform in Mexico. 'This provision, the result of political decisions by Congress and the Administration in the United States, was not, for obvious reasons, consulted with Mexico,' Seade wrote in the letter. 'And, of course, we disagree.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Katie Lobosco, et al., of CNN: "Top trade negotiators from both the United States and Mexico reaffirmed Monday that the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement ... is a done deal -- despite complaints from Mexico over the weekend about a labor provision included in the bill unveiled by Democrats. The trade agreement is still headed for debate and a vote in the US House later this week. The Senate is expected to take it up in January after impeachment. Mexico's Undersecretary for North America, Jesus Seade, rushed to Washington to meet with trade officials Monday, after writing to US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to say he was 'surprised' about the modifications to the USMCA, which has already been ratified in its original form by both Mexico and Canada. But on Monday, Seade said he was 'very satisfied' with the new terms."

Jeff Stein of the Washington Post: "About 400 of America's largest corporations paid an average federal tax rate of about 11 percent on their profits last year, roughly half the official rate established under President Trump's 2017 tax law, according to a report released Monday. The 2017 tax law lowered the U.S. corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent, but in practice large companies often pay far less than that due to deductions, tax breaks and other loopholes. In the first year of the law, the actual amount corporations paid in federal taxes on their incomes -- their so-called 'effective rate' -- was 11.3 percent on average, possibly its lowest level in more than three decades, according to a report by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a left-leaning think tank.... The report also found that 91 corporations in the Fortune 500, many worth billions of dollars, paid no federal taxes last year." Greenwich Time has Stein's report here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ CNBC has a list of the 91 Fortune-500 companies that paid no federal taxes in 2018.

Mike DeBonis of the Washington Post: "Congressional negotiators cemented a $1.3 trillion federal spending deal Monday, with a pay raise for federal workers, money for federal gun violence research and the repeal of several taxes associated with the 2010 health care law. Congress is expected to pass the legislation this week ahead of Friday's shutdown deadline and send it to President Trump for his signature. Negotiators released the 2,313-page bill late Monday. A high-profile conflict over border wall spending -- the issue that sparked a record 35-day partial government shutdown a year ago -- was resolved with a retreat to the status quo: Funding remains unchanged from 2019 levels at $1.375 billion, short of the $8.6 billion President Trump requested from Congress. The Trump administration, however, retains the ability to transfer funds from other accounts, though the bill does not replenish the accounts it drew from earlier this year. Funding for immigration enforcement agencies also remains unchanged from 2019 levels." Politico's story is here. ~~~

~~~ Jessie Hellmann of the Hill: "Federal agencies will receive $25 million from Congress to study gun violence in a government spending deal reached by House and Senate negotiators -- a major win for Democrats who have long pushed for dedicated funding to research the issue, a source told The Hill. 'Democrats have broken the ban on funding for the first time in decades,' the source said. The deal includes $12.5 million each for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and National Institutes of Health to study gun violence and ways to prevent it. It's the first time in more than 20 years that Congress has appropriated money for gun violence research."

(U.K.) Independent: "Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has threatened to recognise the killing of Native Americans at the hand of European settlers in a tit-for-tat attack on Washington's decision to rebuke Ankara for the Armenian genocide. The US Senate voted in favour of recognising the genocide last week, a move initially stalled by Republicans at the urging of Donald Trump - who had been due to meet with the Turkish leader at the time. However, with the bill now passed, Mr Erdogan has threatened to respond by recognising US killings of Native Americans -- saying the deaths of millions of indigenous people at the hands of European settlers should also be viewed as a genocide." ~~~

     ~~~ digby: "I think it would be fine to condemn us for the fact that we were among the last more or less developed countries to end slavery too. Have at it, Erdogon.... Many descendants of those indigenous people are still living in poverty, suffering the consequence of that conquest and the bigotry that accompanied it. The legacy of slavery is still here for all to see.... I don't see the problem."

Presidential Race 2020

Joe Biden, Can You Hear Me? Saira Asher of BBC News Singapore: "If women ran every country in the world there would be a general improvement in living standards and outcomes, former US President Barack Obama has said. Speaking in Singapore, he said women aren't perfect, but are 'indisputably better' than men. He said most of the problems in the world came from old people, mostly men, holding onto positions of power." (Also linked yesterday.)

Senate Race. Benjamin Fearnow of Newsweek: "Republican South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham is statistically tied with Democratic challenger Jaime Harrison, with the staunch pro-Trump incumbent seeing his favorability ratings plummet among independent voters. Graham, who was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 2002, is clinging to a 2-percentage point lead over Harrison, 47 to 45 percent, with nearly 10 percent of voters surveyed still remaining undecided about their 2020 vote." (Also linked yesterday.)

Matthew Chapman of Raw Story: "On Monday, the Washington Post reported that a former investment manager with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has filed a whistleblower complaint with the IRS, accusing the Church of misleading both federal tax agents and their congregants about a set of accounts collectively worth $100 billion. David Nielsen, himself a Mormon, worked at Ensign Peak Advisors, the investment division of the church, prior to filing the complaint. He is urging the IRS to strip the Church of its nonprofit status and fine the organization for misusing charitable funds.... Nielsen claims ... the Church is instead stockpiling this money and using it as a slush fund to prop up two private businesses." -- safari: Sounds like the Mormons are running their own Trump Foundation. ~~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post report, by Jon Swaine & others, is here.

Jan Hoffman & Danny Hakim of the New York Times: "As scrutiny of Purdue Pharma's role in the opioid epidemic intensified during the past dozen years, its owners, members of the Sackler family, withdrew more than $10 billion from the company, distributing it among trusts and overseas holding companies, according to a new audit commissioned by Purdue. The amount is more than eight times what the family took out of the company in the 13 years after OxyContin, its signature product, was approved in 1995. The audit is likely to renew questions about how much the Sacklers should pay to resolve more than 2,800 lawsuits that seek to hold Purdue accountable for the opioid crisis." A summary report by Reuters is here.

Martin Pengelly of the Guardian: "Twenty-three women who have accused Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault have said the disgraced movie mogul is 'trying to gaslight society', after he told the New York Post his 'pioneering' work on 'movies directed by women and about women' was being forgotten.... The actors Rosanna Arquette, Ashley Judd and Rose McGowan were among the women who signed the statement." The New York Times story is here.

Beyond the Beltway

Georgia. Ben Nadler & Kate Brumback of the AP: "A federal judge is allowing Georgia to proceed with a mass purge of its voting rolls planned for Monday evening, but he also scheduled a hearing later in the week to hear more arguments about the matter. That decision came after a lawyer for the state assured him that if the judge finds later that some people should not have been removed, they can be easily and quickly reinstated. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in October released a list of over 313,000 voters whose registrations were at risk of being canceled, about 4% of the state's total registered voters. Notices were mailed in November giving those voters 30 days to respond in order to keep their registration valid. A spokesman for the secretary of state's office said last week that the purge was set to begin Monday evening.

Kentucky. Deborah Yetter of the Louisville Courier Journal>: "Gov. Andy Beshear [D] on Monday ended former Gov. Matt Bevin's [RTP] quest to scale back Kentucky's Medicaid program by requiring 'able-bodied' adults to report work hours and other changes critics said would cost up to 100,000 Kentuckians their health coverage.... By revoking Bevin's plan, Beshear, a Democrat, fulfilled the last of three actions he pledged to take during his first week in office to reverse actions of his Republican predecessor -- reorganizing the state Education Board, restoring voting rights to 140,000 ex-offenders and abolishing the Medicaid plan Bevin rolled out in 2016."

Mississippi. AP: "A Mississippi man who has been tried six times in the same murder case will be allowed to post bail and leave custody for the first time in 22 years. During a hearing on Monday, a judge granted a bond request made by attorneys for 49-year-old Curtis Flowers. Bond was set at $250,000. In July 1996, four people were shot dead in a furniture store in the north Mississippi town of Winona. Two trials involving Flowers ended in a mistrial. He was convicted four times. All four convictions were overturned. In the sixth trial, in 2010, Flowers was sentenced to death. Earlier this year the US supreme court overturned that conviction, finding prosecutors had shown an unconstitutional pattern of excluding African American jurors. Flowers was moved off death row at the Mississippi state penitentiary at Parchman and taken to a regional jail in Louisville. On Monday, the circuit judge Joseph Loper said Flowers would have to wear an electronic monitor while out of custody. It was 'troubling', he said, that prosecutors had not responded to the defense motion to drop the charges against Flowers."

Oklahoma. Doha Madani of NBC News: "Experts at the University of Oklahoma believe they have found a possible mass grave site from the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre at a city cemetery, although they are unsure how many bodies are underneath. Geophysical scanning identified two spots at the Oaklawn Cemetery that might bear bodies of those killed in the city's race riots almost 100 years ago, Scott Hammerstedt, a senior researcher for the Oklahoma Archeological Survey, said Monday at a public hearing in Tulsa." The Washington Post story is here.

Way Beyond

India. Sigal Samuel of Vox: "India is home to 200 million Muslims. Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, they have faced mounting threats to their status in the majority-Hindu country. And on Wednesday..., the upper house of India's Parliament passed the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB).... At first glance, the bill may seem like a laudable effort to protect persecuted minorities.... But one major group has been left out: Muslims. That's no coincidence. The CAB is closely linked with another contentious document: India's National Register of Citizens (NRC). That citizenship list is part of the government's effort to identify and weed out people it claims are illegal immigrants in the northeastern state of Assam.... When the NRC was published in August, around 2 million people -- many of them Muslims, some of them Hindus -- found that their names were not on it. They were told they had a limited time in which to prove that they are, in fact, citizens. Otherwise, they can be rounded up into massive new detention camps and, ultimately, deported.... Modi's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has said it plans to extend the NRC process across the country.... If the Indian government proceeds with its plan, in a worst-case scenario we could be looking at the biggest refugee crisis on the planet." --s. Thanks to RAS for the link.

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